What just happened?! I don't know what to make of this.

[Believers]

I've had the strangest experience tonight and I don't know how to explain it.

I volunteer with a charity, and tonight myself and 3 others from there went out to a pub I've never been to before for a pre-Christmas drink.

At one point I went to the toilet and as I was on my way out a woman was on her way in. We exchanged pleasantries and went on our separate ways.

About 5 minutes after I'd joined my friends, this same woman came up to us, and sat next to me on the banquette thing. She took my hand and said she had to tell me something.

It was all a bit odd, but I figured she'd maybe had a drink, and I had no objection to her joining us. But then she said to me that she had xxx with her and he wanted me to know that he was happy, that he loved me and that it was time I moved on. She was crying as she said this and I started crying too because xxx was the name of my late dh.

I have no idea how she could've known any of this. None of us knew her, I'd never been to that pub before, dh's name isn't wildly unusual but not that common either, why did she come and find me after our brief encounter in the toilet etc.

I can't get my head around it! Any ideas?!

This.

Its easy to be a sceptic until it happens to you though......

I would love to hear any rational explanations for my experience, because I can't think of one!

My Mum dropped in to a psychic fayre at a Village hall. It was before social media, and it was drop in, so no names were given. My Mum lived almost 400 miles away from me.

For context, at that time, I had decided to leave my 20 year marriage, but I had not told a soul. I was very down and worried about the whole thing.

Mum sat with a medium who said "I can hear someone calling out the name X (my very unusual name). You need to tell her that everything is going to be okay. A move of house is indicated, a good man and happiness". The medium also went on to say, that my Mum would come to possess a guitar shortly, in a very strange way, and that she would win the lottery.

Mum rang me when she got home and relayed the message, which she assumed was a load of rubbish, but she did think it spooky that the medium said my name, as it's so rare. Mum wasn't in the slightest bit musical, and laughed at the guitar thing. Of course, I knew that the part about me was accurate in part, as I was looking at property and hoped for a new man at some point.

Of course, the part about me did all come true. In addition, when my parents were sitting in their garden one night, very late after a BBQ, a guitar came flying over their fence, landing squarely on their lawn. And shortly after that they did win the lottery.

How on earth can anyone explain that?!

No facebook back then. No mind reading involved. No money paid to the medium.

And I should have said, the lottery win was a good amount of money, a 5 figure sum, not a fiver!

On the basis that 23 billion text messages are sent globally by people who are alive, multiply that by the quantity of dead people who would no doubt send messages to their living loved ones if they could (through so called mediums) and you can see that 'mediums' are all charlatans who prey on vulnerable people.

So what it your theory about my experience above?

"So what it your theory about my experience above?"

One possibility is it didn't happen.

If you tried to explain to someone in an off grid tribe, that they were surrounded by radio waves, that could only be heard if you had a radio to hand, do you think they would believe you? They can't see it, they can't hear it, however, it is there, and can be heard via the medium of a radio, if you had one. Excuse the pun. Just because you cant see or hear something, doesn't mean that it isn't there. To think that you know everything is quite big headed, in my opinion.

But it did happen. Taking me at my word, how can you explain it? Before this happened, I was a total sceptic.

On the basis that 23 billion text messages are sent globally by people who are alive, multiply that by the quantity of dead people who would no doubt send messages to their living loved ones if they could (through so called mediums) and you can see that 'mediums' are all charlatans who prey on vulnerable people

Text messages didn't exist prior to 3rd December 1992. So, prior to that, there was no proof of texting. And you would have been told it was impossible. And yet, here we are.

I wish people on here would stop equating inventions and tech with the dead being able to send messages via mediums. It's like comparing apples and pears and is completely meaningless. Man might be able to invent all sorts of things, but if the dead aren't hanging around waiting to send messages, and there is zero evidence to think they are, then no amount of improved tech is going to make it happen.

Just because we discovered that radio signals could be sent through the air, doesn't mean that we will ever be able to talk to the dead. Photographs are amazing when you think about them, but there is a science behind it. It's not magic

Also your mum relayed a message to you, saying that she thought it was rubbish. She popped into a psychic fair, for goodness sake. She was obviously predisposed to believe there was something in it if she went to the fair in the first place. Many people wouldn't be seen dead in a psychic fair or at a mediums. (Pun intended).

Yes, my Mum loved all the psychic stuff and over the years had good readings and bad ones. How can you explain the one I detailed above? I would love to hear a theory!!

proveit the bit about moving house, a good man and finding happness is so generic as to be meaningless. Winning the lottery is the same. Lots of people play the lottery and most win something. It's not exactly special. The guitar thing is a bit different, but I wasn't there to hear precisely what was said. Did the medium say a guitar was going to come flying over a fence or was in more vague?

The medium told your mum, who is more likely than most to give it credence, and she related it to you. Years later you are telling us. The most likely explanation is that things get added and lost in the telling and the years also alter our memories. That seems the most rational thing, but I'm not expecting to change your mind.

Also humans will look for patterns and find them. It's what conspiracy theorists do.

"Text messages didn't exist prior to 3rd December 1992. So, prior to that, there was no proof of texting. And you would have been told it was impossible. And yet, here we are."

Goodness me. I'm going to have to stop reading this thread! The arguments some of you are putting forth are risible.

Yes, but ALL three things happened. My Mum wrote down exactly what was said. No rewriting over time. Also, the medium gave my name specifically. I have a very unusual name. I was the only girl at school with this name. I've only met about 2 other people in my whole life time with this name, and I'm 53! How can that be poo-pood away?

"I try to be open minded..." in the context of the subject of this thread reminds me of those who say,"I've done my own research, thank you" in the context of C-19 vaccinations or the wearing of good quality masks.

Apologies, I cut off the beginning of that quote, which outlines the many controlled scientific studies which have been done, every single one of which showed that the 'psychics' were unable to provide any additional information.

Scientific studies
A number of tests have been conducted on psychics detectives, using control groups, to try to establish any psychic ability relating to crime solving. One of the earliest was carried out by Dutch Police officer, Filippus Brink in 1960. He conducted a year-long study of psychics, but found no evidence of any crime-solving abilities.[42] Another study was conducted in 1982 where evidence from four crimes was given to three groups: psychic detectives, students and police detectives. The clues related to four crimes, two crimes that had been solved, and two that had not been. The study found no difference between the three groups in ability to indicate what crimes had been committed by looking at the evidence.[43] Some flaws in the scientific method were apparent in these two tests. A further test was conducted in 1997, this test focusing on improving on the scientific methods used in the previous tests. This study used two groups, one consisting of three students from the University of Hertfordshire, the other group consisting of three psychics (two psychic detectives and a non-detective psychic who had a media profile and had been endorsed by police due to his abilities). The two groups were shown three objects associated with three serious crimes. They then advocated theories, but once again, no difference was found in terms of the accuracy between the two groups.[44]
To assess the claims of psychic crime-solving, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (now Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) established a task force of investigators.[45] The group recorded many failures by psychics to provide useful information to criminal investigators, and felt that psychics may use "retrofitting" (or after-the-fact matching), offering vague clues, and then trying to retroactively fit them to details that are only discovered later.[45] In addition to cases of retrofitting, the apparent use of cold reading (a psychic's fishing for information while appearing to gain it paranormally), exaggeration, and examples where the psychic has used non-psychic sources of information, were also reviewed.[45][46]

@Mamanyt
I wonder how much the detectives' stories changed due to being unmercifully hounded by others about using a psychic at all? It is a strong possibility.

Please have a read of this which outlines and links to the controlled scientific studies which have been done on this, all of which show that 'psychics' have provided no useful information to police, ever.

Unlike 'mediums' and 'psychics', they can't just make up stuff to suit them, so your 'strong possibility' is just total fantasy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_detective#:~:text=Individuals%20claiming%20psychic%20abilities%20have,credible%20or%20useful%20on%20cases.

I know. I keep coming back to it with some sort of morbid curiosity but there are posts like this which make me think people must be actually taking the piss. I don't know why you or I are bothering. There is no amount of evidence that would ever convince people who think like this

No, the equivalent here is "I was always very sceptical until I went along to a medium reading/psychic fair." The clue is right there. No one who has gone along to a medium reading or psychic fair is remotely 'sceptical' unless they are going specifically to show that it's all bollocks, like Derren Brown, to demonstrate the techniques they use.

Also, the medium gave my name specifically. I have a very unusual name. I was the only girl at school with this name. I've only met about 2 other people in my whole life time with this name, and I'm 53! How can that be poo-pood away?

It can be pooh-poohed away because the medium did not have magic or supernatural powers. Simple as that.

Yes, my Mum loved all the psychic stuff and over the years had good readings and bad ones. How can you explain the one I detailed above? I would love to hear a theory!!

So your mum spent years going to many, many events and had many readings. And among all of those hundreds of readings, there was one which had a couple of 'hits' - assuming (which won't be the case) that this third-hand recollection of what exactly was said is correct. And leaving out all of the bits that were completely wrong, or completely generic, and all of the many 'readings' she had which meant nothing.

You could come to me for a 'reading' every day of your life. Sooner or later I'll say something that will be amazingly relevant to something that I couldn't possibly have known, or a future event. You'd have to be astonishingly unlucky to have that many 'readings' and not get a single 'ooh wow how weird' result in all those years.

This one is actually a joke, right?

I once had to attend a psychic night for work. The person performing was one of the better known acts in the UK, and was pretty big at the time.
It was really interesting, as a bystander with no skin in the game, to see how it worked. There were clearly "plants" in the audience; listening to people's conversations and sending messages backstage. This was pre social media, so I guess it's even easier now, but at the time it was a mix of overheard snippets, and very lucky guesses.
Eg/ "I've got a John coming through...for a Kate in the room? Might be a Kath? Oh! Kay!! Yes!"
"I see a dark place.." (this was coal mining country)
"I'm seeing red and white..." (oh come on, guessing United isn't very hard)

Etc etc. But at the end, people were leaving in tears, utterly convinced their loved ones had spoken to them. They wanted to believe and had been given enough tidbits to be convinced.

I definitely believe you can. Their faces go softer. If you’re someone who’s good with faces it’s quite apparent.

Sorry that was in relation to saying you can tell someone is pregnant!
Or they smell different?