Coast to Coasting
Against my better intuitive judgement, I went on the highly popular “Coast to Coast AM” radio show to talk about “Psychic Blues” last night. It was an eye opening experience for everyone, not the least of which was me. I knew I was trending head first into the lion’s den by going this route, but without taking some chances, life can become quickly predictable – in a common sense way that is.
My book has been doing well for only being officially in print a month, and in an attempt to boost sales and let people know there is another side to all the paranormal rubbish out there, I arranged a two hour spot with host George Noory. George was much more accommodating than I had anticipated, cooly agreeing with most of my points and making it a special issue to let everyone know that he had “bounced” Sylvia Browne from his show for her egregious Sago Mine readings she did on his show. He himself even brought up the famous Shawn Hornbeck bomb she dropped a few years back and let it be known he will be “vary cautious of booking any psychics on his show from then on.” This was a winning fit as far as I was concerned. There was a no holds barred attitude to the proceedings and I did my best to inject as much humor as possible considering the show normally is overloaded with serious accounts of ghosts, Bigfoot and UFO coverage. George tried in vain to get me to relate stories about people who I had come across who were “real” psychics. Had I ever run into anyone who was the real deal? I said, “…No” twice. He also tried to get my take on the “what about God?’ issue, to which I was happy to use a retort I had recently heard Randi put to good use, ” …Which one?’ I asked. The humor was refreshing and our banter was lighthearted and without the acrimony I expected after dealing with Skeptiko’s Alex Tsakiris, another show that promises a “sciency” look at paranormal subjects.
Robin Foy
The two hour slot: from 10:00p.m. – midnight was positioned to run live before the midnight spook extravaganza, which was all about Robin Foy and ” the Scole Experiment, called one of the most successful examples of physical mediumship and afterlife communication ever.” Yeah right. That’s what it’s called.
Never mind that I had told the producer of C2C that Brian Dunning and I had thoroughly taken the Scole sham apart on “Weird or What” with William Shatner last year. I went to great lengths to make mention of that fact on air to George and added that (in Brian’s words) the biggest red flag in that whole Scoles scam was “… the fact that there’s been no followup. If amazing phenomena truly did happen at the Scole Experiment, it would have changed the world. Mainstream psychologists and other academics would have gotten in on it, it would have made worldwide headlines, and it would be repeated in labs everywhere and become mainstream science.” That’s right George. It’s more than ten years now and the best these guys can come up with is a DVD called “The Afterlife Investigations?” It might have been a more compelling show if they had put me on after the afterlife routine, but that’s not how ratings work in the Arbitron world. I totally understand. The creatures of the night demand their dark thrills. I would have been a major wet blanket to all that hokum, including such things as ” his (Foy’s) study of Marcello Bacci, an Italian medium and “direct radio voice,” whom he believes is able to receive spirit voices, often of deceased children that are recognized by their parents, through his old tube radio.” Sound familair? It should. Just more of the same tired shenanigans of con artists who know that there’s a sucker born every minute and Frank’s broken radio box is always new to someone.
Talkin’ bout the Blues
Several times I had to do my best to direct the show back on track to “Psychic Blues” whenever George would settle into his well- worn groove and begin spinning off into random bits about death, his experiences with magic tricks and other awkward moments. Later, the call-ins were clueless and the usual C2C people with wild anecdotal tales which I was of course expected to explain; one person had premonitions about where to go to find his lost cat. I basically told the listening audience there was nothing paranormal about such things and calmly explained what confirmation bias was and how plenty of people go out looking for their lost cats and don’t find them. George even trotted out that oldest of chestnuts about, “… you are thinking about someone and the next minute they call on the phone!” I thought that went out with pyramid power and bell bottom pants, but I guess it’s always news to someone out there. I did my best to explain that one too. A woman called in and said she saw “lights” around things. I told her to seek an optician. That sort of thing. Probably not the best showcase for my book, but what the hell…
Now I have the dubious pleasure of going through dozens of emails that are being “channeled” to my website, thanks to C2C’s huge radio following . There’s no denying over 3 million listeners. I sold some books last night. The large percentage of quips are genuinely appreciative of my efforts and agree with my stance on psychics and mediumship. The longer and more verbose diatribes are just crazy misspelled rants about my secret Illuminati connections, Bible references and all manner of whacked esoteric nonsense. Obviously, the hard-core Coasters will only hear what they want to hear. One rant angrily dotted with mostly ad hominem attacks on me obviously based on this radio show and not on any reading of the actual book was posted at Amazon’s review section for “Blues” titled “Skeptical of This as Propaganda.” The writer attacked “Blues” as “…A shining gospel to the new-farmed crop of angry 13 year olds, crafted to proselytize and to fuel the fervor of the faithful for the future of wink-and-nudge thought enforcement” and “…the book is an historical fiction-feel celebratory treatise for those who made up their minds at age 13 and need a Sunday Morning boost from the pastor to re-kindle that faith which assuages the chronic unsettling inner angst.” Wow. That oughta’ sell some books!
And BTW Rupert, (the guy’s name,, could it be Sheldrake?) I was never on any payroll or support system at “Skeptic” magazine. Shermer will most certainly vouch for that. Facts are important to some of us.
Wink-and-Nudge
Here’s the link thanks to ConspiracyTheory2012:
Special thanks to my good friends Karen and Brian Hart for loaning me the use of their land line, putting up with me until after midnight and snapping the above pic. It was a fun night.
Next week : DragonCon! Four days of fab lectures and wild performances. I’ll be doing a special set of my “psychic readings” for the SkepticTrack. Free Candy! Drop by the IIG table at SkepticTrack and say hello.
I wish that you all could have heard this interview. It was just riveting! Mark had George backed into a corner several times with his retorts. It was priceless. George would ask Mark a question, like “why do ghost hunting shows find a ghost every week?” Mark would say, “because they can’t sell the show if they don’t find a ghost”. And also “Why do psychics seem to be so accurate on TV shows?” Mark said, “they record for hours and edit it down to fit that show format, the real magic is in the editing room”. Each time Mark answered like this, George got sorta quiet and said “oh”.
It was like Mark was taking all the fun out of George’s world.
Mark told him several times, “science is what we have to work with” and “when we use science to look at that problem, here is what we get… ” and over and over Mark told him “does it make any sense that a psychic would only be able to give you general info about your grandmother, like she liked to garden and wore a hat?”
One guy called in and said that he saw a psychic years ago that told him all kinds of details about his life, Mark asked, “so how did that get arranged?” the guy said, “my step-mother” Mark said, “well there you go, that’s how the psychic knew so much”. The man said “no, the psychic told me details about me getting injured in the war that I had never told anyone, the trees and the mountains” Mark told him, “well I can’t tell what happened, I would to have been there to watch your body language and the way the psychic framed the statements to you, you could have given her all kinds of info”.
He talked about how you remember the hits and forget the misses, I loved when he told George that about the phone ringing. He said, how often to you think of someone and the phone doesn’t ring? You forget about all those times.
And Mark told the audience several times, “coincidences happen all the time, if they didn’t happen from time to time, then THAT would be really weird”.
People would call in with stories about their past (one was a guy who says he remembered something from when he was 2) and then George would say “how do you explain that Mark?” Mark would say, “well it is a story, things happen, what about it?”
It was really great. I hope someone can find the copy of it somewhere.
This show was a lot of fun. I’m glad I stayed up and listened to it.
Hahaha – well, it sure sounds like one of Sheldrake’s diatribes – maybe it *was* good ol’ Rupe. Rile him again – he’s always good for a laugh (though I can’t help feeling just a little mean for laughing at him).
Man, I wish I had a recording of that show to listen to.
Mark, ghostly good job! I hope you scared the nonsense out of the C2C crowd.
Such as yourself, “Coast to Coast AM” is a great show – about 2%percent of the time. It’s all contingent on the guest, where 98% are either cranks, charlatans, conspiracy mongers, and all things twaddle bunkum.
Here’s the show, folks. Thank ConspiracyTheory2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfgMV17-tsg
Thanks ConspiracyTheory2012 and Max. Now we can give a listen.
Hey Mark, can you tell when someone is lying just by observing the person’s demeanor?
For example here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Uos2fzIJ0
Most of the time…yes. However, I have been involved with a woman in my past who was a very clever sociopath, and I nearly fell for her lies again recently …after 45 years! I knew better, but hope for change often springs eternal… It occurs to me those times in my distant past when I was less inclined to be skeptical probably helped (through osmosis) teach me how to lie convincingly.
But … Didn’t Richard Wiseman just publish an article on how you can’t reliably tell whether someone is lying by their demeanor?
Did he? There was this experiment in 2007.
http://www.quirkology.com/USA/Experiment_lying.shtml
“In this new experiment, around 70% of [people] correctly identified the lie – suggesting either that participants were good lie detectors or Jeremy is not a very good liar! There was no difference between those who saw the video and those who only heard the soundtrack, suggesting that the visual signals (such as facial expressions and body language) do not help people detect lies. Finally, we found that people with a science background were the best lie detectors, followed by visual artists, engineers, and finally mathematicians.”
It may seem surprising that people with a science background did the best until you realize they were assessing whether a guy is honest when he says his favorite film is The Fifth Element or when he says it’s The Core. It’s like, “Is his favorite snack a ham sandwich or a turd sandwich?”
cowardly fraud.
Zwinge’s millon $ challenge is rigged. He changes the rules as he goes.
But John Edward’s readings are not. But if they were surely YOU could discern, when you had a private reading. Or with Nan O’brien, who conducts her readings by phone. Come on “INVESTIGATOR” Or should I say COWARDLY FRAUD, contribute to humanity. Or should I say flat earther,
standing on shore declaring mediums are frauds while never venturing forth in pursuit of the only evidence that should be credible to you.
Terrible writer! :P
You are wrong. I have “ventured forth” for the last 40 or so years. That’s what the “Psychic Blues” is about. Read it, then tell me what’s “the only evidence that should be credible to you.”
I’ll research more. However, I find close minded skeptics (debunkers) unlike healthy skeptics, such as I,if I may, have never personally had a reading. Indeed,
Mr Zwinge used less than five minutes of John Edward’s first show for his “expose”Needless to say he has never been read by a respected medium.
What exactly is a “respected medium?”
I’ll wager that pesron, whomever he or she is in your opinion, is not very well respected by parents of missing children who are told their child is dead when they are later found alive or alive when they are later found dead.
Research more here: http://www.whatstheharm.net
I’m not a de-bunker. Five minutes is more than enough time to know that John Edward is bogus.
Otherwise: Prove it John.
figured you would jump on “respected” I was thinking of Nan O’brien or John. Long
island medium looks promising. Don’t know any others, but they are around. I don’t trust
Sylvia Browne, Van prague turns my stomach.
You ask them to prove it. I’m saying prove it to yourself. You know where to find them,
they are not hiding. Your test of preference is standing around a subject with note pads,
counting hits?
I ask myself, I wonder if Nan O’brien is for real? How could I find out? Do I stay here
in my ivory tower, stuck in my head, rationalizing away the irrational? after all the
ego is safer here, not challenging my local/ linear /space /time/ material/
paradigm reality. With 40 years invested in the ego, why risk it’s survival by being the subject. It couldn’t trust it’s self with incontrovertible evidence.
I was very interested in listening to you Mark. And while I do not consider myself a believer of all things ghostly, I do like to think some of it just might be so. The fun of C2C is the craziness that takes place with many of the guests and certainly the callers. George comes across as an honest, agreeable host who treats all guests with the respect and dignity they deserves, whether he believes in them or not.
The thing I found interesting was the frustration you appeared to have when he would not mention the your book enough. You certainly plugged it plenty yourself. His interviews do tend to meander and this really seemed to bother you. Your parting plug as the credits were rolling (something to the effect “I’d like to be one of your go to people”) was priceless, especially after reading your recap of events of the show. You and the almighty dollar are pretty tight.
First off, giving national air time that goes out to millions of listeners to people who tell grieving parents their children are dead when they are later are found alive or tell parents their missing children are alive when they are later found dead is not “fun.” That sort of C2C “craziness” is neither honest or agreeable and anyone claiming psychic powers or that they work with poilce in that capacity deserves neither respect or dignity. It’s unproven bullshit that hurts people for life.
If you like to think that such as ghosts “just might be so,” I suggest you read the facts backed by science based research and police records rather than sensational tabloid radio.
I was never frustrated, just amazed at the blind well-worn grooove the show slid into from the get go. I was clearly there to discuss my book, it’s implications for the paranormal community and the core if the issue: fraud. I was not there to waste precious aitime debating the existence of God or find lost pets.
Yes, the almighty dollar and I are preety tight, since the vast majority of listeners to shows like C2C throw away millions of dollars annually on worthless psychics and mediums while the trend toward critical thinking and taking a rational view on such blatant criminality of the worst kind is generally forced to subsist on ten second sound bites carefully edited out to insure ratings by people like Dr. Phil.
I can assure you every penny I earn from the sale of my book will go to further understanding and toward true investigation of the issues using fact based science and real world testing by officially recognized professionals who meet the essential requirements of academic excellence to do so, not entertainment radio hosts.
Until someone can step forward and explain to me (and the listening audience which includes the rest of the world, scientific and otherwise) just what exactly a ghost is without recourse to the usual “if you will” prefaces or “there are more things in heaven and earth..” excuses, and where the evidence is for talking to dead people for profit and how that works to help grieving relatives, I will remain doggedly walking every step in reality, and alas, poor but hopeful.
If you feel so strongly against the show, which is your absolute right, why did you or your people lobby to be on it? Makes no sense. I do believe you can debunk these people who claim they can speak to the dead. And I am in agreement that no one should give those grieving for lost ones false hope. Those people should be exposed at all cost. And I have no problem with your area of expertise, I believe you to be very successful. But in some way you gotta feel like a sell out for going on a show that you feel so strongly against.
The show is bad because it gives an uncritical platform for bullshit artists. Mark Edward’s appearance made it less bad and perhaps mitigated some of the damage.
Sell-outs don’t “beard the lion in his den.” They remain comfortable in their own world waiting for someone else to do the heavy lifting. When harm is done, The onus remains on those who make unsubstiated claims and the venues who support them.
Mark, don’t get me wrong I understand the pull to go on a show like that with the prospects of selling many books. But it’s not your crowd. They (and me)are what they are and you’ll never convert them. So why bother trying. There have to be other, better venues for you to promote your body of work. Two hours of your time was probably not a huge sacrifice and the sales most likely panned out OK. But you are better than that (from what I can tell) and while there may be some who look to deceive I don’t necessarily think George is one of them or a shill for any snake oil salesperson out there claiming other worldly powers.
Thank you for the back and forth. It’s been very enjoyable. – Anita
I’m certainly open for suggestions for other more appropriate venue options to talk about my book. I have contacted Leno, Ellen, Anderson, Dr, Phil, The View and dozens of other media people in television and radio, so far without success. I’m still trying to reach Howard Stern…
I need a big name to take a big interest.
Any ideas?
I always wondered, who pays whom to appear on those shows?
Hi Mark,
How are you? I hope you are well.
Mark, by your own admission, you are not a real psychic but I am and skeptics refuse anecdotes yet you promote Tim Farley’s nothing but anecdotes site whatstheharm.com WITHOUT the other side of the story which would be a site called whatstheharmpharm because I guarantee you that Medical Science and drugs kill and harm more people than chiropractors and homeopathy,
I have my spirit guide Merlin and if your recall, Chip Coffey has been cyber bullying with his hillbilly friends for the last four years and it was drudged up again in October of 2011 when I fostered two dogs for a sociopath and Chip Coffey actually contacted her and friended her and launched another relentless attack on my being. Chip wrote me in an email, that he “applauded” what these women were doing to me.
Upon reading that, I said, “That’s it, Merlin, I want to be on Dr. Phil.”
I wrote to Chip on July 27th and on August 3rd I was contacted by the Dr. Phil show. However, I was not the right fit for the Dr. Phil show but that does not matter to me. It was just Merlin’s way of making me feel better.
The producers wanted to know if I have clients that use me to their detriment such as spending too much money or not being able to make a move without checking with me and I said, “I would never allow anyone to use me in a manner that is unhealthy or frivolous.” And most of my clients I only read for once because that is all they need.
On August 14th, I read for a woman and guided her on a beautiful journey and when we were wrapping it up. She said, “I am coming to L.A. to be on the Dr. Phil show and I would love to meet you.”
It turns out it was the same show that I was not right for and her segment was about, “Why do you believe in spirit guides?”
The show taped on August 21st which is Chip Coffey’s birthday.
On September 21st 2012, I went to the Johnny Carson park with my three dogs and a film production crew was filming people with their dogs for a pet show and they asked me to participate and they filmed me right there on the spot.
I asked the producer if they had ever done a show about Animal Rescue Fraud and I told them the hell that this woman Kimberly Glasnapp has put me through. They thought it was a great idea and they are going to pitch it.
I asked them “What other shows do you do?” They said they work for a production company based out of England who produces America’s Got Talent, American Idol, The X Factor and I almost fell over when they said, “And they also do a show that is only seen in England called MERLIN!!”
That’s what a real psychic does.
That’s the real magic of the amazing universe, not parlor tricks and cold readings.
Cheers!
The producers wanted to know if you have clients that use you to their detriment. You said no, but your client did go on the show. Does that mean she uses you to her detriment?
“And most of my clients I only read for once because that is all they need.”
I can think of another reason.
Do you almost fall over whenever you hear Merlin or Lennon or Elvis or any of your other spirit guides mentioned?