Gary Spivey, where's your documentation?

July 16, 2009 12:51 PM

Spurred by this fpp, I'm curious about Gary Spivey. His website lists various predictions he's made, and says they're verifiable, but doesn't link to sources for any except the Justin Timberlake one. I'd like to see/hear verifications for any of those, but particularly the 9/11 prediction one. Please note that this question is a straight-up request for verification of any of these predictions; it is not the question "Do you think Gary Spivey is psychic?"
posted by Greg Nog to media & arts (4 comments total)

Most of the claims seem to have been on the radio. The claim that he made a Clinton prediction in Dec 1997 to the NY Post is difficult to verify because the NY Post online archives don't start until August of 1998. Perhaps someone working in a library can check this one?
posted by Pants! at 1:48 PM on July 16

I suspect the lack of response you've received reflects a lack of verification for Spivey's claims. Indeed, claims of successful predictions made by psychics tend to be exceptionally difficult to verify - for one reason or another, the predictions tend only to be announced after the expected event has occurred.

In terms of his specific claims, Spivey predicts things like "there will be a trainwreck in March" and counts the terrorist attack in Madrid as success. I'm sure there are a number of trainwrecks in various places in the world - if the Madrid bombing hadn't happened, he still would have found something to call a hit.

He also predicted that Justin Timberlake would be involved in a scandal involving sexual content, that Renee Zellweger would win an Oscar for Cold Mountain, and that Lacey Pederson's body would be found near water. None of those are particularly exciting - that a pop star would be involved in a scandal hardly requires precognition, for all we know he predicted that each of the nominees would win that Oscar and only published the one that was right (or, even if that's not true, to my memory it was pretty much clear from the outset that the award was Zellweger's that year), and predicting that a body will be found near water is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Unfortunately, when it comes to verifying psychic claims, you either believe without verification, or you're a skeptic.
posted by arcticwoman at 1:52 PM on July 16

Also: even if he did make these predictions before the events occurred, and even in the case that the predictions were somewhat targeted, how many false predictions has he made? Everyone gets some right sometimes, confirmation bias leads us to forget the hits and remember the misses - and I would expect this to be doubly true for someone who makes a living on his "hits."
posted by arcticwoman at 1:57 PM on July 16

This is the same case with all psychics. Generalized "predictions" and the shameless self-promotion. The idea that someone can view into the future is ridiculous on its face.

Every psychic has been debunked. Every spiritualist. Why do people expect the next con man to be "the one." Its silly.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:14 PM on July 16