Wishful of that gift, I thought only a chosen few
had possessed, I’ve always been intrigued by people claiming the ability to
communicate with the “other side”. Psychic
detective stories on TV are portrayed as being real, and are so convincing, never
have I questioned their abilities. On
the contrary, I was always amazed and in awe.
However, after reading about how psychic detectives purposely state
vague, and often times conflicting details when giving information to the
police, or family members, was an eye opening experience (Lawson, 2007). According to (Lawson, 2007), so called psychics
describe all sorts of visions and feelings surrounding the missing person, so
that after the person is found, a few of those visions may fit, and the ones
that don’t are forgotten. Sometimes
these people go too far, making the situation even worse for the families
involved. In 2007, Anderson Cooper
exposed Sylvia Browne, a self-proclaimed psychic, as a phony. While on the Montel Williams show in 2003,
she told the grieving parents of Shawn Hornbeck who had been missing for
several months, that their son was dead.
She went as far as to described the area of where his body was located in vague detail, then four years later,
Shawn was found alive sixty miles away from his home (Smith, 2015), (Cooper, 2007).
According to Randi, (2005), there are two types of
so called psychics, the innocents (those who truly believe in their powers),
and the fakers (those that practice deception to gain followers). Officially, there has been no missing person
found as a direct result of information given by a so-called psychic detective,
and to this day, neither type of psychic has been able to collect on the James
Randi Educational Foundation, Million Dollar Challenge by proving their powers
scientifically (Randi, 2005), (Denman & Adams, 2015).
References
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