Leave the Dead Alone.

Those of you who have followed me for a while will probably want to stop reading as you will know how I feel about psychics.

Nonetheless I feel compelled to rant again about people who claim to have magic powers that allow them to talk to the dead.  I had a debate with someone recently who had been to see a medium and she was telling me how they were able to find out all sorts of information from the audience that they couldn't possibly know.

I told her that this is done through a process called 'cold reading' where the medium throws out bait into the audience along the lines of 'I'm getting a message from someone whose name begins with P. Has anybody got a P who has passed on recently? No, it could be a B', and so on until they get a bite from an audience member.

A skilled 'medium' will be able to read body language and extract information from people without these people realise they are giving it and even without the audience realising it is happening.

My friend remained unconvinced by my explanation and called me 'closed-minded'.  I I gave this some thought and came to the conclusion that I was not being closed-minded as I was questioning the techniques of the medium and not blindly accepting what they were claiming. Unfortunately I came to this conclusion two days after the debate.

One of the greatest questions humans have is 'Is there life after death'? Entire religions are based around this premise.  So here come mediums claiming that there is life after death, they can prove it as they are talking to dead people.

Just imagine for a moment that you could do what mediums claim to be able to do, that you could talk to the dead.  Would you use this incredible power to prove there is an afterlife to trawl around theatres and clubs, asking for money from the tragically bereaved and lonely?  Would dead people taunt and tease the bereaved by giving obscure messages and only giving their initials?

The answer is no because mediums are liars. Everytime they are asked by a sceptic to prove their powers they say things like they can't switch their powers on and off like a tap.  However they don't seem to have any trouble doing so when they are in front of a paying audience.

Sorry to bang on again about mediums but let's face it, I hate the lying bastards and I when I'm dead I'll bloody well talk to them. They will never want to pretend to speak to the dead again.