As Susan Gerbic (head of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia) reports on the Center for Inquiry site, the t.v. entertainment network E! is going the route of the History Channel—touting the paranormal. The “psychic” in question is one Tyler Henry, also touted as a “Celebrity Clairvoyant” or the “Hollywood Medium”, he’s very young (just 20) and good-looking, and has just been given his own show.
To wit, this is from Henry’s Facebook page; apparently the lad is endorsed and was presented by the odious Oprah-acolyte Dr. Phil:
Now “E!” stands for “entertainment,” but Henry’s supposed ability to discern things about people (“cold readings”) and put them in touch with the dead are presented not as entertainment—like magicians who emphasize that they’re doing tricks, not real magic—but as REALITY.
The small-town native is a medium extraordinaire to some of the biggest stars in Los Angeles!
E!’s latest series Hollywood Medium will document Tyler’s experiences as he uses his special clairvoyant abilities to give readings and connect celebrities like Jaime Pressly, Bella Thorne and Snooki with their loved ones on the other side.
“I really think I knew I was different when I was able to see and feel things that most people weren’t able to,” Tyler says in the teaser.
and
The celebrity clairvoyant may be able to communicate with the dead, but he has never learned to drive a car!
No, E!, he can’t communicate with the dead!
Referring to an interview with Henry conducted by Out magazine (Henry’s gay), Gerbic says this:
Here it is. The part that makes it clear whether he is a psychic entertainer who is up-front about his act or just another grief vampire. Henry tells the interviewer his goal for the future. It is to work with parents who have lost their children to suicide. I can feel my blood pressure increasing and the hackles on the back of my neck starting to rise. He isn’t just a grief vampire; he is aspiring to be one of the most despicable types of grief vampires, tying for first place with those who work as psychic detectives. These are the people who prey on families when they are the most desperate and vulnerable. I’m appalled that he thinks this is something to aspire to. Something to be proud of!
In the Out interview, Henry gives a bit of lip service to skepticism:
The skeptic in me wants to know if your gift has ever been criticized, or if you’ve been asked to prove your ability?
Lots of people feel either that [my gift needs] to be proven or that, on a personal level, they need the validation that their loved one is ok. Some people come to readings with a ‘prove-it-to-me’ mentality and others come with an openness.
I do inherently understand both sides. I think it’s important to have a healthy degree of skepticism. I myself am a very skeptical person. In readings, my goal is to bring up information that there really is no way I could know. I don’t like saying general things. I don’t like saying information that everybody knows. I focus on information that can’t be researched or googled, and that usually includes inside jokes or sentimental pieces of information that only families really know.
In high school and earlier on, my issue wasn’t that I dealt with people who didn’t necessarily believe in me. Unfortunately, there was a lot of fundamentalism and people who didn’t like what I did because it conflicted with their beliefs.
People were more frightened by what I did, and that was a different kind of isolation in the sense that people were judging me from a religious perspective. But I found that as time went on, people did open their minds, well some did, and for those who didn’t, I understand that we’re all entitled to our beliefs.
This is just classic cold reading based on psychological cues given off by the mark, things that the “clairvoyant” could look up online (he claims he doesn’t), or general statements that are true a lot of the time (see below for links to tricks used in this practice). If Henry wants a serious test of his abilities, let someone like James Randi or Penn and Teller set up a real examination of his abilities—tests that “psychics” never submit to.
The sad part of all this is that Henry is going to be on a show on a widely-watched network, one that presents his duplicity as if it were real clairvoyance. And a lot of his efforts will be directed at soothing parents whose children have killed themselves. (Believe me, those parents will all receive reassuring messages that their kid is in Heaven and looking down on them. Nobody is going to hear that the kid is frying in Hell.)
What’s the harm in that, you ask? Why not tell parents soothing fictions if it makes them feel better? The harm is that it is all a fabric of lies, but, more important, it simply buttresses those people who believe in the afterlife and the ability of psychics to suss it out. And, of course, Henry will make tons of money promulgating these lies. Remember that Americans spend two billion dollars a year on psychics, and, like religion, the psychic business booms during tough economic times. These people prey on the poor and disaffected, often through “telephone consultations”. People like Henry may be attractive and slick, but in the end they’re simply enriching themselves by preying on vulnerable people. You can bet your ass his services aren’t free.
For discussions of how these “psychics” do their tricks, go here, here, and here. (There are many other “whistle-blower” sites.) As has been noted many times before, if these people really could see back into the past, they wouldn’t be doing storefront readings; they’d be finding hidden treasure. Or, if they can foresee the future, they’d make a killing on the stock market.
Here’s Henry meeting the Kardashians and working his scam:
(Want more? Go here.)
What a fricking charlatan.
