Doris Collins (1918-2003) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

spiritualist and

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...

medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane *Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...

Biography

Collins was born on 10 February 1918 in

Essex, England Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

and was the youngest of a family of nine children. From a young age Collins claimed to be able to see spirits a

ability she said to have throughout her life. She attended a Spiritualist church and in 1958 became the president of Woodford National Spiritualist Church in Essex. She became a resident at the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain and made trips to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, Australia and toured

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

offering her mediumship services to people for money. She wrote three books on Spiritualism ''A Woman of Spirit'' (1985), ''The Power Within'' (1988) and ''Positive Forces'' (1991).

Skepticism

Collins has been described as a cold reader by the

scientific community The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...

James Randi James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skepticism, scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific cla ...

examined a videotape of her mediumship from one of her shows and caught her cold reading.

. (1997). ''An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural''. St. Martin's Griffin.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Doris 1918 births 2003 deaths English spiritual mediums