In Part 1, we watched skeptic Susan Gerbic dissect a celebrity psychic's cold reading techniques. But cold reading is the little leagues of the psychic industry. In Part 2, Susan sets her sights on something harder to catch... a hot reader.
Hot reading is when a psychic does their homework, researching their clients before the reading even starts. So Susan devises an elaborate sting: fake Facebook accounts, fake obituaries, fake family members, and $1,400 worth of bait designed to catch a medium in the act.
Six skeptics go undercover as grieving siblings. They don't know each other. They don't know the backstory. And they have no idea what's about to happen.
This episode takes you inside "Operation Banana Cream Pie." Let's just say, the moment the medium logs onto the Zoom call, no one saw it coming.
ABOUT SUSAN GERBIC:
Susan Gerbic is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and founder of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia, a group that has written over 2,000 Wikipedia articles on science and pseudoscience — viewed more than 200 million times. Her most famous investigation, "Operation Pizza Roll," was featured in The New York Times Magazine and exposed medium Thomas John's hot reading techniques. Susan runs the nonprofit About Time, which funds her ongoing psychic investigations.
Want more? Susan Gerbic documented the entire Operation Banana Cream Pie sting on her YouTube channel "Psychics Explained"—20+ videos of behind-the-scenes footage. Link in the show notes.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcSfdioxwHQGkyFZ68maphdIJuYcb8xln
LINKS & RESOURCES:
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Susan Gerbic's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PsychicsExplained
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About Time Project: https://www.abouttimeproject.org/
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NYT Magazine feature on Operation Pizza Roll: https://archive.ph/20190226135004/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/magazine/psychics-skeptics-facebook.html
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