Bingo Night!

Tonight is Bingo Night – John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo. Except it looks like John Edward has pulled out – Larry King’s site now advertises “Psychics (sic) James Van Praagh & Lisa Williams take your calls”. I wonder if John Edward discovered that a few thousand people would be playing Bingo with his cold reading guesses, and decided he didn’t want to be made a fool of. But he’s a psychic, so he must already have known that. Must be some other reason then. It’s a pity, because the card was designed primarily around Edward’s style. Still, perhaps it won’t matter. Perhaps the card will work just as well with Lisa Williams, thus demonstrating all cold readers use basically the same techniques. We’ll see.

I was contacted by Brett, who wrote some software to randomize the Bingo card. That way, if you want to play with some friends, you can each have a different card. They all have the same items in the boxes, but they’ll just be in a different order. The winner is the first one to get a straight line. Brett did a great job and I’d like to thank him immensely.  Click on my original post, John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo, for the actual card and explanations for the squares. Thanks again to Brett for the card, and to James Randi and Rob Lancaster for the additional comments and examples. Check out Randi’s video featuring some of van Praagh’s tricks. And have fun playing Cold Reader Bingo!

26 November 07 - Edited to add:

I just posted about the actual program (which was not as advertised) - From The Sublime to The Ridiculous.

Comments

[Techskeptic]

So? Did anyone get a bingo? Did any of these things come up?

[Skeptico]

There were no phone calls and so no cold reading despite the promise that the psychics would "take your calls". There were just a load of vapid claims from a bunch of dopes that even included an interview with Shirley MacLaine. I’ll post about it after they put up a transcript.

[Swiftsure]

We don't get Larry King Live in the UK (not "live", anyway), so I wouldn't have been able to play psychic bingo even though I would have liked to.

Nevertheless, John Edward pulled out unexpectedly, and then they mysteriously cancelled the planned phone-in - due to unforeseen circumstances, I suppose. But I think it quite possible that the game of psychic bingo might have had a certain influence.

Given the fact that governments are not willing to legislate against so-called psychics, and the believers are willing to carry on being fleeced, maybe the psychics can eventually just be laughed out of existence? Worth a try, I would say.

The psychic bingo game is an excellent idea. Let's keep it going for every TV show that peddles this nonsense.

[David D.G.]

Swiftsure wrote:

"Nevertheless, John Edward pulled out unexpectedly, and then they mysteriously cancelled the planned phone-in - due to unforeseen circumstances, I suppose."

That should be a headline: "Psychics Thwarted By Unforeseen Circumstances." You'd think the irony of this would be picked up on by SOMEBODY.

~David D.G.