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(I’d just like to point out that this story is sponsored by Schadenfreude – for all your laughing-at-people-who’ve-gotten-their-comeuppance needs)

This is actually a story that’s been covered in many other places, including by Steve Novella, and I wasn’t going to add to that… but then I saw a few people on Twitter actively saying they were looking forward to what I had to say about it, so how could I disappoint?

So, three guesses which lovable Liverpudlian fraud I’m going to talk about now? That’s right – Joe ‘just popping to your toilet‘ Power. And, to be clear, I can say fraud, as Joe’s served time in the past for fraud. Oh, and ABH, of course. Nice, friendly Joe Power. I’m not saying any of his act involves fraud at all. But then again, I don’t need to, given the fact that Joe Power’s career is going to pieces so fast that people are getting hit by the bullshit shrapnel.

That’s because Joe, as has been extensively covered, had an Edinburgh fringe show throughout the month of August. Things kicked off on a pretty bad foot, you’ll remember, at the Assembly gala – a curtain-opener of an event where fringe acts go on and do 5 minutes of material to demo their show – where Joe Power seemed curiously Powerless.

As the BBC blog reports, he made 2 big mistakes – the first was playing to a room full of people there to see comedy, not bullshit. They didn’t like it when they got the latter, so they provided the former by booing and heckling. The second mistake was to do with the target Joe picked out… looking around the room, he began to connect with a spirit, saying:

“I see Pertoski, Prokoski, Petreski…”, he began.

Of course, in the audience, right by the front was London PR guru Mark Borkowski… who’s book The Fame Formula actually covered the relationship between psychics and publishers, and who’d had a show at Edinburgh the previous year. So, something of a recognisable face then, metres from the front of the audience. Who Joe just happened to try and connect with… massively against Borkowsky’s wishes. As Mark sat stony-faced trying not to get involved, Joe ‘The Power’ Power continued, insisting on “a father in the spirit world, trying to say sorry to his two sons”. Which was a huge miss. Cue a shitstorm of heckling and a quick retreat from the stage.

So, how did Joe ‘does my sister live near here’ Power respond? He blamed the skeptics. After all, he’s had trouble with skeptics before…

“Since the Derren Brown programme I have had threats and had to move home”.

Funny, the only reference he’s ever made to threats turned out to be a lie about me, which the police dismissed out of hand.

“So I was expecting the sceptics at the Assembly launch night but I didn’t think it would be as bad as it was because anything people do should be respected”

That’s right, Joe ‘skeptics are paedophiles’ Power believes that anything people do should be respected. Oh the irony. Oh the fail.

“I only had five minutes to go on stage, say who I am and do a quick connection with someone in the audience. If you are a comedian you are alright because you know what you are going to say but mine’s a live act. I went home that night and told my wife it had gone badly. It is good to have criticism but that kind of bad behaviour should not happen in a venue. My mistake was that I didn’t have the lights on so I couldn’t see the recipient in the audience. I need response and dialogue to keep the energy.”

So Joe needs to be able to see people to pick up on their energy? That’s funny, his website sells psychic reading over the phone at £1.50 per minute, and via text message at the rate of up to £3 per reply (more on this in a future blog).

Still, that’s what happens when Joe ‘John Lennon wants peace’ Power plays a room full of ‘skeptics’ – for which you can read people who don’t believe he’s talking to the dead, which is pretty much anyone who’s ever seen him pretend to talk to the dead. But how does his luck fare in front of a more forgiving and believing, and more well-lit audience? Well, the reviews weren’t so good… with many skeptical or comic blogs tearing Joe’s stage act to pieces.

However, most interesting in my opinion is the review in The Edinburgh Spotlight, who actually gave him enough benefit of the doubt to send a supposedly “REAL” medium to see his act and pass verdict – so we’re talking here about someone who actually believes SOMEONE can do what Joe claims to do – and the results were equally scathing:

Joe doesn’t look to any spirit world as he channels messages, he looks direct into the audience. In a Scouse voice, he tells the audience to put up their hands if anything sounds familiar and the audience are here in the hope that they will get a message from a loved one. Joe’s starting message is to a row of ‘older’ women in the front and he asks if their parents are in the spirit world. Without meaning to be rude about their ages, even I could have told you that their parents were no longer in this world.

The women reply no to all the information he is relaying to them, with a brief confirmation when he says “five” which equates to the amount of brothers one of the relatives had. He channels some distant in-law and mentions a young man, the number 62 and yellow flowers which are all met with a negative response from the woman who is willing a message from the spirit world.

This routine continues another couple of times with different audience members, once with the subject of two miscarriages. Joe channels the energy he is receiving and asks if the lady concerned had tests afterwards, before moving on after this ’success’. Again, this is common sense and did not convince the audience he was receiving any information from the spirit world.

Joe didn’t give up. He continued with generic questions to audience members and the next to ‘receive messages’ is a man who told him it meant nothing to over a dozen questions Joe channelled. At one point a joke is attempted to be cracked to ease the tension in the room, but Joe just comes across as an abrupt man who is not entirely convincing.

Just when the accuracy rate was plummeting downwards, he received a message for one half of our review team. He asks about a family member in bad health, which is confirmed and if there is a birthday soon – which there is – but that’s about as successful as it gets.

I had to laugh when he asked one volunteer if she had connections in America, to which she replied, “no, but I live in Hong Kong”. His following message from the spirit world was: “I see you living in a tall building apartment” – yes, indeed the lady did, along with the millions of others in the city.

A German man was then chosen and needed a little help with translation from his friend, but again, rather than dealing with this in a light-hearted manner, Joe ploughed on abrasively asking if he lived on a cliff, or somewhere with a view. The man stated he lived in a little flat in the middle of the city, the polar opposite

So, how did this believer sum up Joe ‘I can’t see people’s cars if I’m speaking’ Power?

Joe thanked the audience for his time and announced he would be in the courtyard selling books and available for private readings. After his performance, I completely by-passed the stall and discussed the show with other audience members who had been picked, who concluded that their money would have been better spent elsewhere.

Joe claims to be ’The Man Who Sees Dead People’ and despite going in completely open minded, neither of us were convinced by his medium skills, but there is a little something in his psychic abilities. Our spiritualist medium concluded with a comment that couldn’t possibly be printed but it’s safe to say your money would be better spent elsewhere during the Fringe.

So, not only are the skeptics against you, Joe Power, but even the believers don’t believe. Once you lose the believers, I’m not sure what you have left.

Once again, this story was brought to you in association with our sponsors ‘Schadenfreude’. Schadenfreude – available from any good medium – try some today!

On Friday of last week, I got a phone call. From Ormskirk police. The polite and friendly officer assured me there was nothing to worry about, but that he was looking into alleged threats of violence coming from people on Facebook. Specifically, within the group page of the Merseyside Skeptics Society. And aimed at non-psychic non-detective Joe ‘I’ll just pop to your toilet‘ Power.

This was news to me. It was also utterly untrue.

As I explained to the officer, we at the Merseyside Skeptics Society have never made threats to anyone, ever, and nor would we; further, we’d NEVER condone physical or personal threats made by anyone else. Aside from a complete and utter aversion to violence – which for one thing has been shown by many people in history to be a truly terrible way to get a point across – making personal threats would go completely against the whole point of what the MSS is about: examining the evidence, and pointing out where the claim (and subsequently the claimant) is lacking. In fact, when I met Joe over a year ago, I went to great lengths to remain calm and even-tempered while he continually insulted me in increasingly bizarre and surreal ways. Paedophile? OK Joe, go for it. Homosexual? Sure, if you like. Atheist? Absolutely (well one out of three isn’t bad, for the Man Who Talks To Dead People. Or at least 1/3rd of dead people, presumably).

Fortunately, having spoken to me for a good five minutes, the officer was able to assure me that he was quite confident no wrong-doing nor anything malicious had taken place. After I’d explained Joe’s full history with the MSS, our polite insistence that Joe at some point, some time, in some way – any way at all – shows some evidence that he can indeed contact the dead, and the fact that when I met Joe a year ago I ended the conversation by wishing him well – after I’d explained all of this, the officer concluded that I’ve almost certainly not gone beyond practising freedom of speech, which is true.

He also asked whether I’d mind clarifying my lack of violent or threatening intent to Joe – which I’m more than happy to do: I’ve never, in anyway, suggested or advocated anything threatening in the direction of Joe or his family.

You can probably imagine my surprise – and, indeed, deep disappointment – to now hear from Joe via the police, with tales of his wife being ‘unable to sleep’ due to worrying about threats made against him. It’s a shame, but not really that much of a surprise, that Joe decided to go direct to the police with these unfounded allegations of threats, rather than email me – I am, after all, easily reachable and more than amiable. I’m sure it’s nothing more than a simple misunderstanding, which I’m happy to clear up. Because, were it that Joe was creating spurious reports of threats in order to use the police to silence entirely reasonable criticism of the magical claims he makes, that would represent a serious waste of police time, which is in itself not a laughing matter. Still, Joe’s not one for wasting police time, really, so I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.

Wasting Police Time

In 2009, in an article in the Liverpool Echo, Joe Power claimed to be using his psychic powers to track the abductor of Madeleine McCann, who famously went missing from a family trip in Portugal in 2007. Joe said in 2009 that he had ‘seen the face of the person who abducted Madeleine and it is not dissimilar to the sketch which the detectives released‘. To this day, Madeleine has not been found, and Joe’s tips (happily shared with the newspaper) have proven fruitless. Joe’s book came out soon after the article made the papers, and his book signing was advertised at the foot of the article in which he talked about a child who had been abducted. Those are the facts. Here are some more.

In February 2008, 9-year old Shannon Matthews was kidnapped. Interested in lending his talents to the search, Joe took the Sunday People newspaper along to the house of Shannon’s mother, where he spent time giving her a reading in order to locate her missing child. Joe comfortingly predicted that her child was taken by a man driving a car with a baby seat and a brown cushion in the back, and a religious card hanging from the rear-view mirror. All of these predictions did not prove to be true. In March 2008, Shannon was found. In April 2008, Karen Matthews – Shannon’s mother, and the person Joe spent an afternoon having photos taken with – was charged with child neglect and perverting the course of justice. In December 2008, she was sentenced – along with her boyfriend – to eight years after being found guilty of kidnapping, false imprisonment and peverting the course of justice. If Joe Power was able to psychically tell at the time – as he now claims – that he knew of Karen’s involvement, he was strangely happy to pose for photographs with a child abductor and was bizarrely content to leave Shannon in her kidnappers clutches for a further six days. Fortunately, the police located Shannon safely, after a neighbour reported of hearing child’s footsteps in her abductor’s home. Joe Power’s website prominently features Shannon’s kidnapping, including a photo of Joe taken with her kidnapper.

In 2006, Joe spoke to the Daily Mirror about the murder of Sally Anne Bowman, explaining how he:

“told police the killer could have the surname White and first name Stephan or Stephen. He might live in a block of flats by railway lines and have been in a park before the murder. And Mr Power believes the killer, who he thinks is a delivery driver aged between 24 and 26, met part-time hairdresser Sally Anne through the friend of a friend.”

In March 2008, the police caught and arrested Sally’s killer – Mark Dixie, 34, a chef. DNA confirmed the match. To this day, Joe’s involvement in the Sally Anne Bowman case is put forward as proof of his talents. Mark Dixie was not called Stephan. Or Stephen.

In 1999, Joe claims to have provided ‘stunningly correct’ information to the police, in helping to locate the body of missing 22-year old Lynsey Quy. As Joe states on his website:

I took this information to police and still have the receipt for my statement. I was frustrated police did not follow up on my meticulous information, so I wrote a letter to the chief inspector Bob Marsden and took it to the police station in person. I never heard from him.  Five months later, Marsden was replaced with a new chief inspector named Jeff Sloane who never saw my information. Police eventually pressured Lynsey’s husband Mitchell into a confession and indeed they located her body parts at the fairground and near the railway tracks.

When contacted about Joe’s involvement, Det. Supt. Geoff Sloan, senior investigating officer, said:

I wish to state, categorically, that as the Senior Investigating Officer on the Lyndsey Quy murder, I made a policy decision not to use psychics on the investigation. Joe Power has allegedly made claims that he assisted the enquiry but this is not the case.

Joe’s website does not correctly spell the name of the senior investigating officer in a case Joe claims to have helped solve.

In 2005, Joe claimed to know the whereabouts of the remains of Helen McCourt – whose body had gone unfound for 17 years. He told multiple papers, including the Wigan Today, that “her body lies in Carr Lane, between her village and Prescot, possibly in or near an old fishing lodge.” Helen’s body has never been found.

In all of Joe’s involvements with the police, he has never produced anything which has demonstrably proven to be true. He has, however, featured his involvement in murder, kidnapping and missing persons cases in much of his publicity materials.

So, just to summarise: nobody involved with the Merseyside Skeptics Society – or anyone that I even know of – has ever made threats to Joe or his family, and we absolutely never will. However, we will continue to examine Joe’s work, to document where he might be using tragedy and bereavement for publicity gain, and will be delighted if he’s ever, at all, able to demonstrate even one of the fantastic claims he makes. Furthermore, given that these intellectual tussles with Joe have increased the popularity and presence of the Merseyside Skeptics Society no end – not to mention that Joe’s been responsible for providing more than 10,000 hits to this very website in the last 12 months, I’d actually like to take this opportunity to formally thank Joe for his outstanding contribution to skepticism in the Merseyside area. I look forward to his future endeavours, and the many Google hits they’ll gain us. Thank you Joe, and all the best!

Joe Power - psychic or not? You decide

In the wake of Derren Brown’s stinging exposé on ‘Psychic’ Joe Power, I thought it worth sharing with the world a conversation I had with Joe back in June 2009, when the MSS was still young, and I was but a naive, innocent skeptic with a dream, and an application form for Randi’s $1million Challenge…

Cool drizzle fell onto the grey Saturday streets of Liverpool, a light breeze tumble-weeded a sweet wrapper down the road in a clichéd fashion, and I was becoming increasingly aware that this would be the strangest conversation of my life.  And I didn’t need psychic powers for that.  For I was in the company of ‘Psychic’ Joe Power, fresh from his latest in-store book-signing (signed copies of which, I add, are still on the shelves of Waterstones – supply quite exceeded demand it seems), and things were getting weird.

“The thing about you sceptics,” he said, standing on the step of a plus-size lingerie shop to raise himself to my eye-level, “is that you sit there, festering in front of your computers at 3am, thinking up ways to get at people.  What if I were to sit in front of your house and tell people you’re a paedophile?”

“Well,” I say, “that’s for you to decide to do if you want to but it’s not really the same thing – I’m raising questions over what you do and the service you claim to provide; insinuating I was a paedophile would be just a personal attack, and wildly baseless.  It’s not really the same thing.  At all.”

“Oh I think they’re very similar,” he answers, “because you’re there festering, at 3am, plotting to get at me, in the same way that paedophiles fester and plot to interfere with children – you both have to be sick in the head to do what you do.”

With Herculean effort to suspend my natural what-the-fuck? reaction, and with a curt politeness that in retrospect now seems other-worldly, I manage a swift retort:  ”Sorry, can I just clarify – are you comparing sceptics to paedophiles?  Could you explain that?  I mean, are you saying that paedophiles also ask questions of you, or what exactly?”

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Joe:  ”I think most sceptics probably are paedophiles. I mean you’re sat around at 3am, plotting, aren’t you?  Do you deny that?”

An-incredulous-Marsh: “Do I deny what?  That I ask questions?  That I’m sometimes awake at 3am?  Or that I am a paedophile?  Could you please be clear what you’re asking me, Joe?”

It’s not often that you’re 5 minutes into a conversation with someone you’ve never met before and they’ve already played the paedophile card.  I had a feeling it was going to be one of those days.

>> Read the full account

Derren Brown – beardy mind-meddler and generally top fella – investigates those who claim to have psychic powers… starting with my old mate Joe Power. I’ll come to Joe in a moment (we’ve a bit of a history), but first I’d like to say well done to Derren. I remember after his ‘Messiah’ show, it looked like he was heading into a more publicly skeptical position. While that hasn’t happened quite as far as we’d have liked (the lottery show for example), this latest show, coupled with his role in ‘Science of Scams’ suggests that skepticism is something Derren’s focusing on a little more. If that’s the case, this is excellent news – where Randi has been a major figurehead for decades (possibly even centuries, he seems to always have existed), he needs somebody to help shoulder the weight and take up the slack. With his public persona, showmanship, reputation and expertise, I really think Derren can play that role, should he desire to.

One person who certainly can’t play that role, is Mr Joe Power. For those of you not aware, Joe and the Merseyside Skeptics Society (and myself in particular) have something of a past – in fact, long before the 10:23 Campaign, taking on Joe Power was one of the first pieces of skeptical activism I got involved in. Having criticised his appearance in a local paper, blindly promoting him as ‘The Man Who Sees Dead People’, I decided to meet Joe Power at his Liverpool book signing, and invited him to take the million dollar challenge. What I got wasn’t polite declination, but bizarre insults – with Joe genuinely comparing all skeptics to paedophiles. You can read the whole account here, and I recommend you do, to really get a feel for the kind of man Joe Power is. It was during this conversation that I heard Joe had been investigated for a prominent TV show, and at the time I put two and two together and predicted it was Derren Brown who he was referring to.

I can’t wait to see the show on May 10th.

Regular readers, and regular listeners of me on various podcasts or just ranting tipsily in a pub in fact, will be familiar with Joe Power – he was the Liverpudlian supposed-psychic I met at a book signing way back in June. The meeting, as I’ve spoken about before, was somewhat surreal in it’s content – especially when Joe decided to go on a random and pretty vehement rant whereby he likened skeptics (and specifically my good self) to paedophiles. He’s wrong of course, which I guess shows in that particular case his psychic powers were proven to be bullshit. It was actually that very conversation that led to my becoming a host of a podcast, so I suppose I should thank Joe for that. Cheers, Joe. If anyone wants to read a full account of the encounter, they can check it out elsewhere on the blog – or simply Google Joe Power’s name followed by the word ‘skeptic’ or ‘paedophile’ (I’ll let you guys choose which, but I know which I’d prefer. There’s something satisfying about the idea of a load of people typing ‘Joe Power Paedophile’ into Google. A GoogleBomb, I think it’s called…)  Indeed typing ‘Joe Power’ into Google is a pretty popular way of finding this site – looking at the key words for accessing it, Joe-related phrases come in both 3rd and 5th. So again, cheers Joe.

So, with Joe proving himself to be a distasteful, angry and pretty disgusting man on a personal level (ask him anything about his powers and you’ll see what I mean), it’s a real surprise and a real shame the BBC and other news outlets took him fully at his word on his ability to solve crimes. In an article published on the BBC Online on the 22nd November, it was reported:

Joe Power is a psychic medium who has worked with several UK forces trying to solve tough cases. When asked if he has helped the police solve murders, there is no hesitation: “without a shadow of a doubt,” he says.

What’s more, the BBC report goes on to clarify one of the cases Joe was involved in:

Joe Power says that he was contacted by the Metropolitan Police, asking for assistance on a very high profile murder investigation.

“I got an e-mail from the Met police asking for assistance,” Joe Power insists, “I gave them some information that was coming through the murder victim and people on the other side. Without a doubt they followed up on it.”

In an initial statement, the Metropolitan Police denied Joe had any involvement in the case. However, the Donal MacIntyre programme has seen an e-mail which Mr Power claims was sent to his partner by an officer working on the case.

The officer writes, “can Joe or the victim assist with any landmarks that would assist in narrowing the search down?” Joe is also asked “what sort of vehicle does the killer use, is it a car or a bike? Can the victim be more specific to Joe as to what happened at 2.10?”

When approached for a second time about Joe Power’s involvement with the case, the Metropolitan Police issued a new statement, authorised by the senior investigating officer.

So, this is the email Joe talked about to me, I take it – the email he said proves the police wanted his help, but the email he feels he doesn’t have to show anyone in order to prove it’s real. The BBC article makes a real point of the Met initially denying his involvement until shown the email, and then coming clean that he was involved to a degree – they make it out like this is some kind of cover up, that the police don’t want to give the psychics any credit. But how about this for an alternative reading of the initial denial: the Met police didn’t know, they didn’t endorse it and they didn’t condone it. Instead – as Joe all but admitted to me in person and as his email seems to prove – he was contacted by an individual, not acting on behalf of the police, but who happened to be a police officer. Which is why the Met wouldn’t have known about it, and which is why Joe has been so reluctant to share the email and thus show it’s unofficial capacity.

Even if this email has indeed come from someone pretty senior (as Joe would like us to believe) that doesn’t mean it’s from an infallible source – if the case of Alan Power doesn’t illustrate that point (a police trainer sacked for teaching his belief in communicating with the dead as part of investigations) then the fact that the US Government employed soldiers to stare at goats in an attempt to kill them with their minds should. People are fallible; police are people.

What’s more, Joe has only shared the email from the police asking for help – so what? Where’s the email Joe replied with, answering the officer’s questions accurately? Where’s the evidence that Joe’s actions were not only picked up on, but were correct? Unsurprisingly, nothing is put forward in either case – a point the BBC and the Daily Telegraph apparently failed to see the importance of. Instead, the angle to the story is the scandal that the police are using psychics at all – the very fact that it IS a scandal should give Joe and other mediums a fairly good indication of the amount of stock people put in their word, but the mere oxygen of publicity is enough for people like Power. The Telegraph does, however, give us an indication of Joe’s amazing abilities:

In 2006, during the manhunt for the killer of Miss Bowman, who was stabbed to death near her home in Croydon, south London, Mr Power said he had been “visited” by the victim. In a newspaper interview he said he had a possible name for the killer of Stephan or Stephen White, and said that he could have been a delivery driver aged between 24 and 26. The Met would again not discuss whether or not Mr Power’s tips had been followed up. The killer was eventually caught through his DNA – Mark Dixie, 38, a chef, was found guilty of Miss Bowman’s murder last year.

I see – so that would be a complete fail then, Joe? Still, he was ‘helping’ the police by offering this insight. This completely 100% wild-goose-chase wrong insight. Some help.

Fortunately, in all this nonsense and confusion, there are still voices getting through with rational messages – the Donal McIntrye show interviews good old Richard Wiseman for his take on it, and his take was both clear and devastating to psychics. Essentially, he proposed we have to go down one of two routes:

1. Allow police to follow up on psychic leads, waste as much time and resources as they like asking psychics for help. To do this, they have to allow anyone with any kind of magical theory on how to find criminals – including (Richard’s example) people who hear voices from magic pixies. I prefer goat entrail reading myself, but each to their own really.
2. Only allow proven techniques that are scientifically valid, thus cutting out pixies, psychics, goat entrails and wasting police time.

I know which I favour. Still, Joe doesn’t agree, and sees omens of things to come in the future, as the BBC reports:

But Joe Power is in no doubt that he and others will continue to play a role in solving crime: “I predict that in the next 30 to 40 years you will actually get people like me who will find bodies, where there’s no question about it. The psychic world is moving on very fast and it’s getting more accurate with the information all the time.”

Well, Joe, it’s a good thing we know your predictions aren’t worth a dime.

“Things changed dramatically after the pie shops hit financial problems and he began to be guided by the spirit of a beautiful Afro-Carribean (sic) woman called Lisa, whose face would materialise in curtains, doors or tables to tell him of the new direction his life must take”

I think the key phrase there is ‘financial problems’ – after converting his pie shop into a Love and Light Spirituality Centre and flogging crystal, tarot readings, Angel Cars and incense, I think it’s safe to say his income is somewhat flourishing. The article continues:

“He then began to give private readings to friends and family who were profoundly impressed with how accurate they proved to be.”

Which sounds either like he’s a really gifted and genuine psychic, or he’s using simple cold reading tricks that anybody can easily pick up. Also, it’s worth noting, it’s REALLY easy to give accurate personal readings about the people you know really well. ‘Hi Mum, welcome, take a seat. OK, the spirits are telling me that you have a son called Kevin who used to sell pies, and now he sells lies*…’ Amazing.

The prescient pasty-maker says of his kooky career change:

“Friends were amazed at how I had changed almost overnight to a deeply spiritual person and how I had this amazing gift, which I can’t explain and have given up trying to”

It seems to me like Kevin has given up trying to explain things a little early, so to help him out I’m happy to have a go at explaining it – he’s using simple cold reading techniques that anybody can pick up, and he’s turned to them after the bottom fell out of the pie business. There, that’s just one possible explanation, and I barely spent any time on that one.

“I had no more interest in this subject from your average fella off the street. I remember going to a developmennt (sic) circle and cracking up with laughter and thinking I was surrounded by looneys, (sic) because I was as sceptical as the next man. But I was then guided by spirit to transform one of my former bakery shops into a spiritual shop” (original spelling in Wigan Today preserved – nice spell-checking, professional journalists…)

I would venture that the main spirit he’s in touch with is the spirit of entrepreneurship.

Still, there may soon be more money in the psychic business than Kevin could predict, because in keeping with precedent set by Randi’s million dollar challenge, a new $50,000 challenge has been issued to psychics and mediums to prove genuine spirit communication. What’s unusual about this new challenge, however, is that it’s not being run by a bearded and seasoned skeptical debunker like dear Randi, but instead by a purported spiritualist and medium.

Eddie Benitez of Arizona is issuing the challenge to psychics to prove that what they’re doing is genuine – which is pretty odd given that he purportedly believes he is able to see and communicate with spirits and with angels himself. Eddie sees no inherent dilemma in this – his firm belief in his own mystic talents have led him to challenge others in the field in order to weed out the fakes and phonies, apparently. If only all psychics were so noble in their intentions, I seem to remember a certain Liverpudlian mystic who admitted to knowing fraudulent psychics personally, but refusing to out them or to challenge them to prove themselves.

Eddie, unlike Joe Power, believes that the frauds in his industry are conning vulnerable people out of money and hope with false claims to communicate with their deceased loved ones, or claims to predict their futures. I can’t say I disagree, as Tim Minchin so excellently puts it:

“These people aren’t plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill”

Psychic Eddie hopes someone will be able to rise to the challenge and prove once and for all that psychic connections and talking to the dead is real. Which we can safely presume it isn’t – based on current evidence, scientific knowledge, logic and common sense. Still, fair play to Eddie for making the effort.

First in the queue of prominent self-professed mediums he hopes to call to task are James Van Praagh and Sylvia Browne, who he’s issued personal challenges to. Surprisingly, neither have accepted the challenge – which is weird, because Sylvia’s usual modus operandi is to accept the challenge and then make up crappy excuses not to go through with it.

The most important factor, of course, is the criteria on which the challenge will be judged – this hasn’t been announced yet, and it’s quite possible that Eddie’s parameters will be loose enough for someone like Sylvia Brown, James van Praagh or John ‘Biggest Douche In The Universe’ Edward to slip through with a mix of bluffing and cold reading – until the criteria is announced it’s not possible to place much stock in the challenge. Yet, if the methods are suitably rigorous, and the testing done honestly and with as much involvement from cold-reading and psychology experts as possible, maybe it’ll be worthwhile. I hope Eddie’s first in the queue to take his challenge – that will go a long way towards proving it’s not just a poor PR stunt to allow one claimed medium to expose out his rivals and lessen the field for his own benefit. Still, it’s an interesting take on the challenge nonetheless.

*Please note, in the hypothetical scenario above, the spirits are claiming Kevin sells lies. I make no such claim, nor do I desire to.

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Cool drizzle fell onto the grey Saturday streets of Liverpool, a light breeze tumble-weeded a sweet wrapper down the road in a clichéd fashion, and I was becoming increasingly aware that this would be the strangest conversation of my life.  And I didn’t need psychic powers for that.  For I was in the company of ‘Psychic’ Joe Power, fresh from his latest in-store book-signing (signed copies of which, I add, are still on the shelves of Waterstones – supply quite exceeded demand it seems), and things were getting weird.

“The thing about you sceptics,” he said, standing on the step of a plus-size lingerie shop to raise himself to my eye-level, “is that you sit there, festering in front of your computers at 3am, thinking up ways to get at people.  What if I were to sit in front of your house and tell people you’re a paedophile?”

“Well,” I say, “that’s for you to decide to do if you want to but it’s not really the same thing – I’m raising questions over what you do and the service you claim to provide; insinuating I was a paedophile would be just a personal attack, and wildly baseless.  It’s not really the same thing.  At all.”

“Oh I think they’re very similar,” he answers, “because you’re there festering, at 3am, plotting to get at me, in the same way that paedophiles fester and plot to interfere with children – you both have to be sick in the head to do what you do.”

With Herculean effort to suspend my natural what-the-fuck? reaction, and with a curt politeness that in retrospect now seems other-worldly, I manage a swift retort:  ”Sorry, can I just clarify – are you comparing sceptics to paedophiles?  Could you explain that?  I mean, are you saying that paedophiles also ask questions of you, or what exactly?”

Joe:  ”I think most sceptics probably are paedophiles. I mean you’re sat around at 3am, plotting, aren’t you?  Do you deny that?”

An-incredulous-Marsh: “Do I deny what?  That I ask questions?  That I’m sometimes awake at 3am?  Or that I am a paedophile?  Could you please be clear what you’re asking me, Joe?”

It’s not often that you’re 5 minutes into a conversation with someone you’ve never met before and they’ve already played the paedophile card.  I had a feeling it was going to be one of those days.

As it happens, I hadn’t sat awake at 3am plotting this at all.  In fact, although I’d penciled in Joe’s book-signing weeks ago as an opportunity to go along and present him with an application from for Randi’s $1m Challenge, it was only upon arrival at the bookshop that it struck me that I had no absolutely no idea what I was going to say, or do.  I hadn’t planned that far ahead.  I’d figured I’d wing it, have a quick five-minute chat for the benefit of the unconvinced amongst the queue of would-be signees, and be on my merry way with a first baby-step into sceptical activism successfully traversed – onwards and upwards.  Admittedly, the first hiccup in my vague plan was the total absence of a queue of would-be signees.  When I arrived at the bookshop, Joe sat alone at a specially-roped-off table, signing a pile of books – with no baying hordes nor adoring fans to dazzle.  Perhaps I’d missed the masses’ arrival and departure – I could only speculate, as I’d arrived 15 minutes after the start of the signing, and stuck around for maybe 20 or so minutes.  I saw 5 people request signatures in that time.  I felt a pang of guilt, even.  I figured I’d wait for Colonel Molerat to arrive, then introduce myself, hand over the application form, explain what it was and leave it at that.  Alas, as I descended the stairs with the newly-arrived Molerat, we were struck by unforeseen hiccup #2: Joe Power had left the building.  Perhaps he was psychic after all – evidently, Molerat and I were not.

But luck was on our side – I could see Joe was stood outside the shop, with his manager Claudine Hope.  ’In for a penny, in for a pound’ thinks-I, introducing myself as I approach them, mentally re-citing my position: ‘Stay polite no matter what, keep professional and calm, don’t get goaded into saying something silly, don’t argue, don’t shout and don’t lose your head’.  Good thing too, as it turns out.

What follows is a pretty solid account of my interview with Joe.  Initially, I hadn’t planned on making a big deal of it – which is why I didn’t record anything, and why I initially verbally agreed not to use some of the… kookier allegations and insults Joe sent my way.  Indeed, it all had ended rather professionally and amicably, as was my intention.  However, a few days later I was notified of a rumour that had been posted to the excellent BadPsychics forum – which read as follows:

“On saturday the sixth of june Joe power was attacked by group of people who surrounded him and his wife and child. waterstones staff were witness to it. He had just finished signing his books when he was caught as he and his family came out. waterstones staff reckoned they were sceptics. But I would not have thought that sceptics would be party to that only debate and disscussion would be the right thing to do. Has anyone heard about this incident. A security guard from the shop broke up the mob”

The ‘mob’ in question consisted of Molerat and I.  The attack was the 30-or-so-minute conversation we had with Joe and Claudine.  We spoke to his wife Claudine specifically in her capacity as his manager – she was actually rather reasonable and amicable.  Surrounding them would have proven mathematically tricky, with two of us and two of them (although, as Colonel Molerat mentioned to me later, only Joe could tell if there were a surrounding-mob of ghosts on our side – I am not the Man Who Sees Dead People after all).  The security guard in question stood near us for part of the conversation, but was told by Joe and Claudine that he did not need to intervene as we were merely discussing things.  The entire rumour quoted above, unfortunately, is wildly inaccurate.

When I heard about it, I immediately emailed Joe and Claudine to give them the chance to clarify things – to date they have not responded.  We’re also working on obtaining the CCTV footage of the incident, and will post stills from it as soon as we get that.  In the meantime, in order to set the record straight, the MSS has no choice but to tell what actually happened.  I stress that the views expressed by Joe are not the views of the MSS, and that although the direct wording of the conversation is not exactly transcribed, the subject matter and style is accurate.

Shortly after the conversation where Joe likened scepticism to paedophilia, the police arrived at the bottom of the street.  Joe paused and raised his hand to quieten me, saying, “I want to see what the police are doing.”  I, entirely off-handedly, told him, “Oh, it’s ok, they’re just on their routine patrol I think,”  to which he ominously answered, “No, actually they’re not – they’re here for you, we called them because I knew you were coming.”  The police patrolled routinely past, and didn’t look at Joe or I once.  I’m unsure if Joe was claiming to have called them psychically, or to have predicted my arrival in advance and prepared the police in that way – but the police took no interest in us.  Almost as if they had not been called to deal with us, and as if Joe was entirely bluffing to try and end the conversation.

Having failed to antagonise with the paedophilia slur, Joe decided next to plough a different furrow:  ”Well I could set up my own website, I could set one up saying that gays are all wrong, and what right do you have to stick your cock up another man’s arse, and screw him.”  Charming.  His words, not mine.  ”Are you gay, by the way?” he added.  ”As it happens, no I’m not,” I politely said, getting the hang of this handing-people-enough-rope malarkey, “and you could do that if you wanted, you could exercise your free speech and make that website.  But I think you’d have to expect even more criticism than you’re getting now, and a lot of very upset responses.”

Seemingly aiming to goad me into a more confrontational position, Joe then re-iterated his point:  ”But I could say that you’re wrong to stick your cock up another man’s arse and fuck him…”  At which point Claudine admonished him, in what I felt sounded like serious distaste with his language and approach.  I find it interesting that he could draw a comparison between a sceptical organisation and a homophobic one – quite the false analogy.  What it might show about some of Joe’s personal views, I couldn’t comment on.

It was at this point – withouth trace of irony – that Claudine condemned me for making personal attacks on Joe, and even discussing where he lives, what car he drives, and bringing his family into things.  That’s not something I have ever done, nor will I ever do.  Firstly, I believe it’s important and more intellectually-honest to criticise the work rather than attack the man – the sceptical position is better-served by being professional in criticism; personal vitriol and venomous attack only serve to alienate an audience.  Secondly, and more entertainingly, there are way way way more things to say about Joe Power’s work than there could ever be to say about him as a person – we won’t be running out of material any time soon!

Joe then asked about the Randi challenge – why should he prove himself to James Randi of all people.  I explained through the obvious answers – the importance of evidence, how exciting it would be if we could prove people did have these powers, plus the $1m (“We don’t need the money.”  ”Then give it to charity, Joe.  Give it to the families of the victims whose murders you helped investigate – I’m sure they’d appreciate the gesture”).  I also pointed out the prestige and publicity involved in being officially, scientifically certified as genuine – if not for his own career (“I don’t need the publicity.  I’ve got my own book out, you know.  I’ve just done a book signing.”  I didn’t retort with “A book signing that 5 people showed up to,” because I’m a) not that cruel and b) not that quick-witted) then for the careers of mediums less successful than he.  And to expose the fakes in the industry.  ”You must personally know, surely, a lot of people in your profession who are fake, and you know they are fake and THEY know that they are fake, right Joe?”  Joe replied, “Yeah, of course I know plenty”.  ”So if you can prove you’re real, then others who are just as psychic as you can follow suit, and the ones who are fake will be weeded out, and your whole profession would gain a lot more credibility.”

Joe’s next false analogy was one I’ve heard before, in less extreme terms:  ”It’s all the same, you sceptics, you don’t believe, you’re all atheists”.  I pointed out that not all sceptics are atheists, Joe disagreed:  ”Well you don’t believe in life after death so you must be atheist.”  ”There is a difference,”  I countered, “between life after death, and COMMUNICATING with the dead.  Christians, for example, don’t believe that people are able to communicate with the spirit world – in fact that would be necromancy and would be a sin to even attempt.  There’s no major religion that believes people are able to habitually communicate with the deceased”.  That lapsed Catholicism of mine is still good for something other than a general crushing sense of guilt, it seems.

Joe: “What do you get from this, from writing about people like that?”  Marsh (with a slightly-friendly laugh): “Oh, that’s it entirely – I’m not going to get anything from this, I won’t get a job or a career out of scepticism, I certainly won’t make any money out of all this like you do Joe.  I suppose what we get is the chance to protect people who are vulnerable from exploitation – exploitation from people like all those fake psychics you said you know of.”

The conversation then turned to my previous article on Joe, and his involvement with specific Police inverstigations.  ”I have email communications from the police where they ask me for help on cases,” Joe claimed, “What can you say to that?”  ”Show me them,” I answered, “and I’ll change my tune.  But the police have denied ever having worked with any psychic, ever”  It was at this point that Claudine and Colonel Molerat had an interesting exhange – Claudine: “How do you know the police all know about it?  Maybe the people denying Joe’s involvement aren’t aware of the individual who asked us for help.”  Molerat:  ”It was an individual then?  Was this individual acting in an official capacity as a representative of the police force, or was he just an individual who happened to be a policeman?”  Joe and Claudine had no response to this.  If I were to be asked my personal opinion at the moment, I think that’s why Joe won’t show the emails – I’d say the only communication Joe’s had (if any at all – without showing his proof we can’t accept that any of it exists) would be if someone personally contacted Joe and just so happens to be a policeman, and was not acting as an official spokesperson for any specific investigation.

Joe also spoke to me about the Lynsey Quy murder case:  ”You don’t do your research, you just repeat other sceptics’ opinions.  The officer you quoted, Sloane, wasn’t even involved in the case when I gave my information”.  Well, Joe, I’m not the only one who doesn’t do my research.  Your website describes the case, and how Jeff Sloane replaced the chief inspector you spoke with.  His name is Geoff Sloan, as various reliable and non-sceptical sources testify.  Aside from bad spelling, the point remains – if the information Joe Power had provided on the case was in any way correct, accurate or specific enough to be useful, the new Detective Superintendent would have been told about it, and about it’s source.

Joe then returned to the subject of testing:  ”Well I would do a test but they’re always rigged. I just had to pull out of a test because it turned out there were two sceptics running it. I won’t say anything else about that test.”  I can’t be sure, but I know Joe was due to be involved in a TV show with Derren Brown.  If I were a betting man, I’d say that was the test he’s pulled out of – but that’s just my opinion/guess.  ”But why can’t it be a sceptic and someone independent,” he continued, “and we leave it to the independent person to decide.”  I answered, “Because a sceptic, by definition, IS independent – they just want to follow truth and logic.  Whereas the third party or a believer might not know the skills that people like the guys you openly admit are fakes can use.  How can they tell the difference between yourself and one of the fakes you talked about just using cold reading? A sceptic can do the research and find out all about that, and ensure the test is as fair as possible”.  Joe:  ”But what about all the grieving people, the thousands of people who have invited me into their homes and I’ve connected to their dead little boys – if I was a fraud the people of Liverpool would never fall for that, never accept that.”  I replied:  ”Well that’s it – there are people who are frauds who DO do that, and grieving people fall for it because they are in such vulnerable state.  How do we tell the difference between you and those fakes?”  Joe:  ”But why should I prove anything?”  Marsh:  ”Because any claim that is unusual needs proof before it is to be believed.  Show one bit of real proof and I’ll back you to the hilt. It’s like if I said I could fly, and I charged money to teach others how to do it – you’d want to see me fly before some poor sod jumps out of a window.”

One thing Joe was very determined to go on record on was James Randi:  ”He’s the most boring, uneducated man I’ve ever met.  Just look at his face, he’s so boring”  Marsh:  ”Just to clarify, when did you meet him?”  Joe:  ”Well I’ve not met him, but I’ve heard of him.  Just look at his face, he’s so boring.  And he’s a frustrated medium, that’s what he is – he tried to do it and he failed. He used to attend a spiritualist church even.”  As I pointed out to Joe at the time, Randi did mentalism as part of his magic act, and attended a spiritualist church – to debunk it!  Again, Joe, it really is worth doing proper homework on these things, I’d advise reading Randi’s book Flim Flam, where he recounts the whole tale of the spiritualist church, and the debunking of the use of the old Billet-Reading trick he found there.  Furthermore, how can someone be a failed medium – if you really are genuinely seeing the dead, how can someone who had ‘the gift’ try to do it and fail?

The conversation, by this point, had clearly bested Joe, as he reverted back to gauche attempts to irk and goad us.  ”What if I tell you, right now, the exact day and time you’re going to die?” he gloated, “The exact date and time you’re gonna croak it.  What would you say to that?”  I replied in good humour: “Well, I’d probably put some kind of bet on it”.  Colonel Molerat in fact went one better, and offered to put £50 on Joe’s prediction of my expiry, but alas Joe didn’t give us a date.  I even offered to make it simple for him, “Actually, if you’d like you could tell me the date and time I was born.  Because I already know that answer, so I we check easily.”  Joe declined.

One final note on this – Claudine expressed her desire that this stay off the record, because sceptics ‘twist everything that’s said, to make Joe look bad’.  I’d just like to re-iterate that I’m only publishing this account to clear up the erroneous reports that we had mobbishly surrounded and attacked Joe – we didn’t want accounts of our peaceful and professional encounter twisted to make us look bad.  If there’s anything in the above account that Joe or Claudine feel does not accurately reflect the conversation we had, I’ll be more than happy to listen to their concerns, and if I’ve misremembered any details I’m happy to finesse the account.  With an open and honest dialogue, I’m sure we can get to the truth on these things – and if at any point Joe is able to offer any kind of proof of his gift that holds up to any kind of serious scrutiny, I will personally become his number one advocate.  I’ll run the fan club.  I’ll wear the T-Shirt.  Hell, I’d even buy one of the many signed books that are still sitting on the shelves in Waterstones.  But personally, I don’t predict that will happen any time soon…