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My mum used to say she could see spirits and feel the presence of ghosts but I've never had this.
Is it dormant in all of us? Can we train to attune to it? Or is it like being an Athlete, you can either do it or not?

dont know i dont belive so im no good answering this one

unless someone could tell me my past then i would consider beleiving them

A man called James Randi has offered a prize fund (currently $1million) to anyone who can demonstrate psychic abilities under scientific scrutiny - currently nobody has been able to claim the price and it's been up for grabs since 1964.

The article is here

I think people who claim to have psychic powers - tuning into the spirit world and suchlike - are 'succesful' in what they do because the people they attract want to believe and are very open to the power of suggestion.

Look at Derren Brown - this is exactly what he does and is happy to admit that his acts just use trickery and the power of suggestion, amongst other things.

There are two sorts of people who have psychic powers - the well-meaning ones who are kidding themselves and the charlatans.

There has been a massive amount of time and money spent trying to prove any kind of psychic powers exist - and absolutely no evidence. Scientists would love to be the first to prove that this is real - they'd get a Nobel prize!

It's really comforting to believe in ghosts and an afterlife or that there's 'something out there' but this can lead to people being seriously ripped off. In the case of death, going to see a so-called medium can interfere with the natural grieving process.

It's pretty easy for someone with training to make it look like the know all your secrets - it's called cold reading.

It would be really nice if psychic powers existed but until there is sold evidence that stands up to proper testing, I'm sticking with the here and now, not wishful thinking.

I do believe everyone has some level of psychic ability, not necessarily that you can predict exactly whats going to happen to someone, or tell what the lottery numbers are going to be. But dreams can be very predictive and sometimes getting certain feelings about someone or something.
I agree that some so called psychics are con artists, but I also think there are some genuine ones out there too.

teameric

With respect, there is a thing called confirmation bias. It's normal to remember the times you thought about someone and then they rang you, for example, but forget all the times they didn't ring. The same goes for feelings and dreams. Billions of people are dreaming every night so statistically, some of them are bound to have dreams that appear significant. Also, dreams are often so vague that it's easy to fit 'meaning' to them after the event.

It's nice to feel that there is something more than what we can see but this can leave people open to being terribly ripped off or psychologically damaged. The psychic con artists rely on people thinking that some of them are genuine.

If you get 'certain feelings' it could well be because you are a bit more sensitive than some people and are picking up on body language, tone of voice or something like that. Also, some people just understand people a lot better than others and so are able to 'predict' or 'sense' what they are going to do.

So-called psychics are often happy to be tested by scientists because they know how to trick them - but they hate being tested by magicians who know all the tricks! That's how Uri Geller was able to con some scientists but not magicians like James Randi, who exposed him on US TV.

So you should be happy if you are good at reading people and understanding them really well, much better than most others do - and not look for some supernatural explanation.

Uri Geller is a loon, imho.
ALong with many other famous 'psychics.'

However I do get annoyed when people seem to think anyone who 'believes' is some kind of deluded lunatic / individual of very little brain.

I am psychic. My great grandmother was, also my grandmother. It seemed to skip my mother for some reason. I am not a loon. I am not stupid. There is nothing wrong with my eyesight, I am not a compulsive liar, I gain nothing from the FACT that I have, and do, see spirits of people who have died.

If anything it causes me problems, simply because it is not socially acceptable, so I have to keep quiet about it.

Seeing / feeling / hearing spirits is a very very subjective experience, personally I do not believe that spirits can be photographed / recorded - I do not expect Mr Randi will ever get 'proof.' I think 'Most Haunted' is a pile of steaming poop.

But I could sit down next to James Randi, see his great grandma (or whoever) and have a chat with her. He would never believe me of course, nor would I expect him to - but that doesn't stop it being real. For the record I am absolutley, totally shite at reading people in a Derren Brown way.

So it may not be provable in the way we would like, but there are nonetheless some very odd things that happen in life, and I think the reason that a lot of people become believers in the supernatural is through a personal experience of that nature.

Sorry, OP

1) Yes I think you can be trained, and 'open' yourself up, as it were, to using your intuition and so on.

2) But yes it can also be a gift, even a hereditary one.

Clairvoyancy is not real. Anyone who says they can teach you to be psychic is a fraud.

DippyDino

There's a saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you can't prove that what you're doing is real, then it's hard to see why a rationalist would believe you. This may not bother you but perhaps you should ask yourself the question: what would it take to prove to me that I'm not psychic? There must be some sort of test that you would accept. Otherwise, we only have your word for it. You may be a genuine person, but can you see that this is hard to swallow?

DippyDino, I like to keep an open mind on these things, regardless of what science tells us.

I would be interested to hear whether when you talk to peoples dead relatives, do you find out correct names 100% of the time (or are you told this beforehand, to help you find them), as well as confirming hard facts such as time/location of death and how they died, etc. Or are you only able to put forward vague suggestions to confirm you are talking to this person, such as a favourite dress or a much loved pet?

This is a genuine question, I am genuinely interested.

TessaK - yes it is very hard to swallow - even for me! I question myself constantly, am I really having the experience that I think I am, am I genuinely feeling what I think I am, is there a rational explanation etc etc.

2010Dad - I wish that I had more answers to your questions, I really do! I am a complete beginner and as such I am not yet in a development circle and have not yet 'tested' myself on the public, iykwim.
I have not to date got a name, apart from my great grandmother's name - which I don't believe I knew beforehand, but it is quite possible that I was accessing information that I already had and just did not conciously remember. Therefore I don't count that instance!

I have had numerous communications with relatives of mine and my dh's over the past few years, and it is increasing. I saw several ghosts as a child and it frightened me so much that I kind of buried the whole thing (no pun intended).

I have felt the presence of an old lady (surprise surprise, yes I know!) at a friend's house, I very much wanted to 'sing' but not in english, I kept on humming, almost in a 'French' way, I wanted to tell my friend that the lady was there, she was a relative but NOT his mother, my lips started to tingle and I felt that I HAD to tell him that she wanted him to know she was just 'popping in' to check he was okay. That is as much 'information' as I got, I knew that my friend's mother had passed away sometime previously but that was all.

So as you can imagine, I felt like a complete dick tbh, but I told my friend who calming took it in his stride and said, that will be my great aunt, she loved French jazz, she loved to sing and had 100's of records etc, did she way whether I should get married or not? I didn't have an answer for that...

I was doing Reiki for a friend and I was 'visited' by two dogs which was the oddest thing ever, I felt their tails brushing against my back (I was crouching down, working on her feet while she sat in the chair) and I 'saw' my friend through the dogs' eyes. I knew how much they loved her and cared about her - that doggy love, you know? Again I felt like a total eejit but she took it calmly when I told her, saying oh yes that will be Beano and Tiger. I think that I was more weirded out than she was.

<sits and waits for men in white coats to arrive.>

I am hoping that as I develop I will be able to get more checkable details. This is as much for my sanity as anything else!

did she say whether, sorry.

Can I just add that I always used to take the almightly piss out of people who claimed to see the spirits of beloved pets!

It's all bollocks
But you can be trained to believe it's not

TessaK and nula

Or possibly

I want to put but I mean it with more of a at the end, as it's each to their own beliefs and all that hippy shite!

Until you have experienced it, you can't snub it IMO.
My DS2 can see spirits. And before you say anything, I DO NOT encourage him to talk about it. He simply points them out when they are there. I have watched is eyes track across a room as 'somebody' has walked past.
He does not tell lies at all - ever, and so I believe him.
I too, feel like a crackpot, but I know my own child.

2010dad, you want to keep an open mind regardless of what science tells us?

Are you deranged? Do you even know what 'science' means? I can only hope that you are being purposefully disingenuous in a bid to meet some lovely ladies.

Everyone has a potential just some people find it harder to grasp, for me it was a natural thing and over the last 17 years i've just trained and developed it through study and practice.