Phony Psychic: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Shawn''': [[Take That|A virtual carbon copy]].|''[[Psych]]'', "Extradition: British Columbia"}}

 

 

Some of those tales:

 

 

'''[[No Real Life Examples, Please]]'''.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* Mai Valentine pulled a fake psychic act at first in the Duelist Kingdom arc of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]''; in reality, she scented all her cards with unique scents so she'd know by scent which cards she'd draw. Joey figured out her trick when he closed his eyes and noticed the scents. [[Fridge Logic|Despite having caught a cold a few episodes ago from diving into the ocean in an attempt to recover Yugi's Exodia cards.]]

** Espa Roba also pulls a phony psychic stunt in the Battle City tournament, with help from his brothers spying on his opponents' cards and relaying them through a headset.

* Horribly played with in [[Tantei Gakuen Q]]. {{spoiler|As a part of a [[Plan]] to rebuild her business and save her family from ruin, Hanayo Ichinose faked her death, got plastic surgery and [[Batman Gambit|tried to make herself pass as one of these]] to protect her kids. Her two sons, however, mistook her for an accomplice of an evil aunt... and to protect themselves and their baby sister, killed her.}}

* Miroku in ''[[Inuyasha]]'' is a genuine Buddhist monk with very real spiritual powers... whose favorite trick upon arriving in a town is to single out a large, prosperous-looking household and announce that it is "threatened by evil spirits," which he then generously offers to exorcize in return for a meal and a place to stay for the night. Every now and again one of these houses surprises him by actually harboring a spirit or two.

 

 

== Film ==

* [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s final film ''[[Family Plot]]'' stars Barbara Harris as a ''faux'' psychic and Bruce Dern as her legman-researcher.

* The classic [[Film Noir]] ''[[Nightmare Alley]]'' features Tyrone Power as a venal carnie who gets the show's resident "psychic" to give him the secret of a successful con before [[Accidental Murder|accidentally poisoning]] him. Without spoiling too much, it's safe to say [[Laser-Guided Karma|things do not end well for him]].

** Debatably such an awesome idea that [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot]] despite the A-plot being [[Oscar Bait]].

*** A similar idea crops up in the earlier ''[[Ghostbusters]]'': Peter Venkman, the ''de facto'' leader of the team, starts out as a phony parapsychologist (i.e. he treats the science as a joke), but gradually becomes a true believer throughout the course of the story.

 

== Literature ==

* Played for laughs in the [[Diogenes Club]] story "Angel Down, Sussex" by [[Kim Newman]]; a young woman, Catriona, visits a psychic after [[World War I]], and the psychic divines that she is seeking contact with a soldier, Edwin; the psychic assures her that her soldier felt no pain when he died and that he sends his love to her from the afterlife, and a ghostly, indistinct image appears. After a moment, Catriona points out that there's one problem with the psychic's reading: Edwin, the soldier who the psychic has made such direct contact with? ''Isn't actually dead''. Turns out Catriona's a particularly savvy paranormal investigator, and proceeds to deconstruct the psychic's act with devastating accuracy and reveal to her other patrons that she's a sham.

* In the [[Connie Willis]] book ''Inside Job'', the ghost of [[H. L. Mencken]] helps debunk phony psychics, by possessing one during their act. Possibly. Or it's the most complicated scam in existence to make a debunker believe in ghosts.

* Employed by [[John Sandford]] in ''The Empress File'' using rigged Tarot readings to convince a corrupt official to invest in a scam. Partially averted in that {{spoiler|a later unstaged reading comes out completely true}}.

* Madame Tracy from ''[[Good Omens]]'' is a phony medium who puts on a show for Londoners looking to paddle in the occult while staying firmly in the metaphorical shallow end. To that end, she does Tarot readings with some of the more distressing cards removed from the deck, and pretends to channel departed friends and relatives who offer vague platitudes about how nice it is on the other side. Much to her surprise, she ends up channeling an actual ghost when {{spoiler|Aziraphale temporarily possesses her body.}}

 

* ''[[Lost]]'''s Richard Malkin appears to be a "legit" [[Fortune Teller]] in the first season episode "Raised By Another." However, in the second season episode "?" he admits he's a fraud. It's still up in the air whether he had an actual psychic experience reading Claire in "Raised By Another."

** Miles genuinely has the ability to [[I See Dead People|hear the dead]], but semi-counts because of his history of telling clients what they want to hear for money, and using it to find a dead drug dealer's cash.

* ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'' had one, who claimed he could find missing/dead girls. Turns out, with the help of his manipulated wife, he was the one kidnapping and killing them. ''[[CSI]]'' also had a variation of this.

** ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]] had a psychic used by her male companion, who fed her necessary information.

** It also is [[Crowning Moment of Funny|utterly hilarious]]: the team convinces the villain (who is very aware that he's running a con) that one of them is a ''real'' psychic.

* Most of the bad guys in ''[[Trick]]'' are running this scam. The ones who aren't are the guys handling the business end of the scam.

* ''[[The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin]]'', of all franchises, subverted this trope with a wizard character who claims to be psychic and can show visitors magical images of anything they want to see. The catch is that, while the wizard doesn't actually have any powers, the images he shows are ''real''. What the wizard's customers are actually seeing are films taken by the wizard's assistant, who spends a lot of time flying around Grundo taping interesting sights and places, which are then projected onto a screen. The whole "magic powers" schtick is just a way to attract customers, and otherwise the wizard isn't actually conning anyone.

* Parodied in the [[Home Movies]] episode "Temporary Blindness", in which Coach McGuirk is believed to be psychic after going blind, and attempts to give a demonstration to an audience:

* In the ''[[Powerpuff Girls]]'' episode "I See A Funny Cartoon In Your Future," the girls try to catch a fake psychic who uses her tricks to distract victims while her assistant picks their pockets.

* An episode of South Park has Stan trying to debunk phony psychics after Kyle is convinced by one that his dead grandmother is disappointed in him. This being South Park, all of the [[Adults Are Useless|idiot adults]] he tries to reveal the tricks to just think he has become psychic and encourage him to pursue this newfound "power." This leads as far as getting him his own (unwanted) TV show where he continues to try to demonstrate why all the psychics on TV are phony.

[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

[[Category:Phony Psychic]]