• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Psychic Herb Dewey - A proud and admitted fraud

Questioninggeller

Illuminator
Q
Joined
May 11, 2002
Messages
3,048
So I was doing some research on psychics and I came across Herb Dewey, a proclaimed psychic who is deceased. Dewey worked as a psychic for the Globe and did private readings for $20 as well as "claims to have discovered missing children", made celebrity predictions and said things like "said a newly discovered chemical, when added to bath water, would cure herpes." Just your normal psychic that "finds" people and makes predictions.

Maybe not. He is the author of several books on how to do cold reading for "entertainment" and in those admits what he does is not paranormal. His books include:

Mindblowing Psychic Readings
Red Hot Cold Readings - The Professional Psuedo Psychic
King of The Cold Readers

Now, we all know you can get books on mentalism by magicians at your local magic shop, but Dewey seems to be something different. A psychic who publishes material on how to be psychic by using magician's methods. Does anyone have more information about this guy?
 
Questioninggeller said:
So I was doing some research on psychics and I came across Herb Dewey, a proclaimed psychic who is deceased. Dewey worked as a psychic for the Globe and did private readings for $20 as well as "claims to have discovered missing children", made celebrity predictions and said things like "said a newly discovered chemical, when added to bath water, would cure herpes." Just your normal psychic that "finds" people and makes predictions.

Maybe not. He is the author of several books on how to do cold reading for "entertainment" and in those admits what he does is not paranormal. His books include:

Mindblowing Psychic Readings
Red Hot Cold Readings - The Professional Psuedo Psychic
King of The Cold Readers

Now, we all know you can get books on mentalism by magicians at your local magic shop, but Dewey seems to be something different. A psychic who publishes material on how to be psychic by using magician's methods. Does anyone have more information about this guy?
Click to expand...

An interesting dichotomy. He may not worry about being exposed because he knows that his clients will never read a book (unless promoted by Oprah). :jaw-dropp
 
I appreciate that this reply is a while after the last one (3 years, to be precise!) but it might spur others to join in.

People interested in this topic might find entertaining:

No author given; “Confessions of a Medium”; Elibron Classics;
ISBN 1-4021-9396-3 (paperback)
ISBN 1-4021-1695-0 (hardback)

The original was published in 1882. The Elibron facsimile was published in 2005

Well worth reading!

Essentially it is the story of someone (not named) who was conned into helping a bogus "medium" who eventually came to realise that the whole thing was a complete fraud. The man responsible for the fraud (not hoax) eventually admited that it was just that. As a tale of one man being exploited, it is well worth reading.
 
Last edited:
Gord_in_Toronto said:
An interesting dichotomy. He may not worry about being exposed because he knows that his clients will never read a book (unless promoted by Oprah). :jaw-dropp
Click to expand...

Even if they did, the need to believe is so great that most of them would rationalize the cognitive dissonance away and continue to embrace the woo.
 
aggle-rithm said:
Even if they did, the need to believe is so great that most of them would rationalize the cognitive dissonance away and continue to embrace the woo.
Click to expand...

Well Randi said once that some guy approached him and accused him of being a fraud. Randi said yes, everything indeed was done using basic tricks.
The person then said no, he is a fraud becaus he has real psychic abilities and he is lying about them :eye-poppi
 
Interesting. I had never heard of this guy.

I did just finish Mark Edward's book Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium, which seems to be similar.

James Randi wrote the foreward. Edward seems to be a rather well-known skeptic. He started out as a magician and mentalist, then worked the 900 line for Psychic Friends and did psychic readings for years, building up a career as a psychic by using the magician and mentalism tricks of the trade. As far as I can tell, he still does them. What I can't figure out, having just finished the book, is whether or not he believes there is anything paranormal going on with psychic readings? But it's an interesting insider look at the industry, kind of like a modern day Psychic Mafia. He starts out as a huckster with a conscience but not enough of a conscience to prevent him from trying to make a living as a psychic using every trick he knows.

ETA: The Herb Dewey books on amazon start at $72 used, yikes.
 
Herb Dewey

As I was going through my box of photos I came across an Herb Dewey flyer with his handwriting on the back.

I met him in a crystal store in Annapolis, Maryland in June 1998. He was doing readings for $20.

He never looked at me. His head was down the entire time and he jotted down notes the entire reading. I did not speak the entire time. He wrote down my birthdate, age, the number of pregnancies and live births. He also wrote a number that represented how many children I would mother in my life. He wrote down how long I'd be married (I had just been married for a few years at this time), he wrote down how many love affairs I'd have and the path my career would take. And, the age I would die.

18 years later. Every thing he wrote down has happened exactly as he wrote it.

I called his home to speak to him the night after he died in his sleep.

If this man was using magic techniques to be do readings - I'd love to read the book that taught him to do what he did for me.
 
martapatterson said:
As I was going through my box of photos I came across an Herb Dewey flyer with his handwriting on the back.

I met him in a crystal store in Annapolis, Maryland in June 1998. He was doing readings for $20.

He never looked at me. His head was down the entire time and he jotted down notes the entire reading. I did not speak the entire time. He wrote down my birthdate, age, the number of pregnancies and live births. He also wrote a number that represented how many children I would mother in my life. He wrote down how long I'd be married (I had just been married for a few years at this time), he wrote down how many love affairs I'd have and the path my career would take. And, the age I would die.
18 years later. Every thing he wrote down has happened exactly as he wrote it.
I called his home to speak to him the night after he died in his sleep.

If this man was using magic techniques to be do readings - I'd love to read the book that taught him to do what he did for me.
Click to expand...
For some reason, the two highlighted bits make me question the veracity of your story.
 
When I was in Detroit I saw more than one sign downtown (up 8 mile area) that advertised Psychics.

They also had the text "Cold Reading" on them.

Like admitting they are just frauds?

I didn't get it ... why admit that?

Did they not know what the phrase means?
 
martapatterson said:
As I was going through my box of photos I came across an Herb Dewey flyer with his handwriting on the back.

I met him in a crystal store in Annapolis, Maryland in June 1998. He was doing readings for $20.

...

18 years later. Every thing he wrote down has happened exactly as he wrote it.
Click to expand...

That's amazing. How did he make all that happen? Is he God?

Oh, wait. I think I solved the riddle. You married him, didn't you? That's how you knew his phone number to call - he was your ex. Condolences. Sorry for your loss.
 
His phone number was on the front of the flyer. I'd tried many times before to call but I always got an answering machine. The one time I got an answer it was a family member that answered and told me he'd passed peacefully in his sleep.

To the person that asked about the age of my death. He said to me and wrote it down. 93. I am 54. I guess unless I take my life or jump in front of a truck I've got a while to go and how I choose to spend the rest of my years will determine how I die at 93. At least that is how I like to think of it.

As for the how many children I would have - I had 5 pregnancies, 3 live births 2 stepchildren and my sister passed leaving 3 more.

I do not know how he did it but I wasn't alone in my reading - my best friend was visiting from Italy and I asked her to sit in with me. We were both blown away by his reading. I left in tears at the thought my marriage and family could fall apart and made my friend promise to not repeat what he'd said to anyone. The only proof I have are the notes he penned on the back of his flyer. Every once and a while I go back to look at them.
 
and my birthdate? I mean, the only jewelry I wore at the time were a gold pair of earing and a gold wedding band. He guessed my birthday to the day and year. Lucky guess since he only had 365 days to choose from and a range between 1960 -1970.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom