Back when I was in the billboard business, We had one location that was literally in the front yard of one of those palm reader/fortune teller type places. We got there a little early one morning. I was setting up my crane to pick the faces off the sign when the old lady that ran the place came out screaming that we had awakened her. Absolutely berating me for not calling before we came out. I told her “Hell you’re the fortune teller…You shoulda known we were coming”.
she turned and went back inside muttering all the way.
True story. Sounds like a joke, BUT I can assure you it’s true.
Or, they rationalize the opposite way by tallying the hits and forgetting the misses and come to the opposite conclusion – that they truly are psychic, just not all the time.
Randi himself has said that, in his opinion, most of the psychics who come to take his test are NOT charlatans. Most seem to be very nice, very sincere people who genuinely believe they have psychic powers. And when they fail the test, Randi says, almost none of them are fazed. They’ll chalk it up to bad luck, saying “The spirits weren’t communicating today” or “The gift just wasn’t in synch today.”
I can’t seem to find a cite, but I recall a TV show (Nova?) where Randi was speaking to a group of school kids.
At one point (I think in college) he started doing Tarot readings on a lark, and he and his “customers” (I don’t recall if he was charging $) were amazed at how uncannily accurate his readings were. While he KNEW it was B-S, he still started wondering if there were something to this. So he started “reading” exactly the opposite of what the cards were “telling” him, and his customers were STILL astounded at the accuracy! At that point he knew it really didn’t matter what he told them.
If the readings have some ambiguity in them, many if not most people who believe, or want to believe in the woo will be able to fit their circumstances into the yarn the psychic is spinning. With enough such reinforcement I have no doubt that many psychics become convinced of their powers.
Psychics probably have about the same level of belief in their predictive powers as economic policy advisers…and roughly the same degree of successful predictions. The difference is, economic theory is taught out of expensive textbooks and its practitioners are consulted by world leaders, while tarot reading and astrology are self-taught out of cheap books and its practitioners are consulted by world leaders. So it is really a difference in the quality of publication materials.
I’ve heard him say that about dowsers. I have never heard him say that about psychics. Not saying you are wrong, but I am surprised I haven’t read that before now.
I don’t think Randi was saying that about psychics in general, just about the ones who apply for his test. The ones who know they are frauds don’t try to take the test. The ones who do show up tend to be naive and self-deluded, not the cynical con-artists who comprise most of the industry. The cynical con artists know better than to go anywhere near JREF.
The story as in one of Randi’s books is that he wrote an astrology column for a local 'zine and did it by just picking random phrases out of a hat (literally) and pasting them together. When he overheard some folks talking about how accurate the column was he dropped it.
I think it was Paul Kurtz who did tarot card readings as a youth and was convinced of his abilities because of the customer’s reaction. When a friend challenged him to read the opposite of what the cards were telling him he found the customer’s reaction was the same. That started him on the skeptical path.
You guys (gals?) are probably right. I do think James Randi was on that Nova episode, but I am probably confusing the stories of others on the same show. The bit about it being when in college defiantly fits with my faded memory.
Sounds like a joke, BUT I can assure you it’s true.