If you've ever had doubts about whether psychics are legit or not, wonder no more. On Sunday night Carte Blanche did an excellent e
xposé of exactly how they work their "powers".
I was thrilled to see it because I've been adamant about their trickery for ages - I've been banging on about it since TV psychic John Edward first tortured us with the terrible
Crossing Over, where he claimed he could speak to dead people.
He was followed by South African psychic Belinda Silbert who somehow managed to land herself two shows: Making Contact on SABC3 (which I
ranted about) and another one on e.tv which flopped immediately and didn't last long thankfully.
All of it drove me out of my mind at the time because of how fake and manipulative it was. What made the situation even worse is that there were no shows that questioned their validity. They aired as fact and no other shows investigated them - which is why I'm so pleased that Carte Blanche has.
They did it so well too, showing exactly what they needed to. They brought in mentalist Gilan Gork (a South African
Patrick Jane) who explains how psychics use the cold reading technique to do what they do.
He watches videos of a psychic and a Tarot card reader doing readings and explains what's happening which demonstrates things very clearly. The readings are done on a sweet Test Subject sent in by Carte Blanche and her response reveals even more because she gets extremely upset in one of the sessions when the psychic mentions suicide. Then, after the session, she says she'd be happy to go back!
It really highlights how cruel it all is too - how these people manipulate sadness, loss and tragedy for financial gain.
A big shoutout to Carol Albertyn Christie who produced the segment - thank you!!
Here's a link to it in case you missed it:
Testing Psychics