Speaker 1: Now, really.
Speaker 2: Really really Hello, and welcome to Really No Really Jason
Speaker 2: Alexander and Peter Tilden to predict you will find true
Speaker 2: love and great fortune if you've become a subscriber to
Speaker 2: our show. Now, maybe you don't put much stock in
Speaker 2: predictions and psychics, but their tiny storefront shops are popping
Speaker 2: up in some pretty exclusive zip codes Beverly Hills, Uptown, Manhattan,
Speaker 2: Main Street, USA, and.
Speaker 3: All over Europe.
Speaker 2: Their windows feature sun faded curtains and neon signs promoting
Speaker 2: palm readings, cures for curses.
Speaker 4: And prophecies about your future. Fun.
Speaker 2: Sure, but there's a much darker side hidden behind the
Speaker 2: tarot cards and crystal balls. In this episode, we meet
Speaker 2: Bob Nigard, a private detective who has recovered millions of
Speaker 2: dollars for victims of psychic fraud.
Speaker 4: He'll talk about the techniques.
Speaker 2: He uses to surprise and bust Drup psychics, and he'll
Speaker 2: also reveal a huge secret about the covert organizations that
Speaker 2: run many of the psychic scams in an industry with
Speaker 2: a projected income of over three billion.
Speaker 4: Dollars a year.
Speaker 2: Really, No, Really, I don't need a crystal ball to
Speaker 2: predict Jason and Peter are gonna love this one.
Speaker 3: So here they are.
Speaker 5: I don't want to know. I don't want to know.
Speaker 5: You know who's no, no, no, there was. We don't
Speaker 5: pay for that. You pay me. I don't want to
Speaker 5: know things. I'd rather be in the dark. I don't
Speaker 5: wanna know things unless it's where to park my car
Speaker 5: when I saw you know, was never advertised on our
Speaker 5: show many but what I thought would be a natural
Speaker 5: because if I turn on my car radio, twenty ads
Speaker 5: every day for the California Psychics, l A Psychics, the Hotline,
Speaker 5: the Psychics, the hot Life. Still have those people. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's and they're advertising big. So apparently somebody he's making
Speaker 5: some money on the l A hot looks amazing psychic
Speaker 5: and so people go, I want to know is they're
Speaker 5: going to be Am I going to be rich?
Speaker 4: We used to make that Am I going to die young?
Speaker 4: What do I want to know that psychic is going
Speaker 4: to do? We don't want to know.
Speaker 3: We used to do a motivational call called Donnie Clay
Speaker 3: is going to show you the way away to find
Speaker 3: you that's inside of you, that's holding you back? Okay,
Speaker 3: And one of the things we used to do is
Speaker 3: Donnie Clay's four words to guaranteed income.
Speaker 5: Right, You'll increase your income ten percent, twenty five to
Speaker 5: fifty percent, maybe even one hundred, one hundred percent of
Speaker 5: your incomeing forwards, and not a program.
Speaker 4: Not an exercise, not a book.
Speaker 5: Double your income in four words, everybody, and I'd get
Speaker 5: the whole audience worked up about it.
Speaker 3: We say a few money, and then the audience would
Speaker 3: be screaming, we want few money. And we're bringing some
Speaker 3: guy from the audience and we trom a picture of
Speaker 3: a yacht and say you want that. You said, yeah, Jason,
Speaker 3: what are you gonna do with it? Yeat?
Speaker 4: You're already wasting money. Why would I make it?
Speaker 3: After we've milked this thing?
Speaker 5: And there and I could get out your pencils, get
Speaker 5: your pens. Here are the fourth forward, double triple, You're
Speaker 5: in Unmi rover ready here they are, get a second job.
Speaker 3: There you go guarantee or if the guy was clumsy,
Speaker 3: he'd say, or fall off the stage, and Caesar's will argue,
Speaker 3: billow you some money. Yeah, the psychic thing never did
Speaker 3: it for me. But the really no really started when
Speaker 3: I said to you, if people who don't know southern California,
Speaker 3: the wealthiest neighborhoods are like Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisade.
Speaker 3: We're the midworsh area, and you have psychics. They all
Speaker 3: have storefronts in those locations, which are the highest rent
Speaker 3: storefronts in the world. They haven't a man to open.
Speaker 5: A basket in robins in those places would be hundreds
Speaker 5: of in ice creams a day.
Speaker 3: And they're just for the rent. And all these stores
Speaker 3: closed during COVID Neon signed psychics manhat manh Midtown Manhattan.
Speaker 4: Well they ova had as much like you got a
Speaker 4: woman on a couch.
Speaker 3: That's why it's a fortune. So that the question is
Speaker 3: how much money does a psychic make. We have a
Speaker 3: guy on Niguard who was a PI, a retired cop
Speaker 3: that must be a trip, yeah, in New York and
Speaker 3: New Jersey who decided to go after psychic crimes because
Speaker 3: his feeling was that the police and the legal system
Speaker 3: the worst they do is they go after them for reparations,
Speaker 3: but they don't go to jail. They maybe pay back
Speaker 3: some stuff, but it's a multi billion dollar a.
Speaker 5: Year crime and you victim sham because you go who's
Speaker 5: stupid enough to believe this?
Speaker 3: Who's falling? And just like sex crimes, I'm wondering with
Speaker 3: Bob if a lot of these people are too embarrassed
Speaker 3: to say that they were ripped off the amount of
Speaker 3: money some of these people are able to.
Speaker 4: Well, here's one.
Speaker 5: There was a person named Patrice Runner from Canada. This
Speaker 5: is amazing, built over a million people over twenty years,
Speaker 5: built over a million people out of a grand total
Speaker 5: of one hundred and seventy five million dollars. Really, he
Speaker 5: represented that he was working for known psychics Maria Deval
Speaker 5: and Patrick gurn who were not involved in all.
Speaker 4: But he represented, oh he knew the name and then,
Speaker 4: and that he was.
Speaker 5: Sending letters of referral, you know, saying it used to
Speaker 5: send me the questions, I'll consult with them and I'll
Speaker 5: get you the answers, and and made promises of guaranteed
Speaker 5: wealth and happiness to people and built them out of
Speaker 5: one hundred and seventy five million dollars.
Speaker 4: So this is noth where's our person today? They caught
Speaker 4: him and and they're behind bars.
Speaker 3: I'm really interested to see what mister niguard why he decided.
Speaker 3: I know why he went decided the same reason we're
Speaker 3: outraged by this new paging adventures, but how he did
Speaker 3: it because he's how people recover millions and millions of
Speaker 3: dollars and has been involved in every kind of psychic
Speaker 3: scam there is. Knows how to go after these people.
Speaker 3: So yes, why do they all have bad drapes? They
Speaker 3: make so much money.
Speaker 5: I'm guessing they blow all the money on the Neon
Speaker 5: signe and nothing left in the budget for the drapes.
Speaker 5: So let's let's talk to our guest we have in studio,
Speaker 5: flew In. I'm shot when anyone makes any efforts on
Speaker 5: our behalf.
Speaker 4: I don't understand.
Speaker 3: Say that to Laurie Browers said, then they're coming in
Speaker 3: and go really listen to the show.
Speaker 5: Uh, we have with us mister Bob Nygard, who is
Speaker 5: a retired New York City Police officer and president of
Speaker 5: Niguard Investigations, and, according to the New York Daily News,
Speaker 5: is the one guy fortune tellers don't want to see
Speaker 5: in their future. He's a private investigator specializing in swindles,
Speaker 5: particularly cases involving romance and psychic fraud. Works in places
Speaker 5: like New York City, Chicago, South Florida, and he's been
Speaker 5: instrumental in the rest, arrest, and conviction of numerous psychics,
Speaker 5: helping the victims obtain justice, including financial institution amountington millions
Speaker 5: of dollars. And we were just we're just saying Bob that,
Speaker 5: first of all, welcome, thanks for coming in, Thanks for
Speaker 5: having me your nuts.
Speaker 4: I left my Fedora in the car, said, wow, I'm
Speaker 4: always prepared. How is the question? You're a private investigator, right,
Speaker 4: do you blend?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 6: No, No, I don't. I don't blend.
Speaker 3: Well wait, wait, bop, somebody wait, hold on.
Speaker 5: If I was sitting in a restaurant, I would go,
Speaker 5: I think there's a private investigators.
Speaker 3: There's somebody following. How can you tell?
Speaker 4: Just do you ever dress that at the next table?
Speaker 3: You ever hear the phrase sore thumb?
Speaker 1: But what I do is I do wear disguises and
Speaker 1: go into fortune telling. Paula's do you really you know,
Speaker 1: dressed in different guys you know, baseball hats and different
Speaker 1: things like that.
Speaker 3: Love you already because you call them polots?
Speaker 1: Yea, yeah, exactly like the Hitman film, Like the hit
Speaker 1: What I do is I go in I wear various
Speaker 1: like recording devices. Okay, so you have like recording glasses, watches,
Speaker 1: you know, well pens, you know, kinds of different things
Speaker 1: like spy equipment.
Speaker 3: This is great.
Speaker 1: And then I go in and I make believe I'm
Speaker 1: a client and I let them rip me off.
Speaker 3: The legality of this I tried to discern. Some states
Speaker 3: it's legal, but you have to say you're an entertainer.
Speaker 3: Some states it's illegal. What what way in the states
Speaker 3: that are illegal? What's the illegal that you're telling people
Speaker 3: that you're you're You can't represent that you are, No,
Speaker 3: I don't right.
Speaker 1: For example, in the state of New York, it's per se,
Speaker 1: it's against the law. You cannot tell fortunes for a
Speaker 1: fee and say that you can influence evil spirits and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Same with Pennsylvania. I think Oklahoma might
Speaker 1: have that, but the most majority were looking that right,
Speaker 1: the majority of states like California, Right, you can do it.
Speaker 1: You know, you take money from someone, you tell their fortune.
Speaker 1: There's no crime committed there per se. But what happens
Speaker 1: is generally what happens is you have a person that
Speaker 1: walks into one of these forts and telling Paula's off
Speaker 1: the street, and they go in and they're vulnerable because
Speaker 1: they're going through a difficult time in their life. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they're going through love, money, and health. That are
Speaker 1: three big things. So their boyfriend broke up with them,
Speaker 1: their husband left them, their wife left them, their kid
Speaker 1: has cancer, you know, they just lost their job. So
Speaker 1: they walk in off the street vulnerable, and the psychic
Speaker 1: does what's called the cold reading. Okay, cold reading is
Speaker 1: when someone comes in off the street cold. They look
Speaker 1: for verbal and nonverbal clues. They see, is this person
Speaker 1: here just on a lark, they just are here to
Speaker 1: just you know, do a fifty dollars reading and want
Speaker 1: to just for entertainment, sure, or is it that they
Speaker 1: have a serious problem going on? So they're able to
Speaker 1: pick up on the people that have the really serious problems,
Speaker 1: the people that are vulnerable. And then they say, you
Speaker 1: know something I see in darkness around you. I see
Speaker 1: a certain negativity. I see something plaguing you. You should
Speaker 1: be further in your life than you are right now,
Speaker 1: but there's something holding you back. I see that you're
Speaker 1: a good person. You always do for others, but others
Speaker 1: don't always.
Speaker 3: Do for you.
Speaker 1: And then they start to throw out these things, you know,
Speaker 1: like get to know the person, and the person starts
Speaker 1: to open up as oh I lost my job, oh
Speaker 1: my husband left me, and then they start to repeat
Speaker 1: things back to the person in a way that makes
Speaker 1: the person think that they are psychic, but they're actually
Speaker 1: giving the psychic the information the seltwacame psychic. Then they say,
Speaker 1: now that we've established that this negativity, what we need
Speaker 1: to do is I need to do deeper research. I
Speaker 1: need you to write your name down, and I need
Speaker 1: you to write your data birth down, and write his
Speaker 1: name down and your.
Speaker 3: Boyfriend's day of birth.
Speaker 1: Now we go from a cold reading situation to a
Speaker 1: hot reading situation where when the person leaves, they're now
Speaker 1: going to research on the internet this person learn all
Speaker 1: about them. So we went from cold reading to hot reading.
Speaker 1: Then what they do is they say, you know, before
Speaker 1: you leave, we have to do deeper research. I have
Speaker 1: to get crystals and candles, but that's going to be
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars. The initial reading is a nominal feet
Speaker 1: maybe fifty dollars, one hundred dollars, but now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it's eight hundred of nine. Then what they
Speaker 1: say is come back to see me, and they say,
Speaker 1: upon doing the deeper research, I see that there's a
Speaker 1: curse that's been placed on you. It's a generational curse,
Speaker 1: and it's been on your family. And what happened is
Speaker 1: back when your father was dating your mother, he was
Speaker 1: seeing another woman and he decided to marry your mother
Speaker 1: instead of out of other woman. And what happened is
Speaker 1: that other woman put a curse on your family, and
Speaker 1: when it passed to you when you were in your
Speaker 1: mother's womb, and it's been on you, you're thirty years old,
Speaker 1: been on you for the last thirty years. We have
Speaker 1: to undo this curse or it'll pass on to you
Speaker 1: and your children's children and forever. You're the want in
Speaker 1: your family that has to stop this. You don't want
Speaker 1: it has the power to stop this. So they put
Speaker 1: this pressure on the person. Then they tell the person.
Speaker 1: So now we got established that there's this darkness, there's
Speaker 1: this curse.
Speaker 6: But then they want them to do a ritual. You
Speaker 6: need to go home.
Speaker 1: You need to get thirty thousand dollars out of the bank.
Speaker 1: Because you're thirty years old. We have to undo each
Speaker 1: year of your age, get one thousand dollars thirty thousand,
Speaker 1: put it under the bed but I need.
Speaker 5: And your guy doesn't say, well, why isn't a dollar,
Speaker 5: Let's do thirty.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if they go for the big money.
Speaker 3: But does the fortune teller at some point do an
Speaker 3: investigation to see how much money this person has?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they look at what kind of car does
Speaker 1: the person drive up? Okay, what is the person wearing it?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 1: Do they have expensive jewelry on all? This is part
Speaker 1: of the cold reading. Now we're at thirty thousand. Now
Speaker 1: they say you got to go to the store, a
Speaker 1: grocery store and get up caught in the eggs and
Speaker 1: take one egg out and put the egg under the
Speaker 1: bed with the money. Because money is the root of
Speaker 1: all evil, and we need to attract the evil will
Speaker 1: want to go to the money. So now the evil's
Speaker 1: going to go to the money. When you sleep at night,
Speaker 1: call me up. We'll say some prayers from the Bible.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of religious terminology.
Speaker 6: This is God.
Speaker 1: I'm doing God's work. God wants me to help you.
Speaker 1: I was put here to help you. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not about money. But you got to get thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and put the money under the bed. So now
Speaker 1: the person does this gets the egg. And the reason
Speaker 1: we need the egg is because the evil's gonna go
Speaker 1: to the money, be attracted to the money. But we
Speaker 1: need to trap it in something. So we trap it
Speaker 1: in the egg because the egg represents the soul. Sure,
Speaker 1: And then what happened is yes, sure, all right, so
Speaker 1: now right, okay, yes, So now the psychic calls up
Speaker 1: the person in the middle of the that oh, we've
Speaker 1: angered the spirits. The spirits have gone to the egg.
Speaker 1: The person's coming to my office. It goes to the Offisa,
Speaker 1: the office what they call Offisa. They go there to
Speaker 1: the forts of telling Paula that the room is dark,
Speaker 1: you know it's And they say, look, take the egg.
Speaker 6: Put it in this bag.
Speaker 1: And they'll have a bag there or a cloth that
Speaker 1: they're holding in their hands. Put it in the cloth.
Speaker 1: Then they do sleight of hands. They already have an
Speaker 1: egg that they've doctored up. They've injected some cayenne pepper
Speaker 1: into it, a red dye into the egg, or they
Speaker 1: put a little black snake in there. And they say
Speaker 1: put the egg in the bag, or put the egg
Speaker 1: in the cloth. The person puts it in, they say,
Speaker 1: it won't break, it won't break. And they're like trying
Speaker 1: to hit it, and you know, an egg should breaks
Speaker 1: and not. It like being really dramatic, you know. And
Speaker 1: then they pull it out and they hit it and
Speaker 1: all sudden blood comes flying out.
Speaker 6: What a snake is that? They say, Oh, this is
Speaker 6: the curse that manifested itself. It came. This is the evil.
Speaker 1: And now once they get over that hurdle, now we
Speaker 1: start to go on and on and on where we
Speaker 1: need to do more work.
Speaker 6: We need more money.
Speaker 4: Thirty thousand under the bed hands, right.
Speaker 7: So the psychic says, but.
Speaker 5: Wait, how does the thirty thousand under the bed hands?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: So the psychic says, as soon as they hit the thing,
Speaker 1: the egg and the blood comes out, they.
Speaker 6: Say, you got to get out of here right away.
Speaker 1: You gotta leave because my family's in jeopardy. You're in
Speaker 1: jeopardy the evil. I gotta take the money. I got
Speaker 1: to take it to my church to the author, and
Speaker 1: I got to cleanse the money of the evil. And
Speaker 1: then next week I'm going to give you the money back.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. But once I cleanse it of the evil.
Speaker 1: So here in lies the crime. The person is not
Speaker 1: paying thirty thousand dollars to remove a curse. They're just
Speaker 1: given the psychic to thirty thousand the hole, temporarily thinking
Speaker 1: it's going to be cleansed and returned.
Speaker 4: But the crime is money laundering, buddy laundering.
Speaker 6: There you go exact.
Speaker 3: So do the psychics then keep it going or do
Speaker 3: they move so right?
Speaker 1: So now when the person comes back the next week
Speaker 1: and they're like, where's my thirty grand Oh, you don't
Speaker 1: realize this problem is worse, much worse than I thought
Speaker 1: it was. And what we need you to do is
Speaker 1: we need you to go get some more money because
Speaker 1: money is power, and I need to accumulate power through
Speaker 1: the money, and I got.
Speaker 3: To keep going.
Speaker 1: I have to put it in a special room at
Speaker 1: my church, at the altar, and I keep accumulating it
Speaker 1: until we get enough where I can defeat and vanquish
Speaker 1: the evil. Now we have a principal psychological principle, the
Speaker 1: sunk course fallacy. Once someone starts putting money into something,
Speaker 1: there's a psychological principle that you'd rather keep sinking money into.
Speaker 6: It then say, oh, that scam.
Speaker 1: And so it's just human psychology that they're using.
Speaker 5: And did they eventually is the end game. Once they
Speaker 5: get it, they disappear.
Speaker 1: So yeah, at the end of it, once the person
Speaker 1: comes around and says, oh, I've hit rock bottom, I'm
Speaker 1: wiped out. I've borrowed money from family members. I've wiped
Speaker 1: out my bank account. I opened up credit cards and
Speaker 1: maxed them out. I took out loans, I lied to
Speaker 1: family members and got money from them. So it affects
Speaker 1: other people this crime too, not just the individual. And
Speaker 1: then they hit rock bottom and then they call me,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times people are suicidal. They're suicidal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't and embarrassed. We got our answer. I really know,
Speaker 1: really how they afford the storefront. Obviously there's huge money
Speaker 1: when you.
Speaker 5: When you are able to get these people into courts
Speaker 5: and now they're charged. Now you're in the legal system.
Speaker 5: I imagine that there is some some burden. Maybe I'm
Speaker 5: wrong to prove fraud, which to me, if I unders correctly,
Speaker 5: and I'm sure I don't, means that you've got to
Speaker 5: prove that this so called psychic knew they were defrauding,
Speaker 5: as opposed to having them go listen it worked or
Speaker 5: it didn't work, But I I believed in what I
Speaker 5: was doing. I was doing the work that I was
Speaker 5: being compensated for.
Speaker 4: How did.
Speaker 3: It?
Speaker 6: That's a very important question.
Speaker 1: So what you do is you I build a case,
Speaker 1: and I build it based on a totality to facts
Speaker 1: and circumstances. So starting off, a lot of times the
Speaker 1: psychic lies about their name. Okay, when I go to
Speaker 1: best Buy to buy a TV set and the guys
Speaker 1: has mic on his name, He's not Jose, He's not
Speaker 1: you know, Paul, he's Mike.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: So when you go to these psychics, they're never using
Speaker 1: their real name, well not never, but a lot of
Speaker 1: times they're not using their real name. And then when
Speaker 1: they say, hey, we need to do this egg trick.
Speaker 1: I mean that's something I've seen over and over again.
Speaker 1: Or they do a magic trick where you have to
Speaker 1: bring in a jar and spit in the jar and
Speaker 1: then I'm going to put water in the jar and
Speaker 1: then they make the water turn.
Speaker 3: Red or black.
Speaker 1: So you know, when you start off with you lying
Speaker 1: about your name, you start off with then a progression
Speaker 1: of fees. Okay, you're using a scripted story about the
Speaker 1: father of seeing another woman. I've heard that a million times.
Speaker 1: You know, that same scripted story I've gone into psychics,
Speaker 1: and I've seen a woman reading the script off her
Speaker 1: leg on a piece of paper. A young psychic was
Speaker 1: reading the script. So when you add up the fake name,
Speaker 1: the progression of fees, the magic trick to pursue the
Speaker 1: existence of a curse, building the case so that a
Speaker 1: jury of twelve people at the end of the day
Speaker 1: is going to say, well, you needed a certain amount
Speaker 1: of money and you'd complete it in three months, but
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, you need more, and so
Speaker 1: you know, and then you have different ways of theft
Speaker 1: which people don't understand. So like one time I had
Speaker 1: a case with the FEDS, and the FEDS at this
Speaker 1: huge multimillion dollar case and they call me up and
Speaker 1: they say, Bob, we see that you've been successful. And
Speaker 1: they were worried about just what you're talking about. I
Speaker 1: could see when I was in a room sitting with
Speaker 1: all these agents and prosecutors, they were like, well, you
Speaker 1: know she's going to go to try well, you know, like,
Speaker 1: how are we going to prove whether she's psychic or not?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 1: And I said, time out, hold on, pay no attention
Speaker 1: to the man behind the curtain. You're off in a
Speaker 1: wrong direction. I said, let's say Bob is a psychic.
Speaker 1: Let's just say psychic ability exists. Bob's a psychic. And
Speaker 1: Bob says to Joe, Hey, Joe, you know what I
Speaker 1: see it. You're gonna be in a terrible car accident
Speaker 1: next week and you're going to die in that car
Speaker 1: accident because your car is possessed by evil spirits. And
Speaker 1: jo says, oh, I don't know, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if Bob's really psychic or not. But I don't
Speaker 1: want to die in a car accident, you know. And
Speaker 1: Joe says, listen, just give me your car for one week.
Speaker 1: I'll take it to my church. I'll have some people
Speaker 1: at the church. We'll all pray over it. We'll remove
Speaker 1: the evil spirits. Come back next Friday here in the
Speaker 1: parking lot, I'll give you your car back. Joe says,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'd rather give Bob the car and
Speaker 1: take the chance. Joe gives Bob the car. Bob's gone.
Speaker 1: Next Friday comes, Bob's nowhere.
Speaker 6: To be found. The car is gone, right.
Speaker 1: So I looked around the room and I said to
Speaker 1: everybody in the room, I says, did Bob steal Joe's
Speaker 1: car and they said, well, yeah, Bob stole those cars. Question,
Speaker 1: I said, Bob psychic, right, and they said, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we said Bob's psychic. I said, so, so if Bob
Speaker 1: stole Joe's call on Bob's psychic, I said, obviously a
Speaker 1: psychic to commit theft, It's not about whether the person's psychic.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, really, it doesn't even matter whether Bob
Speaker 1: a psychic or not.
Speaker 6: I said, welcome to the game. That's by false problem.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I read about you were
Speaker 3: trying to get law enforcement to take this stuff seriously.
Speaker 3: The ones you investigate, what percentage do not just remuneration,
Speaker 3: but end up in jail.
Speaker 1: A good percentage actually either do a plea bog and
Speaker 1: to pay the money back so they stay out of jail,
Speaker 1: that's really what they do, or they go to jail.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I mean it's one or the two.
Speaker 5: There are lots of psychics on television with their own shows,
Speaker 5: being interviewed, being treated with legitimacy. That is setting the
Speaker 5: scene for all these con artists, because you've got these
Speaker 5: people that are being given enormous credibility, enormous remuneration to
Speaker 5: to what degree do you hold the You know, I'm
Speaker 5: pleased our audience. I'll talk later about my own experiences.
Speaker 5: So I don't mean to dump on anybody, But when
Speaker 5: you see a John Edward or a Tyler Henry or
Speaker 5: Teresa Capudo and they're being you know, they're being treated
Speaker 5: as legitimate people with ability, what's what's the feeling towards that,
Speaker 5: because there might they're they're they're compounding the problem for
Speaker 5: the people that you have to deal with.
Speaker 1: Yeh See, I've never dealt with any of those particular people,
Speaker 1: so I've never investigated them, so I can't speak to them.
Speaker 5: Sure, and I'm not saying they're not legitimate, but they
Speaker 5: do give legitimacy to people that are you know, full
Speaker 5: of it.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, And it is a problem. It bothers me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But if someone if someone wants to give one of
Speaker 1: these popular psychics their money and there's no promise that
Speaker 1: the money's coming back magic trick to prove the existence
Speaker 1: of a curse, they're not lying about their name.
Speaker 6: It's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 3: My guest too is and I don't know this, maybe
Speaker 3: Laurie could check or David Denheim. If those and again,
Speaker 3: I'm not going after those people. But I bet Jay,
Speaker 3: because it's on television, you have to sign a release,
Speaker 3: and I bet the release is specific saying that I don't.
Speaker 3: I'm not predicting anything about you. I assure that there's
Speaker 3: a legal disclaimer saying it's an more entertainment based than
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get money out of you for something else. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of times.
Speaker 1: Well, I was backstage one time at a talk show
Speaker 1: and a psychic was on the talk show. Alleged psychic
Speaker 1: came up to me in the green room and said, hey, Bob,
Speaker 1: can I give you a reading?
Speaker 6: Like poor people?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And so I said, listen, come on. You know I'm
Speaker 1: not into that. You know, No, No, hold on, a second,
Speaker 1: hold on. I see I see that you have a relative.
Speaker 1: I see you have someone a brother. I see what
Speaker 1: the name begins with a K. And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll tell you what because I do
Speaker 1: have a brother that's name starts with the letter K.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: So I just said, you know what I see you, Well,
Speaker 1: let me read you.
Speaker 6: She says, what do you mean read me? I said,
Speaker 6: I'm going to read you.
Speaker 4: I see that you.
Speaker 1: Were born you were born like somewhere with like an
Speaker 1: S and then like an F. And I'm just making
Speaker 1: this up to places and like my brother, but I
Speaker 1: said San Francisco, and she happened to be born in
Speaker 1: the place that I mentioned, right, And she goes, you
Speaker 1: looked me up on the internet before you came here,
Speaker 1: And I said, just like you looked me up, honey,
Speaker 1: you know me if I my relative's name, you know,
Speaker 1: come on.
Speaker 4: And no one. I mean, I'm I maybe maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 5: I'm imagining that the average person has very little sympathy
Speaker 5: for your clients.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So, like an NYPD cop, one day I called them
Speaker 1: about a psychic. I had a victim with me, and
Speaker 1: a psychic ran into an apartment and I said, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: you know the psychic ripped her off and for like
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars and the psychic just ran into an
Speaker 1: apartment and we want to get a report and make
Speaker 1: it arrest. And he looks, he says, come here. He
Speaker 1: brings me away from the victim, and he says, you
Speaker 1: know something about those they're all forth for going on
Speaker 1: there and believing in this in the first place. He goes,
Speaker 1: nobody put a gun to her head, and I said
Speaker 1: to him, yeah, you know something, You're right, if it
Speaker 1: was a gun through her head would be a robbery.
Speaker 1: But it's not a robbery, and you're a cop and
Speaker 1: you should know better. It's theft by deception, and there's
Speaker 1: a specific portion of a law that's, you know, for
Speaker 1: theft by deception. It's not always there's a lot of
Speaker 1: non violent crimes that go on with consensual crimes such
Speaker 1: as this where the people are willingly but they're tricked
Speaker 1: into giving their money. You can't consent to something you're
Speaker 1: tricked into doing. See, And so my forte, really, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what my forte is is fighting with police
Speaker 1: and prosecute because they have a negative attitude. And I
Speaker 1: worked with guys like that, and I'm I don't want
Speaker 1: to give a blanket. There's plenty of good cops and
Speaker 1: prosecutor or I wouldn't have got the cases that I've
Speaker 1: done done, but there's a lot of fighting that goes
Speaker 1: on in terms of me going at them and bringing
Speaker 1: people back into a state she announced that would turn
Speaker 1: away and will laughed.
Speaker 3: At, like, give us what a case looks like where
Speaker 3: you're undercover, and was one that blew your mind.
Speaker 1: Even well, I just would say, like the story wise,
Speaker 1: I'll give you a story wise, Like they come up
Speaker 1: with these elaborate stories. So I had this lawyer who
Speaker 1: was ripped off by a psychic and she was told
Speaker 1: that she was part of a group of twelve and
Speaker 1: that it represented like the twelve Disciples of Christ, and
Speaker 1: she was one of the people.
Speaker 3: Already, good, yeah this is so.
Speaker 1: Then she's told that she needs to poke holes in
Speaker 1: the condom when having sex with a boyfriend because she
Speaker 1: needs to give birth to a child.
Speaker 6: Sure, and it's gonna be twins.
Speaker 1: And the reason it's going to be twins is because
Speaker 1: she's gonna give birth to the baby that's gonna save
Speaker 1: the world from the anti Christ and do battle with
Speaker 1: the anti Christ. And one twin is a decoy and
Speaker 1: the other is the actual baby. So girl is poking
Speaker 1: holes in condoms and having sex trying to have a
Speaker 1: baby because the psychic told her that she's supposed to
Speaker 1: save the world. Like, you know, this is the crazy
Speaker 1: stories that go on, all right.
Speaker 5: So wait, so what's your disguise to go in and
Speaker 5: confront this person?
Speaker 1: No, I didn't, I didn't wear dis guys I'm just
Speaker 1: giving you an example.
Speaker 3: Okay, disguise. What kind of disguises do you have?
Speaker 1: One time I walked in like a Hasidic Jew with
Speaker 1: the with the curls down and the black hat and
Speaker 1: all that, and so I used that disguise.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, a lot of times I got to have
Speaker 8: Just again, just to abstract, why would that persona have
Speaker 8: appealed to that particular psychic.
Speaker 1: Because they will go and move it in any direction
Speaker 1: as long as you have a vulnerability, right And they
Speaker 1: will say if they see like I'm wearing a cross
Speaker 1: right now, they'll think, oh, he's a Christian, so I'll
Speaker 1: cater it to that. If someone is Jewish, they'll they'll know,
Speaker 1: stay away from mentioning Jesus. You see, these people are
Speaker 1: very astute at picking out the things that they see
Speaker 1: in somebody and then going and running with these.
Speaker 4: Screen is it like a family business, and it's a.
Speaker 1: Network of people all across this country in various cities.
Speaker 1: This networks, okay, And you have family based where like
Speaker 1: grandmothers will teach daughters how to do it, and daughters
Speaker 1: will teach their daughters how to do it. And you
Speaker 1: have families who the daughter will actually be sold into
Speaker 1: another family where they have like a meeting and they
Speaker 1: get together and they say okay, they arrange marriages. When
Speaker 1: I say sold, okay marriages and they come up with
Speaker 1: like a dowry.
Speaker 6: That's what I mean by soult.
Speaker 1: So they'll say, okay, you know, we'll take her into
Speaker 1: our family and then we'll give you a certain amount
Speaker 1: of money. And then she becomes part of our family
Speaker 1: and she starts doing the fortune telling. And a lot
Speaker 1: of times these fortsutne polics, you see these little rundown
Speaker 1: places with the bad curtains and the chabbelis dressed, and
Speaker 1: then they leave there and sometimes they go to a
Speaker 1: house that's a multimillion dollar house that the people that
Speaker 1: are going there are unaware of.
Speaker 6: And they're driving around in.
Speaker 1: Bentley's and you know, it's almost mostly mostly women mostly
Speaker 1: to do this.
Speaker 3: And again the definitive on there is there is with
Speaker 3: some of these organization behind it. Well, what we have
Speaker 3: with this family certainly give an example.
Speaker 1: In some big cities they have what they call a
Speaker 1: three block rule, okay, where you cannot open up a
Speaker 1: forts and telling Paula within three blocks of another forts
Speaker 1: in telling Paula because if you do, then you have
Speaker 1: a beef, and that beef has to go before a
Speaker 1: council of elders who then decide who's right and who's
Speaker 1: wrong on that territory.
Speaker 6: So you've got carved out territory. You've got people.
Speaker 1: People are saying, this is my town, and when they
Speaker 1: move out of a certain town, they sell it that
Speaker 1: town or that territory. The block their block to somebody else.
Speaker 1: Like a drug dealer has a corner, and the same thing.
Speaker 1: They have their spot. They have their territory, and they
Speaker 1: have like you know, like I said, they have like elders,
Speaker 1: council of elders. They settle the disputes among themselves. They
Speaker 1: don't go to law enforcement.
Speaker 5: A lot of times, couldn't you make couldn't somebody work
Speaker 5: to say, if you're going to to establish yourself as
Speaker 5: a fortune teller, you must have a certain kind of license.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: That's what I often say to people is people are
Speaker 1: making life decisions based upon what someone with a neon
Speaker 1: sign is telling them to do. And I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to it. I'm gonna go to a Seinfeld episode. But
Speaker 1: George goes to the psychic and you you were in
Speaker 1: the show where You're gonna go and you go with
Speaker 1: Elane and you go to a psychic, right, and she said,
Speaker 1: you're gonna go on a trip to the Cayman Islands.
Speaker 1: And you're all excited about this trip to the Cayman Islands.
Speaker 1: But the psychic gives the the idea that you're gonna
Speaker 1: maybe die in a plane crash. So you end up
Speaker 1: giving up the trip to the Cayman Islands to Kramer
Speaker 1: because you're worried that you're gonna die in his plane crash.
Speaker 1: Now you made a life decision. It's comedy, right, you know,
Speaker 1: But in real life people are making life decisions. Well,
Speaker 1: in the show, Kramer goes on the trip, right and
Speaker 1: it meets all time is Life, right, sports, illustrated models
Speaker 1: who are newd on the beach and these and he
Speaker 1: comes back and you're like distraught over the fact that
Speaker 1: you gave up the trip of a lifetime. But what
Speaker 1: people are doing is people are going to these psychics.
Speaker 1: In real life, they're giving them marriages. The psychic is
Speaker 1: saying divorce your husband because they know they're going to
Speaker 1: get the divorce settlement, and then the doors settlement will
Speaker 1: go to the psychic they're telling them to change their wills.
Speaker 1: They're telling them not to send kids to college because
Speaker 1: it's bad to go to the college, because they know
Speaker 1: it's the money will then go towards the college. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of things. They're telling them, don't go
Speaker 1: to the doctor to get treatment. And then the person
Speaker 1: is ending up, you know, like losing their leg over
Speaker 1: the fact that they listened to a psychic.
Speaker 3: What's the most before as we wrap up, what's the
Speaker 3: most that you saw somebody gave that completely blew you away.
Speaker 1: The most that I was involved in was when I
Speaker 1: helped the FEDS with like one woman was the best
Speaker 1: selling author and she gave seventeen million dollars approximately.
Speaker 6: To the psychic. Psychic ended up getting Let me sit with.
Speaker 3: That for a minute. No really, I got to tell
Speaker 3: you something. If they have a psychic Award show, were
Speaker 3: they honor psychic? Yeah, it's like Betty Lou who got
Speaker 3: seventeen million dollars, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And there was like there was multiple victims and it
Speaker 1: went on for like ten years or so, maybe even more.
Speaker 1: And the psychic was the best I mean, not the psychic.
Speaker 1: The victim was the best selling author, and people say, well, Bob,
Speaker 1: how could one person give seventeen million dollars. You know, well,
Speaker 1: the woman had a series of miscarriages trying to have
Speaker 1: a child. Then she had problems of marriage problems and
Speaker 1: also you know, trying to have a child and everything
Speaker 1: that's going on with that. And then she adopted a
Speaker 1: little boy, Sam, And when Sam was around eight years old,
Speaker 1: he died in a tractic ATV motorcycle accident.
Speaker 6: And so she went to see Rose.
Speaker 1: Marx on you know, in New York, and Rose says,
Speaker 1: you know, I can reunite you with the little boy's
Speaker 1: souls something to that effect, or you know, the devil
Speaker 1: is pulling the little boy into purgatory or something to
Speaker 1: that effect. You know, you know, praying on this mother's
Speaker 1: vulnerability over having lost her adopted son after she had
Speaker 1: all these you know, trying to have a child. And
Speaker 1: when you see something like that, it just it angers you.
Speaker 1: And the spiritualist movement, a lot of people don't realize,
Speaker 1: came about when the Spanish Flu came about because a
Speaker 1: lot of people had died in the Spanish Flu, and
Speaker 1: that they attribute that to the rise of spiritualism because
Speaker 1: so many people wanted to talk to their deceased loved ones.
Speaker 1: Now right now, I have an uptick in cases because
Speaker 1: it depends. So I'm getting slammed with cases that are
Speaker 1: just coming in now where people have been slammed over
Speaker 1: the last two three, four years, and they're just hitting
Speaker 1: rock bottom now, you.
Speaker 3: Know, just a night guard, I thank you for coming home.
Speaker 4: Do you believe in any of this? By the way,
Speaker 4: you don't?
Speaker 3: You know they don't believe in it. I hate people.
Speaker 3: It's like Bob said, I hate people being taken advantage
Speaker 3: of people abused that way. It's all it's bs well,
Speaker 3: and that doesn't mean it's somebody I don't believe that
Speaker 3: some people have.
Speaker 5: That's that's where I was. Is that so you know
Speaker 5: this story because I've told it to you. But years ago,
Speaker 5: prior to Seinfeld, I was not a known entity.
Speaker 4: There was no Wikipedia to look anybody up.
Speaker 5: My wife and I had unexplainable infertility, but we had
Speaker 5: moved to California and we were meeting a whole new
Speaker 5: set of doctors and we didn't know we want to
Speaker 5: go down this road.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just silly, I don't know.
Speaker 5: And we talked to a bunch of doctors, and there
Speaker 5: was one guy that we thought, well, if we were
Speaker 5: going to do it anyway, my mother in law goes,
Speaker 5: you know, there was this psychic in New York that
Speaker 5: I used to go to. Why don't you just see him.
Speaker 5: It's like two hundred bucks is not that big a deal.
Speaker 5: Just go see him. He's pretty famous. His name is
Speaker 5: Frank Andrews. He's since passed away. We go down to
Speaker 5: this tiny little guy that kind of sounds like Truman Caponi.
Speaker 5: It's kind of like, you know, a thing like a
Speaker 5: little drawn, a little naison, and he raises papion dogs
Speaker 5: in the bill and we go in. Now other than
Speaker 5: were Phyllis's daughter.
Speaker 4: And son in law.
Speaker 3: That's all you know. They don't know anything.
Speaker 5: And he goes in and we sit down and he goes, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is really strange. I don't work like this. I
Speaker 5: really I do cards and I have crystals, but I
Speaker 5: it's like someone's yelling into my head. So I'm just
Speaker 5: going to tell you what I'm hearing. I don't know
Speaker 5: what it means. If it means anything to you, Great,
Speaker 5: you've been trying to get a project going. It has
Speaker 5: not been successful and you've just met some people that
Speaker 5: you're considering bringing onto the project, and you're not maybe
Speaker 5: you're not sure. There's a guy whose name is either
Speaker 5: Peter or Paul. I get them confused, and it could
Speaker 5: be a last name like Peterson. If you do the
Speaker 5: project with that person, it'll be successful. Well, the guy
Speaker 5: that we had kind of gone, oh, we like this
Speaker 5: guy is doctor Richard Paulson, who we came out of
Speaker 5: this meeting with this guy and we went, well, you
Speaker 5: want to try it with Paulson. I mean he picked
Speaker 5: that name out of the Ethan and Paulson, you know,
Speaker 5: created my two two children. This guy knew nothing about us.
Speaker 5: That's where he went to. That's how he described it.
Speaker 4: And I go, I can't explain that.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to godless. I'm thrilled that you
Speaker 3: believe it. I'm thrilled that you have to love. I
Speaker 3: love your your lovely wife, lovely kids. Happy for Paulson,
Speaker 3: happy for the Truman compub, happy for the dogs, Happy
Speaker 3: for the two dogs Poppy on dogs. What an interesting guy.
Speaker 3: I just want to say though, having worked with and
Speaker 3: I know he's a former cop, I kind of get
Speaker 3: why cut the police are overburden today with so much stuff.
Speaker 3: I get, yes, yeah, I get. I love that.
Speaker 4: They're doing treos.
Speaker 3: They have to do repeat stuff and they have to
Speaker 3: deal with stuff that they family issues and the biggest
Speaker 3: people and they have to rest over and over again
Speaker 3: who have mental mental disorders, and so it's it's tough.
Speaker 4: By the way, would make a great series, A great.
Speaker 3: Great series because he's against the Lasha who's kind of
Speaker 3: a him or female, because it may be a romantic thing,
Speaker 3: who trieslops a thing there, there's a thing there. And
Speaker 3: then who do you see his nightguard? Who do you
Speaker 3: see his nightguard? I'm oh you wow? Who do I say,
Speaker 3: Michael chicklist? Who do I say? So sorry that you
Speaker 3: weren't well not my first choice, But now I'm seeing it.
Speaker 4: What am I developing for other people?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 5: By all right, I thought we were I'm I'm doing podcasts.
Speaker 5: I need a Davy gig, Peter.
Speaker 3: You know. I am so oh my gosh, Now I
Speaker 3: get it. You thought when I was talking about that
Speaker 3: for you boy, I am, by the way, talking.
Speaker 4: About but you can't even read the room.
Speaker 3: Let me just say the camera. I am so embarrassed.
Speaker 3: I am so embarrassed.
Speaker 5: You know what, you know what, Michael Chickless, It's not bad, right,
Speaker 5: or maybe maybe Tony Shalou somebody like that.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 5: Look, James Cordon, would you like to go James Cord?
Speaker 3: Who's the guy from Broadway?
Speaker 4: Nathan Lane?
Speaker 5: Yeah, show, let's go with Nathan Yeah, sure, absolutely so
Speaker 5: anybody out there who wants to put together a package.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're anyone sellable.
Speaker 3: Anybody.
Speaker 5: Let's go to google him for Look at this, He's
Speaker 5: got the fez and the sweat is happening here.
Speaker 3: Oh my, I've.
Speaker 4: Been doing a lot of beam.
Speaker 9: I got a lot of energy. I'm I'm I got
Speaker 9: my tarot cards here, I'm Jason. I'm feeling I'm feeling something.
Speaker 4: We got the King of Coins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I say that.
Speaker 9: There's an s an s funny.
Speaker 3: Hold on, Hold on, Jason, I have an envelope. In
Speaker 3: the envelops it's no longer was Michael Richard No, no
Speaker 3: longer on the show, No longer the show. I was,
Speaker 3: Uh No, dumb question here, dumb question here? Yeah, you
Speaker 3: have that hat.
Speaker 5: He was in the production of Bye Bye Birdie. There's
Speaker 5: a big was my grandfather's a hot store and they said,
Speaker 5: you need something with some height. Yeah, I'm looking at that.
Speaker 5: You know, there's a lot of sun in flowers.
Speaker 3: What is that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, asked Bob. Why he had.
Speaker 7: It?
Speaker 4: I actually, I actually have a few things. I got
Speaker 4: a few things to do.
Speaker 3: I can't did you forget it? I can't get no.
Speaker 4: I want to hear god.
Speaker 3: I take it off.
Speaker 4: But I think there's like a lot it is looked
Speaker 4: at all, you know. Yeah, sure, you don't want to
Speaker 4: look back. Gosh, you don't want right, that would be silly, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So, according to Statista research, the fortune teller industry is
Speaker 9: approaching two point five billion dollars.
Speaker 5: A yeah, how did they know that?
Speaker 1: Is?
Speaker 5: Are these guys reporting table and had a good outcome?
Speaker 5: Didn't feel ripped off?
Speaker 3: Offline? Is shifty book? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well you know you got to listen. There's apps, there's.
Speaker 3: The stuff's got a good point. So I'm a fortune teller.
Speaker 3: I have a shop in print with next to the
Speaker 3: Baskan Robins, and at the end of the year, I'm
Speaker 3: reporting my learnings. Maybe unreported that I've scammed from people.
Speaker 4: Okay, two point five billion.
Speaker 9: As Bob was saying that it is illegal in certain
Speaker 9: states like Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York.
Speaker 3: But there are.
Speaker 9: Places like Massachusetts where get this, you can get a
Speaker 9: license after license if you're going to be a fortune
Speaker 9: teller in some states like Massachusetts. And I actually look,
Speaker 9: so what does that entail? It's basically nothing. You get
Speaker 9: the state about two hundred bucks and you have licensing.
Speaker 4: There's no like you know, I.
Speaker 9: Don't know, like can you think of the letter blue
Speaker 9: or whatever?
Speaker 4: It is like they don't do anything like that.
Speaker 9: And there's also free speech considerations that used to be
Speaker 9: illegal in California. But then in nineteen eighty four there
Speaker 9: was a case Spiritual Psychic Science Church versus AZUSA, where
Speaker 9: the Pelic courts struck down the California law saying their
Speaker 9: First Amendment issues.
Speaker 3: So there you go.
Speaker 9: And Peter, you had asked me to take a look
Speaker 9: as far as looking at these licensing agreements if people
Speaker 9: are going on.
Speaker 4: TV and interacting with it.
Speaker 9: Well, and I want to use the name, but I
Speaker 9: was able to find one of these license agreements at
Speaker 9: least one. Psychics is and I'll read a line from
Speaker 9: the contract. Due to differing opinions regarding psychic abilities, all
Speaker 9: services are.
Speaker 6: Offered for entertainment purpose.
Speaker 3: Oh that was like buried in.
Speaker 9: All the mumbo jumbo of all this this type of stuff.
Speaker 3: David too, I think that we all decided you must
Speaker 3: wear that hat every single time you come on as
Speaker 3: go by the way, I think we got no other show.
Speaker 2: Everybody really As another episode of Really No Really comes
Speaker 2: to a close. I know you're wondering who was the
Speaker 2: greatest debunker of false psychics ever? Maybe you can predict
Speaker 2: the answer. But first let's thank our guest, Bob Niguard.
Speaker 2: You can follow Bob on his website about dot me
Speaker 2: slash Bob dot Niguard. On LinkedIn, he is simply Bob Niguard,
Speaker 2: and on x he's at bun Kopey. Find all pertinent
Speaker 2: links in our show notes, our little show hangs out
Speaker 2: on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at Really No Really Podcast,
Speaker 2: And of course, you can share your thoughts and feedback
Speaker 2: with us online at reallynoreally dot com. If you have
Speaker 2: a really some amazing factor story that boggles your mind,
Speaker 2: share it with us, and if we use it, we
Speaker 2: will send you.
Speaker 3: A little gift.
Speaker 2: Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 2: Check out our phone episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
Speaker 2: button and take that bell to your updated when we
Speaker 2: release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday.
Speaker 2: To listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 2: Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and now who
Speaker 2: was arguably the greatest debunker of false psychics ever none
Speaker 2: other than one of the most legendary magicians of all time,
Speaker 2: Harry Houdini.
Speaker 3: At the height of his.
Speaker 2: Career as an internationally renowned magician, Houdini turned his energies
Speaker 2: toward debunking psychics and mediums in order to show how
Speaker 2: they were taking advantage of the brief. Houdini was a
Speaker 2: proud member of a scientific American committee that offered a
Speaker 2: cash prize to any so called medium who could successfully
Speaker 2: demonstrate supernatural abilities. None were ever able to do so,
Speaker 2: and the prize was never collected. Houdini chronicled his debunking
Speaker 2: exploits in his book A.
Speaker 4: Magician among the Spirits.
Speaker 2: In short, he busted dozens of prominent fake psychics all
Speaker 2: over the world, and his passion and success in doing
Speaker 2: so cost Houdini the friendship of one of his closest
Speaker 2: associates the author Arthur Conan Doyle, most notably the creator
Speaker 2: of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle was a huge believer in
Speaker 2: the occultant psychic ability and actually came to believe that
Speaker 2: Houdini was a true psychic who used his powers to
Speaker 2: block the ability of others. He was so convinced of
Speaker 2: this that by Houdini's death, Conan Doyle considered him an
Speaker 2: arch enemy. The irony, of course, is that Houdini wanted
Speaker 2: to discover real evidence of paranormal powers more than anyone.
Speaker 2: In fact, he argued that if anyone could escape from
Speaker 2: the beyond, it would be him.
Speaker 4: So he made a pack with his wife.
Speaker 2: Bess, that she would hold a seance every year on
Speaker 2: the anniversary of his death, and that if he could
Speaker 2: appear to her, he would convey the secret message. Roosabel believed.
Speaker 2: Houdini died on Halloween night, October thirty one, nineteen twenty six.
Speaker 2: Bess held a seance every year for the following ten years,
Speaker 2: with no results. As she blew out the candle at
Speaker 2: the end of the tenth try, she uttered, ten years
Speaker 2: is enough to wait for any man. To this day, however,
Speaker 2: These ounces are still held on Halloween nights at the
Speaker 2: Excalibur Nightclub in Chicago and at the Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: To date, nothing supernatural has ever occurred. Really No, Really
Speaker 2: is a production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment.