JREF Swift Blog

How Bad Can It Get?

James Van Praagh has chosen – wisely – to avoid the direct JREF challenge with which we confronted him recently. He knows full well that he cannot pass any properly designed and controlled observation of his fumbling "cold reading" attempts, and he hopes we'll go away. Well, we won't. I'm sure he's already consulted his pack of lawyers, but to no avail.

He apparently depends solely on two characteristics in his audiences: he looks for naivety and he uses the tired old fast-guessing ploy to get lucky, when he can. Watch this video to see VP when he's faced with a group of rather more perceptive folks who won't allow themselves to be bullied into nodding assent to every inane and obvious gimmick he offers them...!

Look at the 1:20 mark to see the most common trick used by Van Praagh – getting a response to a direct question he's asked, then feeding it back to the victim as if VP himself had originated it:

Was your mother buried?

Yes.

Mmhmm, because she’s talking about being buried, and a – about a wake, or a funeral, rather, and, umm, she knows about it, she was very surprised by it all. And who’s Cathy, or Cathy, or Catherine, or Cathy, Cathy, Catherine, or Cathy…?

Note: another direct question, one that is “accepted” – not by the person he’s dealing with, but by another person in his audience. This is another of his tricks.

Then, read the perceptive comments that readers posted this obvious failure, and note that these folks, too, are fast becoming aware of his methods. I'll add here that I believe the JREF -- through our president D. J. Grothe and our staff and active band of volunteers -- can take much of the credit for this powerful new attitude of the public in regard to the blatant attacks on reason offered by these "readers" who go after vulnerable, naive victims and take their money. This 5 minute, 18 second, example of his performance surely proves the case against him.