What can we all do about psychic fraud ?
There is so much fakery just now. Uri Geller last month lost an expensive court case to the “Annoying James Randi” who libelled him, yet both have been guilty of lies, fakery and fraud in the past.
The recent scandals over Madame Cleo and Sylvia Browne have highlighted a real problem area, with both telephone and postal spam reading more popular than ever.
There are so many pretend psychics doing readings now that certification and legislation must come in soon, whether by us psychics ourselves, or from outside government bodies.
Readers of the British paper, “Psychic World” will know of the £1,000.000 offer by Victor Zammit to anyone who can disprove psychic phenomena, yet we have been force-fed faked filmed claims of an autopsy of a body from an alleged crashed flying saucer by scammers, and a couple of drunken cranks claiming they have done all the crop circles in Britain.
Psychic pyramid sales fraud and threats through the post, are still big business as is the old gypsy trick “remove a curse “ scam.
Why, we have more fakers in the various psychic fields than in our government,
Tony and Cherie Blair have been using Carol Caplin and her mother for channelled advice. Ms. Caplin is unknown to every professional body in the country, and this may explain why Teflon Tony has not made one morally right decision since coming to office.
Among recent cases are a fraudulent palmist from Staffordshire, England, Nassim Mohammed, who faces seven charges of deception. In one case he offered to reunite a woman with a lost love for £8000 by means of voodoo dolls.
Another case was that of a stage magician and cold reader Paul Williams who purported to be a celebrity clairvoyant by the name of Paul De’Aaran. He faced several charges of duping old age citizens from their savings, and in one case he forged a deceased's will.
He was caught by the skill and observance of a palmist/graphologist who noticed small alarm signals in the documents. This resulted in his sentence of 18 months in prison.
In another case yet to reach court a vulnerable girl was tricked out of her £30,000 inheritance by a London spirit medium who told her she had a curse on her. This medium is still practising in London venues.
I have had an involvement with the supernatural and Spiritualism for 45 years, and although 99% are totally genuine, if you know the signposts you can spot the occasional fake among both the psychics and the sceptics.
We have a new word in Britain for scam artists; “Rumsfelders”.
There are some brilliant practitioners out there, but always check first with official bodies, or friends for a recommendation
Copyright © 2006
Author Terry Stokes is also a lecturer and broadcaster in paranormal studies who welcomes feedback from readers.
Palms also read by email via: palmist@fsmail.net
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