The Ghost Hunter, The Psychic and the Sting in the Tail.

On the last post I wrote about Amy Bruni and her outburst against skeptics, and in particular skeptical activism. People who know more about Amy than I, have expressed some surprise at her comments. Especially as, being an investigator, she should know the value of a skeptical approach.

Many are wondering, as did I, what was the cause of this outburst, why now? I'm pretty sure I have the answer. I actually hit on it in the post I wrote.

Before going on to that its worth mentioning that Amy has issued something of a retraction, which I repost here in the interest of fairness:

"Let me just elaborate on a few things regarding my "skeptics" post because I feel my responses are getting lost in the comments.First of all - I welcome skepticism. I love and think we need skeptics to bring up logical arguments to what we experience. I love when scientists assist us - because for me anyway, the goal is answers. I won't believe you if you present me with a blanket statement like, "Ghosts don't exist" - because I've seen them and I've experienced them. I will be more apt to listen if you give me an explanation as to what they could be, or try to help me find out. My belief is that most paranormal phenomena can and will be explained by science one day. I welcome help with that, because I will be the first to admit, I'm no scientist. Also, please stop falling on the argument that I employed scientific methods while on television. I'm not kidding myself - of course I didn't.Also, believing in psychics and ghosts does not mean I think every single experience or self proclaimed psychic is legitimate. So yes, I do think people who are interested in these things need to be realistic and even, harsh on them. Be hard on your evidence, don't believe everything every psychic tells you. Be careful who you give your money to, go with your gut.
What I'm saying is, I stand very much in the middle. I am very passionate about this "field" - but I am also very realistic about it. It means I shoot down 99% of the evidence I collect or see. It means I am more apt to take everything a psychic tells me with a grain of salt. Note it? Yes. Make life decisions based on it? No.
Critical thinking IS severely lacking in this field and it makes us easy targets. Which brings me back to my original post. Again, I have nothing against skeptics in general - but I do have everything against the methods some are employing and the fact they are attacking people who I love and trust intensely. Furthermore, I am a free thinker and everyone should have that right. It is not anyone else's job to make those decisions for you. Their argument is they're saving you from yourself. I say - stop worrying about people who don't need your advice or sympathy. Live and let live. And trust that people are grown up enough to make their own decisions.
Ok, I have a LOT of work to do today and this snow won't quit! smile emoticon So, until next time. Love and respect for everyone!
xoxoxoxo
~a"

Fair enough..... But Amy is standing by her initial comments regarding skeptical activism:

 " I have nothing against skeptics in general - but I do have everything against the methods some are employing and the fact they are attacking people who I love and trust intensely." 

So what Amy is saying is:

"Be hard on your evidence, don't believe everything every psychic tells you. Be careful who you give your money to, go with your gut..... UNLESS ITS MY MATE! YOU SHOULD TRUST HIM IMPLICITLY!"

So who is this friend she is referring to? And what have us nasty skeptics done to him that's upset Amy so much?

A quick search through the comments thread on the original post yields an answer:














Its none other than "psychic" Chip Coffey!

Amy, with friends like chip, you really don't need enemies. The man is utterly reprehensible!
Even if I accept for a moment that Chippy Tea is in possession of "psychic abilities", he isn't, he should receive nothing but condemnation for his involvement with the TV show "Psychic Kids". This was a show, so bottom of the barrel, it took children and "trained" them to use their "abilities". This clearly involved the enforcement of delusion, and involved adults, in some cases, insisting that the kids should try to "see" ghost and spirits. In one particular episode, the only one I could stomach, Coffey took a clearly traumatised 14 year old child back to her old family home, where clearly something terrible had happened, and encouraged them to confront a "dark force" (The Demon House- 30th June 2008).

AND ALL FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT!

Chip, you are scum. The makers of this show are scum. And I don't give a damn who thinks that is unfair. Your mere involvement with that show means that you were involved with the exploitation of children. And vulnerable children at that!

 Bottom line: that's the worst of the worst.

So basically its Operation Bumble Bee that Amy is so worked up about.

Devised by Skeptic Susan Gerbic, Operation Bumble was designed to expose Chip as using "Hot Reading" methods in his shows. Before I carry on, its worth noting, the skeptical community in general is very divided on projects such as Gerbic's. Some see them as counter productive and damaging to "skepticism" in general. Personally I have always believed that skeptics should be more concerned with outreach and education than operations such as this.

There is no doubt that this Operation put money in Chip's pockets, which I'm sure everyone involved would have preferred to avoid. Unfortunately it was a necessary evil.




When it comes to "characters" such as Coffey, I genuinely believe the measures taken to expose him were warranted. The man profits from the grief of others. Let's not worry too much about "fairness" towards him.

I'll let Gerbic describe, in her own words how the operation proceeded. You can read a comprehensive version of this here.

Unfortunately the operation wasn't as conclusive as one would have hoped. As Gerbic says:

"As you will read from the blogs that recounted what happened at the Los Angeles and San Jose events, Chip Coffey did not use these Facebook profiles at all to get a hot read. He did clearly communicate with our nonexistent family members, but he learned about those because we had been loudly chatting to everyone around us about who we were there for. When he stated from stage that he was "getting an older woman and a child," we sprang on that statement as coming from our people. Then we just rode it through agreeing to everything he said.

In our opinion, everything he said that entire night could have been a cold read. Everything was general, and the audience gave lots of feedback and information. At least a third of the room had paid $160 to get a seat near the front. People who have invested this much money and time reading his books, attending his live shows, and memorizing his TV performances are likely to overlook any mistakes he might make and not be interested in an alternative explanation for his accuracy.The only thing that could be considered a hot read was the statement he made to me: When I said privately to his manager during a break that I was worried that my son Matthew would be too young to contact, I was assured that Chip had reached children who were stillborn. Then when Chip spoke to me thirty minutes later he said, "You said you are worried that I won't be able to reach your son." The only person I had said that to was his manager.After all this work, months of preparing, and over $900 given to the Chip Coffey experiment, all we could be reasonably sure of is that he did not know we were skeptics and he did not know we were lying, and he claimed to have seen the two nonexistent people we pretended to have: a sister for Jan and my son Matthew. He "spoke" to Wade's dead mother who was really alive and is nothing like the personality that he described. He even smiled through the photo session we had paid extra for. In my opinion, there was nothing more we could have done to make it as easy as possible for the Coffey team to find our bait and repeat it back as messages from the other side.I know the argument could be made that even psychics have a bad day and "it doesn't work like that," but if he was able to clearly see all that he had seen that night, hundreds of statements down to one woman from the spirit world showing him a bottle of Vicks Vapor Rub, then you would think that one of these spirits would have told him to avoid us. Yet he didn't."

Clearly this, while not a stellar success, was enough to rattle Amy's cage. Chip himself has posted about it on his Facebook page. The posts have all the cocky arrogance of a man who has had a very lucky escape.

One might also question: If Operation Bumble Bee was such a failure, why did it prompt Amy to rail against it?

 He implies that he is somehow going to get back at the skeptics who coordinated this.

I've got a suggestion.

Submit yourself to testing Chip! Surely that would be the best way to hit out at all skeptics everywhere. Prove that you actually have the abilities you claim under rigorously controlled conditions.

Because if you would submit to this, there would be no need for "stings" or anything else.

So let's do this!

Here's a psychic prediction of my own:

You won't will you? 

As I stated on the last post, believers should be behind this kind of action. They should be even more motivated to expose the frauds than skeptics. As such they could rally behind Chip taking a formal test...

Dear Amy.... Addressing common misconceptions about skeptics.

This blog is a response to a message posted by Amy Bruni on facebook today 16/02/15. The reason I'm writing back to Amy is I think that she has some common misconceptions about skeptics and, in particular, the operations and causes they take up.
For those of you who don't know, Amy is one of the investigators on "Ghost Hunters", one of the more popular examples of the current glut of paranormal TV shows. As such, she's never really registered that much with me. I don't mean this as a slight. I don't bother with paranormal investigation shows, they are nothing but fluff really. The methods they use are laughable and the results obtained, frankly, questionable to say the least.

Here's Amy's post:

Dear Amy,

I am writing to you in response to a widely shared Facebook post you made on 16/02/15. as it seems to repeat some of the many misconceptions and misunderstandings "believers" tend to have about "skeptics". Chiefly the confusion between a "skeptic" and a "cynic". A cynic seeks to dismiss claims out of hand regardless of evidence. This is a position that is almost as illogical as accepting a claim without evidence. A skeptic is simply a person looking for evidence to verify a claim before they accept it. A cynic is close minded. A skeptic, usually, anything but.

Don't confuse the two.

I agree with your proposal of everyone's right to hold a belief, or a set of beliefs. But this is quite different than stating that these beliefs should remain unchallenged! Its also quite different to imply that all beliefs are equally valid. Put simply, beliefs that are ill-formed and based on little to no evidence, should be challenged.

Amy do you really think that its "weird" that skeptics seek out disscussions with believers? I don't. I think that many believers don't come to skeptical meetings because they don't want their beliefs challenged. They aren't secure enough in their beliefs to defend them. Most skeptics would love believers to come to skeptical conferences, most of us love talking about these topics. Most of us like to be challenged!

Why should believers and skeptics remain separate?

For many believers this is a matter of convenience and comfort, they simply don't want to consider opposition to their position. That isn't healthy and its certainly not productive.

That's the opposite of why skeptics such as myself engage with the conversation. I'm comfortable in my approach to the supernatural, so I'm willing to look at the opposing views. Many believers want this too, they are adopting a skeptical outlook as well.  Because scepticism isn't a whole hearted rejection of any and all beliefs. Its adopting the scientific method to analyse claims and beliefs. This isn't a negative thing, nor does it mean that believers immediately have to drop any or all belief. They just have to accept that the evidence isn't there yet. Whether they continue to look or not. That's down to them.

Why would anyone want to limit this growth, which comes through interaction?

Unless they stand to lose something, of course.

You talk about skepticism as a belief system. It isn't, and this is an extremely common misrepresentation. Skepticism is a common position that is held by most of the world's population Amy. For example, when you shop for a used car and you check under the hood, look for rust and check the wheel bearings, you are applying skepticism. You are not accepting the word of the seller verbatim. You are wanting to obverse and test things for yourself. Its sensible. It would be reckless to do otherwise, right?

Now if that seller, refused to allow you to examine that car, If they were filled if righteous indignation and demanded you leave their property, and further more implied that you were some how, less of a person for trying to impart some of what you had learned about the car to other potential buyers... you'd be mighty suspicious of their motivation wouldn't you?

So you can conclude there that skepticism is a process that you've gone through to examine a specific claim. Yet turning that process on claims of the supernatural is somehow distasteful to you it seems. Why should we question the claims of the used car sales man but leave the psychic unchecked?

You then move on to the subject of skeptical activism. I have a quite strong stance on this. Believers should not be opposing skeptical activism, they should be WHOLE HEARTEDLY SUPPORTING IT.

There is absolutely no doubt that there are frauds and charlatans at work in the paranormal field. Even the strongest believer would have to admit that there those in the field who are claiming such skills and abilities falsely for the purpose of extracting money from others. If you are a believer surely you would want these fraudsters exposed?

I've talked about this "sorting of the wheat from the chaff" in the paranormal field for some time, in my opinion its about time that believers started working with skeptics on projects such as Susan Gerbic's excellent two-part Operation Bumblebee and Ice cream Cone, which exposed techniques used by a particular psychic. Surely this is a good thing for believers?

Unless you have a sinking feeling that maybe all psychics are faking their abilities in one way or other, either knowingly or unknowingly. Maybe you feel that when one of the cards is removed the whole house of cards is at risk?

In that case it would prudent to discourage these kind of actions. Polarising believers to see "skeptics" as the enemy somehow. To create and us versus them type mentality. Would this help persuade believers not to scrutinise any claims at all?

As for us skeptics having something better to do: yep there's lots we could all be doing to help the poor and the needy. Your BLATANT appeal to emotion there is duly noted. I for one happen to think that it is DAMN important to encourage others to think critically. And that's all skeptics involved in this kind of action are doing.

We want people to think more critically. We aren't telling anyone what to think. We want to show people how to think more clearly.

And the brilliant thing is, we've all been there. Most skeptics were at some time, believers of some description. Hell, many of us still are.

There was a time when I believed all sorts of nonsense. No one could have discouraged me from having these beliefs, but when I started to read about critical thinking and the importance of evidence and testing and the burden of proof, etc... I started to untangle these things naturally, by myself.

But its not like encouraging critical thinking could save a life is it?

Actually... I'm pretty positive that it could.

Gloria Sam, a child who died of a severe, but treatable skin compliant, in Austarlia 2009 could have perhaps been saved if her parents had been exposed to critical thinking. If they had consulted standard health care instead of relying on homeopathy, I have little doubt she would be alive, and they would not be jailed.

What about the children of a Maryland Mother who murdered them in an "exorcism" attempt last year? Would they still be alive if their mother had been exposed to critical thinking techniques? Would they still be alive if there was less propagation of the idea of demons and possession as fact throughout the media?

One can only speculate. But I'd be willing to bet the the promotion of critical thinking would definitely lessen human suffering as a whole. If you need persuading of the URGENT need for the encouragement of critical thinking visit What's The Harm. There you will find a whole raft of cases were a little critical thinking could have lessened suffering, or saved a child's life.

What's this got to do with exposing of psychics, and the highlighting of faked evidence for ghosts, or something as simple as pointing out that "orbs" aren't the spirits of the dead, but very explainable phenomena?

The connection is that critical thinking has to start somewhere, often it starts small.

Sometimes it takes practice, sometimes it takes the simpler demonstrations to lead to something greater and more worthwhile.

Early on in your post, you use the word "accosting". Again I think this is an appeal to emotion. But I'd like to show you a real "accosting". This is a video of the abuse, skeptic Mark Tilbrook received whilst handing out leaflets outside a Sally Morgan show last year. The perpetrators were Morgan's husband and son. The abuse including numerous homophobic slurs and threats of violence.


 

 The next time you decide to use such a hyperbolic phrase as "accosting" perhaps you could consider the abuse Tilbrook received and question "Is a skeptic asking for evidence of a claim really on a par with that?"

Tilbrook's crime was simply one of trying to encourage critical thinking. His leaflet (reproduced below) did not attack Morgan or any other physic directly. It was simply designed to encourage critical thinking about psychic's and their methods. Why would this warrant such aggression?







































Hopefully reading this may of better informed you on the skeptical approach, and hopefully persuaded you that critical thinking is a desperately needed commodity.

Robert Lea
- Skeptic's Boot.

PS. Wondering what was the cause of Amy's outburst. I've followed this up here.