Smoke and Mirrors

How psychics manipulate the masses 

By Kacey Joslin

What happens after we die? What does the future hold for me? What is my dog thinking? 

These burning questions can cause midlife crises and heated debates. They’re the basis of some religions, the plots of popular television shows (“The Good Place,” “Miracle Workers,” “Ghost Whisperer”) and to fiction writers, the concept is free real estate. Mystery is incredibly marketable and consumers are willing to pay inordinate amounts of money to have these questions answered. 

Out of respect for religious beliefs that intersect with spirituality, I will refrain from making broad generalizations. “Psychic” will be used here as an umbrella term for those who claim (emphasis on claim) to use extraordinary abilities and intuition to connect with the human soul and all things spiritual. These psychics are those who have been caught profiting off of the grieving, desperate, curious and deluded. Their tactics have been researched extensively and are proven to be ruses. Whether it be claiming to predict the future, heal the ill, commune with the dead or speak to animals, there is a large number of infamous psychics who make a career off of pretending. Thankfully, there’s a society of skeptics and scholars dedicated to exposing them. 

With all the disclaimers aside, let’s get to the fun part: debunking. 

To “debunk” is to expose a scam for its falsehoods. A phrase like “debunking” is often found among conspiracy theorists and “myth busters,” but more frequently, it’s used when fact-checking a piece of fake news. 

Scams are evolving, and so-called psychics use the same resources as traditional scammers. The internet and social media are an easy way for psychics to access your private information. 

Hot readings are when psychics do research and gather information on their client before meeting them in person. When clients register for professional psychic readings, they—at a bare minimum—sign up using their full names, phone numbers, emails, addresses, and payment information. With those details, psychics can search databases, news clippings and ancestry sites that reveal family and death records of their customers. Other tools, such as Google Maps, can locate a person’s home and find details about their neighborhood, and nearby landmarks.

Hot readings are particularly common when a medium is attempting to “read” a celebrity. 

It’s easier to find personal information on a celebrity or public figure by combing through interviews and blog posts. For example, ABC News’ Josh Elliott had a reading with renowned medium James Van Praagh and was shocked at how much personal information the medium “intuitively” knew. Later, however, Elliott was able to trace those tidbits of information to an interview he had given years before; which included personal details about his adoption and his stepfather’s death. When asked to “read” someone else, who he hadn’t researched, Van Praagh cited tiredness and opted out. 

Larger audiences might seem more difficult to “hot read,” but one tactic mediums use is “rigging,” where they plant actors in the audience. Another hot reading tactic, “sifting,” is when the medium or their employees drift into the audience and gather information before the reading begins. 

Peter Popoff, a well-known psychic, was a preacher and faith healer who would ‘divine’ which audience members needed healing. In 1986, Popoff was revealed to require audience members to fill out prayer cards that detailed their physical ailments. He would disguise his staff and spouse as audience members. Via a radio receiver in his ear, they would indicate which attendees would be the most receptive to his “prayers.” 

Other psychics, such as “Psychic Sally,” have also been accused of wearing earpieces that allowed their backstage staff to feed them information. 

Because of the research and backchannels that psychics need to navigate, hot readings require far more work and preparation. More commonly, psychics will use “cold readings” or “spontaneous readings,” in which they approach someone without prior research.

I consider this tactic to be a literal psychic hustle. It’s manipulation at its worst, simply based on the fact that you can conduct your own ‘cold readings’ with only a basic grasp of human psychology. 

Reading body language is the first requirement of being a good cold-reader. If the audience is nodding, smiling, or crying, the psychic knows they’re on the right track. If an audience member seems confused, mediums might move on quickly and shoot out other questions. 

Some mediums refer to this as their “process”—sifting through “ideas” and “images” from spirits that ‘aren't always clear.’ 

“Shotgunning” is another tactic that has the broadest reach and is useful when performing in front of a large audience. The psychic poses a question to the audience and, statistically, someone is bound to have a connection with it. 

For instance, a medium might ask, “Who has a father figure who has passed, something with the brain?” The question is kept intentionally vague, as there are multiple conditions that apply—aneurysm, dementia, brain tumor, Alzheimer’s, etc. Statistics are incredibly important to take into account. Mediums are playing the odds and need to pose questions with the highest probability. 

Guessing names, for example, seems like a crapshoot. James is the most common name psychics guess and, unsurprisingly, James is one of the most popular baby names in the United States. Chances are, if you’re not named James, you know someone who is. If the psychic is particularly unlucky and James doesn’t stick, they broaden their scope. J-sounding names, such as Gerry, George, Gerald, or J as an initial will likely apply to someone, and that’s just math. 

Heart attacks and cancer are, statistically, the highest causes of death. A psychic might approach a crowd and reference a father figure—this could mean grandparents, fathers, fatherly friends, uncles, whatever—that died of a heart attack and is connected to a ‘J’ name. It’s likely that someone fits the parameters. The fact mediums can list three distinct facts—fatherly figure, heart attack, associated with a J name—is specific enough to fool people, and has fooled people, for decades. 

Vague questions are a staple of psychic readings. For instance, take the colorfully named tactic the “rainbow ruse.” A rainbow ruse is a statement that contains conflicting adjectives. If a medium mentions a spirit feeling nervous, and receives no verbal or expressive response from the person they’re reading, they might turn it on their head and say “...which is totally unlike them, because they’re usually so outgoing.” 

“Vanishing negatives” are similar to rainbow ruses in which the psychic watches a client’s response for any indication that it’s time to flip the script. “Are you good with children?” they might ask, and whether the answer is affirmative or negative, the psychic would respond, with a laugh, “Right, I didn’t think so” or “I thought so.” 

Barnum statements are named after P.T. Barnum, the so-called “Greatest Showman.” P.T. was a well-known lover of scams. He would claim his shows had “something for everyone.” Barnum Statements are things that can apply to everyone; you’ll see them a lot in horoscopes or fortune cookies. “You’ve recently suffered a disappointment” is one example. “You feel restless in some part of your life” is another. “You often think back to better days.” 

A Barnum statement is also attributed to statements that seem obvious, based on their demographic; “You’re related to an elderly person who had pain in their legs or hips.” Yeah, old people feel pain…that’s a no-brainer. 

Psychics also tend to throw out uncompleted phrases or standalone concepts and expect their audience to fill in the blanks. “How does the number 6 apply to you?” It could be a date, an age, the month of June, or the number of letters in their name. 

Whether or not they can commune with the dead or see the future, it’s awfully suspicious how easily we can debunk their “unique” techniques.

So many mediums have been caught using these methods, that perhaps—now, this is just me thinking aloud—the term “psychic” should be renamed to “psychotic.”