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Original poster

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

484 replies

Believers · 14/12/2022 00:52

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?!

OP posts:
Catlitterqueen · 14/12/2022 11:13

I think there are a lot of charlatans out there but believe that some people have a gift.
I had a reading from a friend who told me that there would be a crisis but Martin and Sheila would be there and everything would turn out ok.
I don’t know anyone with those names so I dismissed it.
A week later and my elderly mum was rushed into hospital as an emergency. The names of the Paramedics were Martin & Sheila.
Coincidence? Perhaps, but to get both names right would be a pretty huge one!

LuluBlakey1 · 14/12/2022 11:13

Dotellhimpike · 14/12/2022 03:49

I've just finished reading Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel and this could be a scene from the book.

One of my favourite books- it's so dark and bleak, fascinating and funny.

SnowlayRoundabout · 14/12/2022 11:16

I fully expect we will have a scientific reason for it given enough time

There is a scientific reason - namely that people make these things up, and other people believe them for various reasons, mainly that they find it comforting. That's a perfectly respectable scientific reason on its own. If there is another one, how much time is going to be needed to find it? A lot of very clever and motivated people have been trying to find one for centuries, after all, and are no further forward.

HootyMcboob76 · 14/12/2022 11:17

I really want to believe in this but I have some problems with it.
Why do only some people get messages? Does that mean that the people who don't get messages didn't love the person enough, or that the deceased person didn't love them enough to reach out?
What about all the people praying for signs that their loved one is at peace and okay who never get a message?
Why are all the mediums so mysterious and vague? Why is the message often never specific? If the deceased can whisper to them "a name beginning with a C" why don't they just tell them their actual name?

I would do anything to be able to contact a close relative who died very young and suddenly and tragically last year, and if I received a message from them I would know they were at peace and happy, and I think it would make me susceptible to wanting to believe it was them.

I don't know, I'm not completely closed to the idea but it would have to be a lot more specific than "move on, I'm okay".

Original poster
Believers · 14/12/2022 11:17

Thank you so much for all the messages and stories, it's really interesting reading about all the different points of view. I've never given this sort of thing much thought before.

Two of the three people with me last night have been in touch this morning asking if I'm ok and asking wtf happened!

To reiterate - we weren't talking about dh beforehand, we were in a pub I've never been to before, no pub check in, I don't have social media, no preamble from the woman before she said what she said.

It does seem highly unlikely that, 6 years down the line, dh should randomly decide to contact me in the pub! Nevertheless, what happened happened 🤷‍♀️

OP posts:
username8888 · 14/12/2022 11:18

Sometimes odd things like this do happen. I saw an elderly woman who'd died weeks before, despite DH and son standing next to me and not seeing her at all. Totally odd and inexplicable but it's true. I still don't totally believe in ghosts or 'the other side' but take what she said as true and feel happy about it. You don't have to take anything further

Silvercatowner · 14/12/2022 11:19

If you are going to bring scientific examples into it, it would be more appropriate to wonder how a science so sophisticated that it can split the atom, produce wifi, produce cures for hundreds of hitherto incurable conditions, "see" into people's bodies, send people deep in to space ... has never found any basis for mediums' claimed powers, or communicating with the dead in any other way?

Perhaps we don't know as much about the universe as we think we do?

Fremdschämen · 14/12/2022 11:19

Chocolateandcherries · 14/12/2022 09:30

“Energy doesn't just stop - it has to transfer to something else, another form. We can't understand that yet - in our clumpy hard-copy bodies“

Yes, that’s right. Although there are some people here who are so closed-minded that they cannot comprehend it. I just have to yawn at them. It’s not difficult to accept that energy simply changes form. It’s still there.

Or there are people here who rightly demand scientific evidence.

Silvercatowner · 14/12/2022 11:19

Sorry - that was meant to be a quote there.

Unstuckduck · 14/12/2022 11:20

I think some are genuine.

My nana died young and we took in my uncle. My mam and her friend went to see a psychic a couple of years after this, they didn't mentioned anything in the waiting room. A message came through from my nana to thank my mam for looking after her brother.

My mam would've been late twenties at the time so most people's parents are still alive at this point and it was such a specific situation I just don't know how she could have known unless genuine. Was also late 90s so no social media etc and the psychic reading wasn't done in the local area so wouldn't have had a clue.

Notanotherone6 · 14/12/2022 11:21

There are only four explanations that I can think of.

She knows you somehow, but possibly you don't know her .

She's overheard a conversation of you talking about him.

You're making it up.

She's a bloody lucky guesser and should probably play the lottery.

EmmaAgain22 · 14/12/2022 11:24

Believers · 14/12/2022 11:17

Thank you so much for all the messages and stories, it's really interesting reading about all the different points of view. I've never given this sort of thing much thought before.

Two of the three people with me last night have been in touch this morning asking if I'm ok and asking wtf happened!

To reiterate - we weren't talking about dh beforehand, we were in a pub I've never been to before, no pub check in, I don't have social media, no preamble from the woman before she said what she said.

It does seem highly unlikely that, 6 years down the line, dh should randomly decide to contact me in the pub! Nevertheless, what happened happened 🤷‍♀️

Did you and your DH live in the area you were in?

people often know about others who might not know they exist.

Pismascrescents · 14/12/2022 11:30

Google Spiritualist churches. They aren’t in it for the money.

trailrunner85 · 14/12/2022 11:30

Funny, isn't it, how mediums always contact people who want to believe.

I've suffered a very traumatic bereavement, and if a medium approached me with a message in a pub I'd tell them, in no uncertain terms, to fuck right off with their nonsense.

skyeisthelimit · 14/12/2022 11:34

The day that my mum saw a medium, she told her that a family member would need an ambulance that evening but it would be OK.

That same evening, I had horrific chest pain and called an ambulance before calling my mum to come and sit with DD. I did not know what the medium had said until the following day. (Chest pain turned out to be gastric issues).

She was spot on with other things as well, naming family members and things that an outsider could not have known.

Palmfrond · 14/12/2022 11:35

I’ll tell you a story, it still makes the hair on my arms stand up: I was outside Sainsbury’s getting a trolly, when an elderly gentleman, I remember very clearly he was wearing grey slacks and a chunky cream coloured cardigan, went to grab the same trolly as me. As we both irritatedly tugged at the trolly, our eyes locked, and this is the part that gives me chills, he looked right into my soul and said “PAUL” in a rasping voice, while simultaneously farting very loudly.
Later that day I found out that my friend Paul had been injured in a camping stove explosion while caravaning in Wales. He was fine, just looked like Krusty the Clown for a few weeks.

pigsducksandchickens · 14/12/2022 11:38

Believe. I do. We cannot know everything- and poo-pooing something because you don't understand is naive.

I hope she gave you comfort.

ancientgran · 14/12/2022 11:44

trailrunner85 · 14/12/2022 11:30

Funny, isn't it, how mediums always contact people who want to believe.

I've suffered a very traumatic bereavement, and if a medium approached me with a message in a pub I'd tell them, in no uncertain terms, to fuck right off with their nonsense.

Presumably your loved ones know how you feel so probably wouldn't put a medium in such an awkward position.

That's if mediums do actually get messages but if they do it doesn't seem funny to me that you wouldn't get a message.

Fremdschämen · 14/12/2022 11:44

pigsducksandchickens:

"Believe. I do. We cannot know everything- and poo-pooing something because you don't understand is naive."

No, it is not "naive". In the absence of evidence it is rational.

Palmfrond · 14/12/2022 11:51

I hope when I’m a ghost I’ll be more proactive in helping people find buried treasure, get winning lottery tickets, finding missing things or even missing people, rather than merely providing spooky “huh??” moments for randos to inflict on my loved ones. But, tbf, maybe that’s simply not how the dead roll??

Beancounter1 · 14/12/2022 11:52

SnowlayRoundabout · 14/12/2022 11:12

What I find curious is just why so many people are so very, very firmly 'non-believers'. What emotional need is this position filling? If something isn't proven, surely the best approach is to have an open mind? I think the absolute sceptic stance comes from fear of the unknowable and/or total belief in the power of science.

Why does non-belief have to fill an emotional need? Do you believe there are pink elephants with purple spots floating around in the sky? If not, is that due to an emotional need, or because they aren't there?

It is obvious that there is an awful lot out there that is currently unknowable, as scientific advances have demonstrated. That doesn't mean it's scary, it means it's a fascinating world. But the point is that mediumship isn't an unknown, because these claims have been around so long. There's nothing to be fearful of in itself, and even if there was, mediums have been closely investigated for years and there has never yet been one who has been able to demonstrate that they have produced information they could not have gained from other sources. Claims that they can't be tested by normal scientific methods are a total cop-out; of course they can. When subjects swear blind that the medium couldn't have known or guessed XYZ, it has always been demonstrated that actually, they could.

It's pretty clear really that it is much more likely that it is continued belief despite the absence of any provable evidence that is filling an emotional need.

We choose our beliefs. All beliefs are chosen because it suits us to believe that. Mostly to fill an emotional need, but it could also be an intellectual need.

Nobody has suggested that there are pink elephants in the sky. To believe the elephants are there would be a sign of mental illness. On the other hand, millions of people do have tales to tell about psychic and spiritual phenomena, so who am I to decide they are all fools and liars? Much more rational to keep an open mind.

But the point is that mediumship isn't an unknown, because these claims have been around so long. That is a non-sequitur - just because the claims have been around for millennia, doesn't mean it wouldn't be scary to accept there could be some truth in them.

Claims that they can't be tested by normal scientific methods are a total cop-out; of course they can. This is an article of faith: that science can test everything and (eventually) know everything. I am saying science can't do this - there are some things for which science is useless.

It's pretty clear really that it is much more likely that it is continued belief despite the absence of any provable evidence that is filling an emotional need.
On the contrary, it is pretty clear that outright refusal to keep an open mind, despite whole books full of anecdotal evidence, is fullfilling an emotional need.

HellonHeels · 14/12/2022 11:53

DunkingMyDonuts · 14/12/2022 08:56

I recieved a message and a description of the deceased. They said he's not verbal but waving his hands around, making a lot of gestures. This was someone I knew, who was deaf and used sign language!

That is seriously bad luck, to STILL be deaf and nonverbal in the afterlife, and presumably for all eternity

What a horrible thing to say 😮

BloodAndFire · 14/12/2022 12:06

Ohyoubadkitten · 14/12/2022 08:05

I don't think I'm a believer - but there are some very convincing stories out there. And who knows? 200 years ago people would have wondered at electricity, wifi, aeroplanes. Are we that arrogant to believe that we now know everything about the universe?

I just wish my Dad (died 60 years ago when I was 6) would get in contact.

Wifi and aeroplanes didn't exist 200 years ago. They were invented by humans. They work within the physics of the material world.

EmmaAgain22 · 14/12/2022 12:06

Palmfrond · 14/12/2022 11:35

I’ll tell you a story, it still makes the hair on my arms stand up: I was outside Sainsbury’s getting a trolly, when an elderly gentleman, I remember very clearly he was wearing grey slacks and a chunky cream coloured cardigan, went to grab the same trolly as me. As we both irritatedly tugged at the trolly, our eyes locked, and this is the part that gives me chills, he looked right into my soul and said “PAUL” in a rasping voice, while simultaneously farting very loudly.
Later that day I found out that my friend Paul had been injured in a camping stove explosion while caravaning in Wales. He was fine, just looked like Krusty the Clown for a few weeks.

Are you sure he didn't say "pull"?

BloodAndFire · 14/12/2022 12:10

Notanotherone6 · 14/12/2022 11:21

There are only four explanations that I can think of.

She knows you somehow, but possibly you don't know her .

She's overheard a conversation of you talking about him.

You're making it up.

She's a bloody lucky guesser and should probably play the lottery.

Perfect summary. Thumbs up