Katikati Psychic Cafe

Bronwyn Rideout - 18 March 2024

Last week we received a request from the editor of the Katikati Advertiser asking for our response to a story that was being written about a psychic:

I am doing a story about a local psychic medium who has opened a cafe of sorts, where a group of approximately 5-7 readers and healers, tarot card readers sit and guests pay $10 at the door to spend 10 minutes or so with them. The idea is for them to connect with one or more of the practitioners, who then gain future appointments.

The rest of the story is describing her ability and how she connects in her mind with those who have died. She is also a psychic which means she can read people. She says this is a gift one can learn. She believes she is helping people, being of service.

But I was wondering if NZ Skeptics might have a stance on this sort of spiritual/fortune telling/speaking-with-the-dead practise?

Would you like to perhaps touch on the following… your group asks Kiwis to be skeptical of such things? Should we be calling out these people? Or should we just keep an open mind? Why do you think the spiritual world is so attractive to some? Do you think these sort of groups can/are taking advantage and are manipulating people? What would be your advice to the public?

I put together a quick response, answering her questions:

Part of our mission at the New Zealand Skeptics is to educate fellow Kiwis on the lack of evidence for pseudoscientific practices like mediumship, fortunetelling, and claims of psychic abilities. We encourage Kiwis to ask questions when they hear extraordinary claims, and to pursue these by asking for objective, scientific proof. When investigating paranormal claims, there are three likely explanations: 1) the alleged phenomenon is genuine; 2) it is a deliberate deception, and 3) the claimant is sincere but self-deceived. Skeptics are looking for evidence about the first hypothesis and, so far, the people making extraordinary claims have consistently failed to demonstrate that their supernatural talents are anything other than earthly and mundane.

For as long as there have been individuals trading on their supposed extraordinary abilities, organisations like the NZ Skeptics have been there to reveal the very ordinary performance tricks they use to get you to part ways with your hard-earned cash.

Claims such as being able to contact the dead or to heal someone, either mentally or physically, are of particular concern to us. Such claims prey on New Zealanders when they are at their most vulnerable, and can endanger people’s health and well-being far more than they help. Without us knowing more details about what happens at the meetings, and the people involved, the NZ Skeptics can’t really comment on the specifics of this case. But, in general, if people are making unsupported claims about their abilities, and taking people’s money, people should be aware of this - informed consent is important, and for someone’s consent to be informed they need to be aware of the evidence for or against psychic powers.

Given that we aim to educate people on scams and trickery, we’re happy to share some tips on what New Zealanders can look for when distinguishing a phoney from a phenomenon (hint: it’s never a phenomenon).

It is no surprise that demonstrations of psychic powers, fortune-telling, and channelling the dead hold the same appeal in New Zealand today as they did in the parlours across England and America back in the 1800s. Tapping into supposed paranormal or higher spiritual planes has long been something people have turned to in times of great personal and societal upheaval, and has also often been used as a bit of spooky entertainment, so to speak. Successful practitioners generally use two key performance tricks:

The first is hot reading. Hot reading is when the reader, or a collaborator, deliberately collects information about a person to get an accurate “hit”. This can be achieved by simply listening to a conversation, doing a Google search, or having a collaborator strike up seemingly random conversations to find the ideal subjects to read for. For example, American televangelist Peter Popoff had a sophisticated operation back in the 1980s where he received information regarding audience members, supposedly from God, but in reality through an in-ear receiver from his wife. The kicker? The information being transmitted to him had been freely given by attendees when they filled in prayer request cards before his events. So, we advise that you think twice if a psychic or fortune-teller needs you to provide your name or email address, or connect to them via Facebook, when you book an appointment with them.

Your average suburban psychic or tarot card reader will be a little more ill-prepared, and they’ll likely not have anything more elaborate available to them than the local gossip mill. So the majority of these readers will use cold reading. During a cold read of a customer, the reader will use both verbal and non-verbal cues to steer their questions in fruitful directions. Often when working with a crowd the inquiry will start with what is called a shotgun question, which will elicit a positive response from multiple audience members. An example of this type of statement would be something like “I’m speaking with a man whose name starts with M”.

Who doesn’t know a Matthew, a Mark, or a Michael? They are some of the most popular names for middle-aged men.

From there, the reader will use broad questions or Barnum statements that seem personal but, as we often see in horoscopes, could apply to anyone and everyone. An example of a Barnum statement would be something like “You often have doubts about whether you’ve made the right decision”. Similar to a Barnum statement is the rainbow ruse, in which two opposing traits are included to cover all possibilities, i.e. “Sometimes you can be very happy, but other times you have a low mood”. The reader may also ask vanishing negative questions like, “You don’t have an iPhone, do you?” and then craft a response depending on a positive or negative answer.

Our advice to the public would be to avoid paying for any product or service where there’s a lack of evidence that it works, including psychics. If you’re not sure, maybe ask for a free introductory reading. And, in that reading, try not to give any information away and see how well they do. Maybe ask if you can record the meeting, and then have a skeptical friend listen to the recording afterwards and give you an impartial opinion on how well it matches reality, and how many “misses” the psychic had, where they got something wrong.

Although we’ve not seen the article yet, there appears to have been another article published by the Bay of Plenty times that, for some unknown reason, now returns a 404:

Luckily there’s what appears to be a copy of the article at MSN, where the depths of the article’s credulity have to be seen to be believed: