2502: Didn't See It Coming (Part 2)
PRETEND
01/20/26
•33m
About
Comments
Featured In
In Part 1, we watched skeptic Susan Gerbic dissect a celebrity psychic's cold reading techniques. But cold reading is the little leagues of the psychic industry. In Part 2, Susan sets her sights on something harder to catch... a hot reader.
Hot reading is when a psychic does their homework, researching their clients before the reading even starts. So Susan devises an elaborate sting: fake Facebook accounts, fake obituaries, fake family members, and $1,400 worth of bait designed to catch a medium in the act.
Six skeptics go undercover as grieving siblings. They don't know each other. They don't know the backstory. And they have no idea what's about to happen.
This episode takes you inside "Operation Banana Cream Pie." Let's just say, the moment the medium logs onto the Zoom call, no one saw it coming.
ABOUT SUSAN GERBIC:
Susan Gerbic is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and founder of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia, a group that has written over 2,000 Wikipedia articles on science and pseudoscience — viewed more than 200 million times. Her most famous investigation, "Operation Pizza Roll," was featured in The New York Times Magazine and exposed medium Thomas John's hot reading techniques. Susan runs the nonprofit About Time, which funds her ongoing psychic investigations.
Want more? Susan Gerbic documented the entire Operation Banana Cream Pie sting on her YouTube channel "Psychics Explained"—20+ videos of behind-the-scenes footage. Link in the show notes.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcSfdioxwHQGkyFZ68maphdIJuYcb8xln
LINKS & RESOURCES:
- Susan Gerbic's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PsychicsExplained
- About Time Project: https://www.abouttimeproject.org/
- NYT Magazine feature on Operation Pizza Roll: https://archive.ph/20190226135004/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/magazine/psychics-skeptics-facebook.html
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Previous Episode
Listener Reaction: Didn't See That Coming Part 1
January 17
•26m
Longtime Patreon supporter Rebecca Catalfu joins Javier to unpack her firsthand experience going undercover at Matt Fraser's psychic readings.
Rebecca went into this investigation as a believer and came out the other side with a very different perspective. In this conversation, she and Javier break down the patterns they observed across multiple readings: the decision tree (grandparent, parent, or mystery), the "who is that to you?" fishing technique, the stop statements psychics use when they're not getting hits, and the emotional bell curve that takes grievers to rock bottom before lifting them back up with platitudes.
Rebecca also shares what it was like to make it into the virtual "panelist waiting room," the inconsistencies she noticed while analyzing readings for Susan's YouTube channel, and why she's most concerned about the predatory potential these readings pose to vulnerable people.
Plus: Javier attempts his own cold reading. It does not go well.
LINKS:
Susan Gerbic's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PsychicsExplained
Matt Fraser Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcSfdioxwHQGkyFZ68maphdIJuYcb8xln
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Next Episode
Listener Reaction: Didn't See It Coming part 2
January 24
•25m
Patreon supporter Christine Harnos (not the Star Trek actress, the other one) joins Javier to break down Part 2 of the "Didn't See It Coming" series before listening to the finale.
They get into the weeds on Susan Gerbic's sting setup: the Facebook accounts she's been maintaining for years, the fake obituary, the hog farm detail. If a psychic mentions pigs, you know something's up. They also discuss the difference between hot reading and cold reading, why "scientifically tested" doesn't mean what mediums want you to think it means, and the troubling relationship between psychic mediums and grief support organizations like Helping Parents Heal.
Christine also shares a strange, unexplainable moment from her own life involving her daughter and a daycare power outage.
Want more? Susan Gerbic documented the entire Operation Banana Cream Pie sting on her YouTube channel "Psychics Explained"—20+ videos of behind-the-scenes footage. Link in the show notes.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcSfdioxwHQGkyFZ68maphdIJuYcb8xln
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
If you like this episode you’ll love
Promoted