Can the cynics explain this (mediums)

[Disturbia81]

I've always been sceptical of them and know there are a lot of charlatans.
But have heard stories from people over the years who wouldn't lie. But remained cynical

A friend and I went to a group one, there were about 150 people there. He spoke to 10.
We used fake names on the booking so no research could be done on us.
Didn't talk about anything while there.

Anyway he mentioned a surname that had come to him, it was her brothers so she put her hand up. Then he got all her family names, relationships between them, specific funny things said, how he died, even how he looked when he was found etc.
She was in shock but got so much comfort knowing her was with her still.

He couldn't have known any of this.
I want to believe but also want to see if anyone can logically explain it?

I do very strongly agree with this though. And some things science tells you it's explained, when you dig in, it really hasn't.

That's naive.

It may be fiction, but you Dougie watch the Mentalist.

I simply don’t believe that, if our loved ones were looking to send us reassuring messages from beyond the grave, they’d pick the route of ‘psychic medium with live show’ to do it.

Even if it were all true, it makes no sense that they wait til you buy a ticket to see some supposed psychic at your local
social club.

There IS science that explains how cold reading works.

Did you buy a drink at the bar?

My aunt thought me to read ordinary playing cards as a child in the same way some people read Tarot.

She did it in a time when people had to do ‘a turn’ at gatherings or parties. Like play an instrument or sing a song. To her it was a party trick. She never thought she had psychic abilities. She was very astute & was cold reading people without realising it.

I used read cards at parties for fun when young. I stopped as I got so fed up with it. People would tell me something, I reference it in the next
Breath & they’d tell me I was astonishing, how could I know that. Hint you just told me!!

people really, really want to believe so they hang onto tiny scraps of confirmation bias.

People are unreliable witnesses and memory is an odd thing. They can truly believe something happened and still be wrong.

A room full of people, many of whom will be in a vulnerable place leads to an increase in the likelihood of confirmation bias. They believe something happened because they want to believe it is true.

No real sceptic would attend a medium/clairvoyant event because they would not willingly give money to a con artist. So anyone going already has that element of "what if" in the back of their mind.

Cold reading has been proven. Derren Brown is a good example of someone showing you how it is done. That and the Barnum effect as others have already mentioned tell us that we know their are skilled con artists out there.

If someone could really communicate with the dead, they would already be making millions of pounds from their amazing, provable abilities. If you're saying the medium couldn't possibly have known any of what he was saying other than being told by a "spirit" then why the heck is he in some random function room and not all over the news/living on a private island somewhere?

I'm a massive cynic, big Derren Brown fan and understand how this stuff works BUT I still have a fascination with this stuff. I've been to 3 from pure curiosity; 2 were drop ins and hit nothing at all.

The 3rd was one I tagged along with after a cancellation. It was a spiritualist church and the lady has a 2 year waiting list. It was cash only. And she still hit nothing 🙄To be fair not nothing...she built on stuff I ended up giving her because it began to feel very awkward (it was 1hr one on one) but nothing of any comfort or help or new/specific to me. Even though I don't believe, I was still very disappointed.

I'm like Mulder...I want to believe!

And, having gone to the trouble of making contact from beyond the grave, they would probably tell their loved ones something they would genuinely want to hear, like “I know you miss me, but I had a good life and all my pain is over now”. Why would they send oblique messages like “I’m sorry about Gertrude’s teapot”, in the hope that the family member attending the show had been told as a child about how she accidentally broke the lid in 1953 and caused a major row?

It strikes me that sharing information “only Florence would know” would be entirely for the benefit of the medium trying to prove their worth, rather than the family member making contact.

It isn’t just that science can’t explain it, it’s that mediums and psychics and clairvoyants aren’t willing to let science attempt to try. Of the millions out there who claim these powers, virtually none have put themselves forward for the James Randi Prize. If I knew I could do something groundbreakingly valuable and useful, of immense importance to humanity, I’d be pretty willing to have my ability conclusively tested and accepted and harnessed, so that the world could use it for all kinds of amazing good. How brilliant would that be? Why don’t mediums/clairvoyants/spiritualists/psychics feel the same way?

She put her hand up. She identified herself to him.
He reeled off a bunch of info starting with a surname, about a specific family and hey presto, it related to your friend. So that was a good day at work for the medium. He went fishing and he got a bite.

What he didn't do was pick out a person at random and then tell them all about themselves.

But I’m not a con artist and I’ve told at least two people messages that were given to me. Each time I was at a group psychic meeting , we were asked to close our eyes, and just relax. I think we were supposed to be meditating but I’ve never got the hang of what you’re supposed to do.
First time it happened I knew who the message was for. I described what I’d “seen” with my eyes closed. I didn’t give the woman time to talk. I didn’t have my glasses on so couldn’t even see her face clearly across the room. I described a man she’d known, what he was wearing, his hair, where he died, how he died and the colour of the chair he collapsed into. I didn’t know his name just his initial. She said it was all correct.
Second time similar set up but much smaller group. I again described what I’d “ seen” and gave two names. A woman said all the information was accurate , her grandparents and their daughter.
I didn’t know any of the people, no one told me anything. It just happened 🤷‍♀️

ive also seen at least two people I thought were real live people who weren’t. One disappeared when I sneezed. The other I later found out had died many years before — too outing to describe accurately how I know that.

No idea how it works, I know nothing about cold reading and there was no back and forth chat between us.

Nobody ever comes back to communicate how furious they been after hearing you sharing anecdotes and laughing about their foibles with the family at Christmas. Or to tell their ex he was a fucking psycho and they hope he rots in hell when it’s his turn.

@ComtesseDeSpair absolutely! If they’re not prepared to prove it then why not?

@Disturbia81 was the medium you saw Grant Harris?

Skeptics will always be skeptical and will always exist. Because cold reading is clearly a thing and charlatans are clearly a thing.

But....

90% of the time I cant cold read for toffee, ask me to predict the lottery or other crap I haven't a clue.

But I have "known" when people have died and had a host of other very very strange experiences, some involving dead people some alive. Sometimes when i have no physical contact with them anymore. I cant make the weirdness happen, or predict when it does. I also get a sense of those who can do it (and those who can't).

I can tarot read and have been able to describe stuff for people that I haven't got a clue about.im not even paying attention to the person while im doing it because you sort of go inwards and it needs concentration. But it generally only tells me personally the crap stuff. No one wants to know something is going to go to shit before it happens, especially if seemingly its unavoidable. Can throw out a spread with the same cards in more or less the same position multiple times on the trot then when i lose concerntration and think about something else that will be when i get a completely different spread about that with different cards popping out. And as far is I've tried can only do it with one specific deck, other decks give me nada. (And the story of how that deck entered my possession is weird too). The more I do the tarot the more "oddities" in general life I'll experience. I don't touch the damn things anymore because I find it fucking weird and just a little unpleasant.

If you ask me how it works, I haven't a clue. I don't tell people in real life if I can avoid it because skeptics be skeptics, derran brown and all that. if you do read something correctly then they think you're weird or tricking them somehow. Or both.

On mumsnet they'll ask you to predict the lottery or explain why it cant be replicated under a laboratory. When it really doesnt work to command, if it worked like that I would be rich. I'm not

So I'm not convinced all the "charlatans" are charlatans, because i know I can do it and it happens more often the more I "practice". I'm just pretty sure there are connections between people we don't yet understand. Some people it feels like theyre the equivalent of shouting, other people don't work on that level at all (and often are skeptical as a result), with everything in between.

Cant say your experience isn't a charlatan OP. But I absolutely know there's stuff we can't yet explain too.

Or if they have experienced that they aren't telling you about it..... 🙄🤣

Knowing that someone has died or someone has got married isn't terribly useful to society.....

Nowadays it happens so rarely and I don't know how you'd record that it suddenly popped into your head that so and so is no longer here any more. we can bearly record and explain medically all the "normal" things the brain does. For example You can't even record an unpredictable seizure in a eeg unless it happens to happen whilst the electrodes are there. If you dont know how something is happening you can't develop the means to record it.

Exactly. Murder victims also don’t tend to come through to say, “It was my psycho ex; I know he said he was with his mom all night, but she’d say anything to defend him - just ask around and you’ll find out she was actually at the bingo”. Instead, you get someone’s old granny apologising for leaving the carriage clock to Hilda, or reminding you of the lovely holidays you had in Rhyl as a child. I wonder why?

I went to a Derren Brown show once and he called on me. I said absolutely nothing to him except my name because I was too shy, and he described my bedroom to me down to the finest detail.

The good ones are really really good OP. You don't need to say anything, they can read the tiniest fluctuations in your facial expressions and body language.

Still, very impressive and creepy, and the next time I went to see Derren I nearly hid under my fecking chair when he started looking for audience members to creep out.

I agree with you, the Bible calls trying to contact the dead necromancy and it is forbidden, for our own good. It teaches that we should not mess with the spirit world as we leave ourselves open to demonic activity. Demons can masquerade as our loved ones who mediums claim to reach.

Yes, I can explain. The Bible teaches us not to attempt to contact the dead as this leaves us wide open to demonic activity. These demons can then masquerade as our deceased loved ones. Before becoming a Christian, I did go to a few mediums and I had experiences that really mimicked close relatives who had died. The medium had no idea of who I was, my family history, no SM back then either.
I would never again go to a medium, I believe some are in contact with demons and can give accurate information while a lot are charlatans who happen to be good at cold reading.

But like everyone is saying ‘why would your nan talk to you through a medium to say remember when we went on holiday to Skegness’ why would a demon impersonate your nan to talk to you through medium to remind you of your holiday in Skegness?

I don't understand why you keep saying you're a skeptic or a cynic when you refuse to accept any explanations other than it's dead people passing some not very interesting information on to the living, via a man in a provincial theatre.