Fall TV: America's Psychic Challenge

Episode three of America's Psychic Challenge featured four new psychics hoping for a chance at the quarterfinals. As with the first two episodes, they are all very interesting people.

Catherine Powell works at a tattoo parlor and is a Reiki master. Reiki is a type of holistic, hands-on healing using the body's energy. Catherine noted that it is the only type of healing you can do on yourself. She is also a medium.

Michelle Whitedove is a celebrity psychic who has had radio talk shows and TV shows. She claims 98% accuracy in her readings (how can she possibly know that? Sure, people can come back and tell her that she was right on, and they probably do. But she probably hasn't done any type of systematic study of it). She is clairvoyant, an empath and a medical intuitive (perceiving information about the human body). She also does channeling and helps investigators as a psychic detective.

Joseph Tittel is a psychic medium, Reiki healer, author, and is certified in past life regression. I guess I didn't realize one could become certified in something like that. I can't help but wonder what the certification program is like.

Tori Allah is a certified teacher, medium, clairvoyant, clairaudient, (clairvoyant means "clear seeing"; clairaudient means "clear hearing"), and healer. She has been interviewed by several doctors about her healing abilities and she has assisted in crime investigations.

The first challenge for the four psychics is to find a man (alive) in the trunk of a car. There were thirty cars in the lot, and the psychics were given his watch and his picture. They were also told his first name. Catherine went first . She went on about how she was doing "distance Reiki" and in general I had a hard time following what she was talking about. In any case, she took five and a half minutes to choose a car and it wasn't the right choice. So she got zero points (out of a possible 25) on this exercise.

Michelle Whitedove went next, and she told the host (John Burke) that she didn't need to be told what the challenge was. She said she got the information from her spirit guides. She took very little time to choose a red car and was right. She got 25 points.

Joseph said that he got "visions of cars" on his way there and that he was looking for one with a scratch on the back and something to do with the number 32. He noted that it would be much easier for him to find this guy in the trunk if he were dead. Thankfully, this was not the case, but I guess Joseph wasn't kidding about that, because he picked the wrong car. So Joseph also got zero points.

Tori said she was being pulled in different directions, maybe because the man had walked around the parking lot a bit before getting into the trunk, or maybe she was picking up on what he was thinking. Interestingly, she picked the same blue car as Joseph, but obviously she was also wrong.

The next challenge required the psychics to match up brides and grooms. The couples had been married from one month to ten years. Fifteen minutes was the maximum allowable time for this task.

Catherine said she needed to look in their eyes and look for the energy connection between the couples. She touched the arms of some of them, trying to get energy vibes. She got three of five correct (15 of 25 points), so I guess this worked pretty well for her.

While she was completing this challenge, Michelle mentioned that she was rarely off. However, she didn't do well at all with this challenge, only matching one of the five couples up correctly. She would have had two more correct, but she should have gone with her first instinct, because she ended up switching two around.

When asking for their names, Joseph mentioned that it was easier for him to remember dead people's names. He switched people around quite a bit and did not seem confident in his choices. Later he was joking about it in the van, when they were all riding to the next challenge, saying that the next time his spirit guides told him he had a wrong match, they should tell him which one. Interestingly, he put a man named David with a woman named Teneille. It wasn't right, but she had dated someone named David right before she met her husband. Her husband was less than thrilled when Joseph did that.

As in the previous two episodes, the third challenge was the most complicated. The psychics visited the scene of a crime, in which a woman, Lynn Shockner, was killed by a hit man hired by her own husband, who saw this as a preferable alternative to a costly divorce. The psychics were only told it was a crime scene. They got a picture of Lynn in a sealed envelope they were not allowed to open and told they had thirty minutes to come up with as many details of the crime as they could. They could earn up to forty points with this challenge.

Michelle did quite well. She got that it was a male perpetrator, a female victim, and that it involved a domestic situation. She got the scene of the crime (the backyard) and the correct wound location.

Tori reacted physically when she stood where the body had been found by getting a chill. She picked up that someone with an "M" name was involved (Lynn's husband was named Manfred), and that it was a violent death. However, she got that it was a drowning and the pool was involved, which was not true.

Catherine had the most trouble with this exercise. She did get something that no one else got, interestingly. She got that there was a strong mother-son connection associated with that house. As it happens, Lynn Shockner did have a fourteen-year-old son who thankfully was not at home when she was murdered. But everything else was way off. She thought it was the boy who had gotten killed and mentioned drowning as the method.

Joseph came into this challenge in last place, but here he was in his element. He said that the woman who had been killed was still around, and that she was not at peace yet. Of course that part can't really be verified, but he got that it was a female victim, and that the woman was home alone, and that there was a puncture wound (the woman had been stabbed). He said that the perpetrator had entered through the back gate, which was correct, and that he may have taken something to make it look like a robbery, but that robbery was not the motive, which was also correct. He also got the body location right and actually had trouble breathing for a minute when he was talking about the manner of death.

Michelle was the clear overall winner. She picked up 29 points in the last challenge, for a total of 59. The only challenge where she performed poorly was in the second one, where she had to match up brides and grooms. Joseph edged out Tori for second place. He did so well on the last challenge that he got 34 points, giving him a total of 39. Tori also did well on the last challenge, earning 25 points for a total of 35. Catherine was well behind the others with a total of 18, only earning 3 points on the last challenge, none on the first and 15 on the second challenge, which was where she was in her element. She was the least experienced of the psychics and noted that she will probably never work crime scenes.

It's interesting to me how the different psychics have different strengths. Catherine came in last, but she did better than everyone else on the challenge of matching up brides and grooms. I guess maybe she would be the one to go to for a reading on your love life. Any of the other three might be good for helping to solve a crime, but you'd probably want Michelle's help if you were trying to find someone in the trunk of a car.