Debunking Joe Powers' 'Psychic' Secrets feat. Richard Wiseman - The Man Who Contacts The Dead

After Derren watches Joe live, he reviews the footage with psychologist, author and magician Richard Wiseman (Quirkology) and they figure out his techniques used in the show.

A Look at Psychic Joe Power

The following article was originally published on 25th June 2009

In recent times a 'psychic' by the name of Joe Power has come into the media eye, in fact we have covered the last few years of his professional career in some detail on this site, but how has a psychic such as this manipulated his position in life to that of a 'wannabe celebrity' psychic. Well for that we must go back to the beginning, well not the beginning, but lets say 2006 instead.

In April of 2006, Joe Power caused controversy when he made it public that he was going to contact the spirit of John Lennon, as you can imagine this caused a lot of discussion, even Yoko Ono had her representatives release a statement calling the stunt “Exploitative”, but of course this is exactly what Joe Power wanted, media attention. A US TV station had apparently found someone who would be willing to partake in this stunt and for what? A pay-per view TV special. Oh how very spiritual, and only $9.95, that's a good $5 cheaper than the Princess Diana séance from a few years earlier.

So what did John Lennon have to say for himself, well the ground breaking message from the dead Lennon was “peace....the message is peace”, now if that isn't worth $9.95 then I don't know what is.

Despite appearing on this American special, things were still not going great for Joe, despite his own claims, he was having to cancel shows on a regular basis due to poor ticket sales, when you cant sell out small hotel function rooms then you know that a new stunt is in order, especially since the Lennon séance did nothing for his career.

One of the claims Joe has made over the years is one that many psychics use, that being that they have helped the police solve crimes, you hear this all the time, but with Joe Power we decided to dig deeper. He claimed to have helped Southport Police in the Lyndsey Quy murder case, yet when we asked Detective Superintendent Geoff Sloan, he made the following statement: “I wish to state, categorically, that as Senior Investigating Officer on the Lyndsey Quy murder, I made a policy decision not to use psychics on the investigation. Joe Power has allegedly made claims that he assisted the enquiry but this is not the case.”

So like most if not all psychics Joe Power was simply making claims that were not true, but this would not stop him from using such claims in the future, claims we would show were untrue time after time after time.

Joe also claimed “through one of his astonishing spirit links” to have known the killer of model Sally Anne Bowman and that he informed the police that the killer was a “Stephen” or “Stephan White”, aged between 24 and 26 and was a delivery driver. Yet following DNA evidence the police arrested and charged 36 year old chef Mark Dixie who is now serving a life sentence in prison. So yet again Joe is wrong. Yet he keeps telling people how he helps the police.

So despite cancelling 44% of his publicised shows in 2005, 2006 and 2007, Joe Power was still hungry for 'power' and fame. In 2008 he made an astounding public statement when he said “‘TV mediums are ripping people off. The place is saturated with fake mediums getting away with playing on people’s emotions ....” Yes the same man who did a tacky pay-per view TV special in America contacting John Lennon, despite the objections of the Lennon estate and Yoko Ono.

Throughout 2008 things just got worse for Joe, of 65 advertised shows at least 51 were cancelled due to poor sales.

But in 2009 Joe saw an opportunity, an opportunity to get himself on the front page of every newspaper in the country, and he took it. This was at the time when the Madeleine McCann story had become worldwide news, another child by the name of Shannon Matthews had gone missing in similar circumstances, knowing full well that the interest of this story would be front page news Joe visited the Shannons mother Karen Matthews and her partner Craig Meehan, he gave them a reading which would even be quoted in the Sunday People newspaper. Suddenly he found himself in the papers, In a photograph standing next to Karen Matthews, this was exactly what Joe wanted, media attention.

Unfortunately despite claiming to be clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairessient, and despite spending a lot of time with the family of Shannon Matthews, Joe seemed to have missed one tiny detail, that being that Karen Matthews had actually been behind the fake kidnap of her 9 year old daughter. Karen Matthews is now serving time in prison, and has shown no remorse for her crimes. This is the woman who Joe Power happily had his photo taken with, and who he gave readings too.

As you would expect this was not the kind of thing that Joe had hoped that would happen, he now found himself in the position of failed psychic once again.

Joe Power claims he has helped the police solve crimes, we know this is not true, in fact from the very mouths of the police, he has not helped them at all. The one case where he truly put himself on the line, he failed miserably.

So now we find ourselves bang up to date, many tacky stunts, failed tours, cancelled shows, yet still Joe Power manages to find himself a book publisher, although when a member of Bad Psychics went along to one of his signings, all that could be found was a lonely figure of Joe sat at a table on his own, no line of people, no crowds scrambling for his photo, nothing, maybe this is all that is left for this man, or maybe he has already planned his next stunt, only time will tell.

But Joe would have one last dig at those who dare to doubt him.

I will quote from my good friend, Bad Psychics member and Merseyside skeptic Marsh who recently met Joe Power, and handed him an application form for the JREF Million Dollar challenge, Joe would reply:

“The thing about you sceptics, is that you sit there, festering in front of your computers at 3am, thinking up ways to get at people. What if I were to sit in front of your house and tell people you’re a paedophile?”

“because you’re there festering, at 3am, plotting to get at me, in the same way that paedophiles fester and plot to interfere with children – you both have to be sick in the head to do what you do.”

”I think most sceptics probably are paedophiles. I mean you’re sat around at 3am, plotting, aren’t you? Do you deny that?”

And people wonder why Joe is disliked by so many people, why he has to cancel show after show, and why no one turns up to his book signings.

Joe Powers career should be a warning to any wannabe celebrity psychic out there. Don'tt make claims you cant back up, because the one annoying thing about skeptics is that we simplydon'tt take things on faith, we investigate, we search, and we find out the truth.

By Jon Donnis – BadPsychics.co.uk

If you have had any recent interactions with Joe Power please do get in touch, leave a comment, or send me a message.

Psychic Joe Power - Exposed

Classic example of Joe Power getting caught out.






Look up these links too.

Paul Zenon lecture about psychics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLRi0UVMkgo

Derren Brown Investigates Joe Power
http://www.dailymotion.com/video

Derren Brown website
http://derrenbrown.co.uk/

Paul Zenon website
http://www.paulzenon.com/

Karl Pilkington vs Psychics

You can always rely on Karl Pilkington to tell it how it is.

The following image was created by Andy Appleton

And here is a couple I knocked up

Joe Power - An Evening With

Joe Power - An Evening With

By Lester

Joe Power (aka Joe Bolster, Joe Bolster-Power)

I have been aware of this person, who is seeking fame and fortune, for a while and have viewed his website www.joe-power.com. He has been involved in the Spiritual/Psychic world for some five years. From his web site and indeed posters/leaflets advertising his shows, which have been heavily distributed around the North West at least, it is clear that he has a very high opinion of himself and his apparent self proclaimed psychic abilities.

On his web site he claims, no doubt using his unique psychic abilities, about future show dates and says, “This Show is currently Touring Theatres across the UK and so far has had an incredible response. All performances have been sell outs and people have had to be turned away who were not fortunate enough to get a ticket in time.” This is a complete lie, as I personally know of several shows that were very poorly attended not only recently but also going back months. The only one which was sold out, that I know of, was on 4th August on the Isle of Man. The theatre held 200 and the ticket office told me they had not had a clairvoyant before.

I have seen him work on “Your Destiny” which is available on Sky 178. This program to me was complete and utter nonsense designed to attract those most gullible/desperate for “readings” and at £1.50 per minute. The information Joe (and the other “mediums”) gave to the various questions viewers texted in was either just plain common sense or unsubstantiated comments/statements with no verifiable feedback to confirm any accuracy whatsoever. The presenter continually drones on and pushes for viewers to ring in and speak to their “top psychics” for a reading. In other words this is just a money making machine which thrives on those most vulnerable.

One of the “highlights” that Joe likes to use to give him credibility is the work he has done with the police in helping to solve high profile murder cases. In particular he cites the disappearance and subsequent murder of Lynsey Quy of Southport.

You can see newspaper articles (virtually all the same) on his web site. He mentions going into Southport police station and providing useful information. If this is true then where is there any independent evidence to support this published on his web site. Why cannot he get a letter from the police, on this case and any other that he claims he has been involved in, addressed to him and thanking him for the “useful and valuable new information” that he apparently supplied? He could put such a letter on his web site which would give him credibility and silence his doubters. Without this we just have his “word” that he helped in this way. So until such time that he can prove he actually provided good and new information we are left with no alternative but to entirely question this unqualified aspect of his self-publicity. As such his major stake to fame is completely and totally flawed and should therefore be ignored.

The press do however confirm that a Psychic was asked to help in the murder of Lynsey Quy and this was Uri Geller who told police that he felt that she was near water. Well as Southport is on the coast and Lynsey came from Southport is it not a fair bet that she would be found fairly locally (statistically most victims are). For more information type in “Lynsey Quy murder Southport UK” into “Ask Jeeves” or similar search engine.



Evening of Clairvoyance – Southport Floral Hall 18th August 2005 

This was my opportunity to see Joe live. I had read the article about Joe in the local paper (Southport Visiter 15th July) and therefore was looking forward to some accurate and detailed information about those who had passed to Spirit and would make their return. Particularly as Joe had told the reporter “I make sure I’ve got lots of details before saying anything. I’m not going to say I’m getting a Peter, John, or Mark…, I’ll say that I’m getting someone who, say, was the youngest of four children, he had two brothers and a sister, he died of lung cancer at the age of 56”. This would be in sharp contrast to most mediums who throw out very general names and information hoping that someone will speak up and claim it.

I still maintain that if someone from the world of spirit wants to make contact with me in a theatre through a medium then the medium, if they are really tuned into spirit, will come directly to me as the spirit person can tell the medium exactly where I am sitting. Any medium who fails to make contact with the recipient directly can justly be accused of “fishing” the audience and leaves themselves open to various accusations of psychic inadequacy.

The evening started with some 15 minutes of Roberta Lee who is a local drag act and was designed to “liven up” the audience. It had very mixed success.

Then Joe Power was introduced. The stage was set out with a large screen and there was a camera at the side which would home in onto the person Joe would speak to. Two girls with roving mikes were there to go to the recipients so that we could all hear the responses. Joe then started and threw out some very general information and names hoping that someone would claim it. After a little while several people put there hand up and Joe tried to whittle down between them.

He asked questions of them, frequently said someone was passed when they were still alive but did have a few “woolly and loose” hits. Several recipients seemed a bit unsure about what Joe was talking about. This pattern was repeated throughout the whole evening and he gave 10 messages in total. His “performance” was in sharp contrast to his publicity in the paper and on his web site and he came nowhere near to fulfilling his own self-proclaimed abilities. What I witnessed and what was written was as different as chalk and cheese. Very disappointing but unfortunately not a surprise to me. The venue was about three quarters full.

I have and do see exactly the same quality of mediumship in Spiritualist churches for many years. The difference is that churches don’t charge £12 for a ticket (its either a free-will offering or £3-5). In addition you are much more likely to receive a message in a church because the congregations are typically upto 100 people.

Would I see Joe again? Definitely NOT. The whole evening was a complete let down for me and I felt totally misled by his exaggerated publicity. He deserves to fail because he is not being honest in what he does.

The local papers are now full of adverts (this week there are three) publicizing various “Clairvoyant” evenings with different mediums. They make great claims such as:-

“The Worlds most Evidential Medium”

“Britains Most Gifted Medium”

“The North West’s latest acclaimed”

“The UK’s next phenomena” etc etc.

It is now very clear that the general public are getting very wise to these wholly unsubstantiated and grossly exaggerated claims which are not matched by the mediums demonstration. As a result attendances are falling dramatically and rightly so. Its time these “mediums” stopped trying to rip off the public and got a proper honest job.