My blog of things and thoughts

Yesterday (20th September 2010) Chris French wrote an article in The Guardian regarding "Psychic" Sally.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/20/psychic-sally-morgan-hears-voices

I'm someone who has stood on a stage in front of a hundred people (and TV cameras) and pretended to receive a message from the spirit of a deceased relative of an audience member.  I use the word 'pretended' as I openly claimed at the start of the show that I can not, or claim to be able to, contact the dead.

From this vantage point of performance and knowledge I personally do not think that Sally Morgan possesses any powers to communicate with spirits.  The article covers the methods of cold-reading, etc.  What concerns me is the reaction of the skeptics, and how they are ignoring their own rules.

Basically, skeptics don't believe in psychic powers, and that anyone who claims to have them should be able to demonstrate them through un-biased research under strict conditions.  Skeptics claim that the believers only pick up the information they want to hear and their own conclusions - which is exactly what the skeptics have done here!

For example, a psychic may "throw-out" the name John... or a Joe.  Definitely starts with a J...?  James?  Yes!  James!  The person in the audience forgets the fishing part and remembers the psychic saying they had someone called James.

The article in the guardian is based on a radio phone-in conversation in which a member of the audience heard a voice coming from an off-stage area, and that information later being given by Sally.  None of this has been verified or backed up - naturally Sally Morgan's camp have denied it.

The person who claims to have heard the voice suspects that it was relayed to Sally via an ear-piece that was enclosed in her micro-phone.  This is just pure speculation from the spectator.  It reminds me of children watching a magician and guessing how a trick was done - they may be correct, they may not, but without knowing the true method, or at least seeing show ourselves how are we to judge?

As I said previously, I don't think that Psychic Sally really can communicate with the other side, but I wouldn't jump on the ear-piece-bandwagon based purely on the evidence given so far.  What annoys me most with this story is how the skeptics who so often demand hard evidence are so quick to jump on "evidence" that has no way of being proven.