James Van Praagh

I found these videos through the JREF video gallery.

These videos are of James Van Praagh, famous television psychic.

These videos "shows the anatomy of his trickery and the length to which he'll go to exploit people's grief and vulnerability, as well as the media's eagerness to promote him.

This video work is part of a larger art exhibition that Jose Alvarez is showing at The Kitchen Gallery in New York City until December 22, 2007, at 512 W. 19th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue, 10011. "

I believe that knowing how these "tricks" work will be essential in my practice when trying to incorporate skepticism into my art. Knowing the anatomy of such trickery could prove very useful and these videos make me feel encouraged to pursue finding out more about how these "psychic" powers work.

Sylvia Browne

Who is Sylvia Browne?
Sylvia Browne is a self proclaimed "psychic", she is known all over the world for her abilities even though her accuracy is less than impressive. She has a call-in "psychic" hotline, has published several dozen books and is a regular on television's Montel Williams Show. She claims to be able to speak with dead people via a spirit guide and charges grieving families money to contact their dead relatives. She's even stated that she has helped solve over 200 police cases, although the facts of which have never been provided.

Why is she a danger to the public?
When people are grieving over missing or dead loved ones they will do anything and pay any amount of money for a glimpse of finding their loved ones or communicating with them. When Sylvia gives them one of her so-called "readings" or says that she is in contact with their dead loved ones it gives people a false glimmer of hope. People can become dependant on this false hope. When or if they find out that the truth is it's just a bunch of guesses, they are crushed. Let's face reality: what Sylvia Browne does is nothing more then cold reading; tossing out a bunch of guesses and letting the person fill in the answers. She preys on grieving families and charges large amounts of money for her readings.

What to do
The foundation wants to provide the public with the TRUTH about "psychics" such as Sylvia Browne so that she doesn't take advantage of grieving families. This is why James Randi publicly challenged Sylvia Browne for the Million Dollar Psychic Challenge in 2001. With a proper double blind test Randi wanted to prove that her so called powers were no more then a guessing game. In March of 2001 she accepted the challenge on Larry King Live, and on September 3, 2001 she accepted the protocol for the test.

To date Sylvia has not contacted Randi to make arrangements to take the test and claim her million dollars. Her best excuse, "I don't know how to get hold of Randi". Hmm, how about a phone book, or a google search for R-A-N-D-I.

- taken from the James Randi Educational Foundation

I believe people like this need to be exposed as freuds for what they do. It's sick how she'll piss all over the graves of somebody's dead loved one just for a bit of cash and television popularity.

I would love to find someway to expose these people in my own practice. Hopefully I'll be able to find ideas and concepts that maybe possible to incorporate into my own work, and become more inspired throughout the rest of my research.

JREF blog: Alien abductions?

http://www.randi.org/joom/news/challenge-blog/daniel-alien-abductions.html

This article taken from my chosen publication shows me that not all paranormal claims can be tested and this is something that I may need to take into consideration if ever I want to "debunk" various paranormal claims through or in my artwork or practice.