Enquente Exclusive
Fellow magician and bizarrist, Erick Fearson sent me a link to a French television news special on psychics and mediums that I worked on back in October. Several days of shooting seems to have produced quite a exposure of fakery. Not speaking French, from what I can “intuit” as they say, it looks really good. Finally someone is stepping up and graphically showing the lowest depths people like Maureen Hancock, VanPraagh and Sylvia Browne will go.I can’t be sure of the final tone on this show until I hear from someone who speaks fluent French, but sandwiched between Jim Underdown and I showing exactly how Hancock got her miraculous information, the entire Shawn Hornbeck/Browne drama revealed and myself doing banana readings, the whole enterprise should generate a lot of skepticism. Let’s hope so.
Gee, I wonder if witch Dr. Phil speaks French?
This link will apparently only be up until Sunday, Jan. 13, so please watch the link below and let me know what you think.
I had to go to m6replay.fr/ then paste in everything beginning with #. C’est tout merde de vache.
You have to copy/paste the link instead of clicking on it to see the program.
Please correct the headline : “Enquête exclusive”.
French skeptic here, I may help to translate if needed.
Croa croa.
Can you please tell us about the general tone was? I’m assuming it was very sketical, but can’t tell apart from the Shawn Hornbeck segment and Jim and my own part in it showing Maureen Hancock using a computer to do pre-show. What was thet last segment in Tunisia about? It looked like a court case against a psychic of some sort.
Very interested in the overall tone. Did they cave to the “you be the judhge” style of reporting so popular in the US, or did they stay focused on the fraudulant aspects?
I remian cautiously optimistic…
A french Skeptic, Common, there is no such person in France ;). In Berlin – May 2012 – I was the only French and I not really enjoy that.
The next is in Stockholm in 2013, any luck to see you there?
Help, I don’t want to be THE French Skeptic at each European conventions :D
When does it take place in Stockholm?
No regret putting my TV on the sidewalk ten years ago. And those people have the right to vote? :-D
the general tone is a skeptical tone indeed and they focus on the business side. they explain how these so called psychics use internet to gather info. the little tricks they can use to impress their clients. you and jim are depicted as debunkers and in a sequence you guys explain how Maureen uses internet with a great example. they explain that you do your psychic thing to show the public that there’s no such thing as psychic power (the banana trick is cool >.>). the last part of the documentary focuses on the missing persons and psychics supposedly helping out. one classical and effective case is also given (the medium says the person missing is dead, that he can hear his voice, but the person is then found out alive years later). the Tunisia thing is just a French psychic society that has his main center in Tunisia, a call center. but before this sequence, there is is indeed a guy suing his psychic because he lost all his money to finally understand he got scammed (he wins his case).
the narrative is as follows: first depict the situation with a neutral tone (which lasts longer than I would have liked), and then explain the trick (which is usually quicker).
PS: French skeptic here as well, that makes us at least 3 ;)
Thank you for your input. I will sleep better now knowing that the skeptic side was portrayed as I had figured.
M6 in one of the main private television stations here. Mostly cheap shows. Not as bad as FoxNews, but certainly not NPR either.
French canadian skeptic here
The tunis part was pretty interesting since they show a corporate side to the psychic business – how they are hiring people to be phone mediums and showing them how to lengthen calls to make more money. The hiring process includes a class where they’re basically explaining how it is only about money and nothing psychic is going on there. They hand out a guide to the employees with key sentences on how to keep the calls running.
So how does Maureen hancock come out smelling?
Like a star making big money, in live shows or helping the police.
Liked the banana part :-)
That psychic at Subway’s had a terrible facelift.
What aws the final word on Hancock?
Okay.
The suspense is killing me and I can’t wait for the English version of this show to come round, so I have to ask my French friends once again to pleasse indulge me with the answer: Was Maureen Hancock shown to be the grief vampire/trixter we all know she is or was she let off the hook by the writers of this show?
Mark, the doc is not available anymore so I can’t look double check. From what I remember, she was portrayed as a business woman without any “real” psychic power. But as I said before, most of the time the “debuking” moment was rather short and could be easily missed. Overall, the tone was clearly against psychic nonsense.
ok, apparently someone put the doc on facebook, here is the link to the first part: http://on.fb.me/VUZE9R
I checked the last part of the documentary where Maureen helps people finding their missing relatives. As a conclusion of this sequence (which lasts 10 seconds) it is said that: 1. she’s not asking for money but this is a clever way to advertize for her business
2. up to now, her powers never helped solving police cases.
After that we have a sequence where a psychic says someone is dead and that he can talk to him but the supposedly dead guy is found several years later alive.