Watched it last night and it was really interesting. In the sense that at first sight I assumed he was a cold reader con artist. However there turned ot a high probability chance he is a cold reader but honestly believes in what he says he can do, read the minds of children that cannot talk yet.
He failed both the scientific testing in the UK and Randi's million Dollar challenge in America,arguing that without the parent there it will not work properly (Red Flag cold reading).
If he can read a baby's mind he does not need the parent.
At one point he did cold reading on the baby sitter, which had no relevance to the test.
At the end though channel 5 erroneously stated science has proved he is a psychic.
He visited a quack in America, he purportedly has a phd although it does not say what in!
He hooked the psychic up to an eeg monitor, allowed hm to read a childs mind with mother present, blatant cold reading ensued, the "scientist" then took the readings, 2 weeks later translated it in to proof of psychic ability!
No double blind test, no peer review, no chance of being published in a scientific journal and he had cognitive bias by admitting he is a 'true believer' in psychic ability and sciencehas not found a way of proving it yet.
I wonder if he got his PHd From the same internet company that gave Gillian McKeith a degree in nutrition. Send a cheque for a £100, fill ina simple multiple choice answer and the degree is yours, funny, but true!!!
The 'scientist' also waffled some science words that made no sense when put in context, logical fallacy - blinded by science!
Now back to Ogilvy the psychic, he is still making a fortune from book signings and shows up and down the country screwing the gullible out of cash
However as I mentioned earlier he may believe he is genuine. They did not explain why so I shall. The phenomenon is called HSP or HyperSensoryPerception.
The person with HSP is very observant and able to pick up very subtle clues from body language, tone of voice etc, even on a subconscious level, hence he may believe he is psychic without realizing he has the gift of HSP.
By picking up on peoples ideomotor functions, or, unconscious movements, he is subconsciously reading them.
However after seeing the show saying he has HSP is being kind to the guy as he does use a lot of blatant and open cold reading in his work.
Only he knows if he is truly a conman or truly believes he is psychic, the only thing that can be proven is he has no psychic abilities and if Derek Ogilvy ever comes to a town near you, please do warn all your friends and family to steer clear of the guy.
At least Acorah is funny, this guy is sick manipulating very young children and their mothers to line his pockets
I would have loved for him to prove existence of psychic ability, 'I wanted to believe', but yet another fraudster gets me so depressed about what humanity will do to each other for fame and money.
Regards,
Den.
Subject: Baby whisperer. 
Sat Sep 20, 2008 10:49 pm
