1 November 2017

REVIEW: Most Haunted Halloween Special 2017 (Liverpool's Croxteth Hall)


It is the time of the year when Most Haunted pulls out all the stops to give us their Halloween Special, in the old days this would be a live show with an audience and Derek Acorah going mental, these days it's a pre-recorded 2 hour special. And I am the lucky person who has to sit through it all to do this review. Red Bull is poured and ready to be drank, anti-depressant tablets have been taken, I've allowed my cousin to repeatedly slap me around the face to give me the passion to write and we are ready, so first things first lets pull down Karl's jeans, and allow that filthy blurbage to dribble onto your page below.

"Spook-searching with Yvette and co! In a non-stop, two-hour heart-pounding investigation at Liverpool's Croxteth Hall, the team is pushed to the limit."

For those of you who like to keep track, this is officially Series 20, Episode 5.

Yvette starts on the steps as says "Welcome to Most Haunted AS LIVE Special"
For those of you who don't know what this means, As Live, means it is NOT live, it is pre-recorded, but presented as if it were live, so the theory is that there is no edits, no cuts, just one taping as if it were live, we will learn by the end of the show that this is a lie, like much of what they say.


Great to see Watson on the show, I suspect he doesn't care.


New cast member, "Producer Lou", she looks utterly thrilled to be there. And we wont see her again I am sure.

Straight away they head to a wine cellar, and before you know it a bottle has been thrown.
Now Yvette quickly says "I saw that come out the wall" The only problem is that Yvette was facing in the opposite direction to where the bottle was thrown, which just happened to be right by Stuart.

Moment before bottle is thrown

After bottle is thrown

So bottle is thrown, Yvette turns towards where it happened, and then claims to have seen it come out of the wall, none of the cameras caught this of course, so we can say it happened OFF CAMERA!

Glen proud states that it is a paranormal event, but then kinda backtracks when it realises what he said.

Less than a minute later they just carry on as if nothing happened, lets just say that what happened was real, don't you think you might be a little more excited? Demand to see replays straight away, check the footage to see if you could see the event from start to end, but nope, just move on.

I believe Stuart had the bottle on him, and when everyone was looking the other way he just dropped it.


Glen has rigged up an old tape recorder alongside the laptop to capture EVPs, complete waste of time as it is all evidentially worthless.

Yvette decides to turn the lights off, and this is the first cut in filming, remember this is supposed to be "as live" yet they have just had their first cut, no real issue with this, maybe someone can go to the toilet, check the script and so on. Just thought I would mention it.


I will never understand why they have to pretend it is dark, or that the lights are off, quite clearly in the shot above, the room is just as lit as previously, and they have just changed the filter on the camera.

As the teams split up, we get the usual taps and bangs etc, usual nonsense.

As Karl and Stuart are walking about, Stuart films a door, and as he does, a knife is thrown OFF CAMERA, and then another crashing sound and a light bulb is on the floor.


Stuart seems convinced that a window has been smashed, but it just the bulb, another smashing sound, and we get some over acting from Karl, Stuart and Darren. Nothing on camera at all as usual.

Back to Yvette and Glen and you can hear a door slam.

Karl tells Yvette over the radio that they are "under attack" which made me giggle.

Stuart then claims it is like a war zone.

All that has happened is that a bulb has hit the floor OFF CAMERA, and knife thrown OFF CAMERA.

Stuart claims they will start being picked off soon. We can only hope.

All of this supposed activity, yet nothing at all is caught on camera, so its the usual routine then.

The group all meet up, and now Yvette is whistling to the ghosties.

Karl chucks another knife behind him, they all go chasing down the corridor and then find the knife on the floor, again all OFF CAMERA.

Now we are getting growls and groans which could be any one of them, so instantly becomes pointless.

As Karl is walking behind the cameraman, suddenly there is an bang and an "ow" and yep, Karl has been hit by a knife OFF CAMERA.


Yvette checks and there is no blood, no mark, nothing, almost as if the knife was just dropped on the floor, and Karl pretended to be hit on the head, all OFF CAMERA of course.

Fred keeps talking about a sweet chocolate smell. And that the ghosties have released it to entice them up there. Because you know, that is what ghosts do. Makes a change from the rancid fart smells they usually get.

Karl then suspiciously turns his back to the camera, makes a jerking movement another knife falls to the floor


Karl claims he has been cut, but there is no blood, he quick squeezes his thumb, and there is a tiny pin prick of blood there, nothing like what a knife would cause if it hit you. He could have at least palmed a small balloon with fake blood it, or something to make it look a tiny bit believable. I have had worse bleeds from biting my finger nails!

And yet again it happened OFF CAMERA.

Fast forward a few minutes, Stuart claims he has been hit by a rock. OFF CAMERA.

But then out of nowhere, as they investigate a room, they capture what I would confidently say is their most convincing evidence of ghostly activity in the history of the show.


I have examined this footage over and over, looked for edits, camera trickery, CGI, anything, and it seems legit to me. Yes folks, they have captured a ghost, and the image above is 100% proof.

Anyway that is quickly forgotten and they move on.


Yvette has written some letters on a piece of paper, and is listening to taps from the ghosts to spell out a word. CUN..... I wonder what the next letter could be. What kind of word could describe a member of the Most Haunted team that starts with the letters CUN. Guess it will forever be a mystery.


Stuart then convinces Yvette to cross out the N and put a T, I don't think you needed to remove the N here.

They eventually spell out "CUT ALL YOU" however, I think "CUNT ALL YOU" is definitely the more likely opinion from the ghost.

They move on after wasting 10 minutes on this, and Stuart has a stone thrown at him, as expected it comes from OFF CAMERA, so possible chucked by Karl or Fred.


A hanging rope is now swinging, and Karl proves how easy it is to reach, and how it was most likely him who simply reached up and pushed it.

Stuart then apparently has a door slam on him, but the scene seems a bit dodgy, you don't actually see the door slam either, so all a bit pointless.


Watson has re-appeared and is with Yvette, he is making dog noises, and in general can't be arsed.
Yvette is desperately trying to give Watson human emotions and describing what he feels and so on.
But he is just standing about, and breathing like most dogs do, no barking, no running around, nothing.


Never has a dog looked more bored and wishing he was at home in a nice bed than Watson, poor creature being used for a prop on a TV show.

Back to Karl and he seems to steady the camera on the bed, clearly he is waiting for something to happen and it does.

Let's take a look at the bed moving.


Now this is my own clip uploaded, in case REALLY decide to delete their clip.

Of course the whole bed is not in frame, and Karl does his best to check under and around the bed after this, and I do not believe anyone was hiding off camera here, I think this was done with a simple bit of fishing line connected to the bed, either pulled by Karl himself (most likely) or by someone else present off camera.


If you watch the video there is the very slightest giveaway that it was a fishing line.
Now it is faint, really faint, and you need to watch it on the highest quality you can. My video above isn't brilliant unfortunately, but we do have the official REALLY Twitter Account that has provided us with a high definition clip, which is where the images above are from. Open it full screen, pause the footage, and drag the footage to the moment before the bed moves and one frame after it moves, and you can see that the line that Karl uses creates a very slight reflection which gives it away.



I know it is not the best proof, I accept that, but that is the most likely explanation here. Definitely wasn't a ghost, especially when you realise what Karl does next.

Next up I will cover again the bed flip, which I already exposed on this site and on Twitter, but for context and archival purposes I will cover it again here.

So after the bed was pulled with fishing wire, Karl leaves the room and walks a bit up the corridor, he hears a noise, and goes back to the room, and finds the bed has been tipped up, this all happens in just 30 seconds.

I have seen all manner of explanations from the ridiculous to the plausible, my favourite being that there was a midget hidden to the side who did it.

Lets watch the clip first. Courtesy of the official REALLY Twitter account or if you prefer you can go to UKTV catch up, and find the scene yourself using the time code of 1 hour, 17 Minutes, 50 Seconds.




Ok it seems pretty impressive, although possible time wise for someone hidden to flip the bed etc, it just would have made more noise, you would have heard footsteps, movement, and to get the bed in the final position, doesn't seem like a quick job, so I watched it a few times and I spotted something strange, there is an edit in the footage, a cut, we are seeing two pieces of footage merged together.

I will admit to the untrained eye who is not primed to look for such things, it is hard to spot, so I have cut the exact moment out and pasted it below.

As Karl is filming away from the bed flipping room, there is a noise, then there is a slight digitally added zoom on the shot, the camera turns and then a slight digital zoom out. The edit is there, the zoom is to fix the fact the shot wasn't lined up correctly. Karl saying "woah what the.." is added in post production too.


By turning the camera quickly and having the edit there, it is in theory much harder to spot due to motion blur, this is often used in music videos to give the illusion of a continuous shot, but is really more than one shot merged together, in films they do something similar when the camera has someone walk towards it and then suddenly the person is walking away almost as if they walked through the camera, also done in films when moving through walls and so on, unfortunately for Karl he never lined up the second part properly so needed to use a digital zoom to match up the two pieces of footage.

Check out this scene from the film Contact, can you see the edit here?


In the past any camera edits have been done after Karl's camera has been placed on a surface, or is on a tripod, this makes the edit much easier as its just a matter of pressing pause on the record, doing your shenanigans, then resuming the recording, well after we exposed Most Haunted of doing this with the Ghost Stuart on the stairs stunt, and then the sideboard door closing stunt whereby Karl forgot there was a clock in the scene which totally gave it away that there was an edit, clearly they thought they needed to be smarter, and do the edit while the camera was moving.

So here is what I would say happened, Karl walks along the corridor, he gets into position, and then stops the filming, puts the camera down, he then goes to the room, flips the bed, moves the chair, makes sure everything is in position, goes back to the camera, picks it up, checks the last shot so he can match it up, then starts recording again. Goes back to the room to film what he had done.

The two pieces of footage are then put on the computer, and the two pieces merged together, use some motion blur, digitally added zoom to perfectly match the two shots and there you have it.

For people not familiar with how this works, it isn't a million miles away from how you take a panoramic photo on your smart phone, take a photo, move, lineup the edges, take another photo. Or even those old Vine magic trick videos, that is probably the closest example of what went on here.

Check out Zach King on Vine for perfect examples of how this type of edit can be used for great magic tricks.

Back to the show, Karl does some more examining.

Yvette is asking if Watson can hear a noise, but he doesn't care.

We are getting lots of shots of Watson's back as he looks at nothing, riveting footage as I am sure you can agree.

Despite Yvette claiming she knows the spirits are there, not a peep from Watson, in fact once again Watson is proof that there are no ghosts there. A dog will bark if someone farts unexpectedly.

And with that we are basically at the end of the episode.

Every Halloween there is a big stunt, but unlike Karl being pulled up the stairs by rope attached to his waste which was obvious to everyone watching, the bed flip stunt was well done, the wire for the bed moving was really hard to spot, and the edit for the bed to be flipped is really good, and you have to be really on the game to spot it.

If I have missed anything please leave a comment below and let me know.

For a Halloween special it wasn't too bad, we got a decent amount of Watson which is always a highlight, a few decent stunts, and something for me to expose.

I will give this Halloween special a 6/10 for effort.

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By Jon Donnis

Most Haunted Halloween EXPOSED - The Bed Flip


Just a quick article, a full review will be up hopefully later today, as I have not watched the show in full yet.

As Most Haunted Halloween started, I thought I would watch the first 10 minutes just to see how they were presenting the episode, whether they would pretend it was live, or have any kind of MHL type format. For the record they are not allowed as they do not own the rights to the original Most Haunted Live format, Sky TV still own those rights.

Anyway the show starts and although very rough, it would be the normal format of the show, but they were trying to present it as if it was live, although they never said that, I believe that it was promoted "as live" in other words it was recorded in one go previously, and aired without edits on the show. But as we will find out that was a lie. A bare faced cheeky bummed lie.

In the first few minutes a bottle was thrown, OFF CAMERA, from Stuart's direction, Glen quickly announced that this was definitely paranormal. Remember he is supposedly the skeptic on the show. At this point I turned the show off, and decided to look for something else to watch on catch up, as I turned that on, I noticed that the Most Haunted Halloween episode was there to watch in full! Before it has even finished airing on REALLY.

So I thought I would have a quick fast forward through the whole thing to see if anything good happened later on. I ended up near the end at the bed flipping stunt.

Here were my comments on Twitter at the time.


Without hardly any analysing, I had spotted an edit which gave away the whole game. And boy did I make sure I told everyone, lots of tweeting people, warning them what to look out for.

Luckily for me, REALLY have uploaded the clip to their twitter account, so first watch it below, or if you prefer you can go to UKTV catch up, and find the scene yourself using the time code of 1 hour, 17 Minutes, 50 Seconds.




Did you spot the edit?
Ok I will admit to the untrained eye who is not primed to look for such things, it is hard to spot, so I have cut the exact moment out and pasted it below.
As Karl is filming away from the bed flipping room, there is a noise, then there is a slight digitally added zoom on the shot, the camera turns and then a slight digital zoom out. The edit is there, the zoom is to fix the fact the shot wasn't lined up correctly. Karl saying "what was that" is added in post production too.


By turning the camera quickly and having the edit there, it is in theory much harder to spot due to motion blur, but unfortunately he never lined up the second part properly so needed to use a digital zoom to match up the two pieces of footage.

In the past any camera edits have been done after Karl's camera has been placed on a surface, or is on a tripod, this makes the edit much easier as its just a matter of pressing pause on the record, doing your shennanigans, then resuming the recording, well after we exposed Most Haunted of doing this with the Ghost Stuart on the stairs stunt, and then the sideboard door closing stunt whereby Karl forgot there was a clock in the scene which totally gave it away that there was an edit, clearly they thought they needed to be smarter, and do the edit while the camera was moving. Well sorry guys, we got you again!

I am sure there is more to expose in the two hour special, and when I get chance I will do the review, but for now, it's good bye from me.

By Jon Donnis

30 October 2017

REVIEW: Most Haunted Series 20 Episode 1 (Rowleys House)


After a long wait, I am back with my latest Most Haunted review! Please keep your groans to the end, otherwise it saps my energy.

It occurs to me that UKTV have created an interesting problem for themselves, by purchasing the rights to "Ghost Chasers", they now have 2 "Ghost hunting" shows that are British in nature, we can forget Ghost Adventures, as that is American nonsense. So with 2 British shows doing pretty much the same thing, it quickly becomes apparent that one of them is rather serious and mostly honest in its presentation, and the other is an out and out spoof of the genre but presented as if it is real. Can you guess which is which?

So the viewer at home will watch Ghost Chasers first, and they will see potentially paranormal events happen, but are then quickly debunked by the Evil and Skeptical Paul Hobday, (aka no hat Raggy Doll), and then in the next episode of Most Haunted which airs directly after, you have potential paranormal events happen, which are either deliberate fakery by Karl, Fred or Stuart, or just a basic misunderstanding of completely normal events that tend to happen in old building. So then the viewer left to make a choice, which will depend completely on why they watch such programming in the first place.

With Ghost Chasers featuring a young cast, lead by the annoying attractive and likeable Kay Nambiar or you have Most Haunted lead by a washed up kids TV presenter who is universally disliked by the casual viewer (see I'm A Celeb).

With UKTV paying much less for Ghost Chasers than Most Haunted, and with Most Haunted simply not allowed to use mediums on their show due to rights issues with Sky Limited, you then have Ghost Chasers a show that appeals to people interested in the genre, as well as skeptics who want to see things debunked, and the addition of Ian Lawman, a "sensitive" who has now decided he can see dead people (he can't, trust me), UKTV finally have a replacement for Most Haunted, that costs them less, and is all round a better show.


So the ratings will be very interesting. Do people want a more serious investigation? Or do they want ridiculous over acting and fakery? Time will tell, and with that waffle over, lets get on to episode 1 of the 20th season of Most Haunted.

[Insert Filthy sticky blurbage below]

Rowleys House
Spook-searching with Yvette and co! The team heads to the centre of Shrewsbury where a house is said to be full of the long dead just wanting to make themselves known.




A fair representation of me realising there are 4 episodes of Most Haunted I need to review before the Halloween Special.


First good news of the season is that Watson the Most Haunted Bulldog is back! You should check him out on Twitter, he has some interesting opinions.

Lets hope for more disinterest from Watson as the season goes on.
I had heard that Yvette was desperate to fire Watson from the show, but due to his popularity UKTV simply refused to allow a new season without the dog.

Yvette has found herself in Rowleys House, and is mooching about in the attic which she claims intrigues her.

I see Glen has managed to earn himself a new contract despite everything that went on in the previous season.


Unsurprisingly Glen has his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face, for he "knows" things, and that's why he got his new contract.


Glen explains to Yvette that it is an old house, lots of drafts and so on, Yvette amazingly states that they have been doing this long enough now that they can tell the difference between what is real and what is not and they don't jump to conclusions. Yes she really said that.

Watson is already walking about and making noises, he is clearly not bothered at all about any ghosts and doesn't care for your nonsense.

Yvette is claiming to hear noises, clearly it is Watson, so we now waste a few minutes of nothing.

A dog will bark and go mental if a firework goes off 5 miles away, yet Watson couldn't give a damn about any so called ghosts tapping or making noises.


Proof right here that there are no ghosts in Rowleys House. No dog would just chill out with his balls rubbing on the carpet if there were spirits hanging about. 

Yvette and Glen go investigate upstairs where they claim they heard a noise, Watson follows, and doesn't care. Remember a dog's senses far surpass that of a human, so if a dog doesn't sense anything unusual, it is fair to say that there is nothing unusual about.


Glen finally plucks up some courage and asks Yvette to move in with him. But alas they cut the scene early, changed the filters on the cameras to make things look more spooky, and now we have Karl and Fred joining in on the investigation.

As Karl films in a "darkened" room, a suspiciously place filing cabinet is spotted, and just as he goes off camera there is a noise, as he turns back the cabinet has magically opened!


Since we exposed Karl faking events like this previously, I don't think anyone watching this thinks for one moment this was real ghostly activity.

Of course we get endless replays that don't show anything. As usual the ghosties only work off camera.


Mr Trustworthy is back, yes Stuart Torevell still hasn't made his millions from his car sticker business.

Back with Karl and it is just noise after noise, all off camera, it gets tedious after a while. 

Yvette is asking the ghosts to make a noise with their voice, as opposed to what? Their arseholes?


Yvette is now whistling, and I had genuinely forgotten how truly awful this show was. It is just the same thing every episode, taps and bangs, things happening off camera, and Yvette saying stupid things.

Yvette has taken Glen into an office, and Karl and the others have gone elsewhere. Glen is alone with Yvette, this could be his chance.

We are now with Karl and there is what sounds like a woman's giggle, it sounded like Yvette to me, which would be the obvious rational explanation, Karl quickly starts defending the noise since they are supposedly the only people on that level of the house. Someone on Twitter warned me about this, and they seemed to think it was a sound effect added after, the first giggle sounded like Yvette, but the second and third laughs do seem like a post production effect, it is just too obviously faked to be taken seriously.

Karl and Stuart are really hamming it up here, please if anyone thinks this was not faked please leave a comment and explain why.

I am watching this episode through a laptop so my sound is not great, anyone with the knowledge, if you could examine the sound and see if there is any obvious signs of fakery with the wave forms and so on and let me know.

Back with Yvette and Glen, and Yvette tells Glen he would "Scream like a bitch" which is an incredibly sexist thing to say, and reminds me of the Labour MP who recently received widespread condemnation for saying something very similar. 


Great shot of Stuart with a big blob of snot on his nose. I believe it is called Ectoplasm. And is the highlight of the episode so far.


Notice the much higher nasal hygiene of Yvette.


Notice the lights behind Glen in the above shot, they are not in the dark, not even close. Don't believe the lies.

Yvette starts talking about the Stone Tape Theory again, you will remember her talking about that before, mainly after we exposed them faking footage of a ghost that was clearly a video overlay of Stuart.

So with Yvette's logic, Stone Tape Theory now covers tapping, whistling and cabinet draws closing.

Yvette is with Karl now and hearing more taps etc, usual nonsense, the fact there is no camera filming them from afar means that they could just be tapping their own feet and we would be none the wiser.

Big bang, Yvette screams, a book has been thrown OFF CAMERA. Most likely Karl picked it up, and chucked it behind his back.

It is almost as if Most Haunted do everything they can NOT to catch evidence of the paranormal.

And after a few more bangs and knocks, the show ends.

Every time a new season of Most Haunted starts I truly hope they will come up with some new gimmicks, new characters, new anything, just to make it more watchable. But this episode was awful. I can't imagine anyone watching this and thinking it was a good episode, especially after seeing Ghost Chasers air directly before.

All round terrible episode, nothing happened on camera, blatant fakery with the filing cabinet door and the dodgy laugh sound effect.

0/10

I hope that in some way I have entertained you today, if I did why not donate an Amazon Email Gift Voucher to me to show your appreciation 

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By Jon Donnis

Why you should avoid James Higgins Psychic Medium

Source: Facebook/Google Images

"I recently had a run in with self proclaimed "Psychic Medium" James Higgins, and I thought it would be a good idea to look into him further, however since he had made certain rather nasty comments towards me, I thought it would be better if I asked someone else to write the article, so I asked a colleague here at BadPsychics, and the article below is written by them. As such I will say that any of the comments and opinions in the article below are those of the author." - Jon Donnis

As readers of Bad Psychics may be aware, we have various dealings with a woman called Deborah Davies over the years.

You can read the original article about her here, which reveals - among other things - the disgraceful claims she made about Madeleine McCann.

And don’t forget to check out the sequel, detailing the catfight she had with her former friend, Gail Cuffe who runs the ‘Readings by Gail’ Facebook page, (previously ‘Psychic123UKreadings’).

Alas, despite all of this, Ms Davies has continued to practise as a self-proclaimed psychic and medium. One of her latest schemes involves offering weekly horoscopes, which just happen to bear a curious resemblance to those on Russell Grant’s website.

Source: Facebook/Google Images/RusselGrant.mobi

Can you spot the differences?

Anyway, it now turns out that she is not the only person in her family to be making forays into the psychic world.  In autumn 2016, a series of posts appeared on her Facebook page, promoting her son, James Higgins. This struck me as a little odd as he was already 25 years old, and she had never indicated that he had any psychic ability before then.

In fact, one of the few times that she had mentioned him previously was when she publicised an event that he was due to host with someone from an inane reality show, back in 2014.

Source: Facebook/Google Images

However, it appears that this venture didn’t last long – as his Facebook page as an entertainment host/MC has since been deactivated. A cynic might be tempted to think that the sudden emergence of his alleged psychic ability very conveniently coincided with the failure of this business. Nevertheless, one must not jump to conclusions.  Let’s look at the evidence first before making our minds up as to whether James Higgins is the real deal or not.

To begin with, here are screenshots of Ms. Davies’s posts from last year – interspersed with my comments.

Source: Facebook/Google Images

So what do you think the odds of him creating his own psychic/mediumship Facebook page were?


Source: Facebook/Google Images

Oh, what a surprise! By the very next day, he had created a page.  And apparently, he had “no intention” of charging for his psychic services. Well, as we are about to see, that soon went out the window.


Source: Facebook/Google Images

As stated above, James was already 25 years old. Isn’t a bit strange that she hadn’t taught him to connect with his ‘spirit guide’ before then? Even more bizarre that she only taught him to do so after he had created a psychic mediumship page.

A few weeks later, this post appeared on both their pages:


Source: Facebook/Google Images


I have to say these are some of the most unconvincing examples of validations that I have ever seen. In the first case, I could name you half a dozen people who keep their feelings hidden. In fact, this is often said to be a typically British trait – i.e. keeping a stiff upper lip and not showing your emotions.

The second comment, on the other hand, really makes me sad. Clearly, this is someone who has suffered bereavement and is clutching at anything – no matter how vague – to give her hope of an afterlife.
Let’s be honest, though. Anyone could link the letter ‘B’ to a multitude of things in their lives. For example, just off the top of my head, I baked some bread for breakfast this morning.  I also got a text from my brother. One of best friends had a baby boy this year, and another close friend of mine had a birthday last month. I bought him a photo autographed by Bobby Charlton. I also have an Uncle Bruce and my grandmother’s sister was called Betty. And in my immediate circle of friends, I know people with the surnames Brown, Burton, Bennett, and Bright.

Furthermore, for all the positive responses that Ms Davies has for her son, we have received plenty of negative feedback in return.

For example, here are two typical complaints from former fans:


However, they were among the lucky ones, who decided not to pay for James Higgins’s psychic services. One customer, unfortunately, made the mistake of buying a reading from him and waited for three days – before she was sent this:  


Source: Facebook

(NB: At the time, James Higgins described himself as a ‘spirit medium’. He has now changed the name of his page to ‘James Higgins Psychic Medium’)

Just from looking at this reading, we can see that it’s simply a load of rambling waffle. James can’t seem to make up his mind as to whether the customer has just had a baby or is about to have one. He also talks about the customer getting the opportunity to work online – but then strangely contradicts himself at the end by saying that he “can’t see anything flagging up in her career”.

He was totally wrong, in any case. The customer actually completed her family many years ago. All her children are now adults, so she isn’t about to have another baby. Neither is anyone close to her, and she has no plans to work online.  She couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to produce something so short and inaccurate. She initiated a dispute to get her money back – but has yet to receive a refund.

These are not the only complaints that there have been about him. Another customer recently got in touch with us, alleging that James appears to be buying items online and then selling them at marked-up prices on his Facebook page. For instance, a few months ago, he offered this dress for £29.99 with a ‘free’ spirit reading.


Source: Facebook/Google Images


Note however, that you can buy EXACTLY the same dress here on eBay for £16.99 (plus £9.99 postage).

Now, in the interests of fairness, we should not confine our analysis of James’s psychic ability to his written readings or the items he sells. On occasion, he has conducted mediumship demonstrations for his customers.

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be particularly impressive either.

A few months ago, he took part in a bizarre ghost hunt at a pub in Macclesfield. Apparently, this pub was supposed to be haunted by 22 ghosts, including a particularly evil spirit who has regularly assaulted women.
The video of the hunt went viral – and was picked up the Daily Mirror, which published an edited version on their website, complete with spooky background music. Yet *spoiler alert* absolutely NOTHING happens! The pub landlord, for some reason, goes into a particularly foul-mouthed rant at the ghost, goading it to attack him.  But James Higgins, for the most part, just stands there like a lemon, sporadically saying vague things like, “I sense a male presence.”

But let’s give James another chance. He sometimes holds live ‘question-and-answer’ sessions on Facebook. Here is a sample, which you can watch here:



You can, of course, judge for yourselves as to whether this video shows any proof of psychic ability. But for the purposes of accuracy, here is a transcript – with:

James Higgins’s reading in normal text,
commentary by me added in red,
and parts that I wish to draw attention to in bold.

---------

James: Sarah Lewis, you’re just commenting there. That is, you know, it’s really nice that I’m seeing messages like this. “What will my children be when they grow up?

A fairly straightforward question about the future. But can he give her a straightforward answer?

Okay, erm, for now, I feel as though your children are at quite a young age.

She’s just asked what her kids will be “when they grow up”, so it’s pretty obvious that they aren’t very old.

There is so many factors that can influence this. I don’t feel in any way whatsoever that a child’s viewpoint on what they want to be now is what they’re going to be in the future. I wanted to be a barrister and that’s a very different job from what I’m doing right now. Erm, there are certain things that can influence this throughout their whole life. Lots of different roads that they could be taking at certain points and each option has a different outcomeSo, it’s very difficult for me to be able to tell you that at the moment.

Eh – what?? This is common sense. Everyone already knows that there are different factors that can influence a person’s career path. But aren’t you supposed to be psychic? So shouldn’t you be able to say exactly which road the woman’s children will take?

But it’s very good that I’m seeing that you’re concerned about this. You’re very driven for your children and in the long run, that’s going to benefit them further down the line.

Well, if she wasn’t driven for her children, she wouldn’t have asked that question.

What I think is so important here to say – and this goes for anyone that’s got children. I’ve not got children at the moment, I’ve not got children. But I feel as though I’m very wise with knowledge of what I might pass on to my children. And a lot of what they teach you in school…it’s not the real world. It’s not the real world at all. The things that I’d be telling my children aren’t necessarily the things that they’d be taught in the educational system.

So your school didn’t prepare you for the real world? Very interesting, I’m sure. But what does that have to do with what the woman’s children will be when they grow up?

So, I think it’s important that you – at every available opportunity – give them the lessons that you have learned to develop over the years and things that you wish you knew when you were their age. And a lot of the time, you know, there’s things that you wish you would have known back then that you’ve only just found out recently. There’s things that you might not even know yet, that you’re yet to find out that would have benefited you when you were a child. And looking back, would you have done anything different? A lot of you might have. A lot of you might have done things differently and you know, that’s the whole point of life’s lessons. It’s us learning and developing on the things that we do and then passing that down to our children. And it’s important that we do that for the sake….for the sake of the children’s life, career, finances. You know, we want the best for our children at the end of the day, don’t we?

Oh, good grief! This sounds like the kind of guff you can hear on American talk shows about the best way to raise your children. I’m sure if the woman wanted parenting advice, she would have consulted Supernanny instead of a psychic.

And Sarah, no doubt in any way whatsoever that you are capable of relaying everything that they need to know. I feel as though you’re a very good mum to your children and I do feel as though you’ll get there and give them the support that they need throughout their life. Hope that makes sense to you.

No, I’m afraid it doesn’t. It’s just generalised blather.

But erm…it’s an exciting…exciting time, very exciting time, and watching a child grow up, you know, it must be amazing to, you know, hear at different stages…their aspirations from such a young age. A lot of children want to be a fireman when they grow up or you’ll hear the most randomest things…..I’ve heard children say they want to be a binman when they grow up and when they get older, you know, everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Nothing does stay the same, but it’s just something to bear in mind for the future.

This just basically repeats what he stated earlier about how children’s ambitions often don’t pan out. Sorry, but I can’t see anything remotely psychic about this fairly obvious fact. No answer whatsoever to the woman’s question – despite waffling on for almost five minutes.

---------------

Nonetheless, Jon Donnis (who runs this site) was prepared to give James Higgins one final try. A few weeks ago, James asked people to see if he was drawn to them by messaging him on Facebook. So Jon took him up on his offer – and received quite a surprising response:


Source: Facebook

However, not long afterwards….perhaps after consulting the spirit of Google Search…. James Higgins changed his mind, and sadly decided that Jon wasn’t so ‘lovely’ after all:


Source: Facebook

Regrettably, Jon then received a Facebook block before he was able to reply. But for my part, I simply say this: 
1. Read both previous articles about James’s mother,
2. Consider the evidence that we have provided here on what ‘help and guidance’ James Higgins actually gives to people in need, and
3. then, decide for yourselves who are the ‘evil ones’.

By Stefanie Schmidt

This article is the opinion of Stefanie Schmidt, any images used are freely available in the public domain either on google images or facebook, or otherwise specified and are used for the express purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.