Clairvoyant/ Mediums/ Psychics - Real or Rubbish?!

[DobbieFreeElf]

Hi All,

As title suggests, WDUT, is it real or are mediums just exceptionally clever hustlers?!

I recently went to a mediumship event, I'm exceptionally skeptical when it comes to these things and went more out of curiosity than anything else. The medium zoned in on me about half way through the event and started talking to me about a recently deceased friend. Now at first I was thinking, ok this could just be lucky stabs in the dark but she said nothing that didn't specifically make sense to either my friend, me or current situations (neither did she seem to get anything
"wrong" when addressing others in the room). There was just too much for it to be conveniently coincidental. I would like to see the medium again one-on-one but I keep telling myself I'm probably just being a fool!!!

What are your experiences?!

Good tip @MulticolourMophead, it's my birthday very soon so I'll see if anyone loves me enough to buy me a beginner set! It would be a cool party trick!

@Blobby10 I guess we all just believe what we want to then! I'm not searching for anyone so it will be interesting to see how my "reading" goes!

It’s a truly amazing skill I think that some of them have - they read people very well, the tiniest reactions are noticed and also they can say things that sound very specific without actually being remotely specific. Perhaps they don’t all realise they’re doing it either which makes it more amazing.

I read an example once of someone saying something like “I’m thinking about a red car” - it sounds super specific but most people have a red car, have had a red car, almost had an accident with a red car or have a close friend or relative with a red car. So then they’re in and they go from there.

If the mediums are exhibiting a genuine skill, and we've had no evidence yet, there's still no way to distinguish between communicating with the dead (clairvoyancy) and telepathy. If they were a genuine mind reader, they'd be able to pick up suitable personal info.

@Blobby10 I think more likely is that a man attending with his mother immediately makes the medium think it’s a dead father/ husband. So they try that angle “someone very close to you is. I longer with us” and when they react, particularly the mother they make an educated guess that it’s her husband. I’m sure then they can say generic things that sound specific like “he always worked so hard” or whatever that everyone would say about everyone.

@Cookit I wasn't there but ex said the medium used specific details such as facial features, clothing, names etc that only ex knew about. He even described in detail how ex's dad died which no-one except ex knew as he was the one who found him. Like I said, I'm sure that there are genuine people out there but they are the ones who don't charge, don't make a theatre of it, don't do the 'shows'.

It gives me comfort to believe that there is an afterlife - I can't believe that everything that makes up the wonderfully complex and different humans we are just stops. But I accept that its just my opinion that many don't share - wouldn't dream of telling anyone who didn't believe it that they were wrong and hope that people who don't believe would afford me the same courtesy!!

Don't forget people who are perfectly happy, not weighing up big decisions, wanting comfort due to a death of a loved one or anxious about something are unlikely to seek the services of a medium. The medium just needs to work out the issue and then they have their in and can go from there.

If they've not done advanced research, they don't go in with very specific information, they open you up with vague questions and narrow it down based on your reactions.

As others have said it's not rocket science to think mother plus grown up son equals a dead husband/father. If that was wrong then it's likely a grandfather has passed away at some point and they can switch to that. Person of a certain age likely to have a fairly traditional name, they guess the letter G, you react, they go with George or maybe Geoffrey as common traditional names that start with G. Also names tend to follow social class lines so there are clues from the family members in front of them.

If you are over 50, chances are you have a parent who has died. If you are young and it's a friend chances are some kind of accident as young people are less likely to die of a disease.

Man in uniform could be military, police, postal service, train conductor, a lot of professions wear uniforms, even more so in the past.

The most popular colour of car is silver/grey etc so chances are you have come into contact with one.

If you are a young woman, fairly good guess you might have a child and then 50:50 chance of getting the sex right. If they get it wrong are you going to go back and complain anyway.

I could say I am getting a letter or word coming through and your brain would automatically conjure up everything you associate with that word or letter because that's how brains work so you will be able to associate it with something.

Also to the poster above cause of death is listed on death certificates which are publicly available.

But if you believe in this you are going to believe and that belief is not coming from a place of logic, it's coming from a place of emotion and so no amount of explaining it will convince you. They prey on that, that's why people can spend thousands on them. You forget or write off the ones whose guesses were wrong and the ones who hit upon the right thing then seem even more believable.

It's highly likely a lot of details are added by the person who goes for a reading. Either in their head or making the guesses made by the medium fit the truth. Highly personal and specific details are rarely mentioned without a lot of exploratory guesswork or getting the customer to lead the medium.

Mediums and clairvoyant are very good at their jobs. Which is manipulation, preying on the vulnerable and generally deluding themselves or their customers.

On impulse I visited a local Spiritualist Church just after my Husband passed away.
I was impressed with all that the special visiting clairvoyant "knew" during the 1 on 1 time I paid for (bearing in mind this happened after a 10 minute coffee break).
I later found who had served her and chatted for those 10 minutes to her ....was an old friend of my Husband's

I am sorry, but it is all a crock of shit. They end up knowing details because you tell them, without realising. I bought a copy of 'Cold Reading, the full facts' by Ian Rowland and it is fascinating. After a good bit of practise, I tried it on my friends, who are now convinced I am a psychic wonder! One friend was commenting on how could I have known about her first love from years ago and that he died in a car crash and she was broken hearted for years. I even got his name and type of car. All care of Mr Rowland. I did explain how I did it, but bizarrely she isn't convince, thinks I really am psychic!

I was at a big psychic fair one offering Christian healing and blessing. Word got round the fair and two ladies turned up to my stall. After a couple of minutes I was able to tell them that they were professional psychics. They were stunned. How did I know? I cold read them. They were both trying very hard to mask their body language and not 'leak' information. Whether they did it intentionally or instinctively I don't know but cold reading is easy to learn. They were charging something like £45 a go for readings and would be hoping to pick up private bookings.

Be wary.

This may be slightly outing so will name change after posting!

I always used to go to stow fair, back then it always used to be a very traditional traveller place.

I stopped to look at something and an older lady was reading cards. I asked her to read mine for a bit of fun.

She read my cards and said a lot of things that no one and I mean no one could have known about me or my family, Pre social media, etc etc she didn’t even know my name. She refused payment.

The last time I saw her before she died - she told me very specifically something certain would happen she couldn’t tell me when but she explained in great detail what would happen and it did! To the exact detail. Some 12 years later!!

99.9% of these people are frauds and con people. This woman I don’t think was. She didn’t even know my name and is highly unlikely to have been told as I knew no one from the area.

I have no interest in mediums etc and only wanted my cards read.

The trouble is, an open ended prediction is likely to happen eventually. To be significant a prediction should have a date or time element.

@Brahumbug

She certainly couldn’t have predicted what happened! And not in the details she knew.

The reading of tarot cards was just a bit of fun, and obviously open to interpretation. Most of what she said was spot on.

The prediction she made spooked me out at the time and again 12 years later when it happened.

I think 'predictions' can be somewhat self fulfilling. E.g. you are told you will marry and your spouse will get ill. Your spouse gets ill (not seriously) and you tell yourself the prediction came true. Or you are told you will marry but split up. Somewhere down the road you run into marriage difficulties (as EVERY couple does) and you wonder whether it might be a good idea to cut your losses. You are verging towards it and you remember the prediction and you sway yourself towards leaving even more as it was 'always on the cards'.

That is not even taking into account being told that natural occurrences will happen. You will suffer a loss in x amount of years - usually not a specific period but might be just a random number they pluck and it could actually occur 11 - 13 years later and you tell yourself that they were out by a couple of months but it still happened. Or you will have a baby is one they trot out to most women in their twenties if they are there because they want to be told that they will soon meet 'the one'. What I'm saying really is that a lot of things can be applied, shave off a few corners to make it fit.

I'm not saying some people are wrong to believe in it. I think it gives hope to people, the majority of who go to fortune tellers in the first place, because something or someone is missing in their lives. Of course there are some who go for fun but those people don't tend to remember what they are told for very long afterwards.

I'm in the same boat at my nan - a small minority have the gift, most don't and are just making money.

I think if they have the ‘gift’ it is never specific enough to be significantly helpful.

No one with the ‘gift’ can let the police know exactly who the perpetrators of violent crimes are & give names.

Similarly, they can’t locate a murder victim’s body & give an exact location

If there is such a thing it’s only a vague intuition that an intelligent & empathetic person can expand upon and extrapolate and in the best cases use to reassure a troubled person.

To the people saying 99% are fakes but the one I saw who was right was real. Do you think it's possible that one of the ones you wrote off as fake is real for someone else as they happened to get things right for that other person.

I've always been in the rubbish camp, and still am to some extent, but I did see one a few years ago.

DD and I had gone to Blackpool, she was 19 at the time. I'd not long lost my Mum. We were walking up the prom and DD saw the tent and said 'oh come on, be a laugh'.

I was complete grey rock. She told me a lot of the usual stuff, booked holidays etc but then she said something odd. She told me I was looking to move and she could see water, lots of water but it wasn't the sea. She was very specific, said it confused her as it was water, but not a lake. She said it would take time but we'd be happy there. She ended by saying 'Mum and Dad love you, they say never forget them'.
Up until that point my parents hadn't been mentioned at all so that threw me, Especially as Mum always used to joke about me forgetting them and not going to the cemetery.

The strange thing was a few weeks before this DH and I had found a house. It had been taken off sale at that point but we were trying to contact its owners to buy it. It the front garden was a pond, a 140ft x 120ft enormous natural pond. We did eventually buy the house and I can only conclude it was a hell of a guess from the medium.

Ah the classic near water. We live on an island for a start. Secondly water but not a lake could be a river, stream, pond, well or even a swimming pool. Things which are everywhere in the country, you'd be hard pushed to find a house not near water. Could even be a house that has a leak or is flooded by rainwater. Also I am sure a lot of people ask their relatives not to forget them and if they don't it's not that an odd suggestion for someone with dead relatives. I am so perplexed at how much people are wanting to believe this stuff.

am so perplexed at how much people are wanting to believe this stuff

First line of my post.

I've always been in the rubbish camp, and still am to some extent

Last line of my post.

I can only conclude it was a hell of a guess from the medium

Also, you are perplexed that people who have suffered a bereavement want some confirmation that their loved ones might live on somewhere? You find that perplexing? Weird.

I am perplexed yes. You say you aren't convinced by it but go on to tell a story about a medium making very basic and vague guesses as if this is somehow evidence the whole thing might be real.

And yes I appreciate that people need comfort after losing people but it confuses me that paying a random person to tell you a person with a name beginning with J is happy playing with their old family dog in heaven (they are always in a good place aren't they) does that. Especially when so many people can explain how it is done and replicate it but psychics are completely unable to prove it. They are scam artists who prey on vulnerable people.

So @SistersOfPercy, if you had recently been looking at a house with a big pond, and the medium says something about water, so you sit up a little more or tilt your head. So she realises that water is relevant and keeps guessing at water-related things until she says something good enough.

That is cold reading.

I think alot of them are charlatans, and take money from vulnerable people.

Having said that, I used to work in a shop and one day a gypsy lady came in asking us to buy heather from her. She grabbed my hand, and started talking to me although I really wasn't comfortable or happy about it. She told me among other things that I have 4 children though 1 of them isn't with me (right, 1 was stillborn) at which point the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. She told me I was a very quiet, private person who didn't let people in readily (I don't), and that I was still deeply grieving for someone who had been like a mother to me but wasn't (my nan had died the year before). She told me that I'd looked after her so well (I'd been her carer), and that I was going to be very lucky in my life. She refused to take any money, and gave me a crystal saying people like me were rare indeed. It was really really unsettling at the time, and I wasn't sure how I felt about it. In hindsight, she may have been making it all up and a complete fake but at that moment, I felt she was looking straight into my very core.

Who knows?

Span1els. All of those things apply to me, and potentially many other women, depending on how you interpret the predictions. They seem specific, but arent really when you analyse it.