...to think that clairvoyants/tarot readers etc are just a load of crap?!

[candyandyoga]

So, friend is having a tarot/clairvoyant night and asks if I want to come. When I was younger I used to really believe it all this but now, I am very cynical and think there are very very few genuine 'fortune tellers' out there - if any...

Aibu to think that this is all just a load of old shit or are there really people out there who can tell us our future?!

Anyone? :-s

As much as I'd love it to be true, it's a pile of old tosh.

I'd look on it as a harmless bit of fun if it didn't focus on drawing people at vulnerable times of their lives in.

Is there any reason in particular your friend is looking to be reassured about things?

I agree. I am amazed at how of my seemingly sane friends are taken in but this bollocks!

My friends mum is my neighbour and she tells me things to expect, which have come true, tells me things that have happened before I was born, that my family have told me years ago...
She comforts me.
It's helped me enormously through difficult periods of my life.
And she couldn't possible know the information she comes out with.
She's never asked me for a penny.
She does readings for people rarely.
She is a lovely friend.

Of course ynbu.

I hate the way that these people prey on the vulnerable and credulous. Taking their money and feeding them shit.

They are worse than homeopaths and other similar charlatans.

Cold reading and mentalists. Cunning people who stop at nothing to drain people of money, often the most vulnerable who have lost someone close recently.

At best they are a few comforting, encouraging or confidence building words the client wants to hear. a little pick me up that things will improve soon from an empathetic person who is good at reading people, similar to a friend who assures you that things will look up soon when you're feeling a bit down and negative, even though they can't possibly know.

At worst they are taking money from people to put harmful or sabotaging ideas in their head which might prevent them from really addressing their problems.

I had a reading when a close family member died. It comforted me - she was utterly spot on. To me, that's the point

I know I must have been read - but logically cannot fathom how she knew half of what she did (we are talking very personal, nowhere near facebook stuff)

Yep, load of old tosh.

James Randi, Derren Brown and others have debunked this kind of thing so many times, and so effectively and completely - and yet people still keep coming back for more.

I have no particular feelings in any direction, but I always wondered why psychic fairs had to advertise .

I would not waste my money/time with them tbh.? Though I have been to a few mediums who have talked about family members who have passed away and told me things that nobody else could know.

There are NO genuine psychics. It is all TOTAL crap.
At best, people claiming to be psychics are delusional and, at worst they are manipulative fraudsters who feed off vulnerable people.

Yeah, I agree with Wafflys more refined than mine post

If you get an easing from the pain you're in which nothing else could give, then that has to be good doesn't it? Regardless of why the person is giving the reading or whether there's anything in it.

Or if it's something you're doing on a wet afternoon for a bit of a laugh, that can't be too bad. (unless just the act of someone predicting something for you in such a situation makes it impossible for anyone not think/worry about it in the dead of night? Why would the person be there if they didn't think there was something in it?)

Study cold reading it's so interesting.

I think they get away with it because the people who go to see them are actively looking to believe what they say...so the job's half done before they've entered the room.

Though most will of course claim to be 'really sceptical'....that's a bog standard thing people tend to say, but generally they're as gullible as a 4yr old.

To the people that are saying that the "medium" told you things nobody could know. Some of them are very clever and are able to cold read very effectively. In summary, it works like this:

• They go down a particular line as long as you confirm / clarify their vague assertions.

• When they go too far wrong they return to the last confirmation point and try again.

• It is human nature, particularly when vulnerable, to concentrate on the hits and forget all the things that they got wrong.

My ex has a recording of a reading that she had and my children constantly point out all the mistakes that the "medium" makes, but she just ignores this and chooses to believe the hits.

I watched a couple of programs about remote viewing which is pretty interesting, but as with ghosts, alien contact etc, if it happens, where's the peer reviewed evidence?

(If I had to vote for one of them to be true it'd be alien contact, even though that'd be the one that'd shit me up the most )

It's complete bullshit, of course. Sometimes it can be harmless fun, and sometimes even helpful in that some of these con artists, while aware that they have no 'superpowers' because there is no such thing, are quite good at giving people general, sensible advice in a reassuring, sympathetic manner. But a lot of them are vultures who want to take as much money off the dim and vulnerable as they can.

If the benefits of the reading (the comfort, reassurance, grounding to the person receiving it at a distressing and frightening time of their life) were outweighed by the cost (of feeling let down when they realise it's bunkum, feeling hoodwinked by someone they thought was there to help, in seeing the reality of it, that life's shit) wouldn't that make it a bit more palatable?

There are always going to be cases where it tips the person over the edge, but whatever they did might have done that to them?

There was a very similar thread about this recently (not to say you can't have another one OP) and the general consensus was that it's not right to be taking money from the vulnerable.

Every one has the perfect right to believe it's a load of crap, of course.

What i don't understand is why some posters on here get so abusive towards those who aren't sure or maybe do actually believe. The 'aren't sure's' and 'do believers' aren't the ones exploiting anyone - they are the ones most likely to be exploited IMO.

I think it's disgusting, personally. Especially psychics, they make money by lying and telling people they can talk to their dead relatives. It's fundamentally sick as far as I am concerned.

Look at America, Sylvia Brown told Amanda Berry's mother that her daughter was dead, only for her to be found ten years later after her mother had given up hope. Sick, nasty people.

*Browne

Fluffy: I'm with you.

It's interesting that so many people have such closed minds and are so absolutely sure that it is rubbish and they are so correct.

So do all you sceptics not believe in an after life?

The older I get the more intolerant I am about psychics. There may be the odd positive experience some people have, even with some 'psychics'being fairly accurate, but I have heard too many distressing stories about awful experiences with them, as well as having some some reading myself into the techniques they use to have any time for them. I now have pretty much no tolerance with them and think they are, on the whole, charlatans taking advantage of vulnerable people.

FarBetterNow

If you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.

I go with the evidence, is there any evidence at all that these people are actually able to communicate with the dead? No. Is there any evidence that these people are deliberately deceiving vulnerable people through cold reading because they're greedy vultures? Yes.

You provide evidence that the former is true and I'll believe it, what's closed minded about that?