Did a psychic predict Barbra Walters’ Health Problems? No.
May 14th, 2010
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Barbra Walters is 80 years old. She’ll be 81 in September. It’s hardly unexpected that she would have at least a few health issues by this age and it does not take a psychic to predict that a person in their late 70’s probably is going to need some kind of medical care in the next few years. Yet that’s what a self-proclaimed psychic is claiming.
Walters recently head heart valve surgery, which apparently went well. The surgery was to replace the aortic valve. Doctors had recently become concerned about the conditions of her heart valve, although the exact nature of the problem has not been made public.
Now notoriously poor faker James Van Praagh is claiming credit for predicting Barbra Walters’ heart condition two years in advance. Apparently Van Praagh is trying to grab some attention any way he can by latching onto a story that has nothing to do with him.
Via Access Hollywood:
Two years ago, psychic James Van Praagh privately warned Barbara Walters about her health, only to be called out later on the TV icon’s daytime talk show, “The View” – and now, with Barbara headed for heart surgery, he has come forward to Access Hollywood to explain what happened.
“I felt very, very bad for her as anyone would,” James told Access’ Tony Potts of Monday’s announcement that Barbara would undergo heart surgery for a faulty valve. “A horrible thing to happen to anybody.”
However, he explained that he felt the news was “a validation of what I got for her at that time.”
James, a co-executive producer of CBS’s “Ghost Whisperer” and a medium with a long history of success in TV and publishing, told Tony that he’d sensed something wrong with Barbara during his appearance on “The View” on July 8, 2008, and suggested during a commercial break that she have a reading done. However, he explained that after the show, she wanted to hear what he’d sensed.
“I tuned into her and I said, ‘Something is bad with your blood,’” James said of their backstage discussion. “It’s not moving correctly… you have to watch it. It might not be right now, it could be in the future.”
He also told her he sensed issues with her white blood cells and her back.
Less than two weeks later, in the July 17 episode, Barbara went on “The View” and proclaimed that her doctors had given her a clean bill of health, criticizing James – a move that disappointed the psychic.
Van Praagh even has the gal to demand an apology for being rebuffed when he made the statement two years ago. For her end, Barbra Walters does agree that he said that there was something wrong with her blood, her white cells were up and her lower back had problems. She does not mention him saying anything about the “flow” of her blood, however:
Barbara Walters announced to the world on this past Monday’s episode of “The View” that she’s having heart surgery – but did a psychic predict her medical plight almost two years earlier?
“You know how healthy I have been – never missed a day’s work. Later this week, I am going to have surgery to replace one faulty heart valve,” Barbara said on “The View.” “I have known of this condition for a while now and my doctors and I have decided that this is the best time to do the surgery.”
However, on July 8, 2008, psychic James Van Praagh appeared on “The View” with Barbara, and took her aside after the show to tell her privately that he sensed something was wrong.
“He came up to me and said, ‘I need to talk to you,’” Barbara explained later on the show on July 17, 2008, growing visibly heated. “[He said], ‘There’s something wrong with your blood, and there’s something wrong with your lower back.’
“So even though I knew this was ridiculous, I called my doctor. [Van Praagh] said I had too many white blood cells. It could be elevated,” she continued.
However, at the time, she said she got a clean bill of health.
“I am absolutely normal!” Barbara said loudly. “I think it’s a dangerous thing to do, looking at someone and saying, ‘You have an elevated white blood count.’”
Van Praagh responded in the New York Post, explaining he was “sorry that Ms. Walters chose to publicly disparage me” after their private conversation
So lets consider what we have here. Van Praagh apparently told Walters three things: First, something is wrong with her lower back, that she has high white blood cell levels and that there is something wrong with her blood. At least two of these are undoubtedly and unambiguously 100% wrong. The heart is not located in the lower back and there’s no information to indicate that Walters has any problems in that area of her body. A high white blood cell count count indicate an infection or an autoimmune problem, but Walters had and has neither of these.
Then there is the issue of “There’s something wrong with your blood.” The heart may pump blood, but that’s about it. To say that “there is something wrong with your blood” implies some kind of issue with the composition of the blood, perhaps very high cholesterol, diabetes, acidosis, enema or any number of other conditions. If we are to believe Van Praagh that he did say “it’s not circulating right” then that could imply a heart problem, but it could also imply an impending blood clot, a stroke, internal bleeding, poor circulation or any number of other problems.
This is a common trick by psychics: they make a prediction so general that almost any medical condition could fit the bill. They also like to make multiple predictions and then focus only on the one that was not completely wrong.
Lets stop and consider something. Van Praagh’s prediction would be equally accurate if Walters had developed any of the following conditions from 1998 onward, since the prediction appears to be open ended:
- A heart valve problem
- Heart attack
- Cardiac arrhythmia
- Chronic fibrilations
- Coronary Disease
- Angina
- Hardening of the arteries
- Congestive Heart failure
- Anemia
- Diabetes
- Kidney Failure
- Fluid Retention
- Stoke
- Dehydration
- A blood clot
- Deep vein thrombosis
- Arterial thrombosis
- Renal thrombosis
- hypertension
- high cholesterol
- Hyperlipidemia
- A deficiency in just about any nutrient
- Any infection at all
- Arterial embolism
- Pulmonary Embolism
- Leukemia
- Lymphoma
- Acidosis
- Alkalosis
- Hemosiderosis
- Septic Shock
- Hyperthyroid
- Hypothyroid
- Sickle Cell disease
I’m sure readers can think of even more. The prediction that a 78 year old would have one of these issues at some point is not exactly amazing. It just goes to show that if you use a big enough shotgun, you’re bound to hit something. James Van Praagh, you’re pathetic.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 10:38 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Obfuscation, Paranormal, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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May 14th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
The only positive thing about this is that the Grand Old Dame of television journalism is doing well. I was never a huge fan, but you have to give her credit for longevity, and saying sharp enough to function at a high level at her age.
Rock on, Barbara
Van Praagh is a jerk
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May 15th, 2010 at 12:13 am
DV82XL said:
Yeah, I was never a huge fan or anything, but I have no problem with the woman and certainly do not wish her any ill.
I give her a lot of credit for coming down on Van Praagh and saying in no uncertain terms how wrong he was. She’s certainly a lot sharper than someone like Larry King, who seems to have lost most of it a long time ago.
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May 15th, 2010 at 12:21 am
“You’re going to suffer a health problem related to your heart – or circulation – or blood – or lower back”
and only two years later she did.
Amazing! Amazing! How could anyone predict that?
Considering it could be some time in the future, wouldn’t this kind of prediction apply to almost everyone? Who the hell makes it to 80 without experiencing one of the many many conditions this vague nonsense could apply to.
The only thing he said that was actually narrow and verifiable was the white blood cell thing, which turned out to be totally wrong.
Ass.
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May 15th, 2010 at 3:01 am
My earlier view of Barbara Walters was decidedly negative, She always seemed like another credulous member of the media. Watching her get duped by Uri Gellar 30 years ago (I think the video is online somewhere) pretty much reinforced that opinion. And she hasn’t done herself any favors hosting a TV show whose co-hosts have probably never heard the term skepticism, let alone attempted to feign it.
But James Randi swears by Walters, and he’s even said that after the Gellar incident he was able to explain to her that she had been duped, and he even reproduced the trick to illustrate how. And unlike many people who do the whole “Ok, that was illusion but the other guy has the REAL magical powers” thing, Barbara accepted that even she was human enough to be deceived. I think that’s pretty admirable. In the case of the Van Praagh thing though, it’s certainly understandable that she abandoned skepticism, at least temporarily, out of fear for her life. I think Michael Shermer would call that a Type I error (a false positive), which just makes her human. What’s not so understandable is the way James Van Praagh behaved. Unless of course your theory is that he’s an unethical slimeball with no concern for the effect his bull**** has on the easily fooled or psychologically fragile, in which case you would have pretty well predicted this behavior.
So anyway my final word on Barbara Walters: if Randi likes her than that’s good enough for me.
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May 15th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Jim said:
Being deceived by Uri Gellar doesn’t mean you’re an idiot. It might mean you’re a bit gullible and certainly means you’re not well versed in classic illusions, but Gellar managed to fool plenty of people who you’d have thought would know better.
Jim said:
Well, she went to the doctor and when the tests showed he was wrong, she didn’t insist the tests must be wrong or anything – she accepted he was wrong. I don’t know the details and in some circumstances, I may very well go to a doctor if an ass like Van Praagh told me I was sick, only to get documentation that proves he was wrong.
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May 16th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
His prediction was right. That you can’t deny. Only thing about it was that it was vague, okay sure. If it was just this prediction then it would be nothing. This is one of the lesser predictions for accuracy. Still he did warn her. He has made more direct ones.
James Van Praagh is very humble and honest and he will admit his gift is fickle and sometimes he has better visions than others. Sometimes it comes clear and sometimes not as clear. It is hard for naysayers and skeptics to understand these gifts because they are so simple minded. It does not work all the time on command. It is like a television with a broken antenna. Sometimes it comes in clear and sometimes hazy.
James Van Praagh has talked about how he works to improve it. He has developed his gift and is getting better like many. I have been working on it too, meditating and listening to my inner spirt. I’m not anywhere near him, but he says we can all do it if we work and this is the beginning of my journey.
You skeptics have such small pathetic brains. There is so much more to this world. Why not work with us at improving these gifts many have? No, you just deny it. You are probably jealous.
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May 17th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Kwik Silver, I’m psychic. I have seen your aura and I’m afraid that some time in the next half century you will have some serious illness or other. I think you may even die. I’m afraid I can’t tell what it is because the image is very vague what with only being able to see you over the Internet. You should make sure you get it checked out.
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May 17th, 2010 at 10:41 am
It reminds me a lot of those guys at the carnavel who want to guess your age. They get to be within 2 years of it. So when they look at someone they just need to get the age to land in a 5 year window (accurate, and then 2 years to either side).
So, look a girl. You can generally pick 11-15 pretty easy. Guess 13 and you’re safe. Or consider the 14-18 range. Guess 16 to be safe. She’s probably late HS? Okay guess 19. Safe down to 17, good up to 21. OF course it breaks down when someone comes up who could be in her 40’s. Gotta look to other cues like the person(s) they’re with ect ect.
There are so many things about phsychic phenomenon that it’s very very challenging to find any hard empirical evidence that someone is indeed able to predict the future. It defies quantification and thus we rely on some ancedotes and our gut instincts.
However I won’t begrudge anyone that wants to spend their personal money there. I’m Catholic, and I donate to my church to keep it running and to help it do good works. It’s a balancing act as my faith is personal and private, and I don’t expect my priest to come up to me infront of the congretation and “pray to know my ailments” or to “pray to know my fate”. Prayers of intervention are far far different then predicting heart disease.
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May 19th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
You are all a bunch of losers who have no idea what you’re talking aboutand pretend to anyway. Your minds are so small you just deny what you cant understand. Science can’t explain everything. There is more to the world and to life.
I bet you all listen to those frauds like James Randy and Micheal Shermer and Penn and Teller. Equal small minds. They tell you what to believe and not believe in. Faith is sometimes all we have and they want it killed because they have none.
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July 21st, 2010 at 2:02 am
I think only you can decide whether or not you think you are psychic. Start keeping a dream and vision journal, and go back to it often. You’ll start to see a pattern, noe way or the other.
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July 21st, 2010 at 6:26 am
Psychic Readings said:
I can decide I think I’m Zeus, but thinking it doesn’t make me any more capable of throwing thunderbolts around, nor give me the front door keys to a Greek mountain-top estate.
But you’re quite right on the idea that the only logical way of providing any sort of proof is to compile a vast journal of all predictions and visions had by the prospective psychic, and analyse them after an acceptable amount of time has passed.
Of course, this sadly will come down to a certain amount of interpretation (both the psychic’s own, of what they saw and how to write it down, and then from the reader / analyst) and the results would be doomed to be dubbed a failure by any skeptics and a guarded success or a cover-up by any psychics / believers.
And then we rinse and repeat.
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