Psychics and Criminal Profilers

As usual, once I’m on the radio I forget what I wanted to say. I had intended to talk about the similarities between psychics and criminal profiling. I wrote a chapter in my book about two psychics who had gotten involved in a case of a missing boy in California. It’s largely a negative chapter because of one particular psychic, Peter Hurkos, who I believe acted irresponsibly. However the other psychic in the chapter, Harold Sherman, went out of his way to respond honestly and compassionately. And, as it turned out, he supplied genuinely useful information, although no one knew this at the time, which is the problem J. B. Rhine tried to point out to the father of the missing California boy, who had asked him for the names of psychics:

“We do not know enough about the abilities we are studying to be able to apply them reliably … The worst part of it is that there is no adequate assurance that the impressions that come to the mind are due to ESP and are reliable even when they actually are.” (Italics mine.)

Marcello Truzzi and Arthur Lyons, the authors of The Blue Sense, a study of psychics and their work solving crime, concluded that the existing evidence of a “blue sense” did not yet meet the burden of proof, but they added that a lack of proof does not equal disproof, and that more study was required. While stories of psychic’s abilities were exaggerated, they weren’t as insubstantial as debunkers insisted, and Truzzi and Lyons compared them in usefulness to FBI profilers.

It’s an interesting point. In essence, what psychics do is help with investigations. At best, they supply information which may lead to find a missing child, a body or a suspect. That is similar to what profilers do, the difference is the information gathering process.

Some people don’t think the process is different, however. For instance, a Sgt. Stinnett of the Maryland State Police credited Dallas psychic John Catchings with helping them find the body of murder victim Mary Cook Spence in the 80’s. But Stinnett didn’t think Catchings had supernatural powers. He thought Catchings was just highly observant and would have made a good police detective.

In a 2007 New Yorker piece about criminal profiling, famed FBI profiler John Douglas is quoted as saying, “If there’s a psychic component to this, I won’t run from it.” This was a skeptical piece about profilers, and the author Malcolm Gladwell intended this quote as further evidence that the work of profilers is suspect.

In fact, explanations that are made to explain away psychics could also be applied to profilers. A forensics science professor I emailed called Hurkos’s technique “a pastiche of common sense, stereotypes, and popular mythology.” If you throw enough out there that might fit the given situation you’re bound to get something right.

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