Monday, July 21, 2008

Humorous Feud - Barbara Walters vs James Van Praagh

Ah, yes, the "sensitive" is sensitive to being exposed as a fraud.

Courtesy of Seriously? OMG! WTF?:
Barbara Walters vs James Van Praagh July 21st, 2008 under The View >Barbara Walters has a new feud on her hands and this time it is with the Executive Producer of Ghost Whisperer according to The New York Post. James was on The View July 7th to promote his book Ghost Among Us and warned her during a commercial break that he sensed something wrong with her blood.

"He said, 'I need to talk to you . . . There's something wrong with your blood.' Then he said, 'There's also something wrong with your lower back.'

"He said it could be an infection."

The news prayed on her mind, even though "I'm skeptical and Mr. Van Praagh knows it," she said.

"I'm obsessing, the white blood cells, blah-blah," so she went for some tests, she said on the show.

"Well, today I got the report. I am absolutely normal!" she said.

"I think it's a dangerous thing to do!" she said of Van Praagh.

Van Praagh was stunned and, he says, hurt when he saw the show.

"I felt obliged to privately acknowledge to Barbara Walters that I was sensing an abnormality with her white cell count," he told The Post over the weekend, "And even though it might not be present at the moment, she should be aware of it and keep an eye on it.

"I am sorry that Ms. Walters chose to publicly disparage me and do hope that the goodwill I demonstrated during the show is not belittled by her misinterpretation of my work."

And, oh yes, he added, "You don't have to be a psychic to know why Star [Jones] and Rosie [O'Donnell] left the show!

"I felt darts being thrown all around," Van Praagh said. "For a 'sensitive' to be on that couch, it was like sitting on ice!"

Maybe all the bad blood he saw was not her real red blood, but all the bad blood she has with people? We have seen a whole new side of her since her book came out.

Heh heh.


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

. . . as a medical intuitive i go through this sort of thing too. what western med tests as "normal" can actually be the very very low side of what the range for normal is for the greatest percentage of people, when for an individual, it can mean that they are definitely Not within normal range. (does this make sense? tests are set to look for the greatest number of true positives/negatives and lowest false positives/negatives for the greatest number of people)

also, Intuitives often see things that are brewing, not necessarily in full pathology yet. i always say that getting the information is the easy part of my job, giving the info in a way the person i'm reading for can handle is the challenging part . . .

Anonymous said...

"Hogwash."

Anonymous said...

Van Praagh once again exposed as a PHONY. And did you see the 20/20 show? It shows him CHEATING. For crying out loud, how much more needs to be put out there to take this predator out of commission??!! For all you gullible DOPES out there that swallow this tripe hook line and sinker, keep shelling out the cash so that this scam artist can continue to build his wealth. I'm sure that makes you feel better.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
william harryman said...

Anonymous -

I deleted your second comment. While I encourage civil disagreement here, I don't encourage authoritarian style attacks on other people or other ways of thinking.

Not all medical intuitives are fakes, and unless you have solid proof otherwise you can't make that kind of statement.

Peace,
Bill

Anonymous said...

He told her certain information--he didn't say "brewing," "possibly" or anything tentative.
She did not have this condition. She called him on it. What's wrong with that? He would only be sensitive (no pun intended)because he was wrong. The business of medical intuition is very dangerous. User beware!

Anonymous said...

You deleted my second comment because I don't have "solid proof" that medical intuitives are fake?! So what you're saying is that because I can't prove that they're fake, they MUST be real?! That's the same old "negative proof" logic that these scam artists have been using for decades. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof) sums it up excellently: "A supernatural force must exist, because there is no proof that it does not exist".

william harryman said...

Anon,

No, that isn't what I'm saying -- it's not a black or white issue.

I'm willing to entertain the possibility that there are some real intuitives, and there is evidence for this being true.

I think you're simply failing to understand that the worldview you hold is not the only possible explanation for reality.

Peace,
Bill

David said...

All medical intuitives are fake.

As stated there, "anecdotal successes by medical intuitives [are due] to a combination of wishful thinking, confirmation bias, the placebo effect, and regression fallacy associated with self-limiting conditions (e.g., back pain, headache, viral infection)."

Swap "medical intuitive" for "untrained person who doesn't know anything about you or human physiology and is going to pull a guess about your health out of their ear", and you can see how appalling it is that anyone gives this notion any shred of credibility.

Anonymous said...

Thanks you, David, for your thoughtful comments, particularly your operant point that these are "untrained" people. You highlight the EXACT point that I was trying to make in the comment that was deleted... These people are DANGEROUS. Part of me wants to think that anyone gullible enough to fall for their scam deserves what they get, but I don't think anyone's health should be put at risk by the advice of an unqualified person.