TV: Thu 22/9/05 9:50pm BBC2 Underground Britain

pH

DOCUMENTARY: Underground Britain
Channel: BBC 2 Northern Ireland (Digital) 102
Date: Thursday 22nd September 2005
Time: 21:50 to 22:30
Duration: 40 minutes.

Psychic Surgeon.

Series of profiles about people who may not be all that they seem. Robyn Welch claims she is the only healer in the world able to see inside the human body. Through her special energies she says she is able to communicate with human body parts and operate on them over the telephone. Film-makers Angharad and Sara Penrhyn Jones take us on a disturbing journey into the world of a so-called medical intuitive.
(Followed by BBC Newsline Update, Widescreen, Subtitles)

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robindch

> the only healer in the world able to see inside the human body

Except for all the other ones. Robyn mustn't have been watching Discovery last week, when Richard Wiseman demolished the claims of Natasha Demkina to do something similar. Pravda's surreal and huffy text on Natasha is here.

pH

robindch wrote:

>Except for all the other ones. Robyn mustn't have been watching Discovery last week, when Richard Wiseman demolished the claims of Natasha Demkina to do something similar.

Any idea what the program was called and if it's repeated?

robindch

> Any idea what the program was called and if it's repeated?

<cough> Quoting from the third sentence of the first link:

The Discovery Channel asked Richard Wiseman, Andrew Skolnick, and me to test her claim for their television program, The Girl with X-ray Eyes.

Yes, it's certainly been repeated since it was first aired around a year ago and this link says that it's going to be on a channel called TLC in around ten days time. Most things on Discovery turn up again, sooner or later, if you wait long enough.

Being a russophile, I did start my video recording when I saw it come on (and ended up with around two-thirds of it), but, tbh, it's not the best documentary ever made; the American end isn't brilliant (they don't show anything about the crucial negotiations between the two sides for the design of the test), while the Russian end of it is frightfully soft-soaped (what a ncie and honest, church-going girl, smiling at all the right places; basking in the love of the toothy proletariat; 'not a sly bone in her body' kind of thing). Though, having said that, they did catch one of her engagingly soviet-style media supporters coming out with something like "you shouldn't test sincere people like her, you should just believe them.", which I suppose is the whole problem really.

Myksyk

Thought the programme on BBC2 was priceless. My head almost ached from shaking throughout.

pH

As sincerity is often talked about, what do you reckon after seeing the program? Do you think Robyn genuinely believes she has these powers or is she a con-artist? Her reaction to some of the questions and her general demeanor lead me to think she is conciously deceiving people.

Myksyk

Yep ... thought she was a con-woman. Maybe self-deluded. But hard to see that when she openly lies about 'making ends meet' when she's charging some poor sod (and presumably everyone else too) thousands for phonecalls.