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Jesse Bravo is an American psychic known for being an investment banker, media personality and psychic medium. [1] He appeared in the Impractical Jokers episode "Medium, Well Done", where he performed a psychic evaluation on Sal Vulcano. [2] [3]
James Randi was a Canadian-American stage magician, author, and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87.
A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology such as extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, such as psychokinesis or teleportation. Although many people believe in psychic abilities, the scientific consensus is that there is no proof of the existence of such powers, and describes the practice as pseudoscience. The word "psychic" is also used as an adjective to describe such abilities.
Cold reading is a set of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, and mediums. Without prior knowledge, a practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. during a line of questioning. Cold readings commonly employ high-probability guesses, quickly picking up on signals as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not, then emphasizing and reinforcing chance connections and quickly moving on from missed guesses. Psychologists believe that this appears to work because of the Barnum effect and due to confirmation biases within people.
John Edward McGee Jr. is an American television personality, writer and self-proclaimed psychic medium.
Sylvia Celeste Browne was an American writer, medium, and psychic. She appeared regularly on television and radio, including on The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Live, and hosted an hour-long online radio show on Hay House Radio.
Allison DuBois is an American author and purported medium. DuBois claims she used her psychic abilities to assist U.S. law enforcement officials in solving crimes, forming the basis of the TV series Medium.
Derek Francis Johnson, known professionally as Derek Acorah, was a British spiritual medium. He was best known for his television work on Most Haunted, broadcast on Living TV (2002–2010). His career as a medium was punctuated by allegations of fakery and he also attracted controversy over a number of seances during which he reportedly made contact with high-profile figures.
Mediumship is the pseudoscientific practice of mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling, including séance tables, trance, and ouija. The practice is associated with spiritualism and spiritism. A similar New Age practice is known as channeling.
The Psychic Friends Network(PFN) was a telephone psychic service operating in the United States in the 1990s. The company's infomercials were aired frequently on late night television at that time. In 2012, the business began to migrate to online services.
A psychic reading is a specific attempt to discern information through the use of heightened perceptive abilities; or natural extensions of the basic human senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and instinct. These natural extensions are claimed to be clairvoyance (vision), clairsentience (feeling), claircognisance and clairaudience (hearing) and the resulting statements made during such an attempt. The term is commonly associated with paranormal-based consultation given for a fee in such settings as over the phone, in a home, or at psychic fairs. Though psychic readings are controversial and a focus of skeptical inquiry, a popular interest in them persists. Extensive experimentation to replicate psychic results in laboratory conditions have failed to find any precognitive phenomena in humans. A cold reading technique allows psychics to produce seemingly specific information about an individual from social cues and broad statements.
The Mentalist is an American drama television series that ran from September 23, 2008, until February 18, 2015, broadcasting 151 episodes over seven seasons, on CBS. Created by Bruno Heller, who was also its executive producer, the show follows former "psychic" Patrick Jane, who is a consultant to the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and his boss, senior agent Teresa Lisbon, using the highly developed observational skills he previously employed to "read" people's minds.
Telekinesis is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing an individual to influence a physical system without physical interaction. Experiments to prove the existence of telekinesis have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no reliable evidence that telekinesis is a real phenomenon, and the topic is generally regarded as pseudoscience.
James Van Praagh is an American writer and television personality who describes himself as a clairvoyant and spiritual medium. He has written numerous books, including The New York Times bestseller Talking to Heaven. Van Praagh was a producer and screenwriter on the 2002 CBS primetime semi-autobiographical miniseries Living with the Dead starring Ted Danson. He also hosted a short-lived paranormal talk show called Beyond with James Van Praagh.
Mark Edward is an American mentalist and author. He has written books on mentalism, séance theory and production, including Psychic Blues published in 2009, where he discusses working for the Psychic Friends Network. Wilson has appeared on television as both primary consultant and on-air performer in such diverse programming as ABC's "The Con", A & E's Biography: "Houdini, the Great Escape", NBC's "The Other Side" and "Psychic Secrets Revealed", The Sci-Fi Channel's "Mysteries, Magic and Miracles", The Discovery Channel's "Forces Beyond", and on two episodes of The Learning Channel's "Exploring the Unknown". His featured segment as a spirit medium on the pilot episode of Showtime's "Penn & Teller's Bullshit!" series entitled "Speaking with the Dead" helped secure an Emmy Award nomination for that episode in 2002. He is a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Long Island Medium is an American reality television series starring Theresa Caputo, a self-professed medium who claims she can communicate with the dead. Much of the program, which premiered on September 25, 2011, takes place in Hicksville, New York, though it often follows Caputo as she meets with clients in other areas.
Theresa Caputo is an American psychic medium, best known for her TLC reality television series Long Island Medium.
Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium is a memoir by Mark Edward about his time working as a psychic entertainer. Published in 2012, the book covers Edward's controversial career as both a performer and a skeptical activist.
Tyler Henry Koelewyn is an American reality show personality who appears in the reality show series Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry and Life After Death with Tyler Henry as a clairvoyant medium since 2016. He has published two books.
Rose Mackenberg was an American investigator specializing in fraudulent psychic mediums, known for her association with Harry Houdini. She was chief of a team of undercover investigators who investigated mediums for Houdini in the 1920s. After Houdini's death, she continued to investigate spiritualist fraud for over 20 years and was known as an expert on the subject. She testified in court cases and before Congress and was interviewed in national magazines and on television.
Matthew L. Fraser, also known as Matt Fraser, is an American psychic medium, published author, and television personality. He is best known for his central role in the reality TV show Meet the Frasers. He has three written books including the We Never Die: Secrets of the Afterlife.