Char Margolis is one of those ditzy book-peddling Newagers who claims to have psychic powers and can see spirits and auras and crap like that. She appeared on WGN, and tried to “read” one of the news hosts. Watch as she pulls the boring John Edward bullshit (“I see an ‘M’ or a ‘J'”…jeebus, do ghosts all wander around in the afterlife wearing monogrammed smoking jackets or something?) and belly-flops ignominiously.
But the title of this post promised amazing powers, you say. I didn’t say whose, and they sure aren’t Char’s. I was really impressed with the news host Larry, though, who demonstrated the amazing powers of skepticism, coming right out and telling Char, “you failed!” I was less impressed with the woman who tried to make excuses for her.
That’s what I’d like to see more of, though: interviewers who can come right out and do a Johnny Carson and call the fakes fakes.
I just sent WGN an email saying how impressed I was with Larry.
I loved the Dark Shadows theme playing in the background.
… and now I realized it was from 15 months ago. Oh well, still worth letting them know.
Oh gawd, tone trolling the skeptic. Yes, and you’re not “open-minded” if you call BS on BS.
I think that wanting the “psychic” to succeed probably has a lot to do with cold reading, since I always feel a twinge of sympathy as I see them floundering like she did.
And the damned spirits don’t know the difference between and “M” and a “J”? Or, um, any chance that those are just two of the most common name beginnings?
But you need to be “open-minded” and kind. Yes, that makes it so much easier to scam you.
BTW, there’s nothing close-minded about skepticism, it’s just an open-mindedness that awaits legitimate evidence. It’s closed-minded to deny the falsifying data.
Glen Davidson
“I hope you hit it out of the park as well as you did here today.”
Why don’t journalists and anchors realize that one can still be objective while calling bullshit when they see it?
She didn’t respect the rules of cold reading: either do it in private and one to one, or have an audience of hundreds with self selected confirmation bias built in.
Kudos to Larry.
Is she a crook or completely delusional when she defends herself by saying “I picked-up a Mary, I said she was her daughter” when she obviously didn’t do any of that ?? (She said an M or a J, as Larry points out, and thought she was her mother)…
Char got char-broiled.
Eh?
was the politest *cough*bollocks*cough* that I have ever heard.
“You’ve got to be polite to people.” Even when they’re charlatans? This polite stuff just gives cover to brazen frauds, who count on courtesy to keep from being called out.
I’m generally in favor of politeness and I am quite polite myself — most of the time. I was even polite last week, when I traveled to a seminar on the existence of angels. (I’m posting on that later today.) But politeness doesn’t require you to nod your head as if in agreement when folks are spouting nonsense. That carries politeness too far.
(I wonder if Char Margolis knows she’s a fraud, or whether she is one of her own dupes.)
Cold reading is such an obvious thing when you’re expecting it.
It’s funny that someone who cons people out of money by claiming psychic powers tells others to be nice.
Conning people isn’t nice.
I like how she insists that the reading be done off camera, though. I bet Larry was thinking the same thing I was; “What, so less people will see when you fuck up?”
I’m a bit tempted to email them to say I’m impressed with Larry too, 15 months ago or not.
How very feeble. She really thinks that anyone with any sceptical bent is going to be taken in by standard (if particularly incompetently employed) cold reading techniques? The whole “name beginning with an ‘M’ or ‘J'” schtick is as old as the hills. As noted above, these letters form the beginning of the most common female and male names respectively (Mary and John) in the US. Another favourite for women is ‘E’, because Elizabeth (or contractions like Liz, Lizzie or Liza) is another very common woman’s name in the Western world.
And when she is caught out, you get the usual excuses like complaints about the supposed ‘closed-mindedness’ or lack of respect of anyone who points out her obvious con-job. Still, I didn’t hear my favourite excuse as deployed by mediums, psychics and other con-artists when they are caught out – the idea that scepticism ‘disrupts’ their abilities.
I have come across it many times. The ‘psychic’ soon twigs that the person who is deconstructing their blather and won’t go along with their woo-fuelled sleight-of-hand is probably a sceptic or rationalist, and so tries to turn the rest of the audience against this person. The less accomplished claim that the individual is being rude or offensive by not buying into the ‘amazing’ powers of the medium, but the better show-people among their number instead claim that sceptics, by their mere presence, generate some kind of potent ‘anti-psychic field’ (or similar word-salad) that renders it impossible for any psychic, no matter how supposedly ‘gifted’, to contact the spirits/perceive ‘auras’/read the future.
It is quite the dodge – the mere proximity of rational, scientific minds makes it impossible for them to call on their ‘powers’*, which effectively renders their supposed abilities non-falsifiable, since they have stipulated that the very attempt to engage in rigorous, scientific study of their claims will prevent the evidence from ‘manifesting’.
Must have been a trick they picked up from those other highly accomplished con-artists, religious apologists.
Still, the answer is the same – that which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Unfortnately, all too many people (like the female presenter in the video) are all too eager to come to the defence of these risible fraudsters, and try to claim that their own inability to see through the parlour trick amounts to ‘proof’ of psychic powers. Sadly, the old grifter’s creed is true; one really is born every minute…
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* Much like the possessers of the Pariah Gene block the abilities of psykers in the Warhammer 40K mythos – if Rip Steakface or any other 40K fans are reading, they will know what I am talking about. To everyone else, apologies for the geeky interlude.
The stupid quack. I thought Larry was extremely polite in not calling her and her ilk complete charlatans who bilk people out of their money.
It would have been fun if Larry had asked her if she has ever taken on James Randi’s million-dollar challenge. If so, how did it go; if not, why not? She probably would’ve replied that she just talks to spirits…something he then could have pointed out that no one in all of history has been able to do in a bona-fide verified way.
Google + TV personality = duh!
If these frauds can “read” a complete stranger without being allowed to ask any leading questions (M or J…) then come back and we’ll test some more.
Anne, Bror, Charlie, Curt, David, Edward, Fred, George, Hans, Ivar, Joan, Kurt (different from Curt), Linda, Marie, Nils,….. all in the family. Joan, Jared, Jamie, Jessie, Jane, Jennifer, Jean, Martha, Marie, Mark and more cover the M or J.
Are there any of you out there who do not have an M or J in your families?
I noticed on her book cover it said the forward was by John Edward. I guess that makes it legitimate nonsense.
M and J names – two squares on my Cold Reader Bingo card. Margolis is one of the lamest cold readers out there – she will always go for M, J, S and R.
Heh, but she sure knows her statistics. She’s got four out of the top ten most common male (James #1, John #2, Michael #4, Joseph #9) and female (Mary #1, Jennifer #6, Maria #7, Margaret #9) first names covered. Add the frequencies up, and almost one out of six people in the US will have a name that begins with one of those initials. Funny how magic boils down to math.
Our local radio station used to have an astrologer who used all the techniques that Randi has called out. Guesses phrased as questions, statements that are true about everybody, repeating something that the subject told them a minute ago as if it is an amazing insight. This one encountered a true believer, live on air, who had paid for a reading before taking her driving test and been told that she would pass. She wasn’t even calling the astrologer out, she was completely baffled as to why she had failed when the stars had said that she would pass. It goes without saying that the back-pedalling and bullshitting was hilarious.
Not only is she peddling note for note, ages old scammery, but she’s also not a good christian! http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/psychic_at_large.htm There’s just no hope for some people.
Anti-psychics are ALWAYS more powerful than psychics. Maybe it’s the anti-psychics who should be taking the Randi Challenge.
What, nobody has brought up this already:
If you open your mind too much…
Forgot that there’s of course a lot more names outside of the top ten that start with an M or J. Based on the top 1000, there’s actually a 42% chance some random person will have one of those initials. As the host pointed out, it’s a virtual certainty that you’ll know someone like that. Now she’ll just have to work on her story when it turns out that the initial in the afterlife is somebody’s alive-and-kicking six year old daughter.
She’s actually had a very long and successful career in the Netherlands. Most of my fellow countrymen might not be Christians, they’re certainly still very gullible.
Speaking of amazing powers… I went to a bookshop today to browse the natural history section and came across a book called “Animal Reiki”. If you ever get a chance to pick it up in a shop or library, please go to page XIV and read the author’s testimonial about how she used her magic to heal a wounded deer that came into her garden and pleaded with all its bambiness for her to share her awesome Jedi skills and take the hurt away (summary: deer grazing on lawn, looks hurt, author stays in kitchen and closes eyes, abracadabra and deer gets better… after several weeks of these “sessions”. Fuck me pink.)
I increasingly find it hard to accept that the world has so much stupid in it. We truly are doomed.
Wow! She’s horrible. I used to do cold reads on people as a party trick. I was better than she was there. I had to quit when it became obvious that some people thought I had a “gift” even after I told them it wasn’t real and how I did it.
ambassadorfromverdammt @ 21;
Now I am imagining PZ in a Darth Vader costume saying (with obligatory iron-lung sound effects); “Your powers are
weakimaginary, Char Margolis…”So, what… we are exorcists now? “The devil, evil spirits and magic cannot abide the presence of the truly godly person, a cross, or words from the Bible, hence the tendency of those things to stop working when such things are present.”
Who knew skepticism worked the same way. lol
Can’t even do cold-reading right. Reminds me of a song by Javier Krahe (of fairly recent Jesus-in-the-oven fame in Spain) about an incompetent medium.
Haces tus conjuros
en catorce y jueves
You make your spells
on 14th and Thursday
Why is there such an information-barrier between ghost-land and the psychic? If there’s any communication, at all, the ghost would be able to convey extremely detailed and verifiable stuff. How is it that the psychics never call up Richard Feynman and ask him if he’s got any more insights into qed? Has Einstein taken the opportunity to do any more uninterrupted thinking about general relativity now that he’s dead? What did Isaac Newton say about the whole E=MC2 thing? How come no psychic has ever recited any of Archimedes’ lost writings? Or Sextus Empiricus’? Or, “(Albert Einstein says) I was explaining general relativity to Ptolemy, and he had the funniest idea – perhaps the whole of reality is made up of linen twine…”
The fact that psychics never bring forward verifiable secrets from the past sure is interesting, isn’t it? There must be a hell of an information barrier.
Was it Carlin who said “I’ll be impressed when I read the newspaper and it says ‘psychic wins the Pick 6 lottery for 12th time in a row…”
No ant-exorcists. An Exorcist attempts to cure someone by humoring a delusion in play acting such that the deluded person will be convinced they are ‘cured’ to induce a placebo effect.
Checked out another Char vid, this one with Larry King. He calls her out as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-Ufox5M2Y&feature=related
Well, that’s going a long way to say something nice about her.
Indeed. Organized religion isn’t the problem any longer, but it looks like the woo has come to replace it in our little country. And it’s strongly being fed by mainstream media.
The New Uri Geller, Het Zesde Zintuig (The Sixth Sense), Het Zesde Zintuig: Plaats delict and Char are just a few shows that come to mind, not to mention that new Astro TV net where people can listen to gibbering idiots 24/7 now. New Age woo regularly makes guest appearances in talkshows. And let’s not start about all those websites.
And even if we have our own famous ‘mentalists’ and people who claim to have paranormal qualities (like Jomanda and Peter van der Hurk), we still manage to bring in the likes of Derek Ogilvie and put him on tour through the country. The man didn’t even get a thorough questioning when he was interviewed by one of the more critical newspapers, which was probably one of my bigger disappointments.
Heck, I saw an article in the Metro a few months ago. Not exactly a safe haven for quality journalism and correct grammar, but since they mostly copy ANP articles I sometimes scan it. They had an article about attempts to sell the house of the man who was recently arrested for the rape of over 80 children while working for local daycare centres. First they get the real estate agent to say that it’s difficult to sell the house, which is expected. Then, out of absolutely nowhere, they bring in a bloody local psychic to claim that he feels an eerie dread in that place, saying that things will not go too well on a buyer. It wasn’t even an opinion piece; it was supposedly a news item.
Kagehi @ 28;
Quite the turnaround, isn’t it? We are usually being accused by theists of being in league with their imaginary basement-cat devil, but mediums claim that we are inimical to their equally imaginary spirit-friends.
As We Are Ing points out @ 31, the one commonality is that we do not pander to the delusions of either group – theist or spirtualist – and so they both revile us for not being the type of good little dupes their ilk feed on, and worse, our rational scepticism may cause others to start asking to look behind the metaphorical curtain as well…
So, not only don’t we make good prey, but our resistance to their snake-oil may be contagious. No wonder they hate us.
What a fucking fraud. I don’t even believe that she’s sincerely mistaken. She’s obviously a con artist. Good that the host called her out on her bullshit, but I’d have gone after her harder. She brazenly lied. It’s right there on tape.
Then she offers to read him, but she’ll only do it off camera, and she says he has to be “honest” about it, giving herself a nice, little out.
She knows what she’s doing. She’s duping the gullible for her personal amusement and enrichment. Revolting.
Back on usenet I sometimes asked self-described psychics to get right to the point and prove their power by telling me next week’s winning Lotto number.
If someone could do that, well, that would be pretty good evidence. And I would be happy and never worry about it again.
But it is always crap like ‘I see an M and I see an R’ or I see pain in the chest causing discomfort.
Jet Li has superpowers, though.
If the local morning show hosts were like Larry I’d actually go back to watching TV.
I agree with LykeX. Anyone who gets far enough into this stuff to be a celebrity psychic is an out and out fraud. The nice people at fairs telling people they’re “very close to the earth” never get very far in this profession and nobody really thinks they see letters of the alphabet. Char’s big mistake was not googling the news hosts.
Hum. I almost wish there was an afterlife, and there were spirits and tey could watch shit like this and have phantasmagorical ambassadors do press conferences about how offensive they find these party tricks.
Jeez, she couldn’t even be bothered to be original….if you’re gonna put on a show put on a Show! “Talk” to some historical figures, make up something juicy, not the tired old letter game, puh.
You guys just don’t get it. Of the top 10 baby boy names for 2010, only 3 (Jacob, Michael, and Jayden) start with M or J. And only 2 of the top 10 girls’ names do (Madison and Mia). Therefore, she is psychic.
Read Clive Barker’s The Book of Blood. IIRC it has a similar premise.
This clip made me realize just how easy it is for cold readers to manipulate people. Even if you know the reader is on a total fishing expedition, it can’t be easy not to answer their questions. It goes against our social norms to just sit there stony faced when someone is talking to us. I guess you could just say, ‘You tell me,” to every question, but that would obviously be labeled as hostile.
So if you answer honestly, you’ve done their work for them, and if you refuse to answer anything, you probably feel uncomfortable and are likely to slip up anyway. And they can give the excuse that they can’t read uncooperative people like you. It must be almost impossible to win against them.
“She is somewhere close to water.”
I know this will just be preaching to the choir, but skepticism is not “impolite closed mindedness.” Quite the opposite.
What’s that? You have something to say about this, QualiaSoup?
Two out of three news hosts know cold-reading nonsense when they see it.
“J or M” … that only covers most of the popular names from the past century or more. Can she swing a wider net?
Oh my. People are recognizing me here – and for being a W40K geek. Heheh. However, the difference between Char Margolis and the psykers of 40K is that psykers have powers that readily, visibly, measurably manifest themselves in the world, while Margolis uses tired old carnival tricks a child could learn.
A psyker as powerful as, say, Magnus of the Thousand Sons (mind you, he’s probably the second most powerful human psyker ever after the Emperor, followed by Malcador or Mephiston), can reshape worlds to his bidding, destroy armies with powers borne of the powers of hell itself, and psychically obliterate anyone he pleases. Margolis can’t even pull cold reading on a clued-in news anchor.
God, a bunch of nerds who like stories about evil superpowered genetically-enhanced ubermensch combating even more evil superpowered genetically-enhanced ubermensch are more convincing and interesting than this wannabe. Put her in a Black Ship!
Yay, WH40k allusions! No wonder I can’t quit this blog.
Though honestly, this clip tells me that you don’t even need to be good at being a crook and you will still get published, respected and paid by the woo enthusiasts and the media that desperately needs to fill airtime.
Wow. She is absolutely transparent. What a lamer.
@sketch, #45:
Good videos on critical thinking. Thanks for putting them up.
Ugh. Every single time I’ve tried to have a rational, evidence-based discussion of paranormal and spiritual claims with something, it always boils down to, “You’re just not open-minded enough to see the evidence.”
No, you’re just not open-minded enough to consider that maybe this is all bullshit.
“Anything is possible.”
“But it’s true for me.”
No, not everything is possible and if magic is true for you, it’s equally true for me that it isn’t true.
I loved it.
Larry, we need more people like you on TV all over the world and less people like Char.
It sickens me when the media play the middle ground on all this woo nonsense and refuse to ask hard questions.
that was a gret vid, sketch.
I’m saving that link for some woomeisters I’m acquainted with.
Was it Carlin who said “I’ll be impressed when I read the newspaper and it says ‘psychic wins the Pick 6 lottery for 12th time in a row…”
I believe he also wondered that, if there really WERE an afterlife, why in the fuck any dead person would stick around to feed words into the heads of psychics.
surely there would be something better to do.