Allison DuBois' 3,000 person waiting list and opinion on skeptics

[Questioninggeller]

Here's some selected parts:

PAPER: Sacramento Bee (California)
DATE: June 19, 2006 Monday
METRO FINAL EDITION
SECTION: SCENE; Pg. E1
LENGTH: 1599 words
HEADLINE: The medium has a message;
Hosting encounters with ghosts comes (super) naturally for Allison DuBois
BYLINE: Allen Pierleoni Bee Staff Writer

BODY:


Allison DuBois was 6 years old when her great-grandfather died. After her family returned to their Phoenix home from the funeral, DuBois went into her bedroom and found him standing there.

"He said, 'Tell your mom I'm OK and I'm still with her,'" DuBois recalled.
...
We caught up with DuBois by phone during her multicity book tour. "I may be an unorthodox kind of medium because I had no knowledge of what a medium is supposed to be, so I made up my own definition," she said.

DuBois, 34, lives in Phoenix with her husband, Joe, an aerospace engineer, and their three daughters. She holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Arizona State University.

Q: In your late 20s, you spent four years, on and off, at the University of Arizona in Tucson as part of a program that studied psychic phenomena. Afterward, the head researcher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Schwartz) emphatically stated that you're the real deal.

A: I was skeptical of myself, which is why I went to the laboratory and let scientists make me jump through hoops. I wanted to prove to myself that I really wasn't doing what I was doing -- communicating with the dead and seeing the future. If I was only mediocre, I wanted to return to law school. But I ended up testing to where the scientists' jaws dropped. I was hoping it would have been the other way.

Since then, I don't question (my abilities). I decided that some things are not meant to be fully understood -- not yet, anyway -- but to be embraced.
...
Q: You've performed 2,000 readings and you've got a waiting list of 3,000. Is there a common thread in the relationship between the living and the dead?

A: The tie is emotion -- love, support, reassurance. You can imagine when you pass that you're looking back going, "Oh, my gosh, this is great, now I'm with family members who passed. I want to go tell my sister that these (dead relatives and friends) are all OK." Then they try to come through to, like, the living sister, and say, "Hey, Dad's here, Uncle Bob's here. We're all together and fine."

I know they do intervene on our behalf in instances where it's not set in stone that we have to die. A lot of people have been in car accidents where they should have died, but the deceased will actually put their energy in between the living person and the point of contact that would have killed them.
...
Q: Sometimes you have uncontrollable mental flashes, such as seeing a woman murdered while you're grocery shopping. And you constantly get mental impressions from people around you. I can see where your ability might be a day-to-day hassle.

A: I tell other mediums, "Get over it." I've learned how to put up walls. Yes, I've been in the grocery store and picked up child- molester overtones. What do I do? Call the police and say there's a child molester in the grocery store?

Here's an example of how we can misread things: I was watching "Les Miserables" in London and kept seeing this one actress covered in blood. I'm sitting there thinking, "Please, let her be killed in the play and not in life." And at the end of the play she was killed onstage and was covered in blood. I was relieved. If I had seen her walking down the street, I would have seen her covered in blood and thought something terrible was going to happen, but she was being killed every night in the play. I like in "Medium" how they show that something like that can be misread.
...
Q: Isn't seeing dead people sometimes frightening?

A: Since I've done it for so long, I don't know anything different than this. I'm lucky. I love talking to (the spirits) who come through. They make me feel how much they love the (living) person sitting in front of me.

I look at the positive side of it. Yes, I have to feel how they died. If it was a heart attack, I feel punched in the chest and it takes my breath away. But I feed off of what their favorite foods were, what their houses looked like and what they did with their children. They say things (to the survivors) like, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you how much you meant to me," and, "I was a dad who worked too much and I love you and I'm proud of you." I love being able to tell people those things and watch them be put back together in a better way and be in a better place than they were before they met me.

Q: How do you answer the skeptics?

A: I can agree to disagree with people and respect their beliefs. I just ask them to respect mine.

There are different kinds of skeptics. There are those who haven't lost anybody and have no reason to believe, and there are people who are strictly academic-minded.

Then there are the angry skeptics who turn red in the face. I'm like, "Yeah, don't ask me to bring you through when you die."

Many skeptics like to yell and hear themselves talk, and I don't have time for that. I've never heard of a skeptic helping anybody with their skepticism. To a large degree, they just want to shame somebody so they can feel greater than them. But they're not going to shame me. I'm very proud of what I do.
...


Purchase full article Sacramento Bee (archive) (http://www.sacbee.com/109/story/7178.html)

[Slimething]

Any mention of who the ASU-T scientists were? That would make it possible to follow up with them to see if her "discovery" really happened. And, if it did happen, who these quacks may be and how many other Alison DuBois' are walking the state of Arizona right now.

[slyjoe]

Any mention of who the ASU-T scientists were? That would make it possible to follow up with them to see if her "discovery" really happened. And, if it did happen, who these quacks may be and how many other Alison DuBois' are walking the state of Arizona right now.

Actually, UofA in Tucson is not the same ASU (both are state universities though). She graduated from ASU, study was done by Gary Scwhartz at UA.

That said, she had a falling out with him in 2006. The following is a pretty good summary. As to Schwartz' credentials and bias, an excerpt from an article regarding Dubois is below:


According to Carla McClain of the Arizona Daily Star:

Dubois first called Schwartz four years ago, after seeing him on a "Dateline" NBC segment with John Edward on paranormal powers. She wanted to see how good her "gift" really was.

Schwartz first put Dubois through a direct, informal reading on himself. A beloved mentor of his had just died, but he told her nothing about that woman.

Among other things, Dubois told Schwartz "the deceased was telling me that I must share the following - I don't walk alone," a seemingly innocuous piece of information, but critical to him.

"My friend had been confined to a wheelchair in her last years - there is no way Allison could have known that," he said.

One reason we should distrust Schwartz's evaluation of anyone's psychic ability is his persistent revelation that he has little or no understanding of how subjective validation works. Notice how he has interpreted Dubois's statement "I don't walk alone" to mean "confined to a wheelchair."


Link: http://skepdic.com/refuge/funk44.html

[Moochie]

Head "researcher" was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Schwartz

'nuff said?

M.

[slyjoe]

Wouldn't "head" "researcher" be more appropriate? :)

[CurtC]

The "researcher" with "dirty knees."

[Slimething]

Actually, UofA in Tucson is not the same ASU (both are state universities though). She graduated from ASU, study was done by Gary Scwhartz at UA.

That said, she had a falling out with him in 2006. The following is a pretty good summary. As to Schwartz' credentials and bias, an excerpt from an article regarding Dubois is below:

Link: http://skepdic.com/refuge/funk44.html

Thanks for the correction. I'm new in this state. New enough to still get lost, anyway.

I didn't realize that her credentials came from Gary Schwartz. Suddenly, everything seems so clear... :)

[Brattus]

"I've never heard of a skeptic helping anybody with their skepticism."

How many people have canceled readings with Sylvia Browne or cruise trips because of reading SSB? RSL couldn't even tell you that.
Not to mention skeptics do not charge money for their skeptical advise unlike DuBois with her "readings".

[-Fran-]

Funny stuff :)


Q: How do you answer the skeptics?

A: I can agree to disagree with people and respect their beliefs. I just ask them to respect mine.


As if there isn't an objective truth, that is not affected by what people believe! :rolleyes:


There are different kinds of skeptics. There are those who haven't lost anybody and have no reason to believe, and there are people who are strictly academic-minded.


I think that's funny how she insinuates that skeptics have no reason to believe because they haven't lost anybody. I don't believe in any way, shape, or form. Still, one of my best friends hung himself at the age of 29. My cousin gassed himself to death in his car at the age of 27. All four of my beloved grandparents are dead... Does she mean then, that these losses doesn't mean anything to me, since I still don't believe? She's downright rude!!!!! I think most skeptics knows very well what it's like to loose someone close. She should just shut up :mad:

And I guess she doesn't mean that "academic-minded" is a good thing? :rolleyes:


Then there are the angry skeptics who turn red in the face. I'm like, "Yeah, don't ask me to bring you through when you die."


Yeah, the ones who have just heard rude BS like this one too many times, and who thinks that scamming people ought to make all normal people angry.

It's quite funny too, that she finds pleasure in the fantasy that there are all these mislead dead skeptics begging for her forgiveness so that she will pass on their messages to their loved ones. Reminds me of when I was a small kid and sat in my favorite tree planning gruseome fantasy-revenges on the mean kids in school :D


Many skeptics like to yell and hear themselves talk, and I don't have time for that. I've never heard of a skeptic helping anybody with their skepticism. To a large degree, they just want to shame somebody so they can feel greater than them. But they're not going to shame me. I'm very proud of what I do.


Yeah, I've heard psychics don't talk much :rolleyes: Skeptics need to be helped with their skepticism? What is she talking about? I agree we won't shame her though, she's right, she has already done that all by herself. Needed no help from anybody else.

These people are so full of themselves :rolleyes:

[Slimething]

"I've never heard of a skeptic helping anybody with their skepticism."

How many people have canceled readings with Sylvia Browne or cruise trips because of reading SSB? RSL couldn't even tell you that.
Not to mention skeptics do not charge money for their skeptical advise unlike DuBois with her "readings".

Well said. Beyond that, let's challenge the b*tch to point to any technological advancement that did not begin with some healthy skeptic thinking to themselves "I can do better" or "It doesn't have to be this difficult" or "I don't believe that current practice is correct because..." She really could rewrite history!

[Brattus]

Well said. Beyond that, let's challenge the b*tch to point to any technological advancement that did not begin with some healthy skeptic thinking to themselves "I can do better" or "It doesn't have to be this difficult" or "I don't believe that current practice is correct because..." She really could rewrite history!

Or ask some of those dead people to do it for her.

[CurtC]

Not to mention skeptics do not charge money for their skeptical advise...
I would if I could figure out a way!

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

...


Dealing with skeptics

DuBois says she's learned to control her gift, for the most part.

“I have pretty decent boundaries up,’’ she says. “I'm very distracted right now with everything going on. I'm in my own world. I'm not being bothered at all. I haven't gone back to doing private readings...

‘‘When I was doing the private readings, it would be a little harder because they would be in my house a couple days before I did the reading telling me that their parents were coming or how the kid died so I would write it down. When the parents would sit down, I would be like, ‘I'm so glad you're here. Your son's been here for two days!’’

Naturally, DuBois has her skeptics.

“I was questioning it, so I can understand them questioning it,’’ [oh, you do, do you? You'll understand why I think you're full of *****, then! ]she says. ‘‘And I was doing it and I was still puzzled by it. So I went to the (University of Arizona) lab to see what it was that I was doing and to hopefully prove I was just a tired mother of three that needed to go back to school. It just didn't turn out that way.’’ [What a good thing you don't have psychic abilities, then. Not any that could be disproven by real testing, such as our own million dollar prize.]

Whatever you do, don't ask DuBois to give you next week's winning Lotto numbers. She can't.

“I kind of want to give (the numbers) to them just so they waste a dollar buying the ticket and just for wasting my time,”she says, “Mediums laugh about that question. People will ask you unimportant things. ‘Where's my cell phone?' I don't care. Get a new one.

“Now if it's important — like I had a friend lose medication that was life or death for him — so I told him where it was and he was in another country. He was like, ‘Great.'

‘‘It comes in handy, but it has to be something that carries an importance to it or I probably couldn't even get it because I don't care. And if I can't get past that, I can't give you the information. I have to care.’’

[Find the tens of thousands of children who are currently missing in America. Don't you care about that?]

....

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/40067

[Rasmus55]

Allison Dubois has got to be my all time most hated psychic even above and beyond Sylvia the prune. Dubois tries to present herself as wholesome and family-oriented; what a total crock. She's a conniving con artist with zero talent of any kind who cashes in the only thing she has to offer; her looks. Certainly her "education" has done nothing for her intellect. Every time she opens her mouth, her basic stupidity erupts forth. Of course, in her mind, she probably believes herself to be supremely intelligent and this comes accross strongly with her concentrated yet undeserved arrogance. Someday someone is going to knock her right off her high horse; let's hope it results in her complete public demise.

[rwguinn]

Actually, UofA in Tucson is not the same ASU (both are state universities though). She graduated from ASU, study was done by Gary Scwhartz at UA.

That said, she had a falling out with him in 2006. The following is a pretty good summary. As to Schwartz' credentials and bias, an excerpt from an article regarding Dubois is below:



Link: http://skepdic.com/refuge/funk44.html

How in Ed's holly nombre' does "the deceased was telling me that I must share the following - I don't walk alone..."
equate to "Although your ffriend was in a wheelchair for the last years of her life, she can now walk,etc"?

[slyjoe]

Thanks for the correction. I'm new in this state. New enough to still get lost, anyway.

I didn't realize that her credentials came from Gary Schwartz. Suddenly, everything seems so clear... :)

Well, welcome to AZ. Hope you don't get confused between Tempe and Tucson though. :) - Which part are you in?

Anyways, looking at Dubois' web page, she's a fan of this guy:

http://www.victorzammit.com/

and claims that no skeptic can debunk him. His site says there is a half million dollars for anyone who can.

Watch out though if you go to his site - your head may explode.

[ilikefrogs]

Here's an example of how we can misread things: I was watching "Les Miserables" in London and kept seeing this one actress covered in blood. I'm sitting there thinking, "Please, let her be killed in the play and not in life." And at the end of the play she was killed onstage and was covered in blood. I was relieved. If I had seen her walking down the street, I would have seen her covered in blood and thought something terrible was going to happen, but she was being killed every night in the play. I like in "Medium" how they show that something like that can be misread.


Les Miserables is a well-known musical and anyone can find out the plot. So knowing beforehand which characters die isn't all that tough. (Let's see, there's Eponine, Fontine, Valjean...)

[Slimething]

Well, welcome to AZ. Hope you don't get confused between Tempe and Tucson though. :) - Which part are you in?

Thanks, slyjoe! My son and I moved to Yuma from Philly last July. What a change! Still, we took to it like ducks to water. The terrain here is spectacular and I love the low humidity. Still, I'd hate to be here without AC for any length of time!

Anyways, looking at Dubois' web page, she's a fan of this guy:

http://www.victorzammit.com/

and claims that no skeptic can debunk him. His site says there is a half million dollars for anyone who can.

Watch out though if you go to his site - your head may explode.

Got out of that site just in time for my head not to explode. All I can say is that there must be an afterlife and all enveloping comsological intelligence if one lawyer says so! Also, the fact that skeptics have not gone after his buddies is admittedly iron clad evidence that his friends must be geniune psychics. ;)

Thanks for the greeting! :)

[Slimething]

Les Miserables is a well-known musical and anyone can find out the plot. So knowing beforehand which characters die isn't all that tough. (Let's see, there's Eponine, Fontine, Valjean...)

Let's not be too quick in suspecting that Dubois has ever read a book. Les Miserable is one of the classics and there is even a very well made classic movie of the story. Moreover, the catholic church has claimed Valjeane as one of its saints so I can't conceive many people not knowing this story by the time they're adults. Of course, Dubois may be one of those rare individuals who was surprised by the ending of Titanic.

Looking into her theater story further, I can't see any possibility that it could be true. Is there anyone alive over the age of five who has not play-acted death? From sympathy-seeking tots to teens who have their first glimpse of their blind date, everyone has played possum once in a while. So, everywhere Dubois looks, she should see people covered in blood. Must get boring.

[Rasmus55]

Got out of that site just in time for my head not to explode. All I can say is that there must be an afterlife and all enveloping comsological intelligence if one lawyer says so! Also, the fact that skeptics have not gone after his buddies is admittedly iron clad evidence that his friends must be geniune psychics. ;)

Thanks for the greeting! :)

Of course, the very sad thing here is the gimmicky nature of his "book". He claims that everything he presents in the book is "admissible" in court. If that is the case, then Australia must not have a rule against hearsay because that constitutes most of his alleged "evidence". Meanwhile, most of this bunk would not be allowed into a U.S. court unless one found a specific exception to the hearsay rule. Having taken a cursory glance over this, I cannot think of any exception except that of a party-opponent; that is, if his book (representing his own words) were to be used against him in some proceeding. Otherwise, I'm at a total loss. He doesn't give one much confidence in Australian lawyers, huh? I don't think he's a barrister either, at least it does not specify on his silly, cluttered webpage.

[Rasmus55]

Let's not be too quick in suspecting that Dubois has ever read a book. Les Miserable is one of the classics and there is even a very well made classic movie of the story. Moreover, the catholic church has claimed Valjeane as one of its saints so I can't conceive many people not knowing this story by the time they're adults. Of course, Dubois may be one of those rare individuals who was surprised by the ending of Titanic.

Looking into her theater story further, I can't see any possibility that it could be true. Is there anyone alive over the age of five who has not play-acted death? From sympathy-seeking tots to teens who have their first glimpse of their blind date, everyone has played possum once in a while. So, everywhere Dubois looks, she should see people covered in blood. Must get boring.

Hysterical! Good points all around. She does strike me as intellectually boring and perhaps not the brightest mind in the world of woo. I think her books, regardless of how painful it may be to read them, stand as a evidence of this. Developing your question a little further perhaps:

If she claims that she sees blood on people who will die, then wouldn't she see blood on everyone all the time? Unless the Highlander is amongst us, wouldn't everyone qualify as someone who will die? Or is that just too inconvenient and to be brushed aside as the trivial ravings of a loon skeptic?

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Why, you're right! I hadn't even thought of that!

Note to Allison- revise your story to "I see blood in cases of homicide". That makes more sense.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

I don't know if this has already been posted but:

MORALES: How do you deal with the critics, though, who question your gift?

Ms. DuBOIS: Well, I deal with them like anybody else does in life. You know, we're all criticized for something, so I don't take it too personally. Some people just don't understand that there's life after death. And to people who don't believe in life after death, they think we're worm food, so to speak, when we die. There's not a lot that I can say to change their mind. I can only hope that they have that epiphany in their life or that experience that opens them up to it and allows them to see what I see. But for some people that won't happen and that's OK. So it's kind of an agree to disagree and a respect, a mutual respect, hopefully, you know, to have different beliefs.

http://web.lexis-nexis.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/universe/document?_m=17384efd951584179746ec5145ded2e6&_docnum=56&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkVA&_md5=88c8d9d9b6b8c0998ee079e43d971022

Allison DuBois discusses new book, "We Are Their Heaven" (http://web.lexis-nexis.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/universe/document?_m=17384efd951584179746ec5145ded2e6&_docnum=56&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkVA&_md5=88c8d9d9b6b8c0998ee079e43d971022), NBC News Transcripts, SHOW: Today 7:00 AM EST NBC, May 30, 2006 Tuesday, 875 words

[Moochie]

The "researcher" with "dirty knees."

Curt, I am just smitten with your avatar. Has a handsomer specimen ever graced these fair pages? I think not.

M.

[CurtC]

Why thank you, Moochie. I have to admit, though, that the picture was taken back when I had more hair.

Actually, I use the forum here with avatars and signatures turned off, so I had to go look at it again.