Has Derek Acorah 'asked' for this?

estebanrey

estebanrey

estebanrey

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Derek Acorah has hit back at those infamous 'Twitter Trolls' for remarks they've made to him following the death of his close friend and colleague Colin Fry.

Like Acorah, Fry was a television Medium who had a studio-audience based show and claimed to be speaking to the dead relatives of the people who'd come to watch his show.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/derek-acorah-trolled-over-death-6322804

Now, normally I hate it when people say "they were asking for it" when something bad happens to someone, I'm also not a fan of immediately making jokes at the expense of someone who has recently left this mortal coil......but!

This was a man who made a lot of money from, IMO, conning people into thinking he was talking to their dead relatives and worse used other people's grief to produce 'entertainment'.

For Derek Acorah to expect no one to challenge him on this under these circumstances is asking too much given his history.
 
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agreed, tis fair game really

they've based an entire career on taking money from grieving relatives under a dubious premise
 
I don't regard this as a con, as in most cases, the people want to believe in what the medium says. That is why hey visit them. You can't make peoples beliefs illegal in a liberal society.

they've based an entire career on taking money from grieving relatives under a dubious premise
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Unless they went ambulance chasing, what is the problem? A grief counsellor makes a career out of grieving relatives. Sometimes people just want to hear that everything is okay.

There is a fine line of course, but most mainstream mediums try make people feel better about their situation. Its pretty harmless.

I'd not encourage anyone I knew to visit a medium, but if someone was grieving and a medium gave them some emotional relief, I'd not protest.
 
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Putting their careers aside, Derek and Colin were close friends. I don't think it's really on, making jokes on Twitter about a friends death so soon after.
 
Until 'psychics' can perform feats that mentalists can't it cannot be accepted that they have any otherworldly powers and they must be treated as fakes. The argument rages between several camps: those that consider it criminal practice, those that consider it harmless, those that believe blindly.

Acorah and several of his colleagues have been shown to fake things many times, yet some sections of the public still throw vast amounts of money at them. I mean, Acorah was thrown off Most Haunted for faking things and that show is ENTIRELY faked, so that took some doing. Uri Geller has made many, many millions from the UK despite being exposed on quite a few high-profile TV shows. It beggars belief.

Having said that, comments such as those on Twitter are undeniably in bad taste and there are far more acceptable ways of showing your displeasurel.
 
robfosters said:
Putting their careers aside, Derek and Colin were close friends. I don't think it's really on, making jokes on Twitter about a friends death so soon after.
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It is in bad taste but this is what you get with idiots on the internet. Brave behind a keyboard but wouldn't dare do the same in writing or face to face.
 
Thompson_NCL said:
Unless they went ambulance chasing, what is the problem? A grief counsellor makes a career out of grieving relatives. Sometimes people just want to hear that everything is okay.

There is a fine line of course, but most mainstream mediums try make people feel better about their situation. Its pretty harmless.
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a grief councilor usually has some training/qualifications and isn't telling people things that a lot of people would consider to be a pack of lies... they're not conning them whereas some might consider what mediums do to be rather decietful
 
Thompson_NCL said:
Indeed. There is a time and place to criticise, when someone is mourning the death of a friend, its really not on.
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surely it isn't the same for him though - I mean he can communicate with the dead and so can talk to him whenever he wants... he's also psychic so knew it was going to happen in advance
 
Thompson_NCL said:
I don't regard this as a con, as in most cases, the people want to believe in what the medium says. That is why hey visit them. You can't make peoples beliefs illegal in a liberal society.



Unless they went ambulance chasing, what is the problem? A grief counsellor makes a career out of grieving relatives. Sometimes people just want to hear that everything is okay.

There is a fine line of course, but most mainstream mediums try make people feel better about their situation. Its pretty harmless.

I'd not encourage anyone I knew to visit a medium, but if someone was grieving and a medium gave them some emotional relief, I'd not protest.
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Remember that some of them charge a lot of money for their services, profess to be able to heal things like cancer and sell products on the side. Tumor-reducing crystals, anyone?
 
dowie said:
a grief councilor usually has some training/qualifications and isn't telling people things that a lot of people would consider to be a pack of lies... they're not conning them whereas some might consider what mediums do to be rather decietful
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As we agree that making money out of grieving people is not the problem, the only issue is one of deceit.

My point is that if someone chooses to go to a medium, then they probably already chose to believe in this stuff. If there is a deceit on the part of the Medium, there is an equal deceit on the part of the believer.

Where it is wrong, is where the medium approaches the grieving person rather than vice versa.
 
I don't think it's the so called 'mediums' that we should be getting our knickers in a twist about, after all they are just making use of an opportunity made possible by the sheer number of moronic and credulous people living on our planet.

Probably the same people who still believe the world is flat and we didn't land on the moon!
 
Thompson_NCL said:
I don't regard this as a con, as in most cases, the people want to believe in what the medium says. That is why hey visit them. You can't make peoples beliefs illegal in a liberal society.
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I cannot sell fake Rolexes under the premise that the people that bought them believed they were real and got a lot of joy from walking around with a nice watch.

I cannot sell a life insurance policy knowing I have no intention to ever pay out on the basis that it gave my 'mark' a piece of mind while they were alive.

Thompson_NCL said:
You can't make peoples beliefs illegal in a liberal society.
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There are plenty of liberal societies in Europe where the belief that the holocaust didn't happen is an illegal act, so actually you can.

Even if you don't make the belief itself illegal, you can put laws in place that prevent those beliefs having any effect on society. For example you can believe homosexuals are the Devil incarnate but you can't refuse to serve them if you own a shop.

Likewise, you don't have to make a belief in an afterlife illegal, but you can make taking money for 'talking to the dead' a criminal act.
 
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Thompson_NCL said:
As we agree that making money out of grieving people is not the problem, the only issue is one of deceit.

My point is that if someone chooses to go to a medium, then they probably already chose to believe in this stuff. If there is a deceit on the part of the Medium, there is an equal deceit on the part of the believer.

Where it is wrong, is where the medium approaches the grieving person rather than vice versa.
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The deceit isn't equal in any sense and the issue is deceit, yes. I'm not sure why you're framing that as 'the only issue' as though it is something trivial.

they're making a claim that they surely know is false

other people get convinced by them, including people who perhaps weren't sure but went along because 'you never know' and 'after he told me those things...' become convinced...

some people might call that being conned and once someone has fallen for that sort of thing and carries on spending money on it then it is an issue
 
estebanrey said:
I'm also not a fan of immediately making jokes at the expense of someone who has recently left this mortal coil......
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They're not making fun of the dead, though - They're making fun of Derek... unless he's dead too, now?

Thompson_NCL said:
A grief counsellor makes a career out of grieving relatives.
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But they just talk you through it and try to find real ways to help you cope and come to terms with it. They don't do it through pretending they have special powers or relaying false messages from beyond the grave, or anything.

Gaverick said:
I don't think it's the so called 'mediums' that we should be getting our knickers in a twist about, after all they are just making use of an opportunity made possible by the sheer number of moronic and credulous people living on our planet.
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Half their audience know it's fake and just like to be entertained, in the same way we know magic is just trickery but fun to watch. The others are more the sort who are actually still grieving, so are not thinking straight anyway and thus are being taken advantage of. Nothing to do with being inherrently moronic.
The silly ones who really do believe everything Derek comes out with are thankfully few... and most of them end up graduating with at least one GCSE in something!
 
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