Welcome to BadPsychics, your trusted resource for uncovering the truth behind fake psychics and debunking supernatural claims. We are committed to promoting skepticism and critical thinking, providing you with clear and factual information about the paranormal and pseudoscientific practices.
At BadPsychics, we celebrate the power of science and rational inquiry. Our mission is to expose fraudulent psychics and unverified supernatural phenomena, empowering you with knowledge.
You may recall that back in June 2014 I covered the story of Timothy Abbott and his wife Janette who claimed thousands of pounds in disability, council tax and housing benefit payments, saying they could hardly walk.
Well they got caught out by those lovely people Department of Work and Pensions investigators, as you can see from the video below!
Well his 16 year fraud has cost him his freedom as on the 5th of March 2015 he was jailed for 8 Months, while his wife Janette was handed an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months.
A proceeds of crime hearing on June 30 will determine how much the couple must pay back as well as their jail sentences.
So justice has been done, sadly their fraudulent mediumship was not what they got caught on, but it is interesting to note that the SNU of the Midlands were still booking them for Church gigs and so on.
Yep thats the Spiritualist National Union booking FRAUDS for gigs knowing full well what they had been up to.
And lets not forget before all of this came out, they were two of the SNU's top Tutors at the Arthur Findlay college
The SNU employed them, yet not a single psychic/medium at the SNU could see they were frauds!
What does that tell you not only about the SNU, but about psychics in general.
Firstly no one saw this coming, and if they did, that means they condoned fraud!
Right now the SNU are doing their best to hush this all up, much like their arrests in the first place, but this is BadPsychics, and we tell the truth.
The funny thing is The SNU, used to have meetings about me, and work out how they could stop me, and close down this site, yet it seems their own Psychics are doing the job for me!
Lets hope that Timothy Abbott ends up in a nice rough Prison, and learns his lesson, because if he starts to "demonstrate" his fake mediumship when he gets out, we will make sure everyone knows he is a convicted fraud, and a criminal.
For a while now, people have been telling me I should watch Ghost Adventures, a show that follows self proclaimed ghost hunters Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodwin as they investigate locations that are reported to be haunted.
Ghost Adventures or GA for short started on October 17, 2008 on the Travel Channel in the States as a TV show, the same channel that at the time aired Most Haunted. So it is safe to say this show will be of the same style.
Ghost Adventures actually started out in 2004 as a "documentary type film".
GA has already had around 140 episodes, compared to 188 of Most Haunted. But GA is widely regarded to be a much bigger show, and has had more viewers worldwide, even the recent reboot of Most Haunted struggled in the ratings against GA on UK TV channel REALLY.
Much like MH, GA has had its fair share of controversies, one of the most widely reported is the Cowboy Bob incident, basically during a Live special Robert Bess the inventor of the "Parabot Containment Chamber" claimed that an EMF Meter was knocked violently out of his hand by ghosties! But because this was a LIVE show, everyone saw what really happened, and the hosts were forced to "debunk" it.
Much like MH, most of the times a show gets exposed as faked is during Live shows when obviously there is no time to edit and cover things up. GA got caught out, but at least they addressed it in a respectable manner.
Here is a video of their response to this incident.
Although I give them credit for addressing this, they really didn't have much choice, and i thought their fancy analysis and slow motion was a bit over the top.
Anyway there is a bit of history about the show to catch people up on what the show is about, and one of the main incidents.
I have never watched GA before, I do not know the characters, their motivations or beliefs, so as far as I am concerned I will give them a totally fresh slate and judge them as such.
Ghost Adventures Series 10 Episode 10 Official Synopsis:
The Ghost Adventures Crew, along with Darkness Radio host Dave Schrader and Bill Chappell, travels to a quiet suburb just outside of Seattle to investigate the residence of a local Bothell man who claims that a demonic entity is wreaking havoc in his home by burning bibles, throwing furniture, and burning demonic symbols in his walls.
Review and Recap by Jon Donnis
The first thing I notice while watching GA compared to MH is the much higher production values, this show is clearly quite slickly produced and directed.
They begin by talking to a man who claims his house is haunted and that Bibles have been set on fire, things thrown etc. Zak Bagans asks the man a really good question, why stay in the house? The man comes out with some bull, about being grounded at the house, having a job and so on. We get to see some home video footage, which looks blatantly faked to me. Its noted that he rents the house, so no problem to leave, yet he chooses to stay despite all of his claims. Hmmmm....
The first problem I see is that the GA crew are starting off from a position of belief, instead of skepticism. The home video footage is very very dodgy that the man has given. If any of what he had claimed was really true, there is no way you would stay in the house.
Within the first 10 minutes, I have decided that this looks like a scam by the man and woman who live in this house, attention seeking. This is just my opinion. The thing is, I know that ghosts do not exist, so that means someone in the house has to be behind it. They haven't shown any children yet, who are usually behind these kinds of things, so it has to be the adults.
They then trot out a "Paranormal Investigator" a strange looking woman called Jennifer Madsen, who instantly annoys me, a quick google of her and I cant find anything of interest on her.
She claims to do a lot of Native American Cleansing, so instantly you can understand she is a bit of a loony. Unless of course she means literally she likes to wash and clean Native Americans!
The man of the house seems to believe that it is an evil Native American spirit that is behind the haunting.
So the format of this show seems to be the first 15 minutes are history lessons, interviews with relevant parties and then the show moves on to the investigation.
One of the first things I have noticed is the lack of women on the crew at all. No screaming idiots, no sexy make up girl.
Anyway the investigators start off by reviewing Keith's (man of the house) videos, much like me they seem suspicious, so that is a good start. Although we are now nearly 20 minutes into the show, and nothing has really been done, or explained. Just a lot of talking and explaining.
Still my main issue with this show is the starting point of belief, it instantly means everything they say and do lacks all credibility, even if they are suspicious and bring up some good points. Another problem is the huge amount of people involved, so many camera guys, people watching monitors, the investigators and so on, it really adds nothing to the show, other than giving more people the chance to fake stuff.
They start off the investigation by getting Keith and his girlfriend to wonder about the house and see if they can encourage the ghosties to do something on camera. Keith seems suspiciously well rehearsed for what he is saying. As they walk about and talk to the ghosts, nothing happens, and they even act surprised that nothing is happening.
Also another thing to note is they are doing everything in the dark, yet Keiths own dodgy footage showed things happening in the day or with the lights on! Of course night vision makes everything look more spooky! You can blame the Blair Witch Project for that!
25 minutes in, and I have to say I am getting a tad bored. Although as I say that an Infra Red light belonging to the crew has gone out, as usual the claims of it being on a full battery are trotted out.
So far the only thing that has happened is that an IR light has gone out. Zak tries to claim that Tina the women who lives in the house is giving off negative energy, and that he feels nothing from the house.
Eventually Keith and Tina are told to leave and they go off to a hotel. Leaving Zak and the crew on their own in the house to see what they can find. They get to play with some fancy equipment, which in all honestly is completely useless, but they got to spend the budget on something I guess.
Thermo cams, SLS cameras, EMF meters and so on.
You could wave a banana around for all the good it would do when it comes to detecting ghosts.
What I would do right now for a Stuart Toreville to appear and suddenly throw some stones!
The GA investigators are talking out loud to the ghosts (which do not exist). Just think about this for a moment, I am sat here watching grown men, pretend to talk to ghosts while stood in the dark in some strangers house. Who is the crazier person here? Them or me? That is something I need to get my head around.
30 Minutes in and a camera has gone down! Yay! Come on you ghosties, you have to build up towards the end scenes, that's TV Paranormal Investigations 101!
The camera that has gone down is in Keith's office and the so called hub of all things that go bump in the night. After investigating it, its just a dead battery. Why don't these idiots ever plug these things directly into the mains!
The investigators are starting to get bored, and realise that nothing is happening, I think they have realised that the problem is Keith and his Girlfriend, and I am sure they are either gonna claim that the woman herself is haunted, or that Keith is faking things.
They now proudly state they are going to take this investigation to a "Maximum Scientific Level", with Electrical Engineer Bill Chappel conducts an experiment with a brand new device he invented which is basically a projector (that he did not invent) projecting some read outs onto the wall. Lots of crap like Humidity, Barometric pressure, temperature and so on.
It also has a built in EVP recording feature and a female computer voice that asks questions.
All seems like a huge waste of money to me, especially as we know that EVPs are evidentially worthless. But then again it makes idiotic believers go "wow" and "they are so professional and scientific".
Remember just cause you use fancy equipment, doesn't make you a scientist.
Either way they waste some time, and get nothing of interest happen from the machine.
Less than 5 minutes left and they have no evidence whatsoever of a haunting.
Zak desperate to try and save the show, decides to do one final walk around of the house on his own. Nothing happens, so he pulls out an digital recorder to try and get something.
Zak suddenly gets shocked, and its a bug on his face. Lol, That made me smile.
And there investigation is basically over, and nothing has happened.
Ok so what can I take from this episode, Zak comes across as a nice enough genuine man, I cant really say anything bad about him from watching this one episode. The show didn't fake anything.
I would've preferred them to take a more skeptical approach and call out Keith and his Girlfriend, since obviously they are behind the so called haunting.
Will I watch again? Not sure, probably not. You see when you have a show that doesn't fake things it is incredibly boring.
I can understand why some uneducated believers might like the show, afterall there is that old claim of "things don't always happen, so we have to show that too"
Its almost like the lack of proof is used to prove the ghosts. Its an excuse I don't buy personally.
Zak seems likeable and honest, the show has really good production values, but the rest of the crew have little to no personality, so to watch for them is pointless.
They have an over reliance on useless equipment that they really don't understand, and a starting point of belief which leaves them lacking credibility.
Watch it, don't watch it, I don't care, but can I personally as the UKs most knowledgeable and experienced skeptic, can I recommend it? NO.
All the world is a stage, according to the bard, and all the men and women merely players. Well, in the second decade of the twenty first century the stage is big business. Once the arena of Shakespeare, Alan Bennett and Tennessee Williams, it is not just the play-write who can make a living: the stage show can earn good money for the modern psychic. If people are willing to shell out for pure entertainment that is one thing, if they are shelling out for the promise of distress-mitigation or greater understanding of the unknown then that is quite another. Big claims, especially attracting big money, are bound to attract the skeptical.
There is a growing body of people who want a justification for a practice that seems to have passed from helping the bereaved come to terms with their loss to entertainment. If there is something in it, fair enough, but prove it. If possible scientifically. It must be in the interests of all for what seems on the surface to be an unlikely phenomena to justify itself. Especially if it is raking in the big bucks.
Psychics unhappy free speech works both ways
When the skeptical activist Mark Tilbrook wanted to issue leaflets to people planning to attend psychic shows by Sally Morgan, the UK’s biggest stage show psychic, he was approached by members of Sally’s “team”. After publishing footage of these ‘approaches’ in later shows, he was then further approached by Sally’s “legal team”. Psychic shows on stage are now something that is big enough to pay for, and indeed require, a legal team. As a result of Tilbrook’s publications Sally Morgan was forced to sack her manager and her tour manager. Especially embarrassing for her as they were her husband and son-in-law respectively. That’s show business.
Academia gets involved too. London’s prestigious Goldsmith’s college, founded by Goldsmiths in 1891, staged a Halloween Challenge for two mediums to undergo scientific tests. The tests were designed by Professor Chris French who at the time, October 2012, was Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at the college. An interesting degree to have on one’s CV. In 2009 Professor French hosted the James Randi Foundation’s Million Dollar Challenge. One Million dollars! Presumably the Educational Foundation is confident they won’t have to pay up.
It is not just the skeptics who are querying the validity of psychic stage shows. The Daily Mail took great delight in reporting the two medium’s failure to pass what they saw as fair tests. Psychics, and the attending skepticism, shifts copy.
The problem with psychics as a stage show
In the UK the TV popularist Derren Brown has made a name for himself, among many other things, for testing the authenticity of psychic phenomena. Brown tends to concentrate on the stage show aspect of psychics rather than the healing one-to-one. Professor Richard Dawkins, too, likes to wade in on the side of the skeptics, and he comes with a harder line than Brown but both are interested in putting science in front of those who are driven to engage in stage shows, now firmly in the world of entertainment by presentation if not by content, so are open to examination and, if by failing without proper justification, to ridicule. The heartache being the lonely people reaching out for comfort.
Why are these shows so popular? Curiosity may well attract some; some may attend for the entertainment value alone. Often, however, the audience is people lost in the aftermath of bereavement. There are many stresses in life and although moving house or losing one’s job are particularly painful none compare with the heartache of bereavement.
Is it right to make money from bereavement?
Bereavement can make people vulnerable. Vulnerability within the human condition is dangerous for not only can it lead to a position of victimization, it can lead us to unhealthy ways of ameliorating the vulnerability.
There are two issues, equally powerful forces. The ache or loss in the first place and then the recognition, even if subliminal, that there is a vulnerability. If low self esteem sees this as a weakness then the hole is too often filled by turning to substances that help us forget. Alcohol, tobacco, drugs may not make the vulnerability go away, but often they help us forget.
For some contact with a psychic may provide solace, but for many this is not enough. When human beings find themselves on the painful side of the human condition it is incredibly important that those offering to help are doing it for the right reason and genuinely helping. Not just doing it for the cash. There is already enough snake oil in the world.
