...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?!

[AliceA2021]

Just wondered @candyandyoga did anything said to you come true?

A school mum 'trained' as a psychic about 2 years ago and makes a really good living charging for reading sessions of 30 mins. Gets her information from Facebook when they book. Not dumb, unlike the clients.

[ParadiseChick]

The only experience I've had is in a spiritualist church. It meets weekly, has visiting mediums plus resident ones, it's free, anyone can walk in, you don't book or mill about before hand. The medium stands at the front then picks people from the crowd (I say crowd but your talkin 30 people really) and passes on messages.

I had one which was a message from my grandad, before I 'claimed' it the medium described him, the three sons right down to the motorbikes my dad keeps which was odd. He wanted to tell my dad to slow down. My dad had just suffered a small stroke and was back at work doing on call and weekends as if nothing had happened.

[headinhands]

Squoosh, what about the dreams you have has that didn't come true? It's forgetting the misses and concentrating on the hits which is how cold reading works.

[ItsOkayItsJustMyBreath]

squoosh I have had 3 dreams about women I know being pregnant and they have turned out to be true but then I am 35 and have had thousands of dreams that haven't been true. Coincidences sometimes make us feel uncomfortable and I am sorry for your loss.

[seeker]

Coincidences happen all the time. We don't notice them unless they are significant. It's like the thinking about someone and they ring us thing. You don't actually remember the 100 times you think about the person and they don't ring.

[squoosh]

All I know is that I've had a couple of experiences in my life where I've predicted events, for example I had a dream that healthy young relative was going to die. A week later they died.

I don't take pride in this fact, I didn't enjoy the experience and I didn't discuss it with anyone but it turned out to be exactly as I dreamed it.

How did this happen? Maybe it was just coincidence, it certainly didn't make me want to set up a stall and ask people to cross my hand with silver.

[BOF]

I guess that some clairvoyants can land on something plausible. It doesn't prove anything though.

[CalamityKate]

It's all just so transparently ludicrous. How come the dead can't answer a straight question?

Medium: " Your dad says you've just been decorating. Clear as day he said that. 'she's decorating at last' he says"
Punter: "ooh yes! Can you ask him where he put the insurance policy?"
Medium: "Hes showing me a drawer. Or a bookcase. Or it could be a filing cabinet somewhere. Ooh he's fading out...he's waving...he says he loves you...he's gone"

[YouMakeMeWannaLaLa]

Yes SGB that's the kind of physical explanation that I was looking for that may make sense; thoughts being transmitted as waves.

But then that leads you to believe that they'd be transmitted to those in the vicinity, or those on their frequency.

So it doesn't explain how 'psychics' can pick up messages from the dead relatives of those sitting in front of them or how anyone can tell the future.

But it could, possibly, be the basis of an experiment into people 'knowing' past recent events or 'mind reading. Maybe

[CalamityKate]

YouMakeMeWannaLaLa

YYY to the steam on the mirror! I've said similar before. Random white feathers...moving objects...why not just pick up a pen, right in front of someone and write a note?

If "spirit" are so keen to prove their existence surely rather than do stuff that - amazingly - could be put down to other causes then wouldn't picking up a pen and filling in a crossword in front of a few people remove doubt and silence all us "closed minded" lot?

[SolidGoldBrass]

I'm just about prepared to accept, in a very limited way, the idea of mind-reading in certain circumstances. But this is a natural phenomenon, not a supernatural one - it's just about possible that the electrical activity in the human brain can occasionally kind of transmit on a frequency that another brain can recieve (after all, radio waves and frequencies existed before they were discovered). It's just about on the edges of possibility that someone in a crisis situation might involuntarily sort of amplify their brainwaves to the extent that they could communicate with someone else some distance away. But this has nothing to do with talking to the dead or predicting the future. So it's just about on the edge of possibility that a person might 'know' when someone s/he loves is dying.
And it's just about possible that some individuals might be better at 'recieving' such signals than others, if you think of it as a spotty, imperfect, evolutionary quirk (because it's not all that useful) such as having perfect pitch or an unusually accurate and detail-retaining memory.
So maybe a 'psychic' who is sincere rather than a practiced con artist could have a moderately high rate of right answers, but mostly the ones who genuinely believe in the bullshit they peddle are lamentably inaccurate. So it's probably a load of old willy.

[ravenAK]

I like that too, sgb.

[YouMakeMeWannaLaLa]

Thanks Bumpotato

Horrible thought, isn't it. She chooses to find it comforting, but if at any point she analyses it further it has to cause more upset i.e. why does the baby do that rather than come to her or why does the psychic know more about her darling baby than her?

I couldn't sleep at night giving out false comfort like that.

[Bumpotato]

Must be a living nightmare for your friend. Why would your friend DS prefer to play in the dark? It just highlights the ridiculousness of some of the shite they spout.

Good post.

[YouMakeMeWannaLaLa]

I'm interested to hear anyone explain the physics of ghosts, psychics, religion etc.

For example, why do people report seeing ghosts in period costume or in their favourite dress etc. Even if a person could be a ghost, how are they 'wearing' clothes that are actually in a museum or have been burned or are in a charity shop etc. And if I were to see my dead grandad, would he have short,grey hair, or the long, black hair of his youth? Would he be frail and wasted, as he was when he died or would he be a strapping 20-something? It makes NO sense. A time 'slip' where you see an entire scene etc. makes more sense but I'm yet to see any proof of that.

Night terrors, sleep paralysis, dreams, auditory and visual hallucinations are very, very common yet people seem so quick to jump to a paranormal solution.

As for psychics...if they are for real, the physiology of their body must be different to everyone elses, for how else could they see/hear/feel spirits. If their physiology isn't different (it isn't, btw), then why don't our loved ones come directly to us? And how do they communicate? Sound (speech) and light (vision) require energy...tell me how it is physically possible, or at least have a guess because I'm stumped. If a spirit/ghost can summon up the energy to give a vague message to a third party like 'my granddaughter hung up a photo today', or collect and randomly drop a white feather, why can't they write a few comforting words in the steam of the mirror when I've had a shower?

My darling friend lost her 4 month old ds and has been to psychics. One told her to listen out for a noise in her hose after dark because it's her ds playing with his toys. I just smiled and made comforting noises when she relayed this 'truth' to me but please tell me how a 4 month old, who couldn't even sit up, let alone navigate could find his way to his mum's new house to sit in the corner in the dark, playing?

If you are after comfort and reassurance, go to a counsellor, who will listen and pay attention, like a psychic but will not feed you bullshit (well, some do...choose wisely ) and talk to your friends and family. I understand why people use them but ultimately, it's a hollow comfort, chucking you scraps and platitudes.

[Bumpotato]

One my FB pals raves about a "psychic". Everyone who goes gets a great reading.

Funnily enough he takes his bookings through Facebook.

[myfriendflicka]

hi,

Just to add another dimension I just wanted to post about going to see a psychic after my DH died. Looking back I am not sure why I did, it may just have been part of the grieving process.

I drove all the way to Southampton, parted with 20 pounds and saw a very unpleasant woman. I felt as if I didn't really want to be in the room with her.

Stuff she said brought my DH to life but I was thinking of him all the time anyway.

Shortly after that I had a dream that he appeared in the bedroom and I went over to give him a hug and said something about how he should be pleased that i had missed him so much. He didn't say anything but somehow I knew he was thinking: "I'm dead - I can't be pleased, or feel anything or be anything any more."

The dream upset me enormously but I know it was part of me trying to come to terms with the fact he was dead and wasn't ever coming back. Going to see the psychic was possibly part of that coming to terms.

I think it is very harmful if you stay in that phase and keep going to see psychics. My closest friend was angry with me for going, but I have no desire whatsoever to do it again.

[Bumpotato]

I know but it is entertaining, I think, and interesting.

[candyandyoga]

But Derrin brown just reads you?!

[Bumpotato]

Even though I'd know it was tosh, I'd still enjoy a reading from someone who was good at it, for example, Derren Brown.

[candyandyoga]

Op here. Flobadobs, I completely respect where you are coming from and agree there are genuine people but very very few I reckon. Isn't there a theory that anyone could see into the future? Isn't it right that there is no time?

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself...

But I think that the general consensus here that most so called fortune tellers are bogus is spot on.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Well, Doris Stokes used to read the obituary notices in the local papers before every show... She also had 'helpers' chatting to the audience as they were queueing to get in. That's one way of getting a good reading. Another thing a lot of these con artists do is make you wait for an appointment so they can do some digging. If you are one of these poor sad deluded sods who consults woo-peddler after woo-peddler, quite a few of them will have been sharing the information with each other...

As to comforting the bereaved, a mate of mine posted a piece on Facebook the other week, which is utterly wonderful and if I ever have to do a funeral again I'm going to steal and paraphrase it (because it's addressed to a heterosexual adult man so needs adapting for anyone else) - it's basically a truthful comfort for the bereaved, to the extent that those we have lost are essentially still with us because energy cannot be created or destroyed.



^The warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.^

[CalamityKate]

It isn't being closed minded to say that there has never been proof. It's stating fact.

[carlywurly]

I've got a cd recording from a reader from a couple of years ago who was incredibly accurate, and was very specific.

I've also got a good friend who reads tarot, for free, and regularly tells me things she cannot possibly have known from me.

I also once went to a psychic show where the bloke referred to my grandma by her full (unusual) name, both first and surname and relayed a true story about her. That was bizarre.

So I'm a lot more open minded than the majority on this thread to the possibility of some people being genuine, but do also agree there are an awful lot of frauds about.