(Update: 4th September 2010 - a few weeks after I wrote this article, the website that posted the negative skeptical comments that I refer to below closed down. However, as this article clearly demonstrates, there are still a lot of others around, so beware.)

Bad Psychics or Bad Skeptics: Is this a case of Pathological Skepticism - Skeptimania?

The field of professional Skepticism has grown rapidly with the expansion of the internet. Today, highly motivated and intelligent individuals can achieve ‘cult status’ (perhaps in a very real sense of the expression?) by establishing themselves as modern day ‘knights in shining armour’ supposedly altruistically battling to protect the vulnerable and the gullible (those who hold opinions other than their own?) from those they label as frauds. Indeed, these individuals in some cases develop iconic profiles amongst their followers that, it could be argued, are not dissimilar to the ‘messianic’ status attributed to some religious leaders, to the extent that now (sadly?) for example, one such organisation promises to each follower who makes a donation to its funds, to the tune of five thousand dollars (with inducements to do so), that the donor will be rewarded by being feted by the recipient organisation, in the form of receiving dinner with its leader - at a restaurant of the donor's choice. (That’s an expensive meal by any standard.) Other elaborate professional skeptic internet websites also ask for donations from their avid followers, or charge membership fees as a means of bringing in the money. Some retail products which promote the skeptic mind-set and point of view, such as, for example, books written by leaders in the field - hammering home the skeptic message to all who pass by, while making more money in the process. Some people clearly make a significant amount of money out of professional skepticism these days.

Follow these links to see the evidence for yourself:

http://www.skeptic.com/donate/

http://moh2005.proboards.com/index.cgi?

http://www.csicop.org/about/donate_to_csi/

http://csi-store.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/si

>http://csi-store.myshopify.com/collections/ frontpage/products/csi-associate-membership

Clearly, professional skepticism is a potentially lucrative field. And along with the clear financial benefits, it quite likely provides significant ego-stroking rewards to some of those who are good at doing this sort of thing, in the form of the adulation that many professional skeptics enjoy among their many loyal followers. Money, power and status - it’s an intoxicating combination that is perhaps as old as human history. And just as there are, in my experience, good psychics and bad psychics, and non-psychic frauds who pretend to be psychic too - equally, I think the evidence suggests that there are, unfortunately, both good skeptics and bad skeptics in the world as well (I don’t think even a bad skeptic could sensibly argue with the statistical likelihood of such a proposition). And the bad ones, I suggest, share a lot in common with intolerant religious fundamentalists. In the past fundamentalists burned people at the stake. Today - some fundamentalist skeptics seek to ‘burn’ those they attack too - only in the modern world the immolation they inflict on others is in the form of character assassination. Claims of ‘fraud’ are bandied about - on the weak basis that because the intolerant fundamentalist skeptic does not agree with a certain point of view then it ‘must be wrong’. Thank goodness most law courts are not allowed to work from such principles today - except perhaps those run by the Taliban?

Dr Gary Schwartz of Arizona State University (who conducted a range of impressive tests with a number of mediums, including, perhaps the world’s most well-known medium, John Edward) coined a term for the phenomenon of pathological skepticism: he called it Skeptimania. On page 216 of his book called The Afterlife Experiments, Dr Schwartz rhetorically asks:

‘What does it mean when a person concludes that an event ‘must be due to fraud’ no matter how strong the data are? At what point does the instinct to dismiss data reflect a bias so strong that it begins to border on the pathological? Simply put, when does skepticism become what I would call skeptimania? When does skeptimania become so strong that a person will engage in double deception rather than report the facts as they actually occurred?’

Dr Schwartz, by the way concluded (on page 222) that the results achieved from the research conducted by Arizona State University on the subject of mediumship demonstrated an outcome of 100 trillion to 1 against chance - and, what’s more, that psychic medium John Edward, the evidence suggests is ‘..as real as steel’ (page 225).

But the skeptimaniacs are only interested in one point of view - their own. I’m aware, based on personal experience that some skeptics can be insulting and downright rude (due to some unpleasant emails that have been sent to me in the past) and when performing to an audience (other skeptics) mocking of the object of their criticism too. I think it’s fair to say that, while not all skeptics are bitter and vindictive, some, sadly, clearly are. You only have to look at the tone of some of the articles written by some skeptics and it’s clear to any intelligent unbiased observer that the writers are intent on belittling the object of their scorn and seeking to cast unfounded aspersions, based on personal opinion (opinions which are in unison with the cult-like collective mind-set of the network they associate with or are members of). Some attach only first names or, worse, just ‘pen names’ to their comments, effectively ‘sniping’, then running and hiding: which doesn’t say much about the reliability of their comments - much less their own characters, does it? (Some might call such individuals cowards.) Personally I don’t respect those who hide behind the cloak of anonymity in this way. They’re just bullies. And bullies are craven people. In fact, I suggest, you can sometimes observe mob-like behaviour amongst some (bad) skeptics as some of these skeptics ‘gang up on’ certain individuals, posting spiteful comments and articles designed to hurt - just as the playground bully finds safety in numbers and picks on those weaker than he or she. I suspect that most people who find themselves the subject of the bad skeptics’ wrath decide to keep their heads down and hope it will ‘all blow over’, rather than respond to their comments because they know that doing so could affectively mean painting a target on their backs, for the mob to attack - and the results could continue for ‘who knows how long?’ - one against many, intimidated by mob behaviour and potentially, ongoing, public character immolation.

Rigourous, healthy, balanced skepticism is a good thing. Research needs men and women with intelligent open minds who are willing to question all sides of an argument and be genuinely, honestly, truthfully willing to change their position if the evidence indicates that such is the sensible thing to do. And, when the evidence is not clear, one way or the other, then a good skeptic will say so, and not allow publisher’s bias to affect their conclusions - and statements. Personally, regarding my own psychic experiences, I tested the reliability of the psychic messages I received for years, before deciding to work as a psychic/medium. Then, to be doubly sure that I could, by and large, bring through identifiable evidence for people, I first worked for free for several months as a means to ensure that I could replicate the process with a wide variety of people. I have testimonials from clients to substantiate my accuracy.

Balanced skepticism then helps us to ask good questions and gather good information before drawing conclusions - and balanced healthy skepticism is always open to change if the evidence suggests a change of opinion is wise. Pathological skeptics however ignore evidence and attack those who live by views other than their own.

In an article that was written about me by a skeptic in 2010 the writer (not fully identified in the article - so I can’t put a name to this person for you) mocked me for speaking out against terrorism in one of my videos. Might it not reasonably be said that at least I had the courage to speak out - in an identifiable way - against a scourge of the modern world? What did my assailant do by comparison? Mock me and hide from public scrutiny by attacking me in an untraceable way. Many will think this is an act of cowardice. And might this demonstration of personal behaviour say something important about the critic’s character? I think so. In the critic's article (there’s a link a to it at the bottom of this page - so you can read it for yourself, if you want to) the critic states that I am not a fraud and am probably a nice person (thank you for that, at least) but suggests that I am, rather, deluded, believing that I’m speaking to spirits when, by the critic’s standards, I’m not (based purely on the critic's belief that I can’t possibly be doing so). I believe that reasoning of this kind is not good journalism - and is definitely not good science. It reminds me of the old saying ‘If man were meant to fly God would have given him wings’. Thank goodness not everyone thinks like this. The world would be a much smaller place if we did.

While I could spend time dissecting the minutiae of the critic's clear biases and shoddy reporting, for brevity, I’ll highlight a few points that readily come to mind, for example: the critic carefully ignored, it seems, my many videos in which I share clear information about some of the psychic evidence that I've accurately received during my psychic readings - and the critic does not mention other examples of precognition that I address in my videos, nor indeed was I contacted or invited to talk about examples of precognition of the kind the writer implies I should have received (which indeed I have received). This demonstrates, I believe, bias to the extreme.

The critic also knocks my field of work in neuro linguistic programming, with little evidence to support the claims, other than to point to further skeptic websites - rather than, as a good journalist and good scientist would, refer interested readers to sites that are both for and against an issue. (For the record, for example, a few months ago, someone contacted me to ask me something about climate change and I referred her to information both for and against the theory of man-made climate change, so that she could draw her own conclusions. I have timed and dated evidence to prove this in the form of the email response I sent.)

The critic also seeks to downplay the fact that I tuned into spirits during one of TV medium's Derek Acorah’s live shows, based on the comments: ‘As readers of Bad Psychics know Derek has well and truly been debunked so I’m not seeing this as credibility of psychic abilities!’. Has Derek’s mediumship ability really been well and truly debunked? Maybe the followers of Bad Psychics believe so - but is that proof? Or is it just conjecture dressed up as fact? What’s more, whether or not Derek has been debunked (I don’t agree that he has - I’ve seen him live several times and he receives accurate names and personal details that when passed to members of the audience and verified by them form outstanding evidence) whatever the case may or may not be about Derek, the fact remains that the information that came to me was accurate in relation to the information that was then presented by Derek to the public. Rather than disprove the likelihood of mediumship taking place, I suggest this increases the likelihood of it having occurred (for both Derek and me).

The critic then goes on to say that I (Kerin Webb) am ‘totally absorbed in myself’ that I am ’amusing’ and that I supposedly ‘like the sound of’ my ‘voice just that little too much’. This again is purely conjecture on the part of the critic (who it must be noted clearly set out to write an article to ‘do me down’).  This behaviour reminds me of a principle that I learned from my training in the field of NLP - which is that ‘Feedback says more about the sender than the receiver’. There is also a sufi proverb which says: ‘If you want to know what he’s like - reverse what his opponent says’.  I'm confident that many people who know me would vouch that the critic is wrong in this assessment.

The critic also states that: ‘I find him slightly amusing without him meaning to portray that...’. Which part of what I do I wonder does the writer find amusing? My stance against terrorism (which the critic mocked, remember)? My stance against cruelty? My desire to motivate more people to live responsible lives? My desire to inspire people to unite across religious and cultural divides for peace? My exhortation to encourage people to think for themselves and gather all the evidence in order to make their own decisions, to develop the power of discernment and to avoid falling foul of rigid, fundamentalist, thinking? Or - is it something about my appearance or mannerisms? And, if there is anything that a person so motivated to do might mock about me in this regard, might that not indicate something about the person’s level of emotional maturity? Might some people not conclude that to mock someone because of how they look, or because of their mannerisms, or for some other (unnamed) idiosyncratic element of their character that this is simply spiteful and cruel? Personally speaking, I think that many people will conclude that the writer’s statement about me says a lot more about the writer’s character than it does about me. In this regard I can state that no one contacted me to ask in advance, before writing the article, if I would be willing to invite any of my clients who’ve had readings with me, who might be prepared to vouch for the high level of evidence that I’ve provided to them during the readings to do so, either. Good journalism? Good science? I think not.

The critic’s opinion is that I am not a fraud - which means that, potentially:

1) I’m delusional - the critic’s apparent opinion,

2) I actually am in communication with Spirit - which is my belief and the opinion of my clients for whom I have brought through accurate names and other identifying information - along with details of their personal lives (read some of my testimonials for more information),

3) I’m the World’s Best Guesser, able to guess things about people that I’ve never met or spoken to before each reading - I don’t know anyone who believes this.

I believe I am in communication with Spirit. What’s more, it could be argued, that posting this article about skepticism to my website and drawing people’s attention to (so far) the one (the first?) critical article about me could put others off having readings with me, or cause some people to stop watching my videos, or listening to my network radio interviews, based on a cursory glance of the critic’s comments. Maybe some people will respond thus. But contrary to the writer’s insinuation - my motivation to give the readings is not about making money. Some close to me have suggested that this critic's attack on me is actually more of a 'back handed compliment', as I've been a relatively unknown psychic, as far as the general public is concerned, with perhaps just a few thousand people aware of me and my work - however, now thanks to this critic, I'm listed on a website alongside such outstanding mediums as John Edward, James Van Praagh, Lisa Williams, TJ Higgs, Kelvin Cruikshank, Deb Webber, Tony Stockwell, Colin Fry, Gordon Smith and Chip Coffey.  I understand what they mean by telling me this and why they're saying it - but naturally I would still have preferred not to have been attacked in this way.

Others will vouch that I’m generous with my time, when I give readings, sometimes running well over the allotted period set, making no extra charge for the extended time given, in order to bring through additional relevant information for my clients and I'm prepared to contact clients who would likely be prepared to confirm this, along with affirming the accuracy of their readings with me, if any balanced scientists genuinely want to work with me and gather information of this kind.

The critic denounces me for charging for my time, in the form of the readings I provide, by request.  No mention is made of the fact that I have worked for free.  No indication is made of the extra time I still give today to clients.  What's more, if I could allocate the time to work for free now, on a regular basis I would. However, I, like everyone else, live in a world where - whether you’re a journalist, skeptic, doctor, priest or cab driver - we all need, on the whole, to be paid for the services we provide. For me though, it’s first and foremost about working with Spirit to bring evidence through for people who want proof, which for them demonstrates that there is a spirit realm and that members of the spirit realm can communicate with people on this side of life. Maybe fewer people will book readings with me as a result of the critic’s comments? Time will tell. While my main area of work currently is that of a trainer and hypnotherapist, not a full-time psychic reader nevertheless, as I said, I love providing psychic readings - and I'm prepared to continue to do so, through this website, as long as people want me to work with them. I think that's fair enough, don't you? Indeed, I reason that, if Spirit wants this side of my work to develop further it will - and nothing any skeptic does will stop it from doing so.

For the record, in relation to the critic's insinuations about money, I once recently turned down guaranteed work with a psychic phone-line because I was uncomfortable with the offer - making this decision actually cost me money, in the form of missed clients.

Also, for the record - I don’t work with ‘anyone’ who wants a reading: for example, I’ve been asked to channel Michael Jackson in the recent past and I responded by saying to the person making this request that I will only currently attempt to do this for a genuine family member or friend of Michael Jackson - and the same applies to any other celebrity for that matter. How could we test the veracity of the reading otherwise? This means that I turn people down sometimes and by extension, turn money away.  The critic never mentioned this either. Why?  Because the critic did not do the right kind of research in advance.

[This is not a criticism of other mediums who claim to channel celebrities (I think some of them actually do speak with those who've been icons of popular culture).  This is my personal position on the matter.  If I were ever to become as well-known as someone like Colin Fry for example, with a proven - public - track record of bringing through evidence of high quality for masses of people, then I might change my mind.  Otherwise, I feel, channelling a celebrity of the stature of Michael Jackson could, due the 'circus' that surrounds such individuals - both in life and in death - bring my work into question in a way that's beyond the to-be-expected criticisms of the dyed-in-the-wool skeptcs.]

When I spoke with some of my family members for feedback recently about this criticism of me and my work they, understandably, out of a desire to protect me, suggested that I shouldn’t address the issue publicly, because I could open myself up to potential, cleverly contrived, attacks by pathological skeptics - quite aside from the ongoing genuine interest of open minded people in my work. Effectively, the ‘mob’ might come after me. As a result, at first I decided not to respond - but then I changed my mind. I decided to write this relatively brief article on the voluminous subject of skepticism - both good and bad, to draw people’s attention to the proclivity amongst some, for what could be called pathological skeptimania, as a 'one off' response to the issue by me. I don’t intend to get drawn into further responses with those who might take a pop at me in this manner, as there are, I believe the evidence suggests, too many who might potentially be motivated to do so now or in the future - not based on a desire for genuine debate or open-minded research but more to do with a kind of mind-set that some people have that you learn about when you train in in the field of counselling, it’s called the ‘Now I’ve Got You You Son Of A Bitch’, behaviour pattern, which is typified by a person who addresses an issue with someone else, doing so purely to find a way to ‘get at’ him or her. (For example, the questioner asks questions, conveniently ignoring answers unless or until the person being questioned says something which can be twisted or misrepresented by the questioner, to be used against the person being questioned).

For the record, as regards the question of whether or not psychic people exist, I believe that there are:

1) people with genuine psychic ability (I believe I’m one of them, I’d have to doubt my own experiences and the experiences that others have had around me to conclude otherwise - and that would be delusional!),

2) psychic frauds (people with psychic ability but with low moral character who use their skills to rip people off and/or make them dependent on them),

3) non-psychic people who claim to be psychic using various skills - to defraud others,

4) deluded people who think that they’re psychic - but they’re not.

There may even be further permutations of the possibilities than the four I’ve briefly mentioned here.

Likewise, I think there are also:

1) genuine skeptics (I would class myself as one of these, who require evidence, such as that based on scientific research and/or the evidence of our own experience, tested time and time again),

2) bad skeptics whose motives are to report biased, sometimes spiteful information, designed solely to destroy another’s point of view - and/or reputation (for various reasons, which might include, money, power, spite, envy)

...and 3) while it’s not fashionable to believe in evil spirits these days, I’ve met several sociopaths in my life and my sense is, based on my psychic experiences, that they are indeed Dark Souls, bent on destroying people’s faith in God and the spirit realm - and I think that some bad skeptics are, to use a well-known expression, “Satan's little helpers’, evil spirits inhabiting human bodies who go out of their way to attack those who sincerely seek to work with The Light.

This article forms my opinion - you the reader are of course able to gather all of the evidence to make up your own mind about what to believe too. Of course, making up your own mind is not a once and forever process - it involves constant reevaluation of the evidence sometimes. That’s the true mark of an open mind! Few fundamentalists are capable of doing this - they’re addicted to their fundamentalism too much. Whether it be in the form of religion - or some other strong, shared belief... like skeptimania?

When I was a young man in my mid-twenties I joined a fundamentalist Christian church and was a faithful member for eight years. I adopted the group’s way of thinking and its world view. However, I never stopped questioning - and when evidence was presented to me that demonstrated that the group I was a member of was in error on many points of doctrine and what's more that its leaders had engaged in questionable behaviour which could be called cultic - I left. That was a massive decision to make at the time - as the costs to me were great both during my time as a member of the church and as a result of leaving, but I did it anyway, because truth was more important to me than shared belief. Let’s hope more people who currently engage in fundamentalist thinking are prepared to ‘see the light’, so to speak, and, as a result, begin to address life in a more balanced way too. Only then, when we all look honestly at all the facts before us and, only then draw conclusions, that we don’t become addicted to, but rather are always prepared to change, if the evidence suggests there is a case for doing so, will our beliefs be balanced and we will not be led emotionally to attack that which we don’t believe in, simply because ‘we know it can’t be true’. We can never be truly free of bias until we accept that we could be wrong.

To end this article, I’d like to share a couple of quotes from the cover of a book called 'The Argument Culture’, written by Deborah Tannen.

‘Why do we see everything as either/or, for or against? In the media, in politics, in our classrooms and courtrooms, issues are taken up in adversarial debate between opposite extremes rather than discussed and explored. Tannen once again brilliantly identifies a mode of communication - the argument culture - that is getting in the way of understanding and needlessly polarizing us.’

The Guardian newspaper, when referring to the above mentioned books states:

‘The Argument Culture sets out to discover why public communication, in politics, classrooms, courtrooms and the media is fueled by a commodity suspiciously akin to mindless hostility. And why we think it’s clever.’

The bad skeptics, in my opinion, often typify the argument culture at its worst.

Interested readers wanting to learn more about some of the many points of view on the subject paranormal research can follow the links at the bottom of the page which provide insights into some of the ideas around, vis a vis, psychic ability and science. By exploring what’s available to study - you can form your own conclusions, rather than letting someone else and their biases do the thinking for you, whoever they may be, however many followers they may have - and regardless of how well-known they are. Remember too, my videos are free to watch. I make nothing out of writing, presenting, editing and uploading them - or taking the flak from those who don’t like them! :-)

Best wishes...

Kerin

Here’s a link to the article about me:

http://badpsychics.co.uk/thefraudfiles/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1187

Here are some web pages with views against the possibility of the existence of psychic phenomena (they relate to the other skeptical links posted above):

http://www.skeptic.com/

http://www.badpsychics.co.uk/

http://badpsychics.co.uk/au/modules/news/

http://badpsychics.co.uk/thefraudfiles/modules/news/

http://www.csicop.org/

http://www.csicop.org/si/

http://www.skeptic.org.uk/magazine/letters

http://www.ghostcops.com/

The following page links to several skeptic websites.

http://www.ufoseek.com/Paranormal_Skeptics/index.html

Here are some videos expressing skeptical opinions towards the paranormal and related issues:

Here are some web pages with views supporting the existence of psychic phenomena:

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/New/Examskeptics/Sean_Randichallenge.html

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/New/Skepticbogus/index.html

http://www.afterlife101.com/HESL.html

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/index.html

http://www.psyleron.com/researchSummary.aspx

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/jahn.html

http://www.theintentionexperiment.com/the_experiments

http://www.enformy.com/Gary-reHymanReview.htm

http://www.drgaryschwartz.com/mainpage.htm

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/investigators/index.htm

http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2009/09/skeptic-agrees-that-remote-viewing-is.html

http://www.scientificexploration.org/

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com

http://www.victorzammit.com

Here are some videos expressing scientific research on and/or examples of the paranormal (also see the videos listed to the right of the page when you reach the YouTube page that the following link takes you to):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tjvpk_x-YI

And here's an embedded video from the page:

A video debate between advocates of both sides of the issue:

Please note, I’m not implying in this article that any specific person is either pathologically skeptical or a skeptimaniac. I also give the benefit of the doubt to any and all people highlighted directly and indirectly in this article that they believe in what they’re doing - and they believe that they believe that what they’re doing they’re doing for good reasons. I am also not claiming that anyone in particular is a fraud. Some people may, though, be in the grip of a strong delusion, but I’m not mentioning any names or identifying anyone in particular in this regard. This article forms my personal opinion. You, the reader, can draw you own conclusions.

Thank you!

I'd like to thank everyone who's written to me since I first posted this article to offer me support (which includes people who've had readings with me in the past, during which remarkable information was received). I appreciate your kind and thoughtful comments.

Update: 10th August 2010.

See my blog for an update on this situation and learn how something positive has come about, as a direct result of my response to the unprovoked attack on me, by the unknown skeptic assailant.

Kerin Webb: psychic medium, clairvoyant, channeller and past life reader, based in Bournemouth, Dorset, UK.