Police using the help of clairvoyants

[greypilgrim]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-buried-forest-just-24257689

On one hand, police warn about charlatans, on the other, they accept the help of clairvoyants as a last resort. Mixed signals much?

Is there a statistics about how often clairvoyants actually successed in finding somebody? Apparently this Michael Schneider did several times.

 

[russ_watters]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-buried-forest-just-24257689

On one hand, police warn about charlatans, on the other, they accept the help of clairvoyants as a last resort. Mixed signals much?

Is there a statistics about how often clairvoyants actually successed in finding somebody? Apparently this Michael Schneider did several times.

I don't see this as mixed signals if the assistance is free. The "psychic" is looking for free publicity, but then so are the police. And psychic investigation isn't fundamentally different from detective work, so the police are getting a "free" extra set of hands.

 

[rsk]

Oh, I had missed this.
I admit I have been fascinated by this story from the start. Wonder if anything will come of this.

 

[hutchphd]

And psychic investigation isn't fundamentally different from detective work, so the police are getting a "free" extra set of hands.

Although adding a crazy person to your team is seldom, IMHO, a good management decision. Of course in most general investigations there is no bad publicity so a blurb on the local news is probably worth the crazy.
Oh, and the body will be found near water...I can seee it.

 

[Jarvis323]

If you were a really good investigator wanting to help with a case, maybe you'de need to pretend to be a clairvoyant in order to be taken seriously?

 

[hutchphd]

This sounds like we could do a TV show. We should make one guy black and one white. Naw that won't work...

 

[russ_watters]

Although adding a crazy person to your team is seldom, IMHO, a good management decision.

You're assuming the psychic is crazy? I'm not; I'm assuming the psychic is a skilled* cold reader+. That's almost exactly the sort of skill you need for interrogations.

If you were a really good investigator wanting to help with a case, maybe you'd need to pretend to be a clairvoyant in order to be taken seriously?

I think you joke, but I think that in many cases if an investigator is having trouble getting through to a witness/suspect, a "clairvoyant" may have more luck.

*Note; police should only employ successful psychics.
+Not to be confused with "fraud".

 

[hutchphd]

I think you joke, but I think that in many cases if an investigator is having trouble getting through to a witness/suspect, a "clairvoyant" may have more luck.

I was assuming @Jarvis323 was referencing the US TV show "psych" which had that as a premise. It was a pretty good show (but perhaps parochial...maybe not in UK)
Watching a Crystal Ball carnie psychic at work can be an education in itself. And who is the TV guy who talks to the dead? OMG. The amazing James Randi is unfortunately no longer among us..

 

[DennisN]

I admit I have been fascinated by this story from the start. Wonder if anything will come of this.

"I will consult the bones..."

 

[Klystron]

For psychics I defer to American journalist and solid skeptic William Gresham, author of novel
Nightmare Alley also made into a 1947 movie. Fooling the rubes/marks/chumps remains the lifework of priests, grifters, mentalists, professional clairvoyants and lazy lowlifes of many sorts. Their tricks are simple and highly effective, presaging the information age. Want to know something about the family of a missing child: talk to a gabby neighbor.

Stud poker, initially played with one card down and four up cards, one exposed at each betting round; was highly popular when Gresham wrote Nightmare Alley. An 'ace in the hole' could win many small pots when no player bettered their hand. A 'mitt camp' in carney slang refers to clairvoyants who prefer to 'read' lines on the mark's hand to foretell the future while actually studying reactions to stock phrases.

Some ladle out the blarney​

In the mitt camp of a carney​

And some lecture on the Cosmic Oversoul​

But their names would be mud​

Like a chump playing stud​

If they lost that old ace in the hole.​

The ability of smart people to fool the yokels is their 'ace in the hole'.

Gresham also popularized the slang word 'geek'; originally the lowest level of show business that morphed into a verb meaning to do anything for money; currently applied to socially awkward people (circus and show biz folk pitied and shunned the geek).