Could you please explain what you mean by that? No one has yet clarified what the harm is in believing you have received reassuring messages from your dear departed. Any examples? Just saying “it could be harmful” is kinda meaningless. Details and specifics are most welcome.
I forgot to ask…
What are my politics, now that you have achieved Enlightenment?
Oh, please. Deaf people in Tibet know what your politics are, to wit, raving liberal lefty.
Ha, since no one can prove life after death, just who is ignorant. NDEs provide us with strong evidence that there is life after death. You set yourself above the present knowledge and claim to know more, fine, prove it. Where are your cites of evidence.
John and all the psychics in the world couldn’t possible rip-off the public as much as scientists do. Price gouging of the pharmaceutical industry alone costs the public billions a year. My proof, they sell the pills to Mexico, Canada. and other countries a lot cheaper than they sell to us in the U.S. Psychics are small potatoes. Go after the big ones guys. Oh, yes, look at the prices they get for placebos and compare that with what psychics do.
Better to remove the beam from thine own eye before trying to remove the mote from thy brothers.
Love
The request for cites goes unanswered so far. Are we to conclude that maybe, just possibly, it could be… * that there is no psychological harm done by those who claim to speak for the dead? *
But perhaps I speak too soon. Tis early yet.
If anyone does come up with anything, I may not see it for awhile. Headed out to Vegas for a little family reunion and R&R.
Just a brief comment from a lawyer: Most states have laws that prohibit deceptive acts in commerce. In Washington state, the applicable act is called the Consumer Protection Act (“CPA”), Revised Code of Washington chapter 19.86. The CPA can be violated by conduct having a capacity or tendency to deceive even if there is no intent to deceive. Actions may be brought by the state or by persons injured by the allegedly deceptive act.
I have wondered about prosecution in general of alleged psychics. I suspect that attorneys general are wary of bringing such actions because of the problem of proving that the conduct is deceptive. Individuals have the problem of showing injury. The typical injury would be the cost of the reading, which is typically fairly small, especially relative to the costs of the litigation. In general, no one wants to bring a lawsuit to recover, say, $250 or even $2,500. There could also be problems in picking juries. In addition, practiced psychics will probably “present” well.
It might be possible to overcome the problem of showing “deceptiveness” if you could get a psychic to agree on criteria for establishing the truth or falsehood of his or her claims and then subject the psychic to a test. That would probably have to occur before litigation; after litigation, the psychic would probably object to undergoing any testing. You could probably have some fun by challenging the psychic to a challenge at trial, but it would be risky to do so, especially given that people in general fixate on a couple of apparent “hits” and ignore the sea of “misses” usually present in cold readings.
Well, this has gone much longer than I intended. My short response: You could probably prosecute a “deceptive business activities” claim against a psychic, but there are significant logistical challenges.
Hey! Come up with your own cheap throwaways! 
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by lekatt *
I think CSICOP should have a farily large database on this subject so try their cite. I used to spend plenty of time reading through their journals, but it’s been years ago. I never seen even good evidence for NDE indicating life after death, let alone strong evidence for it. What is the strong evidence you’re referring to that shows this?
John and all the psychics in the world couldn’t possible rip-off the public as much as scientists do. Price gouging of the pharmaceutical industry alone costs the public billions a year. My proof, they sell the pills to Mexico, Canada. and other countries a lot cheaper than they sell to us in the U.S. Psychics are small potatoes. Go after the big ones guys. Oh, yes, look at the prices they get for placebos and compare that with what psychics do.
I’ve heard of lawsuits, insurance premiums, politics and special interest groups, and big corporate greed taking a good portion of the blame here, but this is the first time I’ve seen somebody blame scientists for this problem. I find the problem as irritating as you do though. Just don’t why you’re faulting the scientists for it.
JZ
Scientists have very little to do with the setting of prices for the products they develop. Hundreds of other factors are in play there.
The “tu quoque” fallacy you employ here is handwaving. Any problems that science and medicine have does not lay a blessing on the scamming psychics.
—My proof, they sell the pills to Mexico, Canada. and other countries a lot cheaper than they sell to us in the U.S.—
People in the U.S. can afford to pay more, of course: and they have higher reservation prices. If they equalized the price for everyone, it would be a lot closer to the U.S. price than the Mexican price, and Mexicans wouldn’t be able to buy drugs at all. Whatever you think about price discrimination, it’s usually preferable, from a social efficiency perspective, to simple monopoly pricing.
And I’m not exactly sure how it’s fraudulent either. If you really think pharmacutecal companies charge too much for drugs, then by all means, form your own company, research your own drugs, and you can easily undersell them out of bussiness. But… don’t forget: maybe it’s not really as easy to do so as you thought.
I agree. And, IMHO, Mr. Edwards is in direct violation of this. He is not showing any respect for their grief or privacy. He instead violates and takes advantage of these things for his own ends.
OP checking in - Thanks for continuing the thread (page 2! didn’t expect that). My computer fried and I lost internet access until I could come to the university today.
I think that basically my point of view comes down to what davidm just said:
Also, what Cosmopolitan said:
And yet, apparently, Stoid doesn’t agree with these arguements because:
Personally, I think that the idea psychological harm is being caused by the lies of such psychics follows logically from this situation. Not that it occurs in all or even many cases, but definitely in some. Again, I agree with Diogenes the Cynic here, that
People aren’t moving on with their lives and learning how to deal with grief, something that is inevitable in the human condition, if they are leaning on such con men as a crutch to deal with their grief.
I’m not sure exactly what type of cite you are looking for here, Stoid, but I’m off to Google and see what I can dig up (I’m definitely not a reference librarian). I’ll try to post some cites tomorrow, but the computer lab is closing right away.
First, I must say that I find John Edwards and his breed to be nothing more than charlatans using deception to bilk a vulnerable group out of their money.
As a psychologist, I feel a need to correct some implications made in several preceding posts. I also recognize that the persistence of some of these perceptions is largely the fault of psychologists, both for not getting corrective information out well enough, and for having amongst our ranks, well, rank psychologists who do a disservice to our profession. Psychology is a very empirical science – the gold standard at present is the randomized controlled clinical trial. Our interventions have to be determined to be effective, or they do not become our interventions. This is clear when considering treatment for specific disorders, such as anxiety disorder or depression, for which we have pretty good standard methods of treatment. Part of the problem is that it does take skill to apply a generally developed and good method to the needs of an individual, and also that many psychologists do not ensure that they are employing the most up to date and empirically sound treatments. As far as distinguishing psychiatry from psychology, I would say that psychiatry does use empirical methods when investigating pharmacological treatments. However, for other types of intervention, psychiatry in general is very poor relative to psychology in training and utilizing empirically derived interventions.
So, we are nothing like John Edwards. We work toward the measurable improvement of mental health and functioning, using well-established and empirically-tested methods, and we are constantly working to be better.
If John is a fraud, how come he has a three year waiting list of people who wish a reading from him. How come in the many years he has practiced his profession, people haven’t stopped coming to him is he doesn’t produce. You are totally forgetting the critical sense of the public who adore him. Do you think everyone is stupid who comes to him and has come to him for years, time and time again. Do you give them a zero in brains.
Is this your defense of John Edwards? He’s not a fraud because he’s popular?:rolleyes:
Do you think magic is real? David Copperfield has tons of people who come to see him. David Copperfield doesn’t give away how he preforms his tricks, and as far as I’m aware, he’s never said that he wasn’t using illusions to create “magic”.
People are gullible. People believe what they want to believe. There is a program on the discovery channel (I can’t think of it right now) that shows people going to India to expose indian “mystics” who are committing fraud to dupe the public.
I am ever so tempted to invoke Godwins Law on this…
Edward had been specifically and thorughly debunked, Lekatt. We’re not guessing here. We know specifically how he does every one of his tricks. We know he makes his guests fill out detailed questionaires before the show which are then fed to Edward. we know that the anterooms are mic’ed so that he can listen for conversations before the show and tke notes for later. We know that he has plants who circulate to gather information from the suckers and that he also uses plants to pose as audience members and pretend to be amazed at his detailed information. Even YOU should know what a con cold reading is, hell I can do it. In fact I HAVE done it on occasion just to show people how easy it is. They’re usually amazed just the same.
Well, it looks like Diogensis the Cynic just covered the things I had wrote off-line. I’ll edit it and be more brief, and just say there’s nothing that John Edwards can do, that a skilled magician can’t do either. Personally, I think they put on a better show and do it with a little more flare. Anyone that thinks John Edwards has any credibility at all should at least spend some time learning about “cold reading.” Some of JE’s modus operandi involves “hot readings”–IOW, he has known information. This can easily be gathered beforehand through many means. Other posters on this thread and others have shown some of the other tools of deceptions that are used. It’s not uncommon at all for people like this to use plants out in the audience or while waiting in line gather information from them while just chatting to others to pass time. Some also fill out questionnaires. None of this stuff ever gets relayed to the TV audience. Even the ones that he shows on TV, that you have to remember have been edited to show the most favorable readings, really aren’t all that impressive. Hell, I can put on a better show!
JZ
Some proof please, cites, cites.
No, I don’t do readings, I am intuitive, but then we all are if we let it happen.
I have had experience with psychics, and know that if they can’t deliver they soon have no clients.
John has been a psychic for many years, written some best-selling books, has always been in demand off the air as well as on it. Please give proof he is a fraud.
James Van Prague, George Anderson, Sylvia Brown have had or now have TV shows, are they all frauds also.
More people are turning to psychics these days than ever before, they are looking for the spiritual part of their lives. Religion and science will take a back seat in the future, that is my prediction.
Mostly because they don’t treat the individual with respect, and psychics do.
I know a pyschic can be a fraud, so can a scientist, means nothing.
Waiting for your proof on John.
Start here.
http://www.skeptic.com/newsworthy13.html
This cite will also lead you to many others. Dateline did a show on him, and many others have already gotten a piece of his ass. He’s going to end up being another Uri Geller and we’ve all seen what James Randi did to him.
JZ