In this documentary from the BBC, Danny Robins wants to see if mediums get information through prior research of their subjects rather than actual psychic powers. He has enlists the help of Dr. Ciaran O’Keeffe, a parapsychologist who has spent the last 15 years studying people who claim to interact with ghosts. O’Keeffe tells Danny he has never seen anyone who he believed had real psychic abilities. Danny has O’Keeffe write a story about the death of the fictional 1st manager of a Victorian chocolate factory. O’Keeffe says that this manager (an angry, fat, American man by the name of George Bull) died after throwing the last box of chocolates off of a wagon in the factory’s loading bay. The noise of the box hitting the ground spooked a pair of cart horses who dragged a wagon over his legs, severing them from his body. Danny puts this story on the factory’s website and prints up pamphlets containing the story before inviting three mediums to do an on-site reading of the building. He also puts a large picture of a man in the foyer of the building, with a nameplate identifying the man in the photo as George Bull, the first manager of the factory.

During the three readings, each psychic tells Danny a story that basically matches what O’Keeffe has written, and mentions George Bull’s full name. The first psychic interviewed (Goldie) and the last of the psychics interviewed (Philip), offer details about George Bull’s name and death from O’Keeffe’s story without help from Danny. The second psychic interviewed appears not to have read O’Keeffe’s fake history, but appears to be relying on techniques like those used in cold reading to fish for information from Danny, and uses observations about his surroundings (like the nameplate under the picture) to pick up more details about the story.

After each psychic has told Danny some version of O’Keeffe’s fictional history, Danny tells them the story and photo of George Bull are fakes. Philip responds to this revelation by laughing, and laughs more when Danny explains that the surname Bull was chosen because the history of the factory was fictitious—basically a load of bull. Danny treats Goldie to a reenactment of Mr. Bull’s death, complete with men in horse costumes. After Danny’s reenactment, she reiterates that what she saw in her trance was essentially the same as the story Danny and his friends have reenacted. When Danny explains that everything she has channeled came from a story that he and a parapsychologist made up, she congratulates him.

The remaining psychic (Kevin) responds to Danny’s revelation that all the details he has supposedly psychically discovered actually came from a fictional story by suggesting that the story may not be fictional after all. When Danny assures him it is, because he paid to have this story written, the psychic asks how Danny thinks he knew the details of the story. When Danny says the psychic has been probing him for information about the manager’s death throughout the tour, and read George Bull’s name on the nameplate in the foyer, the psychic denies this, claiming he couldn’t have read the nameplate without his glasses. Philip attempts to explain giving O’Keeffe’s fictional information during his reading by claiming that mediums take information not only from the minds of spirits with whom they commune, but also from the minds of the living people around them. Philip claims that because Danny was thinking about the fictional history, he may have pulled his details from those thoughts rather than the spirits he was trying to contact. Goldie admits she cheated, but claims there was some truth to her reading as well. When she volunteers that she believes the building wasn't even a chocolate factory, Danny tells her that was the only part of the story that was true.

Once Danny has heard each medium talk about Bull’s death, and listened to their excuses for telling him details from a fictional story rather than stories of the building’s actual history, Danny and the psychics exchange polite goodbyes. The video ends with Danny telling the audience that he thinks these mediums were really good, but only good at researching, storytelling, and repeating things they heard from him, not at contacting spirits.

I believe in fraud more than psychic ability.