It's not surprising that no psychic announced any warning for the horrific events that took place in Norway on Friday, July 22. Not even Norway's biggest psychic, the Snåsaman, to whom Randi offered a chance at the Million Dollar Challenge, has said a thing. Princess Märtha Louise of Norway, a proponent of angels and a believer in supernatural powers and beings, has, thankfully, had no comment. A Google search, in both English and Norwegian, reveals stark silence about psychics' failure to prove they have the power of clairvoyance, even in such a heart-wrenching, violent tragedy. Except one...

In a blog post dated 10:56PM July, "the psychic family"" offers up some critical information about admitted killer Anders Behring Breivik:

{Authors' note: A Web Archive version of this post is available We suggest clicking this link to avoid heavy traffic to the original web site.}

The Psychic Family, Welcome to our world.

We are a completely ordinary family from North Trøndelag. What might not be so normal is that we see and feel things that are out of the ordinary. Our day to day life is a world of things you might not even knew existed. Welcome to our world.

 

Re. Behring Breivik's network (cells)!

Just like the rest of Norway, the terrorist attack in Oslo and Utøya have deeply affected the psychic family.

Where such evil comes from, is hard to understand.

Many have asked us why we couldn't predict this.

First of all, this isn't something anybody could imagine would happen, therefore it was totally unnatural to think about trying to look into the future to see if something like this would happen.

Second of all, we predict the future of persons (translators note: it appears they are saying they need to have direct contact with the person in order to see that person's future as opposed to seeing events that affect many individuals) so we would have had to predict for A.B.B. directly.

What we have gotten so far about A.B.B. is that he has two partners. Based on what we feel, these partners are not located in Norway. He has worked together with these people for some time. He is brainwashed, but he read so much over the years he brainwashed himself.

We also feel some family problems, but can't tell if it is about his father or mother.

That's what we get about him. The most important thing is that the culprit is arrested and gets his punishment.

Our sympathies to the survivors and next of kin to the deceased in the terror attacks in Oslo and Utøya!

-The psychic family-

This could be perceived as potentially useful information about accomplices. However, let's consider what the media has been saying since the day they caught Anders Behring Breivik. From the start, authorities considered that Breivik had collaborators to execute his plans. They discovered he had contacts with right-wing extremists from other countries and that there was possibly of a network of individuals across Europe.

Breivik's father came out in the news on Monday (prior to the date of the psychic family post) to condemn his son's actions. They had not spoken to each other since 1995 and he wants no contact with his son now. In an interview with one of the major Norwegian newspapers, he says he wished his son had just killed himself instead of all those people. That is clearly a major issue Breivik has with his father.

No one would argue that a terrorist is "brainwashed" in some way, whether he did it to himself by buying into hateful propaganda or someone did the brainwashing to him. His defense attorney admits his client is insane.

Little information could be found about the authenticity and history of the self-styled "psychic family". The website has only existed since May of 2011. No contact information is available but the site hosts ads that presumably generate revenue through web hits. They state they are a mother, father, sister and brother from Steinkjer in North-Trøndelag with everyday jobs. As many psychics will say, they claim they are not in this for money or fame but just wish to share their psychic gift, which they report is a family trait acknowledged for close to 200 years. They admit they can't be certain of what they see. Yet, they say it anyway.

The information provided by "the psychic family" is worthless. Psychics and psychic claims yet again fail to help in ANY way.

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Torkel Ødegård is a Norwegian skeptic who attended The Amazing Meeting in 2010 and 2011. His other interests include music, films, comics and video games. Follow him on Twitter at @desertyard

Sharon Hill is a long time participant in the skeptical community. As an independent researcher on topics of science and public understanding, she writes about sham inquiry and "sciencey" sounding claims. Visit her website Doubtful and follow her on Twitter at @IDoubtIt