Joe Power: The Man Who Contacts The Dead
May 07, 2010 11:36 AM ‐ Paranormal • Television
This article is more than ten years old and was last updated in January 2017.
Derren Brown delivered another great bit of television tonight, I've been waiting for a show like that for a long time. In the first of a new series, 'Derren Brown Investigates', the celebrity mentalist spent a week in Liverpool with a guy called Joe Power, a fairly well-known psychic with a good reputation locally.
I think Joe was setting himself up for a fall when he agreed to take part in Derren's show, knowing that Derren is skeptic but I think the reason Joe agree to take part is because he really believes he can contact the dead.
Of course as the show went on Derren duplicated Joe's skills using his non-psychic powers, it was all very cringe worthy and made Joe look like a bit of an ass. Joe gave some great readings but in a control condition, a reading set up by Derren, Joe failed to gather as much information from his client's dead loved ones.
Despite belittling Power's “powers,” Derren didn’t come to a conclusion on Joe’s authenticity during the show but instead left it to the viewer to come to their own conclusions.
It would seem that on the whole, the general public has decided that Joe is lacking in the psychic powers department. Twitter has been flooded with comments aim at Joe today. Things like:
"If you can prove your ‘psychic' ability - why didn't you take the test?"
"Derren Brown is a f**king legend Joe Power is a pathetic fraud!"
"Has anyone read the statement on the Joe Power website? What a load of bulls**t."
...and that last comment brings me on to my next point. Joe has posted a statement on his official website today claiming that "all was not as it seems" and it's a very funny read.
Derren's driver accussed Joe of cheating, after he told one of his clients that she drives a mini which turned out to be correct. The driver claims that Joe had seen the girl driving the car earlier in the day. I believe Joe on that, may be he didn't see - well not consciously anyway but he could have picked up on it subconsciously.
Joe states that he "I believed I would be making an informative and constructive debate into the life of a psychic" but when he was given the chance to take a test to prove himself he turned it down. When Derren questioned him on something he walked away - that's not constructive or a debate.
Joe then hands over to his solicitor who says "it was clear from the programme that Joe actually did very well" - yes, he did, his readings WERE very good but so were Derren's and Derren doesn't have psychic powers.
The thing is, sometimes you see someone and you might pick up on the fact that they are a little bit depressed or stressed. You might say something and before you can even get to the end of the sentence you can tell by the look on their face that what you are saying is wrong. You might get an indication of what job someone does by how they act or talk... well may be Joe has these skills too and he is really really good at it.
If you had this powerful ability to judge people and make factual claims about people based on their looks, actions and behavior then, if you are a skeptic, you would put that down to the fact that you are great at reading people's subconscious signals. But, if you were a believer in the spirit world and you strongly believed people can talk to the dead then you may attribute these abilities to psychic powers.
So I wouldn't want to call Joe Powers a fake or a fraud, he might be but equally he might be a genuine honest guy who is able (however that may be) to pick up on fact about people's deceased family members.
So whether he's picking up on these message from beyond-the-grave or from subconscious signals put out by the client, he is telling these people what they want to hear and offering them a great deal of comfort.
Over all though, the show was very informative, impartial and a great bit of debunking, even if he did give Joe a bit of a hard time. I can understand though why Derren did pick on Joe, I think you could tell that Joe hated Derren from the start... see I picked up on that body language even though he was trying to hide it.
I wonder what Joe would think of all this skeptical blogging? Well, Joe has said in an interview that skeptics are basically the same as pedophiles because they're "there festering, at 3am, plotting to get at me, in the same way that pedophiles fester and plot to interfere with children – you both have to be sick in the head to do what you do."
You can catch the show on 4OD or watch next week's episode 'The Man With X-Ray Eyes' on Channel 4 at 10pm.
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