Psychic detective
Encyclopedia
A psychic detective is defined as a person who investigates crimes by using their claimed paranormal
psychic
abilities. A number of people claim they have psychic abilities that have allowed them to assist police in solving kidnapping and murder cases, or locating a corpse. Police departments generally state they do not keep records regarding such activity.
perception of the past), psychometry (information psychically gained from objects), telepathy
, dowsing
, and Remote Viewing
. In murder cases, psychic detectives will often claim to communicate with the spirits of the murder victims.
in which self-professed psychics attempt to crack unsolved murders.
Western Australian Police have a policy that they do not contact psychics for assistance with investigations, however they will accept information contributed by psychics.
An unnamed Australian federal police officer was suspended following his seeking the aid of a clairvoyant in regards to death threats made against Prime Minister John Howard
. A federal police spokesman said they do "not condone the use of psychics in security matters."
There are still cases of psychics professing to have trained with the Australian police and failing to provide credible evidence to support qualifications or evidence of being a psychic profiler or intuitive profiler with the Australian Police.
While official policy for Police Forces in Australia does not advocate the use of psychics for investigations, one former Detective Senior Constable, Jeffrey Little, has said police do use them "even though they officially say they don't". Additionally, police in NSW have used psychic Debbie Malone on a number of cases . While no evidence she has supplied has solved murders or missing investigations on their own. , her evidence had been used to corroborate theories, and in one case, included in a coroner's brief on a case Little, in reference to one case she assisted on, felt her description of what happened was "exceptional", other officers also had been impressed by her assistance, while yet other NSW officers felt she had not helped solve any cases. Sergeant Gae Crea and Detective Sergeant Damian Loone, state that she did not give them anything the police and the public didn't already know. Crea recounts "I've dealt with a lot of psychics, but no one has ever said, 'I can see where the body is buried and I'll take you there'". .
had denied the use of psychics and were then presented with emails suggesting the use of a psychic they made a press statement authorized by the senior investigating officer that was much more ambiguous: "We do not identify people we may or may not speak with in connection with inquiries. We are not prepared to discuss this further."
has stated that psychics may be used "as a last resort[and] as an investigative tool with caution" for providing clues not directly admissible in the court of law such as a criminal's character, or the location of dead bodies.
on June 5, 2002, the police received as many 9,000 tips from self-proclaimed psychics (and others crediting visions and dreams as their source). Responding to these tips took "many police hours," according to Salt Lake City Police Chief Lieutenant Chris Burbank. Yet, Elizabeth Smart's father, Ed Smart, concluded that: "the family didn’t get any valuable information from psychics." Smart was located by observant witnesses who recognized her abductor from a police photograph.
When Washington D.C. intern Chandra Levy
went missing on May 1, 2001, psychics from around the world provided tips suggesting that her body would be found in places such as the basement of a Smithsonian storage building, in the Potomac river, and buried in the Nevada desert among many other possible locations. Each tip led nowhere. A little more than a year after her disappearance, Levy's body was accidentally discovered by a man walking his dog in a remote section of an area park.
The case of Shawn Hornbeck received the attention of psychics after the eleven-year-old went missing on October 6, 2002. Most notably, self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne
appeared on The Montel Williams Show
and provided the parents of Shawn Hornbeck a detailed description of the abductor and where Hornbeck could be found. Browne responded "No" when asked if he was still alive. When Hornbeck was found alive more than four years later, few of the details given by Browne were correct. Shawn Hornbeck's father, Craig Akers, has stated that Browne's declaration was "one of the hardest things that we've ever had to hear," and that her misinformation diverted investigators wasting precious police time.
A body was located in the US by Psychic Annete Martin. Dennis Prado, a retired US paratrooper, had gone missing from his apartment, and Police had been unable to locate his whereabouts. With no further leads, the chief investigating officer, Fernando Realyvasquez, a sergeant with the Pacifica (California) Police, contacted psychic detective Annette Martin. Prado had lived near a large forest, some 2000 square miles. Martin was given a map, she circled a small spot on the map, about the size of two city blocks. She said that Prado had struggled for breath, had died and his body would be there within the indicated area. She described the path he took, and where the body would be found. Although the area had been searched, a search and rescue officer found the body covered with dirt with a sniffer dog at the location, as Martin had indicated. While the body had deteriorated, there was no evidence that he had been attacked and it thought likely he had died of natural causes, as she also indicated.
In Australia, psychics have been involved in the location of three victims, as reported by the media.
In Sydney Australia in 1996, a Belgian born Sydney psychic, Phillipe Durant was approached by the fiance of missing Paula Brown to help locate her. Durante told police the location of the body of Brown. She was found less than two Kilometres of the spot he had indicated in Port Botany, by a truck driver who came across the body. "Even though the body was discovered purely by chance, the speculation by a clairvoyant appears to have been uncannily accurate," a police spokeswoman conceded. Durant had used a plumb bob and a grid map, combined with some hair from the victim. .
In 2001, the body of Thomas Braun was located by Perth based Aboriginal clairvoyant Leanna Adams in Western Australia. Police had initially been unable to find the body. The family of Braun had been told to contact Adams, an Aboriginal psychic who lived in Perth. The Braun Family had requested police to do a search based on Adams’ directions but they had not assisted. Adams went to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, and took the family members directly to Braun’s remains, a spot high on a ridge west of the town, some 20 kilometres out. The remains were not immediately identifiable. Police later confirmed the remains to be his using DNA testing.
In August, 2010, Aboriginal Elder Cheryl Carroll-Lagerwey claimed to have seen the location of a missing child, Kiesha Abrahams, in her dream. The missing child's disappearance was being investigated by police. She took them to a location where a dead body was found, however it was of an adult woman and not the body of the child. Arlington, Kim "Supernatural sleuths and the search for truth" The Sydney Morning Herald 30/12/2010, p4
's Nightline
Beyond Belief
program for August 17, 2011 featured psychic detectives and their involvement with the case of Ali Lowitzer. Typical of missing person cases, families are approached by people claiming they will help bring the missing home. "They told me, I see trees, water, dirt...but it is all very vague" according to Susan Lowitzer a mother whose daughter has been missing since April 26, 2010. Retired FBI detective and ABC consultant Brad Garrett states, "In 30 years...I have never seen a psychic solve a mystery". JREF investigator and mentalist Banachek
feels that psychic detectives take advantage of families, "...because of fame and money, [they] step in and try to act like an authority". Banachek believes that not all psychic detectives are frauds, some are self-deluded and believe they are helping, but they "send police on wild-goose chases wasting precious time and resources". Psychic Georgia O'Conner states that Ali is dead, she was tortured and her body dismembered. When asked by ABC's JuJu Chang
how can she tell parents this kind of information when she might be wrong, O'Conner replies "I can't let my ego get in the way of what I see". Despite the attention from psychic detectives Ali Lowitzer remains missing from her Spring, TX home.
No psychic detective has ever been praised or given official recognition by the FBI
or US national news for solving a crime, preventing a crime, or finding a kidnap victim or corpse.
The Australian Institute of Criminology
, Australia's official crime research agency, advises parents of missing children not resort to psychics who approach them. Former FBI analyst and profiler Clint Van Zandt has criticized the use of psychic detectives and has stated that "What happens many times is that professed psychics allow themselves the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. After the case is solved, they make their previously vague predictions somehow fit the crime and the criminal." A detailed 2010 study of Sylvia Browne
predictions about 115 missing persons and murder cases has found that despite her repeated claims to be more than 85% correct, "Browne has not even been mostly correct in a single case."
. Another study was conducted in 1982 where evidence from four crimes was given to three groups; psychic detectives, students and police detectives. The clues related to four crimes, two crimes that had been solved, and two that had not been. The study found no difference between the three groups in ability to indicate what crimes had been committed be looking at the evidence.. Some flaws in the scientific method was apparent in these two tests. A further test was conducted in 1997, this test focusing on improving on the scientific methods used in the previous tests. This study used two groups, one consisting of three students from the University of Hertfordhire, the other group consisting of three psychics (two Psychic Detectives, and another Psychic who had a media profile and had been endorsed by police due to his abilities). The two groups were shown three objects associated with three serious crimes. They then advocated theories, but once again, no difference was found in terms of the accuracy between the two groups.
(or our natural tendency to favor information to confirm our beliefs), wishful thinking
(which is the act of making decisions based upon what is appealing rather than reasoned), and retrofitting (or retroactively refining the specifics of a prediction after the facts are revealed). The act of reinterpreting vague and nebulous statements made by psychic detectives is also referred to as the multiple out. Taking advantage of these cognitive limitations is the practice of cold reading
which creates the illusion of knowing specific information. Additionally, police detectives and other authors suggest that psychic detectives appear successful due to making common-sense or high-probability predictions such as finding bodies at dump sites or "near water."
Finally, the use of psychics may simply reduce anxiety and fill the emotional needs of individuals who must be experiencing great stress.
and crime fiction
, and in other genre
s as well. One of the earliest forms of the genre was the character Flaxman Low, created in 1897 by mother and son Kate and Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard
. Other examples include Jules de Grandin
(created by Seabury Quinn
), Doctor Occult
(created by Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster
) and Agent Jasi McLellan created by Cheryl Kaye Tardif
.
The popular TV show, Psych
features a charlatan psychic detective helping the Santa Barbara
police with crimes that range from robberies to kidnappings to murders. However, the man actually uses an acute sense of observation he acquired as a child, deduction and reasoning to find out who did what, making a running gag
of his claim to be a paranormal detective.
In Douglas Adams
's Dirk Gently
novels, the titular character—a "holistic" detective—is implied to have psychic powers on occasion. One incident involved Gently attempting to scam his university classmates into paying for a set of answers to an exam, supposedly obtained using psychic powers that Gently did not think he had. To his surprise, the answers he provided, which he thought he had produced randomly, turned out to be entirely correct. He was expelled as a result.
The episode "Cartman's Incredible Gift
" of South Park
depicts a skeptical view of psychic detectives.
The Japanese manga and anime series Yu Yu Hakusho depicts a teenage boy named Yusuke Urameshi working as a Spirit Detective, which is a human who hunts down demons using supernatural abilities.
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
abilities. A number of people claim they have psychic abilities that have allowed them to assist police in solving kidnapping and murder cases, or locating a corpse. Police departments generally state they do not keep records regarding such activity.
Psychic abilities
Abilities frequently claimed by psychic detectives include postcognition (the paranormalParanormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
perception of the past), psychometry (information psychically gained from objects), telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
, dowsing
Dowsing
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites, and many other objects and materials, as well as so-called currents of earth radiation , without the use of scientific apparatus...
, and Remote Viewing
Remote viewing
Remote viewing is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means, in particular, extra-sensory perception or "sensing with mind"...
. In murder cases, psychic detectives will often claim to communicate with the spirits of the murder victims.
Official police responses
Many police departments around the world have released official statements saying that they do not regard psychics as credible or useful on cases.In Australia
Australian police, officially, in general have said that they do not accept assistance from psychics. This was in response to an Australian TV show Sensing MurderSensing Murder
Sensing Murder is a television series in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, in which alleged psychics are asked to act as psychic detectives to help solve famous unsolved murder cases in each country. The psychics have not managed to solve any of the cases.-Format:Each episode included...
in which self-professed psychics attempt to crack unsolved murders.
Western Australian Police have a policy that they do not contact psychics for assistance with investigations, however they will accept information contributed by psychics.
An unnamed Australian federal police officer was suspended following his seeking the aid of a clairvoyant in regards to death threats made against Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
. A federal police spokesman said they do "not condone the use of psychics in security matters."
There are still cases of psychics professing to have trained with the Australian police and failing to provide credible evidence to support qualifications or evidence of being a psychic profiler or intuitive profiler with the Australian Police.
While official policy for Police Forces in Australia does not advocate the use of psychics for investigations, one former Detective Senior Constable, Jeffrey Little, has said police do use them "even though they officially say they don't". Additionally, police in NSW have used psychic Debbie Malone on a number of cases . While no evidence she has supplied has solved murders or missing investigations on their own. , her evidence had been used to corroborate theories, and in one case, included in a coroner's brief on a case Little, in reference to one case she assisted on, felt her description of what happened was "exceptional", other officers also had been impressed by her assistance, while yet other NSW officers felt she had not helped solve any cases. Sergeant Gae Crea and Detective Sergeant Damian Loone, state that she did not give them anything the police and the public didn't already know. Crea recounts "I've dealt with a lot of psychics, but no one has ever said, 'I can see where the body is buried and I'll take you there'". .
In Britain
In 2006, 28 British police forces responded to a query from the UK-Skeptics to say that they did not and have never used psychics, one force saying "We are unaware of any inquiries significantly progressed solely by information provided by a psychic medium." In 2009, when the Metropolitan PoliceMetropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
had denied the use of psychics and were then presented with emails suggesting the use of a psychic they made a press statement authorized by the senior investigating officer that was much more ambiguous: "We do not identify people we may or may not speak with in connection with inquiries. We are not prepared to discuss this further."
In New Zealand
New Zealand police have said "spiritual communications were not considered a creditable foundation for investigation."In the United States
A 1993 survey of police departments in the 50 largest cities in the United States revealed that a third of them had accepted predictions from psychic detectives in the past, although only seven departments treated such information any differently to information from an ordinary source. No police department reported any instances of a psychic investigator providing information that was more helpful than other information received during the course of a case. A follow-up study looking at small and medium-sized cities in the United States, found that psychics were called upon by the police departments of those cities even less frequently than large cities. A former senior investigator for the FBIFederal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
has stated that psychics may be used "as a last resort
Prominent cases
Many prominent police cases, often involving missing persons, have received the attention of alleged psychics. Following the disappearance of Elizabeth SmartElizabeth Smart
Elizabeth Ann Smart is an American female activist and contributor for ABC News. She first gained widespread attention at age 14 when she was kidnapped from her home and recovered nine months later.-Early life:...
on June 5, 2002, the police received as many 9,000 tips from self-proclaimed psychics (and others crediting visions and dreams as their source). Responding to these tips took "many police hours," according to Salt Lake City Police Chief Lieutenant Chris Burbank. Yet, Elizabeth Smart's father, Ed Smart, concluded that: "the family didn’t get any valuable information from psychics." Smart was located by observant witnesses who recognized her abductor from a police photograph.
When Washington D.C. intern Chandra Levy
Chandra Levy
Chandra Ann Levy was an American intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001. She was presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002...
went missing on May 1, 2001, psychics from around the world provided tips suggesting that her body would be found in places such as the basement of a Smithsonian storage building, in the Potomac river, and buried in the Nevada desert among many other possible locations. Each tip led nowhere. A little more than a year after her disappearance, Levy's body was accidentally discovered by a man walking his dog in a remote section of an area park.
The case of Shawn Hornbeck received the attention of psychics after the eleven-year-old went missing on October 6, 2002. Most notably, self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne
Sylvia Browne
Sylvia Browne is an American author who describes herself as a psychic and spiritual medium...
appeared on The Montel Williams Show
The Montel Williams Show
The Montel Williams Show is a syndicated talk show hosted by Montel Williams. On January 30, 2008 it was announced that The Montel Williams Show would stop production on new episodes at the end of the 2007-2008 television season after seventeen years...
and provided the parents of Shawn Hornbeck a detailed description of the abductor and where Hornbeck could be found. Browne responded "No" when asked if he was still alive. When Hornbeck was found alive more than four years later, few of the details given by Browne were correct. Shawn Hornbeck's father, Craig Akers, has stated that Browne's declaration was "one of the hardest things that we've ever had to hear," and that her misinformation diverted investigators wasting precious police time.
A body was located in the US by Psychic Annete Martin. Dennis Prado, a retired US paratrooper, had gone missing from his apartment, and Police had been unable to locate his whereabouts. With no further leads, the chief investigating officer, Fernando Realyvasquez, a sergeant with the Pacifica (California) Police, contacted psychic detective Annette Martin. Prado had lived near a large forest, some 2000 square miles. Martin was given a map, she circled a small spot on the map, about the size of two city blocks. She said that Prado had struggled for breath, had died and his body would be there within the indicated area. She described the path he took, and where the body would be found. Although the area had been searched, a search and rescue officer found the body covered with dirt with a sniffer dog at the location, as Martin had indicated. While the body had deteriorated, there was no evidence that he had been attacked and it thought likely he had died of natural causes, as she also indicated.
In Australia, psychics have been involved in the location of three victims, as reported by the media.
In Sydney Australia in 1996, a Belgian born Sydney psychic, Phillipe Durant was approached by the fiance of missing Paula Brown to help locate her. Durante told police the location of the body of Brown. She was found less than two Kilometres of the spot he had indicated in Port Botany, by a truck driver who came across the body. "Even though the body was discovered purely by chance, the speculation by a clairvoyant appears to have been uncannily accurate," a police spokeswoman conceded. Durant had used a plumb bob and a grid map, combined with some hair from the victim. .
In 2001, the body of Thomas Braun was located by Perth based Aboriginal clairvoyant Leanna Adams in Western Australia. Police had initially been unable to find the body. The family of Braun had been told to contact Adams, an Aboriginal psychic who lived in Perth. The Braun Family had requested police to do a search based on Adams’ directions but they had not assisted. Adams went to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, and took the family members directly to Braun’s remains, a spot high on a ridge west of the town, some 20 kilometres out. The remains were not immediately identifiable. Police later confirmed the remains to be his using DNA testing.
In August, 2010, Aboriginal Elder Cheryl Carroll-Lagerwey claimed to have seen the location of a missing child, Kiesha Abrahams, in her dream. The missing child's disappearance was being investigated by police. She took them to a location where a dead body was found, however it was of an adult woman and not the body of the child. Arlington, Kim "Supernatural sleuths and the search for truth" The Sydney Morning Herald 30/12/2010, p4
Critical commentary
ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's Nightline
Nightline
Nightline, or ABC News Nightline is a late-night news program broadcast by ABC in the United States, and has a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. It airs weeknights, usually for 31 minutes. Created by Roone Arledge, the program featured Ted Koppel as its main...
Beyond Belief
Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction
Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction is an American television anthology series created by Lynn Lehmann, presented by Dick Clark Productions, and produced and aired by the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. Each episode featured five stories, all of which appeared to defy logic, and some of which were...
program for August 17, 2011 featured psychic detectives and their involvement with the case of Ali Lowitzer. Typical of missing person cases, families are approached by people claiming they will help bring the missing home. "They told me, I see trees, water, dirt...but it is all very vague" according to Susan Lowitzer a mother whose daughter has been missing since April 26, 2010. Retired FBI detective and ABC consultant Brad Garrett states, "In 30 years...I have never seen a psychic solve a mystery". JREF investigator and mentalist Banachek
Banachek
Banachek is an American mentalist. Banachek has written books on mentalism, such as Psychological Subtleties, and invented various magic and mentalism effects, including the Penn & Teller bullet catch and the original "buried alive." Banachek is also the Director of the James Randi Educational...
feels that psychic detectives take advantage of families, "...because of fame and money, [they] step in and try to act like an authority". Banachek believes that not all psychic detectives are frauds, some are self-deluded and believe they are helping, but they "send police on wild-goose chases wasting precious time and resources". Psychic Georgia O'Conner states that Ali is dead, she was tortured and her body dismembered. When asked by ABC's JuJu Chang
JuJu Chang
Hyunju "Juju" Chang is a Korean-American Emmy Award-winning television journalist for ABC News, and currently serves as a special correspondent and fill-in anchor for Nightline...
how can she tell parents this kind of information when she might be wrong, O'Conner replies "I can't let my ego get in the way of what I see". Despite the attention from psychic detectives Ali Lowitzer remains missing from her Spring, TX home.
No psychic detective has ever been praised or given official recognition by the FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
or US national news for solving a crime, preventing a crime, or finding a kidnap victim or corpse.
The Australian Institute of Criminology
Australian Institute of Criminology
The Australian Institute of Criminology is Australia's national research and knowledge centre on crime and justice. The Institute seeks to promote justice and reduce crime by undertaking and communicating evidence-based research to inform policy and practice.The functions of the AIC include...
, Australia's official crime research agency, advises parents of missing children not resort to psychics who approach them. Former FBI analyst and profiler Clint Van Zandt has criticized the use of psychic detectives and has stated that "What happens many times is that professed psychics allow themselves the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. After the case is solved, they make their previously vague predictions somehow fit the crime and the criminal." A detailed 2010 study of Sylvia Browne
Sylvia Browne
Sylvia Browne is an American author who describes herself as a psychic and spiritual medium...
predictions about 115 missing persons and murder cases has found that despite her repeated claims to be more than 85% correct, "Browne has not even been mostly correct in a single case."
Scientific studies of psychic detectives abilities
A number of scientific tests have been conducted on psychics detectives, using control groups, to try to establish any psychic ability relating to crime solving. One of the earliest was carried out by Dutch Police officer, Fillipus Brink in 1960. He conducted a one year long study of psychics and their abilities, but found no evidence of any abilities.. Another study was conducted in 1982 where evidence from four crimes was given to three groups; psychic detectives, students and police detectives. The clues related to four crimes, two crimes that had been solved, and two that had not been. The study found no difference between the three groups in ability to indicate what crimes had been committed be looking at the evidence.. Some flaws in the scientific method was apparent in these two tests. A further test was conducted in 1997, this test focusing on improving on the scientific methods used in the previous tests. This study used two groups, one consisting of three students from the University of Hertfordhire, the other group consisting of three psychics (two Psychic Detectives, and another Psychic who had a media profile and had been endorsed by police due to his abilities). The two groups were shown three objects associated with three serious crimes. They then advocated theories, but once again, no difference was found in terms of the accuracy between the two groups.
Belief in psychic detectives
Psychologists, researchers, and other authors have posited a number of possible explanations for the belief that some can provide valuable crime information from psychic abilities. The possible explanations include confirmation biasConfirmation bias
Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.David Perkins, a geneticist, coined the term "myside bias" referring to a preference for "my" side of an issue...
(or our natural tendency to favor information to confirm our beliefs), wishful thinking
Wishful thinking
Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality or reality...
(which is the act of making decisions based upon what is appealing rather than reasoned), and retrofitting (or retroactively refining the specifics of a prediction after the facts are revealed). The act of reinterpreting vague and nebulous statements made by psychic detectives is also referred to as the multiple out. Taking advantage of these cognitive limitations is the practice of cold reading
Cold reading
Cold reading is a series of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, illusionists, and con artists to determine or express details about another person, often in order to convince them that the reader knows much more about a subject than they actually do...
which creates the illusion of knowing specific information. Additionally, police detectives and other authors suggest that psychic detectives appear successful due to making common-sense or high-probability predictions such as finding bodies at dump sites or "near water."
Finally, the use of psychics may simply reduce anxiety and fill the emotional needs of individuals who must be experiencing great stress.
In fiction
There is a long history of psychic detectives in horrorHorror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
and crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
, and in other genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s as well. One of the earliest forms of the genre was the character Flaxman Low, created in 1897 by mother and son Kate and Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard
Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard
Major Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard, DSO, MC, FRGS, FZS was an explorer, adventurer, big-game hunter and marksman who made a significant contribution to sniping practice within the British Army during the First World War...
. Other examples include Jules de Grandin
Jules de Grandin
Jules de Grandin is a fictional occult detective created by Seabury Quinn for Weird Tales. Assisted by Dr. Trowbridge , de Grandin fought ghosts, werewolves, satanists in over ninety stories between 1925 and 1951. Jules de Grandin and Dr. Trowbridge lived in Harrisonville, New Jersey...
(created by Seabury Quinn
Seabury Quinn
Seabury Grandin Quinn was an American pulp magazine author, most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, published in Weird Tales.-Biography:...
), Doctor Occult
Doctor Occult
Doctor Occult is a fictional character, a magic user in the . Created by Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Doctor Occult is the earliest character created by DC Comics still currently in use in its shared universe fiction....
(created by Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...
and Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-born American comic book artist. He was best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1...
) and Agent Jasi McLellan created by Cheryl Kaye Tardif
Cheryl Kaye Tardif
Cheryl Kaye Tardif is a Canadian mystery writer best known for Canada-based novels Whale Song, Divine Intervention, and The River. Her novels involve social issues such as assisted suicide, school bullies, child abuse, and the search for youth and longevity.-Biography:Tardif was born in Vancouver,...
.
The popular TV show, Psych
Psych
Psych is an American detective comedy-drama television series created by Steve Franks and broadcast on USA Network. It stars James Roday as Shawn Spencer, a young crime consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department whose "heightened observational skills" and impressive detective instincts...
features a charlatan psychic detective helping the Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
police with crimes that range from robberies to kidnappings to murders. However, the man actually uses an acute sense of observation he acquired as a child, deduction and reasoning to find out who did what, making a running gag
Running gag
A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
of his claim to be a paranormal detective.
In Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
's Dirk Gently
Dirk Gently
Dirk Gently is a fictional character created by Douglas Adams and featured in the books Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul...
novels, the titular character—a "holistic" detective—is implied to have psychic powers on occasion. One incident involved Gently attempting to scam his university classmates into paying for a set of answers to an exam, supposedly obtained using psychic powers that Gently did not think he had. To his surprise, the answers he provided, which he thought he had produced randomly, turned out to be entirely correct. He was expelled as a result.
The episode "Cartman's Incredible Gift
Cartman's Incredible Gift
"Cartman's Incredible Gift" is episode 124 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired December 8, 2004. Though a minor part of the episode, it marks the last appearance of the seldom-seen South Park Elementary school bus driver Mrs. Veronica Crabtree...
" of South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
depicts a skeptical view of psychic detectives.
The Japanese manga and anime series Yu Yu Hakusho depicts a teenage boy named Yusuke Urameshi working as a Spirit Detective, which is a human who hunts down demons using supernatural abilities.
See also
- Occult detectiveOccult detectiveOccult detective stories combine the tropes of the detective story with those of supernatural horror fiction. Unlike the traditional detective the occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts, curses, and other supernatural elements...
- ParapsychologyParapsychologyThe term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
- PsychicPsychicA psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
- Psychic archaeologyPsychic archaeologyPsychic archaeology is a loose collection of practices involving the application of paranormal phenomena to problems in archaeology.Practitioners of psychic archaeology utilize a variety of methods of divination ranging from pseudoscientific methods such as dowsing for Electromagnetic Photo-Fields...
- Ganzfeld experimentGanzfeld experimentA ganzfeld experiment is a technique used in the field of parapsychology to test individuals for extrasensory perception . It uses homogeneous and unpatterned sensory stimulation to produce an effect similar to sensory deprivation. The deprivation of patterned sensory input is said to be conducive...
- Scientific investigation of telepathy
- PseudosciencePseudosciencePseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
- Marcello TruzziMarcello TruzziMarcello Truzzi was a professor of sociology at New College of Florida and later at Eastern Michigan University, founding co-chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal , a founder of the Society for Scientific Exploration, and director for the Center for...
- Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
- Gerard CroisetGerard CroisetGerard Croiset a.k.a. Gerard Boekbinder was a Dutch parapsychologist, psychometrist and psychic.-Biography:...
Literature
- Richard WisemanRichard WisemanRichard Wiseman is Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom.Wiseman started his professional life as a magician, before graduating in Psychology from University College London and obtaining a Ph.D...
, Donald West & Roy Stemman: An experimental test of psychic detection. In: Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. 1996, 61(842), 34-45 (PDF)