Mark Wootton (AKA Shirley Ghostman) interview

[Mojo]

The "60 second interview" subject in last Thursday's Metro was comedian Mark Wootton, creater of Shirley Ghostman.

http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/intervie...&in_page_id=11

Some interesting comments:

What inspired you to create Shirley Ghostman?
A close friend lost someone dear and I went to see a psychic with them. Shirley came as a result of me witnessing what was going on. When you’re not the focus of the psychic’s attention, it’s very easy to see the truth of what they’re up to and it really got my back up. I became quite angry and couldn’t believe these charlatans go round ripping people off. I went to see a couple of the more famous psychics do their live performances. You have to admire their showmanship but it’s not fair to prey on people.

And also, on the possible motivation for these people, and cold reading:

Why did you call him Shirley?
Any boy called Shirley must have been picked on at school and we wanted to give the character an unfortunate backstory because a lot of the celebrity psychics have had pretty depressing upbringings. That’s why they reinvent themselves as someone special who can see dead people. I find that so arrogant. Tess Daly told me about a psychic she saw, so I went along to see them, just to try to find out if they were for real. When I got home and made a transcript of the reading, I realised I had given them all the answers.

[Admin]

Interesting.

It's quite common for psychics and mediums to say that they don't do it for the money as they simply want to share their gift for the benefit of others.

Well if they are not in it for the money, they must be in it for something. It would be interesting to see exactly what their motivation is. It obviously has to be something that benefits themselves.

[Mojo]

Maybe if Deggsy had been good enough to get into Liverpool's first team...

[chillzero]

Interesting.

It's quite common for psychics and mediums to say that they don't do it for the money as they simply want to share their gift for the benefit of others.

Well if they are not in it for the money, they must be in it for something. It would be interesting to see exactly what their motivation is. It obviously has to be something that benefits themselves.

For me it was all about wanting to help people, and to fix the world. I have a serious fixer complex. I have to put things right for people, or make hard times easier for them. It upsets me to have to stand aside and let people suffer, although I understand that sometimes, that's all you can do.

I've been told that it's as selfish as doing it for money, because it's all about self-gratification, no matter how much good it does the other person (if it does), and I guess that's right.

In general I think there are 3 non-monetary motivations:
- to make yourself feel / seem more special than everyone else
- to make people like or respect you
- to make yourself feel that you are contributing to helping other people, doing good.

[Admin]

That makes a lot of sense Chilly.

I think it really helps us as skeptics to get a good understanding of other people's motivations etc.

Often with erroneous beliefs it's as much about understanding people as it is about the beliefs.