{"podcast":{"title":"The Jordan Harbinger Show","slug":"the-jordan-harbinger-show-546263","podcast_index_feed_id":546263,"rss_url":"https://rss.introcast.io:443/1344999619/www.podcastone.com/podcast?categoryID2=1237","website_url":"https://art19.com/shows/the-jordan-harbinger-show","image_url":"https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/images/af/18/5c/b3/af185cb3-802a-4ec4-a824-99b360a223cf/94167585895da9dc17dc03f0cd14de5c6d7782c097b0e23c1d105768d149d285d7232bbb322855195eab38ac32ee7e5df7e62dc8338e363cd0ca3de5619e3343.jpeg","author":"Jordan Harbinger","episode_count":1356,"summary":"(Apple's Best of 2018) In-depth conversations with people at the top of their game. Jordan Harbinger unpacks guests' wisdom into practical nuggets you can use to impact your work, life, and relationships. Learn from leaders (Ray Dalio, Simon Sinek, Mark Cuban), entertainers (Moby, Tip \"T.I.\" Harris, Dennis Quaid), scientists (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye), athletes (Kobe Bryant, Dennis Rodman, Tony Hawk) and an eclectic array of fascinating minds, from art forgers and arms traffickers to spies and psychologists.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-07T16:22:19.380619+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-jordan-harbinger-show-546263"},"episode":{"title":"1329: Psychic Detectives | Skeptical Sunday","slug":"1329-psychic-detectives-skeptical-sunday","published_at":"2026-05-17T07:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-jordan-harbinger-show-546263/1329-psychic-detectives-skeptical-sunday","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-jordan-harbinger-show-546263","url":"https://prefix.up.audio/s/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/prfx.byspotify.com/e/claritaspod.com/measure/arttrk.com/p/PDPN1/pscrb.fm/rss/p/tracking.swap.fm/track/0rfjk5dlUYvVVB1j4JMa/rss.art19.com/episodes/828f96f1-408e-4590-a726-702d1678f2be.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIgtDaHJvbWUGOgZFVA%3D%3D--d05363d83ce333c74f32188013892b2863ad051c","audio_url":"https://prefix.up.audio/s/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/prfx.byspotify.com/e/claritaspod.com/measure/arttrk.com/p/PDPN1/pscrb.fm/rss/p/tracking.swap.fm/track/0rfjk5dlUYvVVB1j4JMa/rss.art19.com/episodes/828f96f1-408e-4590-a726-702d1678f2be.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIgtDaHJvbWUGOgZFVA%3D%3D--d05363d83ce333c74f32188013892b2863ad051c","summary":"Psychics keep wedging themselves into police cases — and grieving families pay the price. Nick Pell explains the grift on Skeptical Sunday! Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Nick Pell ! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1329 On This Week's Skeptical Sunday: Psychic detective work traces back to 19th-century spiritualism, which surged after the Civil War and WWI as a grief-coping mechanism — part therapy, part pop religion, part proto-reality TV. The post-WWII pulp era rebranded it as \"science,\" birthing the modern psychic detective archetype. The genre's most-cited \"successes\" — Etta Smith in the Melanie Uribe case, Dorothy Allison on the John List murders, and Noreen Renier's many TV appearances — all collapse under scrutiny. Police never credited any of them with usable leads, and Allison reportedly tried to bribe cops to vouch for her. Sylvia Browne is the cautionary tale that turns this from harmless grift into genuine harm. She told Amanda Berry's mother her daughter was dead in 2004 — Amanda was alive, held captive in Cleveland until 2013. Mom died never knowing. Browne botched the Shawn Hornbeck case too. Four mechanisms explain every \"psychic solved it\" story : confirmation bias (remembering hits, forgetting misses), post-hoc reasoning (vague claims retrofitted to fit), emotional vulnerability of grieving families, and Barnum statements — deliberately vague phrases like \"I see water\" that let your brain fill in the blanks. Real cases get cracked by forensic evidence, behavioral profiling, and communi…","meta_description":"Psychics keep wedging themselves into police cases — and grieving families pay the price. Nick Pell explains the grift on Skeptical Sunday! Welcome to Ske…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3403,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-jordan-harbinger-show-546263/episodes/1329-psychic-detectives-skeptical-sunday/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-jordan-harbinger-show-546263/1329-psychic-detectives-skeptical-sunday.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}