Post by Mr. Jon Donnis on Mar 6, 2012 13:42:44 GMT
Shame Simon could not have given some Credit to BadPsychics regarding the Brian Dowling incident. Oh well.
Science writer Simon Singh wants to hear from you if you have ever received a psychic reading from Sally Morgan
Psychic Sally has done it again. By which I do not mean that she has (or has ever) committed fraud, lied or cheated, but rather that she has inspired yet another article raising interesting questions about how she performs her apparent psychic shows.
Just to recap, the first article was by Professor Chris French, a psychologist at Goldsmith College, London. On this website, he outlined allegations that Sally might have used an earpiece at her Dublin show last September in order to receive messages from an assistant. Sally robustly denied any suggestion that she might be cheating, and went on to sue the Daily Mail for libel because of an article on a similar theme by the magician and ex-"psychic" Paul Zenon. My understanding is that the Mail is standing by the article and has already submitted a defence.
The second article, a blog by me, pointed out how review ratings of Sally's shows appeared to plummet after the Dublin incident. Was the decline in Sally's performance linked to what happened in Dublin? Was it due to the spirits going into hibernation? Or was it something else?
The latest article appeared soon after she appeared in Edinburgh on 23 February. It was written by Drew McAdam, who had been asked to review Psychic Sally's show for the Edinburgh Evening News. Drew regularly reviews music and theatre shows, and he also has a background in mentalism and magic. He even has a show that mimics the sort of effects that Sally presents, except Drew stresses that he is "as psychic as a teapot".
In his blog, Drew explains that he was one of just a handful of people fortunate enough to receive a reading during the Edinburgh show. The reading related to someone called Toby who had been killed in a bomb explosion. It was a particularly disturbing and dramatic reading, but it meant a lot to Drew's wife, who was also in the audience and stood with Drew when the reading occurred. Drew's wife had been in love with Toby.
Drew had tried his absolute best to have this reading come through, inasmuch as he had emailed details of Toby and how he died to Sally's website and had left notes (so-called "love letters") in a box in the foyer just before the show. Skeptics might wonder if Sally had access to this information and used it as a basis for her reading, while believers will assume that Toby's spirit was stood next to Sally that night.
You might not have made up your mind yet whether you're a believer or not, but one extra piece of information might help. Toby was a fictional character. Drew's email and love letters were based on the death of Toby Wren in the 1970 BBC science fiction drama Doomwatch. You can watch online the scene in which Toby is killed in an explosion.
When I asked Drew why he had gone to the trouble of submitting information about a fictional character, he replied:
"Having been friends with Paul Zenon for a number of years, I was well aware of his trials and tribulations following his article about Sally Morgan in the Mail and the resulting legal action – and we had discussed a number of techniques that psychics could employ to give the impression they were picking up psychic thoughts or information from the dead, and how we could test whether these methods might be used by particular performers. Being a professional mindreader, and so being aware of such techniques about which the public know very little, I thought it would be fun to try a little experiment. It was for this reason that I used the idea of producing some spurious information based on a fictional TV series – something really quite light-hearted. It was a bit of a lark."
I should stress at this point that Drew is not stating that Sally cheated. He is simply outlining his experiment, and the result is open to interpretation.
I also asked Drew's wife, Elizabeth McAdam, for her account of what happened:
"I completed some letters to my love Toby Wren. I gave all the information I thought Sally would need, such as name and cause of death. When the interval was approaching Sally said she could see a horrific death and wasn't sure if she would share it or not because it involved a terrible scene of an explosion.
"But after the interval she did. She said she saw someone being blown up in an explosion. Two ladies stood up and Sally asked why they thought the message was theirs. They replied that their neighbours' son Mark had been blown up in Afghanistan by an IED [improvised explosive device]. Sally said no, that the message was from someone else.
"Did anyone recognise the name Tobin? I stood up to be asked why I thought it was for me. I said that my friend had been blown up diffusing a bomb, and his name was Toby. She told me that it definitely was me and that she could see him crouched down leaning over the bomb. She also mentioned about seeing a body being blasted up into the air.
"She told me how sad she felt. 'Oh, darling I'm so sorry. What a way to die.' I hadn't written on my love letter that Toby Wren was a character from the BBC programme Doomwatch, who I had fallen totally in love with as a 13-year-old. He was played by Robert Powell. I cried for days when Toby was blown up defusing a bomb on a pier. He did however rise again as Jesus of Nazareth."
After reading Drew's blog, I tried to check what had happened. I have emails from two of Drew's colleagues confirming that he had planted or was about to plant messages about Toby for Sally. I also have a Facebook exchange from 17 February confirming his plan. In addition I have talked to an independent person in the audience, who confirms that Drew's blog is a fair account of what happened on stage.
I have also asked Sally's office if Drew's blog is a fair account of what happened, but she has not responded to this question or offered any comment. My attempts to get a response from her solicitors have also drawn a blank.
I am curious to know if Sally thinks it is possible to contact the spirit of a fictional character, or if she coincidentally contacted the spirit of a real person whose life and death matched the experiences of Toby Wren, or if there is an alternative explanation.
So where does this leave us? I, along with Merseyside Skeptics and Professor Chris French, have offered to test Sally and try to end the controversy. Perhaps not surprisingly, Sally declined this opportunity to clear up the issue. As a result of this and the recent incidents described above, I think it is fair to say that her reputation has suffered over the past six months.
Sally has already admitted to crossing the line into grey areas, as outlined in the Independent. In 2007, on the way to conduct a reading with Big Brother winner Brian Dowling for her TV show, Sally was asked if she knew him. She merely replied: "I know of him." However, it later transpired that she had done a reading for Dowling two years earlier. When confronted by the allegation, Sally blamed it on her director for telling her what to say. You can find the second reading on YouTube and judge for yourself whether or not Sally should have been more honest.
I started trawling YouTube to find other readings by Sally. Although I have watched several readings, so far I have only contacted one of the people who received a psychic reading from Sally. Unfortunately for Sally, the result was not very flattering in terms of her methods or her transparency. The clip concerns a group of free runners known as Urban Free Flow. One of the free runners is Ben Milner and he apparently experiences a stunning piece of mediumship just a few minutes into the clip.
The clip shows Sally asking: "Why am I looking at your mum all the time, is there a problem with your mum?" Ben explains that she passed away last year. Sally gives Ben some advice, and then out of the blue she says: "Jean wants to send her love." This turns out to be the name of Ben's mother. He smiles, looks down, turns and walks away. Sally suggests that Ben is upset, and this certainly makes sense to anyone viewing the clip.
However, when I spoke to Ben, he said the editing does not truly reflect his recollection of the sequence of events. According to Ben, the cameras stopped rolling before this part of the reading. He was ready to leave when Sally asked if the name Jean mean anything. Jean might have been a girlfriend, colleague, sister, cousin, next door neighbour, hairdresser … or mother … or nobody.
A skeptic might suggest that Sally was throwing out a random name in the hope of a lucky response. In other words, she might have been on a small fishing expedition. By contrast, a believer might say that Sally was being guided by the spirit world.
Ben explained, while the cameras were not rolling, that Jean was his mother's name and that she had died last year. Sally suggested that they start recording again, at which point we see her regurgitating the information as if it came from the spirit world. She does not hint that much of the information came from Ben off-camera. In fact, when Sally suggests that Ben is upset after he turns away, he told me he was actually grinning in partial disbelief at what had just happened.
This incident might be a one-off, so I am keen to get a bigger picture of what goes on behind the scenes of Sally's TV readings. If Sally has read for you then please do get in touch. Positive or negative experience? Convinced or suspicious? Celebrity or noble citizen? Believer or skeptic? Please let me know what it was like when Sally read for you.
simonsingh.net/contact/
Science writer Simon Singh wants to hear from you if you have ever received a psychic reading from Sally Morgan
Psychic Sally has done it again. By which I do not mean that she has (or has ever) committed fraud, lied or cheated, but rather that she has inspired yet another article raising interesting questions about how she performs her apparent psychic shows.
Just to recap, the first article was by Professor Chris French, a psychologist at Goldsmith College, London. On this website, he outlined allegations that Sally might have used an earpiece at her Dublin show last September in order to receive messages from an assistant. Sally robustly denied any suggestion that she might be cheating, and went on to sue the Daily Mail for libel because of an article on a similar theme by the magician and ex-"psychic" Paul Zenon. My understanding is that the Mail is standing by the article and has already submitted a defence.
The second article, a blog by me, pointed out how review ratings of Sally's shows appeared to plummet after the Dublin incident. Was the decline in Sally's performance linked to what happened in Dublin? Was it due to the spirits going into hibernation? Or was it something else?
The latest article appeared soon after she appeared in Edinburgh on 23 February. It was written by Drew McAdam, who had been asked to review Psychic Sally's show for the Edinburgh Evening News. Drew regularly reviews music and theatre shows, and he also has a background in mentalism and magic. He even has a show that mimics the sort of effects that Sally presents, except Drew stresses that he is "as psychic as a teapot".
In his blog, Drew explains that he was one of just a handful of people fortunate enough to receive a reading during the Edinburgh show. The reading related to someone called Toby who had been killed in a bomb explosion. It was a particularly disturbing and dramatic reading, but it meant a lot to Drew's wife, who was also in the audience and stood with Drew when the reading occurred. Drew's wife had been in love with Toby.
Drew had tried his absolute best to have this reading come through, inasmuch as he had emailed details of Toby and how he died to Sally's website and had left notes (so-called "love letters") in a box in the foyer just before the show. Skeptics might wonder if Sally had access to this information and used it as a basis for her reading, while believers will assume that Toby's spirit was stood next to Sally that night.
You might not have made up your mind yet whether you're a believer or not, but one extra piece of information might help. Toby was a fictional character. Drew's email and love letters were based on the death of Toby Wren in the 1970 BBC science fiction drama Doomwatch. You can watch online the scene in which Toby is killed in an explosion.
When I asked Drew why he had gone to the trouble of submitting information about a fictional character, he replied:
"Having been friends with Paul Zenon for a number of years, I was well aware of his trials and tribulations following his article about Sally Morgan in the Mail and the resulting legal action – and we had discussed a number of techniques that psychics could employ to give the impression they were picking up psychic thoughts or information from the dead, and how we could test whether these methods might be used by particular performers. Being a professional mindreader, and so being aware of such techniques about which the public know very little, I thought it would be fun to try a little experiment. It was for this reason that I used the idea of producing some spurious information based on a fictional TV series – something really quite light-hearted. It was a bit of a lark."
I should stress at this point that Drew is not stating that Sally cheated. He is simply outlining his experiment, and the result is open to interpretation.
I also asked Drew's wife, Elizabeth McAdam, for her account of what happened:
"I completed some letters to my love Toby Wren. I gave all the information I thought Sally would need, such as name and cause of death. When the interval was approaching Sally said she could see a horrific death and wasn't sure if she would share it or not because it involved a terrible scene of an explosion.
"But after the interval she did. She said she saw someone being blown up in an explosion. Two ladies stood up and Sally asked why they thought the message was theirs. They replied that their neighbours' son Mark had been blown up in Afghanistan by an IED [improvised explosive device]. Sally said no, that the message was from someone else.
"Did anyone recognise the name Tobin? I stood up to be asked why I thought it was for me. I said that my friend had been blown up diffusing a bomb, and his name was Toby. She told me that it definitely was me and that she could see him crouched down leaning over the bomb. She also mentioned about seeing a body being blasted up into the air.
"She told me how sad she felt. 'Oh, darling I'm so sorry. What a way to die.' I hadn't written on my love letter that Toby Wren was a character from the BBC programme Doomwatch, who I had fallen totally in love with as a 13-year-old. He was played by Robert Powell. I cried for days when Toby was blown up defusing a bomb on a pier. He did however rise again as Jesus of Nazareth."
After reading Drew's blog, I tried to check what had happened. I have emails from two of Drew's colleagues confirming that he had planted or was about to plant messages about Toby for Sally. I also have a Facebook exchange from 17 February confirming his plan. In addition I have talked to an independent person in the audience, who confirms that Drew's blog is a fair account of what happened on stage.
I have also asked Sally's office if Drew's blog is a fair account of what happened, but she has not responded to this question or offered any comment. My attempts to get a response from her solicitors have also drawn a blank.
I am curious to know if Sally thinks it is possible to contact the spirit of a fictional character, or if she coincidentally contacted the spirit of a real person whose life and death matched the experiences of Toby Wren, or if there is an alternative explanation.
So where does this leave us? I, along with Merseyside Skeptics and Professor Chris French, have offered to test Sally and try to end the controversy. Perhaps not surprisingly, Sally declined this opportunity to clear up the issue. As a result of this and the recent incidents described above, I think it is fair to say that her reputation has suffered over the past six months.
Sally has already admitted to crossing the line into grey areas, as outlined in the Independent. In 2007, on the way to conduct a reading with Big Brother winner Brian Dowling for her TV show, Sally was asked if she knew him. She merely replied: "I know of him." However, it later transpired that she had done a reading for Dowling two years earlier. When confronted by the allegation, Sally blamed it on her director for telling her what to say. You can find the second reading on YouTube and judge for yourself whether or not Sally should have been more honest.
I started trawling YouTube to find other readings by Sally. Although I have watched several readings, so far I have only contacted one of the people who received a psychic reading from Sally. Unfortunately for Sally, the result was not very flattering in terms of her methods or her transparency. The clip concerns a group of free runners known as Urban Free Flow. One of the free runners is Ben Milner and he apparently experiences a stunning piece of mediumship just a few minutes into the clip.
The clip shows Sally asking: "Why am I looking at your mum all the time, is there a problem with your mum?" Ben explains that she passed away last year. Sally gives Ben some advice, and then out of the blue she says: "Jean wants to send her love." This turns out to be the name of Ben's mother. He smiles, looks down, turns and walks away. Sally suggests that Ben is upset, and this certainly makes sense to anyone viewing the clip.
However, when I spoke to Ben, he said the editing does not truly reflect his recollection of the sequence of events. According to Ben, the cameras stopped rolling before this part of the reading. He was ready to leave when Sally asked if the name Jean mean anything. Jean might have been a girlfriend, colleague, sister, cousin, next door neighbour, hairdresser … or mother … or nobody.
A skeptic might suggest that Sally was throwing out a random name in the hope of a lucky response. In other words, she might have been on a small fishing expedition. By contrast, a believer might say that Sally was being guided by the spirit world.
Ben explained, while the cameras were not rolling, that Jean was his mother's name and that she had died last year. Sally suggested that they start recording again, at which point we see her regurgitating the information as if it came from the spirit world. She does not hint that much of the information came from Ben off-camera. In fact, when Sally suggests that Ben is upset after he turns away, he told me he was actually grinning in partial disbelief at what had just happened.
This incident might be a one-off, so I am keen to get a bigger picture of what goes on behind the scenes of Sally's TV readings. If Sally has read for you then please do get in touch. Positive or negative experience? Convinced or suspicious? Celebrity or noble citizen? Believer or skeptic? Please let me know what it was like when Sally read for you.
simonsingh.net/contact/
