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 | | From: | James McGaha | | Subject: | Varied readings on Arizona psychic | | Date: | Mon, 17 Jan 2005 10:47:20 -0700 |
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 | Front Page story in ARIZONA DAILY STAR today.
This nothing but BS!!!
James McGaha, MS, FRAS
Director, Grasslands Observatory, 651
Published: 01.17.2005
Varied readings on Arizona psychic
By Carla McClain
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
On TV
● "Medium" airs at 9 tonight on KVOA Channel 4. The show stars Patricia Arquette as Allison and Jake Weber as her husband, Joe
Dubois.
To learn more
● For more information on Allison Dubois, visit her Web site at www.allisondubois.com.
● For more information on professor Gary Schwartz's research on psychic mediums, including Dubois, visit veritas.arizona.edu/
● To explore the skeptics' view of research into psychic phenomena, visit www.csicop.org or www.randi.org.
The real-life Phoenix woman who inspired the new TV drama "Medium" can indeed contact dead people, according to scientific - and
controversial - tests performed on her at the University of Arizona.
The abilities of Allison Dubois - who claims she can see dead people, receive information from them, and even hear the thoughts of
the living - are showcased in the new NBC Monday night show, with actress Patricia Arquette.
In real life, Dubois, 33 next week, has used her paranormal talents to help police in Phoenix and in other states solve crimes - the
main plot of "Medium," along with her life as a wife and mother of three young children.
But what few may realize is Dubois' prime power - making contact with people after death - has been subjected to three years of UA
research scientifically designed to determine if she is an authentic "medium" or a fraud.
Although the studies have stirred controversy nationwide and have been slammed by several skeptics, the Harvard-trained UA professor
who ran them strongly defends their legitimacy, as does Dubois.
"There is no question this is not a fraud - some people really can do this, and Allison is one of them," said psychology professor
Gary E. Schwartz, who directs the UA's Human Energy Systems Laboratory where the experiments with Dubois and other well-known
mediums - including John Edward of TV's "Crossing Over" fame - have been conducted.
"Many people claim to do this, and there are clearly frauds out there. Allison was repeatedly tested and passed every test.
"As a scientist, I approach all this as an agnostic - I don't believe it; I don't disbelieve it. After testing her under conditions
that ruled out the possibility of fraud, I came to the conclusion she's the real deal."
Dubois first called Schwartz four years ago, after seeing him on a "Dateline" NBC segment with John Edward on paranormal powers. She
wanted to see how good her "gift" really was.
Schwartz first put Dubois through a direct, informal reading on himself. A beloved mentor of his had just died, but he told her
nothing about that woman.
Among other things, Dubois told Schwartz "the deceased was telling me that I must share the following - I don't walk alone," a
seemingly innocuous piece of information, but critical to him.
"My friend had been confined to a wheelchair in her last years - there is no way Allison could have known that," he said.
After that, the formal, scientific experiments began under controlled conditions - some of them completely "blinded," so Dubois
could not see or talk to the person she was reading, or vice versa. They were not even told each other's full names.
In that situation, it is virtually impossible to use tricks fake mediums use - throwing out streams of general information and
following up on those that get visible reactions - methods known as "cold reading."
In some cases, fake mediums also have been known to tap phones and hire detectives to get vital information on people they are going
to read. That is impossible if the medium does not know who the person is.
In one of these experiments, Dubois was asked to contact a deceased person close to a woman in England she had never met. She was
told only the woman's first name and that she wanted to hear from her deceased husband. During the actual reading, Dubois was at the
UA lab, and the woman was in England.
A transcript of the information Dubois got during the reading - supposedly from the dead husband - was sent to his wife in England,
who scored it as 73 percent accurate.
"That's extraordinarily high accuracy, and Allison always scored in the near-80 percent range," Schwartz said. "That clearly puts
her among the best of the best."
No psychic medium is 100 percent accurate, he said.
Some of Dubois' best results were in one of her more famous UA experiments, when she read for celebrity physician-author-lecturer
Dr. Deepak Chopra, just after the death of his father, a famous cardiologist in India.
During the reading, Chopra was in California, Dubois was in Arizona, and they were connected by phone. Dubois was not told who
Chopra was. He could hear her, but he was not allowed to speak to her.
According to a summary of the reading done by Schwartz, she told him the deceased person was a man of great stature, extremely
handsome, had beautiful women around him, was known to politicians and other well-known people, and was cremated - all accurate,
according to Chopra's evaluation.
But she also told him his father was connected to the U.S. oil and steel industry, and there was a small dark terrier dog in his
life - not true, Chopra said. Her accuracy score - 77 percent, according to Chopra's scoring, Schwartz said.
But Schwartz's careful design of these studies doesn't persuade skeptics, who say his work proves nothing.
"Professor Gary Schwartz makes revolutionary claims that he has provided competent scientific evidence for survival of consciousness
and - even more extraordinary - that mediums can actually communicate with the dead. He is badly mistaken," wrote Ray Hyman,
professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Oregon, in a 2003 issue of the magazine Skeptical Inquirer.
Hyman's research has included examination of alleged psychic readings and critiques of parapsychological experiments. He
acknowledges that Schwartz has excellent academic credentials but blasts his medium research.
"Probably no other extended program in psychical research deviates so much from the accepted norms of scientific methodology as this
one."
After reviewing Schwartz's book, "The Afterlife Experiments," he said readings by Schwartz's "star mediums," like Dubois, "strike me
as no different in kind from those of any run-of-the-mill psychic readers and as completely consistent with cold (fake) readings."
He criticized Schwartz for other research errors, such as using only subjects "predisposed" to believe in this phenomenon and for
"inappropriate statistical tests."
In response, Schwartz said Hyman ignored and omitted facts that do not support his biases. "This is like a skeptical sports reviewer
focusing on Michael Jordan's few air balls and fouls, and drawing the conclusion that Jordan can't play basketball," he said.
Perhaps more entertaining is the ongoing public feud Schwartz has with the flamboyant magician and professional skeptic James Randi,
who has offered $1 million to "anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or
occult power or event."
Randi even wrote a letter to the University of Arizona Foundation in 2001, asking the university to submit Schwartz's research data
to an independent panel for evaluation, to see if the UA might win the $1 million.
In one critique, Randi called Schwartz "an academic who has abandoned reason to accept everything and anything offered him by
scammers from John Edward to the gypsy down the street."
Schwartz rejected Randi's million-dollar bait.
"I refused for the same reason all serious scientists in America and Europe have refused. The process of this prize lacks scientific
credibility and integrity," he said. "This guy is not a scientist - he is a mediocre magician who loves the public eye."
Just how Allison Dubois could have faked what she told Phran Ginsberg about her teenage daughter Bailey - who died in a car crash
two years ago - baffles Ginsberg.
"We were in separate states; we never met. I had no idea who was doing the reading. This was done by phone, and I was not allowed to
speak," said Ginsberg, who lives in Lloyd Harbor, N.Y.
The first thing Dubois said was that she saw a photo of her daughter hugging her sister at a party. At that moment, Ginsberg was
looking at a photo of the scene.
"Then she told me Bailey wished me 'Happy Valentine's Day.' And that didn't make sense, because it was October," she said. But later
that day, she took the photo from its frame, and on the back Bailey had written "Valentine's Day Dance."
"Right then, I knew Allison was the real deal," Ginsberg said. Dubois also had described the accident and Bailey's fatal head
injury.
"How could she know this? I just can't see any way she could fake that - she didn't know my name. She didn't know Bailey's name. I
see absolutely no other way. This has to be real."
● Contact reporter Carla McClain at 806-7754 or cmcclain@azstarnet.com.
Published: 01.17.2005
Medium awareness
By Rhonda Bodfield Bloom
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Interested in learning more about developing your own skills?
● The eight-week Oracle Workshop begins Feb. 12 at Essential Wisdom, 2727 E. Grant Road. The cost is $144.
● A monthly discussion group also meets the last Friday of the month.
● For more information, log onto www.essentialwisdomhealing.com or contact Jo'Ann Ruhl at 323-0040.
When Mandy LeGrand saw headlights coming the wrong way down a Sacramento highway last Feb. 7, she had time only to swerve.
That action likely saved the life of her aunt in the passenger seat - but not Mandy's.
Her mother, Penny LeGrand, an Oro Valley travel agent, lost hope that day when her daughter, born on Mother's Day 34 years earlier,
was killed by a drunken college student. "Losing a child just rips your heart right out of your body."
LeGrand heard about a local grief counselor, Janna Excell, who had some experience as a medium, and decided to see her. The
encounter alleviated some of that pain, mostly through the details Excell could provide .
Although Excell often does not receive names, Excell told her she was hearing the name "Max," the name of the short-haired pit bull
mix killed with her daughter. But Excell said she wasn't seeing a short-haired dog, but a black one with long hair. That turned out
to be the family's original Max, a Lab-mix the pit bull puppy had been named after. Other messages followed, LeGrand said, that
Excell could not have known.
"I feel that her mediumship is what really saved my life," said LeGrand, 61. After the crash, "I felt that I wanted to be where
Mandy was. I didn't want to be here anymore. But by validating the fact that Mandy had crossed over and gone home, that made me feel
like I could survive."
LeGrand has been watching the new NBC show, "Medium," a story of a young woman who helps police solve crimes, based on the life of
Allison DuBois, a Phoenix-area medium. "I hope it will open some doors for some people," LeGrand said, adding most of her friends
are interested when they hear her story.
There have been some skeptics, including one who asked if she found out what the lottery numbers were.
That reaction is nothing new to Jo'Ann Ruhl, a local medium who says she has been able to talk to the dead for as far back as she
can remember. She was raised in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood, where her mother forbade her to talk about her experiences with
spirits, which began during childhood.
She remembers a nun who would visit her in the playroom and an Asian man who would sit on her bed in the mornings. "I would wake up
this way every day, and for years I didn't understand they didn't live in my house."
Ruhl doesn't have to be meditating. If she's in the grocery store, she has to consciously shut off the visions, explaining spirits
are drawn to her the way the living are drawn to a light under a door in a dark hallway. Still, Ruhl, who teaches students how to
develop medium skills, said she is not afraid to tell people if she can't make contact. "We don't make promises we can't keep.
Sometimes I have to say, 'I'm not getting anything.' "
DuBois, 33 next week, also has had medium experiences since childhood, but it wasn't until five years ago that she started doing the
work professionally. Just as the television show "Medium" depicts, DuBois was an intern, trying to be a prosecutor, when she decided
to test herself through research at the University of Arizona. Encouraged by the results (see page A1 for the story), she stopped
trying to deny her talent. In addition to consulting on the show - which premiered Jan. 3 and airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on Channel 4 -
DuBois also serves as a jury consultant for prosecutors.
She said readings take a toll on her physically. If the person died of a heart attack, she said she will feel a punch in the chest.
If the person died of emphysema, she will feel her lungs constrict.
DuBois has been inundated with interview requests from media outlets such as "The Today Show," People Magazine, USA Today and The
New York Times. Was she surprised at the attention? Silly question. "I was expecting it," she said in a recent phone interview.
"That's the beauty of what I do."
So how accurate is the Hollywood portrayal? She said about 65 percent is based on her own experiences. "The gold nugget of it is
real," said DuBois, who has a waiting list of two years for readings.
Critics worry that the show might give people false hope.
Perhaps the best-known of these critics is James Randi, a Florida man who has written a number of books, including, "Flim-Flam!
Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions" (Prometheus, $22 paperback).
Randi has offered a $1 million prize to anyone who can offer proof, under observation, of any paranormal or supernatural power. To
date, no one has claimed the prize. Randi was unavailable for comment, but his Web site states that DuBois is fully aware of the
challenge and has not applied.
Sgt. Carlos Valdez, a spokesman for the Tucson Police Department, said the department does not use mediums as standard policy and
does not seek them out. On occasion, people calling themselves psychics have offered tips, and the office follows up on the
information, just like they would any other call to the office.
"Have they been instrumental in solving any cases? The answer is 'no.' There have not been any cases that have resulted in closure
or arrest based on information a psychic provided."
Most recently, the family of Loretta Bowersock, a 69-year-old Tempe woman who vanished in mid-December, consulted psychics for her
whereabouts. News accounts show the family has so far searched the desert in vain.
Gail Leland, a victim advocate and program manager with Homicide Survivors, said in her experience, while law enforcement does not
have a high opinion of psychics, victims are often very interested in them. She knows that pull firsthand.
When her 14-year-old son, Richard, went missing in 1981, "You don't care what anybody thinks or says. When your loved one is
missing, you will stop at nothing." Police found her son's body in the desert the day she planned to go to a psychic.
That desperation translates into vulnerability, Leland said. She's seen victims led on goose chases. One victim was told, for
example, that her daughter's body could be found within a 6-mile radius of Picacho Peak. That's a desolate area that would require
an army of people to cover. Law enforcement did not have the resources to act on such a nebulous tip and the family couldn't do it.
"That leaves families in more trauma than they were in before because there was some possibility out there that they could not act
upon."
Leland was soured on psychic mediums during a high-profile case of a missing child in Tucson when one went to the media and spelled
out in detail what she was seeing. The family was devastated. "If this person was any kind of psychic, you'd think she would have
had some psychic premonition of what the mother was going to go through because of those comments."
In 23 years of working with victims, she said, she has never seen a case solved because of information a psychic provided. And that
disappoints her. "I had always hoped there could be something like that," Leland said. In fact, there are times she wishes she had
seen the psychic anyway, since her son's murder remains unsolved. So she has asked Ruhl to come speak to her group next month.
DuBois said she does not mind the skeptics she describes as "critical thinkers." "Not everybody believes in God, so I certainly
don't expect everybody to believe in me," she said.
What she doesn't like are the "angry skeptics," a group that includes Randi, in her opinion. "They assume we owe them an explanation
or an audience," she said. "When it comes to people like that, I don't give them my time."
The criticism that really gets her is that mediums take advantage of people at their most vulnerable moments. "When they're at their
lowest, we pick them up and send them out the door so they can function again. Ethical mediums take what they do very seriously."
LeGrand's medium, the counselor Excell, tells the story of a woman who came to her, asking if her loved one had committed suicide.
Excell said she answered only after assuring herself that the woman would be strong enough to handle the affirmative answer. "You
have to be very careful and very professional and leave the person better when they leave than when they came through your door."
And she always prefaces her comments with, "I may be wrong."
LeGrand remembers the first time Excell made contact with her daughter, "the degree of pain immediately lifted." LeGrand looks at
her emotional pain as a physical wound. She'll always have scars, but she's slowly healing.
● Contact reporter Rhonda Bodfield Bloom at 807-8031 or rbloom@azstarnet.com.
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