From Skeptic to Believer: News Anchor Gets a First Time Reading from a Medium

[Ninshub]

Just came across this and thought I'd share it FWIW.

Just came across this and thought I'd share it FWIW.

Thanks for this. Obviously when dealing with public figures, there's a danger that mediums may be able to acquire information by normal means. For example, it seems that the male presenter, Michael Clayton, had been a well known American Football player, and had written an autobiography in 2013, three years before joining the TV station. Just dipping briefly into the preview on Amazon, there is stuff there about growing up in an environment where drugs and alcohol were a problem, the friends he had lost through death and so on:
https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-My-Rookie...1494446081

Thanks for this. Obviously when dealing with public figures, there's a danger that mediums may be able to acquire information by normal means. For example, it seems that the male presenter, Michael Clayton, had been a well known American Football player, and had written an autobiography in 2013, three years before joining the TV station. Just dipping briefly into the preview on Amazon, there is stuff there about growing up in an environment where drugs and alcohol were a problem, the friends he had lost through death and so on:
https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-My-Rookie...1494446081

Looking more closely, essentially everything the medium says to Clayton could have been lifted from the section of his autobiography about his friend Steve Williams. Obviously that's who Clayton thought the medium was talking about, because he interjects "He moved with me", as Williams did:
https://books.google.com/books?id=6RhXDQ...3&lpg=PT33

[Ninshub]

Some of the details of what he told the woman, though, seemed specific and on target.

[Ninshub]

Chris, I'd posted this other one quite a while back on Skeptiko, which had gotten some traction - I don't remember if you were there then. This is stronger in regards to the criticisms with the previous video.

This one was part of a mediumship research/experiment project (Donna Smith-Moncrieffe).

Chris, I'd posted this other one quite a while back on Skeptiko, which had gotten some traction - I don't remember if you were there then. This is stronger in regards to the criticisms with the previous video.

This one was part of a mediumship research/experiment project (Donna Smith-Moncrieffe).

Thanks. With regard to the female TV presenter, some of the details did seem quite personal, but without knowing how much she might have shared with people on social media - for example - it's difficult to know, isn't it?

From an evidential point of view, it's obviously far better if the medium doesn't know who the sitter is, and if the sitter is giving minimal feedback, as in (most of) that second video. (A proxy sitter would be even better.) I thought some of it did seem quite impressive. But it's a big leap to conclude it's unequivocal evidence of communication with the dead, rather than telepathy. What I didn't believe was that the medium was simply relaying the words of a dead man, as he claimed towards the end. Surely that kind of conversation would have been very different!

[Ninshub]

What I didn't believe was that the medium was simply relaying the words of a dead man, as he claimed towards the end. Surely that kind of conversation would have been very different!

Why is that exactly? (If you care to expand.)

By the way, obviously this is not an ideally controlled experiment. But in regards to some youtube comments that imply there's nothing evidential here because the sitter's body language gave the medium feedback, I fail to see how any lack of such control here can explain the medium coming up with the extremely meaningful words "donkeydick" and "pickles".

[Pollux]

Chris, I'd posted this other one quite a while back on Skeptiko, which had gotten some traction - I don't remember if you were there then. This is stronger in regards to the criticisms with the previous video.

This one was part of a mediumship research/experiment project (Donna Smith-Moncrieffe).

Here is the debriefing with this man, after the reading - and his reactions and response to it all. He seems rather impressed, being a guy coming in thinking it was "all bullshit", but comes out with a totally different world view.

Why is that exactly? (If you care to expand.)

I mean I don't think a dead man was simply talking to the medium and the medium was relaying what he was saying. Otherwise he would have been saying something like "Do you remember that time just before Christmas when we went to the little Chinese Restaurant in Sutherland Street, and I realised I hadn't got any money and had to go out to a cashpoint halfway through the meal?", rather than "What does Donkeydick mean?"

If it was communication with a dead man, it was more like odd emotions and words being picked up with difficulty, rather than the kind of verbal communication people normally have.

I mean I don't think a dead man was simply talking to the medium and the medium was relaying what he was saying. Otherwise he would have been saying something like "Do you remember that time just before Christmas when we went to the little Chinese Restaurant in Sutherland Street, and I realised I hadn't got any money and had to go out to a cashpoint halfway through the meal?", rather than "What does Donkeydick mean?"

If it was communication with a dead man, it was more like odd emotions and words being picked up with difficulty, rather than the kind of verbal communication people normally have.

I agree. Mediums sometimes have the annoying habit of presenting information as a question too. Why not just say "he's saying  XYZ" instead of turnIng it into a question for the sitter? It may be a genuine connection but can start to look like fishing for information.