How do clairvoyants know things??

Yes, same with steelworkers as well. They use clever odds with names and experiences, but swiftly gloss if it doesn't hit.

Their other approach is to rely on faulty memories of 30+ year old events. Can you remember exactly what was said? Of course not, the wording will have twisted and turned over the years.

Google "cold reading", as it's by far the more plausible explanation.

What did he "know"?

I've just read Goodbye, Dearest Holly by Kevin Wells, Holly's dad. In it, Kevin describes how a clairvoyant 'knew' things about Holly and Jessica's disappearance long before anyone knew what had happened. This cannot be explained in any logical way.

For those saying googling, social media etc .. what about the days before this? Saw a ‘clairvoyant’ back in 1990, so way before internet, mobile phones, social media etc. We went as a group from work. She told me a couple of things which were true and not easily guessable, but then she hit me like a ton of bricks when she said the baby I had terminated was doing well in the spiritual world, and would not have survived the living world, so the termination of was the best decision. No-one knew I’d been pregnant or terminated. Absolutely no-one. I was 18. I didn’t tell a single soul. There is no possible way she could have known this information at all. For me, this cannot be explained in any way other than she truly did have spiritual insight.

In mill towns, they ask for people with grandparents/great grandparents with a missing finger. And there was always at least one, because it was a common injury amongst weavers.

I’ve never believed but agreed to go with a friend, he said some really relevant things which hit home, I was floored. It was only when I was laid in bed that night did I remember I had talked about it with a friend in the lounge waiting area. Place was obviously bugged or something, absolute charlatan! I went again, no idea why I agreed, just peer pressure I guess, I talked bollocks about my fictional ds Peter, low and behold, he mentioned my grandad saying a P name, maybe Paul or Peter. I was rushed out when I started laughing.

Doing a social media search on the person. You should book but give a false name see how much they know then

Ive been twice, both times to the same guy who has an amazing reputation. (And an amazing house paid for by that reputation!)
First time was pre internet and I went with my sister who did not want to go alone. I'm a complete sceptic but went along with it and was surprised that he got some very good shots. Then he told me it was clear the other person in the waiting room was family, he said he knew I was talking to her mentally whilst I was in with him. Had I said it was not family he would probably have said that it must be someone close to me which would cover his mistake. I went along with it and when he said he had 'Ted' with him I acted amazed and said it was my grandad. I 'forgot' to mention that grandad was still alive and was actually called William.
Of course, when my sister went in he gave her the same dead grandad!

A few years later I went again because a friend wanted to go and wanted company. By this time he was famous in the local area and living in a massive new build and you got a strict 15 mins for your money rather than 45.
My friends dog had died and she was desperate to find out if he was at peace. When she came out of her session she was very upset because he had not mentioned Gordon her dog so she has decided she could not leave without asking about him.
So she told him that Gordon had died 4 weeks previously and she just wanted to know he was ok and now with her grandma.
He replied that they were very happy in the afterlife just as they had been in their long happy marriage!
Charlatans all of them, preying on vulnerable people.

I suspect your friend booked in advance with her full name and the “psychic” stalked her on social media.

The ones who play to crowds use extremely vague prompts to target the gullible. For example, they might say at a show in Cornwall “I’m getting a name with an E in it. And water. Something to do with water, but not sad - happy.” E is one of the most common letter in names, and it stands to reason that people living in Cornwall probably all have happy associations with the water. Someone in the audience gasps aloud or reacts, and the “psychic” says “yes, you’ve lost someone with an E in their name, someone important to you” - obviously, because the person has to be dead or they wouldn’t have reacted like that. The person will usually say something like “yes, my mum.” Or “it must be aunt Elsie”, which tells the psychic it’s a woman. They’ll then say “yes, it’s definitely a woman, she’s here with you.” Statistically, an older female relative is likely to have owned at least one piece of decent jewellery, and to leave jewellery in a will so the “psychic” will then say “there was a ring…. Or a bracelet…. No, a necklace (testing for the reaction) that Elsie always wore. It was important to her?” Once they hit on the right jewellery item, they’ll go with “and Elsie left it to you?” If the answer is yes, they’ll say “Elsie is here. She wants you to know that whenever you wear her necklace she is with you.” and if the answer is no, it’s “Elsie is here. She wants you to know she’d have liked you to have the necklace because she misses you” - it’s actually really very, very easy because the people who are gullible enough to buy tickets and react to these things are all emotionally vulnerable.

I can’t remember her name, but much more recently in Dublin, two audience members could hear the UK touring ‘psychic’ on stage being fed information by employees in the sound booth via an earpiece, based on things people had been asked to write down on slips of paper in the lobby before the show.

Doris Stokes, the adorable granny of psychics, was a cold-blooded charlatan, who used to reserve the front rows at her gigs for regular fans, about whom she knew everything, so she could have detailed ‘messages’ for them, and even phone up survivors of car crashes and house fires who were in local papers, inviting them to her performances so she could have messages from those who’d died. She used to visit hospitals to make contact with the gullible soon-to-be bereaved!

My family had an unsettling experience with a medium a year or two ago. My sister and dad went to see one, partly out of curiosity, partly to see if a message from my mum might come through.

My sister was given a message from my mum, saying she was with a baby who had been born too soon, whose name began with a certain letter and some very specific information about the baby's funeral - details about the quite distinctive cemetery, location of the grave and the weather. This all related to a family member who had had a stillbirth a year before. Nothing was posted on social media about this baby or the pregnancy, only a handful of people were at the funeral and the cemetery was a location miles away. My sister or my dad hadn't given any information about this family at all to the medium.

I am usually of the mind that mediums are charlatans and are fishing for info, trawling socials etc but in this case I can't see how they could have got hold of the information they had.

As a person with Christian beliefs, I don't believe that dead people can send messages, the bible says that when you are dead, you are sleeping, it also says that the satan can disguise itself as an angel of light and this is what I personally believe happened here - the medium genuinely received a message but it wasn't sent with good in mind.

Hence, my personal belief is that you shouldn't mess about with trying to contact the dead like this because you don't know what you could unleash. 99.9% of the time it's a bit of fun, Derren Brown type stuff, but there is a tiny chance that it could be something a lot darker.

Things have happened to me that I can’t explain - dreams that have literally happened the next day, coincidences that I can’t even begin to get my head around

Am I a clairvoyant? Definitely not. But I know that there are things that we simply can’t explain. So I tend to have a “sceptically open mind”

They don’t!

My ex NDN convinced me to see her clairvoyant on the basis that he was “brilliant” she had lost two close relatives in REALLY shocking circumstances and the whole family swore by this guy.

He was abysmal. Really crap and off the mark asked me if I knew a Dave etc.

All I could think was that he was taking this whole family for a ride in their grief and I couldn’t even tell her because I didn’t want to be the person taking that certainty and belief about her relations from her.

I don’t believe in it because of that experience and one other whereby the “psychic” seemed to get his kicks from hurting people

Go and watch Derren Brown - the cold reading is amazing - but that's what it is - he's not a clairvoyant.

Clairvoyants are charlatans who are preying on people who are vulnerable. It is all confirmation bias - you remember the bits that chime with you.

Guess work, luck, vulnerable punters who want answers about loved ones, and who look for the truth in general statements.
Pre internet, a famous woman "clairvoyant" used to do the rounds. Before her shows, she had mates hang out in the toilets. They'd overhear conversations about what people were hoping for, eg "I hope she can help me about Harry/my grandma/my cousin in Australia/my lost wedding ring" etc
Then she'd use that in the show.
A charlatan, and exploitative

I have incredible stalking skills on social media and have stunned people with how much I can find out about long lost friends/schoolmates/partners 😅
I can find information out with the tiniest bit of random info about them (ie where they worked 10 or 20 years ago) and through a trail of other people.
Last week I tracked down someone I hadn’t seen for 24 years, who had changed their name and completely locked their profile down. We had no mutual friends. I did it with a Google obituary of her grandfather from 10 years ago, grabbed a couple of names and played around with surnames, trial and error, then worked my way through several family members pages until I found a comment from someone on one or their pictures. Took me less than an hour.
This person has remarried and I had no idea of her married name. There was no link to her maiden name and none of her family members I knew of had social media. I now know her name, where she lives, works, the names of her kids… it’s quite scary really. Obviously I’m not doing anything with this information, I was just being nosey because we were great friends but lost touch after school.

I realise this probably makes me sound like a total lunatic but I’m just highlighting that with a bit of brain work, it’s easy to find out a lot about people.

These people are also very good at cold reading. So cold reading, internet sleuthing and also the person being read often slightly exaggerates what the clairvoyant knew when telling others, even if they don’t realise they are doing it. It’s conformation bias.

Thats fascinating. Do you know why your friend would come through to your mum if she had never met her? Did your friend give her a message for you?

I remember Richard Dawkins seeing a clairvoyant for a TV programme. She told him, "you're moving from a very active, to a less active era in your life". As Dawkins said, you don't need powers to know someone in their mid-60s might be retiring.

I went to a psychic after my DH died as a friend wanted to go ,i'm a sceptic and scientific in my approach to life.
I have no online footprint, no facebook, instagram etc.
The psychic said "who's XXXX" ,I though could be co incidental as its a very common name for a man of my late husbands age. But answered "my late husband"
She then said a few things that were generic to the bereaved about love and loss and could have applied to many people.eg: he thanks you for everything you did for him.
But just before the end of the session she said my late husband was describing an affectionate unusual gesture that i made when we were alone as he was dying,i'd never told anyone about it.
Made me think......

I used to read people's cards using playing cards at Uni. I made it up but it was actually concerning how easy it was to convince people it was true! Basically if you tell people they are undervalued and have great potential they will lap it up. If you tell men they want to impress their dads and their dads are impressed but don't say so (assuming their dads are alive), they love it. If you tell women they don't give themselves credit for how clever/ competent they are, they love it. If you tell a 20 something year old student that their love life has been complicated but something wonderful is coming their way, they love it. I did always used to finish by telling them I had made it up but they never wanted to hear that!!

I just get feelings so I think i'm a huge empath. I don't think i've special powers though i'm just extremely sensitive. (which can be a bit rubbish!)

I am very good at tuning into people and be able to see how something will turn out. I once said to my mum that i thought my dad had another brother. This turned out to be true but wasn't spoken about in the family. All very strange.

Yup. You essentially have a choice between ‘unconsciously reading people, so suggestible they actually believe in their own ‘powers’’ and ‘Rapacious scamster, consciously reading people, researching people etc’. Both lots happy to profit from the gullible.