Quite often in the comments section of this site, or on my forum, I get criticised for things I have said, and I always try to reply directly to that criticism, as I like to show people the personal touch. I do not fear criticism, and If I am wrong about something then I welcome people to challenge me, question me, and take me up on it. This is what true skepticism is about.
So today I received some criticism, and I wrote a length reply which I would like to share with everyone, since I get asked this quite often, I would like to clarify and really answer the point that the person made.
In the comments section of a review I had written about American Entertainment TV show Ghost Adventures, the following was left...
blah28 March 2015 at 05:28
"You state that due to the Ghost adventure crew starting the investigation with a belief in the supernatural, then they lose credibility: "it instantly means everything they say and do lacks all credibility, even if they are suspicious and bring up some good points." And yet, you then state your own presuppositional bias by stating that you "know that ghost don't exist."
Using your logic, this means that you lose credibility as well."
Here is my response to that...
You make a fair point, so let me respond and explain.
On one side you have someone having a start point of belief, acceptance and bias.
On the other side (me) you have someone with a starting point of disbelief, non-acceptance and bias against.
So what is the difference?
Well my opinion is an opinion based on facts, based on science, based on hundreds of years of growth and knowledge about how the human body works.
From the moment a human is conceived to the moment the last cell of a dead body degrades, science knows and understands every single moment inbetween, using biology, physics and chemistry, we can chart every moment of every single change as we go from that fertilised egg to the last decomposed human cell.
No religious teacher found that out, no psychic ever discovered any of this, instead thousands of scientists over hundreds of years have.
So lets fast forward slightly to what happens when we die. And again due to science we know what happens when someone dies, the organs tend to shut down first, blood stops flowing around the body and most importantly to the brain, a lack of blood and therefore oxygen starves the brain, and eventually the electrical impulses in the brain stop, when this happens, we are dead, no turning back.
No human has ever come back from being truly dead, although the definition of what constitutes being dead has changed as SCIENCE and medicine have improved, no one has ever come back from true brain death. (You can ignore the story of that Jesus bloke, it was made up by a bunch of naughty Greeks decades after the alleged miracles happened.)
So we know everything that happens when a human is conceived to the point of death.
Now the afterlife. Evolution has meant that the human race struggles with the thoughts of death, due to our self awareness. Throughout human history, it has been shown that we give things supernatural meaning when we do not understand them, whether it is how the sun appears in the sky with the moon, to Earth Quakes, Tsunamis, you name it before SCIENCE explained it, we gave it a supernatural meaning, every single time, the same goes with modern phenomena, we see something move in the corner of our eye, or even if we have a full blown hallucination, we give it supernatural meaning until we truly understand it. Hear a knocking in the night, when no one else is around, must be a ghost right? Not the wooden beams or floor boards creaking as the temperature drops.
I've lived in hot countries where the houses are made of concrete, funnily enough you never seem to get reports of ghosts making noises in the night!
So for me to say that ghosts do not exist, is an opinion based on hundreds of years of proven scientific study, and not a single piece of evidence exists to say that ghost do exist.
So for me to have that position, is surely a fair one, to be skeptical of claims which break the laws of physics should be the starting point of EVERYONE who is investigating a situation where something "unexplained" has been reported.
Remember Unexplained is not the same as unexplainable.
If someone comes along and says that they are going to investigate a pond because someone has claimed that in this pond there exists an invisible creature that not only can travel through time, but cure illnesses while smoking a cigar and singing the theme to The A Team. In any possible situation should you start off with a position of belief? Of course not because the claim is ridiculous. But what if a million people all claim the same thing? All with no evidence, no proof, no theory, just a baseless claim, should you then start off with a position of belief? Still of course not.
You could line up a million people at night, get them all to look at the moon as it is low on the horizon and all of them would say the moon looks bigger! And ALL of them would be wrong. The moon is the same size, and and more importantly the same size in the sky! Yet 1 million people are wrong. And better still it can be proven they are wrong with a simple trick of getting an empty toilet roll, holding it up and looking at the moon through it, suddenly the moon goes back to its normal size. Science can explain the "Moon illusion", as it includes something that is testable, something that is physical and can be examined. And the fact that a million people can all being wrong, proves that we should never trust our own eyes as we can be fooled.
So when I say ghosts do not exist, this is not some throw away comment, this is a comment based on a scientific understanding of the the universe.
So ask yourself now, if one person says they believe in ghosts and one person says that ghosts do not exist, who really has the most credibility?
A few months ago I was approached by John Sutton, a former associate of Derek Acorah, who now runs The Psychic World Newspaper, this is a Newspaper that is sold and distributed around various Spiritualist Chuches.
A few people have asked if I could publish the interview here on BadPsychics as they are morally against purchasing a Newspaper that helps fund a fraudulent industry and a cult, so I thought I should oblige.
The interview appears in the December 2014 edition of The Psychic World
--
THE JOHN G. SUTTON COLUMN
Off The Cuff
Jon Donnis: Badpsychics.com
There has over the last decade or so been a great deal of bad publicity leveled at professional psychics/mediums and whilst such adverse criticism in itself is nothing new the orchestration behind a lot of this has been refined using the internet to spread the bad word. One of the main exponents of this deliberate, somewhat disturbing phenomena, is a gentleman called Mr. Jon Donnis the webmaster of BadPsychics.com Jon is a man who is rather forthright in his description of those that he selects to discuss on his site.
In fact quite recently Jon very kindly referred in writing on his Blog at BadPsychics.com to me in the following terms: ‘I see no problem in humiliating a criminal, someone like yourself who is a grief vulture.’ Jon Donnis went on to indicate that in his opinion I was a ‘nutter’. This intrigued me as I had spoken to Mr. Donnis in the past and tried to help him so I thought maybe there is something that he needs to say.
(Note: When John Sutton claims he tried to help me in the past, he is referring to him trying to expose Derek Acorah, I refused his help, as I have a problem with any fake psychic trying to expose another fake psychic, I told John Sutton at the time I was not interested, he then went to another Skeptic who happened to be a former member of my forum going under the name Echolima/Emma Gee, and helped her in her Doublexposure website - Jon Donnis)
After all, a man of his undoubted erudition would surely not want to waste his life just posting abusive insults on a website for all to see when he could be doing something constructive. So I contacted Jon and asked if he would consider an interview with myself as the feature editor of the Journal of Spiritualism ‘Psychic World’. I am delighted to say that Jon agreed. Here is my interview in which Mr. Jon Donnis of www.badpsychics.com answers the questions I put to him. Please note these questions and Jon’s answers are exactly as given and received.
Q1.
Jon you are the founder and main researcher for the website Badpsychics.com please advise me of your mission statement:
I am not the founder, that would be Nik Donnis my cousin, and the originator of the BadPsychics brand. I took over from him in 2004.
My mission statement is one that we should all agree on, to expose fraudulent psychics and mediums, and educate the public as to the methods behind fake mediumship.
Q2.
In pursing your research into the work of professional psychics have you at any time found evidence to support the claims made for paranormal phenomena by these professionals.
Never, not once, in 100% of cases whereby I have had readings from mediums (well over 200 personally), I can explain exactly how they do it. I also have a 100% record of explaining how every reading given to someone else and analysed by myself is done. From Gordon Smith, to Derek Acorah, from Colin Fry to Sally Morgan. I have never been stumped by a medium, I have exposed the methods of every single one ever put in front of me.
Q3.
Are you stating that it is your belief that all psychics and all mediums are frauds, fakes and deliberately misrepresent themselves for whatever purposes.
My beliefs do not matter, all I deal in is facts. Historical and Scientific fact dictates that mediumship is statistically improbable, and to a level where someone could confidently state it as being impossible.
There are two types of mediums, and here are two terms you will be well aware of John Sutton, that being "Eyes open" and "Eyes closed", for the readers unaware of these terms, Eyes Open refers to mediums who are deliberately defrauding their clients, using cold and hot reading as well as other methods to create the illusion of mediumship. Eyes Closed refers to mediums who really do believe in what they do, usually due to client verification, and a general misunderstanding of psychology and what they are actually doing. Only one fact remains though, that being that no medium in history has ever been able to prove a single paranormal claim under credible controlled conditions. Not one. All have failed when the chance to cheat is removed. Usually you can tell the difference between an Eyes Open medium and an Eyes Closed medium straight away as the Eyes Closed (deluded) medium is more than happy to try and prove what they do is real. The Eyes Closed mediums, will always have excuses and try to blame the operator of any test, or the conditions of the test itself as flawed. The reality is that any claim of mediumship is incredibly easy to prove if the claim was real.
In the past many Eyes Open mediums would happily take tests under the assumption they were too smart for the operator, or that they could fool them. Other examples of such tests will be when there is blatant bias by the person conducting the test, usually they claim to be psychic themselves, or they are part of the psychic industry. And such tests always lack credibility, and the conditions are seriously flawed.
Q4.
You are aware that all religions in every corner of the globe have as the basic tenets of their belief systems an absolute faith in life after death. How do you explain this.
One word, Ignorance. Human evolution and history shows that when we do not understand something we give it a supernatural meaning, from people looking up at the Sun and Moon, and see them as Gods chasing each other, to people praying to trees.
Religion is often a way to cope with this ignorance, as well as the sheer terror for some of not being able to accept we are just Apes on a planet that really doesn't matter.
Q5.
In some of your statements published on your Badpsychics.com website you state that professional psychics are in effect obtaining money by false pretences. Given that you understand all religions are founded on a belief in the paranormal, communication from beyond i.e. The Holy Ghost etc do you therefore hold that all religious practices are essentially fraudulent.
To clarify here, any medium who uses a disclaimer of "For Entertainment Purposes Only" or something similar, is effectively admitting they are a fraud, but they do so with a nod and a wink to the client/audience, as if they are somehow forced to add this disclaimer. This is not true, there is no European Legislation that dictates that any such disclaimer needs to be shown, in fact if you are a real medium you can call yourself a real medium. But if we are to look at psychics/mediums broadly, they all take money by performing an act, which they claim is real, when it clearly is not. This is fraud, and this is why so many mediums use such disclaimers.
All religious practices are based on ignorance, and if money is accepted, then there is an element of fraud involved, however more so than that the tax exemptions that religious groups get to me is much more of an issue.
Q6.
You are aware that Spiritualism is a recognised religion that has ministers and churches throughout the world. Do you believe that all the mediums standing on the platforms of these churches are deliberately misleading their congregations.
I am aware that Spiritualist is a recognised religion, but then so is Scientology, a religion dreamed up by a Science Fiction writer!
It is relatively easy to become recognised, however this does not make it real. Did you know you can legally put your religion as Jedi on the census?
I would say the vast majority of Church mediums are indeed deliberately misleading their congregation, we know they use prior research, we know they have the "Blue Book" method of cheating. Ever wondered why they get you to leave messages in a remembrance book when you attend a Spiritualist Church!? The sad thing is that often the very people who run the church are often not even in on the scam, and believe it wholeheartedly, that is very sad to me.
Q7.
You have on your website created a list of your top Bad Psychics is it the intention of your website to expose these individuals and if so why them in particular. Please give examples.
In the beginning we would expose the big name mediums like, Derek Acorah, Colin Fry, Tony Stockwell, Gordon Smith, Sally Morgan and so on, because they were the easiest to expose, plenty of material, and a large fan base meant that we would reach more believers by exposing these people. Let me make it clear, I have exposed each of those mentioned, and not one has ever tried to sue me for calling their mediumship fake.
These days although we will write about a big name medium if a story comes up, we actually prefer to expose smaller time mediums, and on a more personal basis with direct victims of the crime, we help them get their money back, we help them go to Trading Standards and we help them with any other issues they have resulting from the financial and emotional scarring of being the victim of fraud. Sometimes just using my name and the name of BadPsychics is enough to scare the medium into giving a full refund.
So many victims of these types of crime are embarrassed and do not want to speak out, they put it down to just being "a foolish old woman" or something similar, in fact people like this we want to help the most.
Q8.
The Top Bad Psychics list is effectively made up of all the most successful professional psychics in the UK. All of those listed have been featured on TV, written books and toured the major theatre circuit in the UK. All their work is promoted as being for entertainment purposes only. What are your thoughts on this.
As I mentioned earlier, by saying this they are effectively admitting they are frauds, it is a way to cover themselves legally, as they can claim that they are working in the same capacity as a mentalist/magician, it is a cop out, and disgusting that people can get away with causing such potential harm with a one sentence disclaimer. They take no responsibility for the problems they cause. These people are grief vultures.
Q9.
What will be your response when you eventually make the inevitable transition between this material world and the next. What are you going to say to your guardian angels when they welcome you Jon into the next dimension.
Nothing, because I will be dead.
