Shawn Spencer, a fake psychic using his power of observation to solve cases in the Santa Barbara police department, is faking being a psychic. (If you don't know the TV show Psych, that is the main plot.) .He is not the first, however, to do this. Let's talk about fake psychics and how they were exposed.
Houdini (the illusionist) and Rose Mackenberg worked together to expose psychics, although you probably only heard about Houdini doing this. This pair exposed fake mediums who claimed to connect the living with the dead. Fake medium con artists conned money from the gullible, more than once. Houdini and Mackenberg would attend to "speak to their dead parents", but often proved the medium to be fake. Houdini even wrote a book on how things were faked.
Houdini and Mackenberg
Mackenberg was a private investigator working for Houdini. She was a concrete-firm skeptic and very good at her job. She could "smell a rat before she smelled the incense". She had her wits about her and was quite good at disguise. She often claimed to be a grieving mother or widow. Her nickname was "the rev" because she was ordained (for a price) in so many spiritualist churches. She testified at several trials. She continued to expose the frauds after Houdini died, including their methods. She kept her apartment light because she was tired of dark rooms.
Houdini had turned to a psychic to reach his mother (in seriousness) and got a message that didn't match what his mother would have said (because his mother spoke broken English and the message was not in broken English). The medium was actually the wife of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After that, he began exposing frauds all over the place. Houdini offered the equivalent of 150, 000 dollars today to people who could prove they were real mediums. No one came close and he exposed the famous frauds one by one. He was also backed by science. He discovered if there was a spiritual partner in the spirit world, they claimed to read your future, claim to read your mind, or say you have to believe for their magic to work they are a fraud.
Current Day Fraud Investigations
There are real psychics out there, actual real ones, but how do you tell if you are visiting a fraud? It is easy to use gullible, desperate people in ways that are truly awful. It is easy to get money from that person in exchange for reaching their dead infant. (I, personally, don't suggest you see one for anything, real or fake.) Whatever you believe, it is more likely to be a real medium if they give you more specific information, like full names, details that can't be found by logical investigation, and information you never volunteered in any way. Fake ones will be extremely vague, with next to no specific insights. That's the most obvious sign.
However, you will notice in the TV show Psych that Shawn Spencer is extremely observant and finds information, specific information that may make him look legitimate. He isn't, and we know that, but he does find specific names, places, and clues through his quick thinking and good memory. There is another thing that may give them away, and that is rapid-fire information, because surely something will get your attention and keep it. They don't go slowly. The less you think, the less the con works. Another thing? They want cash. You have a curse on you? You pay them for its' removal. On top of that, if they reported a crime and the scene was never found you know they are a fraud. If there is a track record of inaccurate information and failure you can be doubly sure that they are faking it.
Faking a Seance
With faking contact with the dead comes technique. How do you fake it? Diving into this is all theatrics and illusion. That was why Houdini was so good at spotting the fakes.
You want to fake a ghost? Dress someone up, use a cardboard cutout, use a projector, etc....In the dark, with the gullible and desperate, you can get away with more. If you can get "ectoplasm" to come out ears, mouth, and nose you can in fact fake a seance, though I do not suggest it. If you can make objects move or break that is even better. Can you make the table shake? Also sounds you can play, messing with technology, and other high-tech programs you can create can easily make someone convinced of a haunting or seance.
Hauntings can be faked with lots of things. Air pressure on doors, strings on doors, sounds through hidden speakers, projectors, and anything that will make things move with no explanation. Mirrors can be rigged (they often break afterwards). These are examples from Nancy Drew games and movies, but they are real ways to fake a haunting. Drugs in the air conditioner can make anyone convinced there is a ghost. Messing with electric lights is dangerous, but combined with other factors can cause someone to freak out.
Ghost TV shows are another thing that can be debunked (or DBed), so let's just jump into that. People see what they want to see. They watch a ghost sighting video or TV show for scares, just like one watches a horror movie. It is the most gullible audience you can ever have. Horror theatre. Basically, it is overly easy to make a door slam off-camera, claim something touched you, and then claim to see something off-camera. Ghosts, if they do exist, don't show up on demand. Static and buzzing on EVP recording is hard to make words out of. You can suggest that they said anything, literally anything. EMF sensors can be disrupted by cell phone presence. Editing also makes it extremely easy to place a ghost in the scene you just filmed.
A Friendly Warning
Do I think you should go to psychics? Heck to the no, but I do think there are some things we can't explain. I lived in a rental house that had lots of bad vibes and unexplained things. I am Christian and believe that most "real ghosts" may be demons. Please don't go looking for these things like they are fairies and can give you magical gifts. I do love my viewers, so please use your logical brains and be careful looking into the supernatural. It does exist, but there is no reason in the world for you to speak to the dead.
Pictures:
Amazon.com
The New York Times
Wikipedia
TV Series Finale
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment