Woo or not?

[babbityann]

Hello, I am new to Mumsnet. I would like to start a discussion on Clairvoyants, psychics, etc. Am I being AUBU to think that they are all charlatans just taking troubled people's money?

But don't lots of them charge for seeing someone you've specifically asked for or curing a specific problem.

If we're saying it can't be used at will that marks an awful lot of them as fake right off then?

But that's exactly how they market themselves Elton, people usually visit psychics went they are distressed and need answers. And in order to keep them coming back they provide answers. So why not the Madeline McC mystery??

If it is not a sence that can be 'controlled or tuned' how come you have to book an appointment to see most of them? (to give them time to research you, perhaps?)

I think the motivations behind being a professional psychic could easily be questionable Back. Although charging for your help in anyway can always be questioned, an ethical code is needed. I'm not sure paying for someone to use their psychic ability is helpful to anyone.

That's what I'm saying- they are charlatans.
However if there is anything to be discovered about super intuitive people that gift won't take the form
Of being available on demand.

I suppose their argument is, if they consider this their gift, they want to be able to focus on devoting time to using it. However they have living costs, so charge.

Ethically though, questions that also might be considered are:
Should we know the future, is it healthy for the emotional health?
Does being in touch with the dead help the grieving process?
How dangerous is it, as (if) mediums are 'possessed' for a time by spirits?'

The answers I have to these questions,alone, would deter me from paying a psychic.

Load of old shite. Any insights are reached through cold reading not through magic powers. Shameful exploitation of vulnerable people.

Well said South!!

> Quite possible some do have extra sensory perception though. I think some dogs can smell diseases, they have been shown to, haven't they?

I don't think you realise what the "extra" in "extra sensory" means. Smelling is plain old sensory perception.

Maybe some of them are dogs in disguise?
They can certainly smell vulnerability and money.

Twenty if you can smell disease I think that would be pretty special. My comment which you quoted was referring to how perceptions be pretty amazing in what can be picked up semi consciously / instinctively and as I said in an earlier post how they can vary hugely from person to person. Our environment holds all sorts of information, even plants are shown to communicate chemically with each other.

Different societies, growing up in different environments have been shown to have variations in perception, with eyesight, for example, people in societies who are used to living largely outside view some optical illusions differently, than people who grew up living largely in buildings. Some people can see sounds.

It would not surprise me at all that some people might have 'extra' sensory perception, in terms of varied perception. If they were be able to sense plant's chemical communication, mould or moss in buildings could hold all sorts of information, for example. Maybe stones can hold information of events, who knows for sure?

Although as I said earlier I do not wish to visit a good sychic myself and paying one would be problematic. There are undoubtedly charlatans out there too.

^psychic not good sychic. Typo.

capsium that makes no sense. Sorry.
dogs might well have been shown to have a sense of smell so sensitive as to be able to detect tumors, but that is no reason to suggest that anyone, human or otherwise, could possibly have clairvoyant powers.
That is like say thing that because I can see a rainbow in certain weather conditions there might be a pot of gold at the end of it.

twentythree9teen
Mine predicted my new boyfriend. Gave me a detailed description of his looks, time scale it would happen and in what circumstances. Also predicdicted the lack of marriage and step children. Predicdicted the sex of my child ( ok this is fifty fifty!) and described the sort of life we would have.
At this point nothing about my circumstances then match the lifestyle he went on to describe and I went on to have.
Also said I would live abroad. Not happened yet.

TheRealAmandaClarke

capsium that makes no sense

To you, maybe not. However people's perceptions can vary widely. How do you define clairvoyant? Is is not possible that someone could perceive phenomenon in the environment you and others cannot? This ability could easily be defined as clairvoyant:

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/clairvoyant?q=Clairvoyant+

No. It makes no sense.
That is not subjective.the suggestion that dogs have a good sense of smell (or that any other organism has any other known sense/perception) might indicate the presence of human psychic powers is simply not valid.

Of course people's perceptions vary.
But that does not mean that it is possible to see the future or talk to dead people.

This was a good read about cold reading.

TheRealAmandaClarke

That is not subjective.the suggestion that dogs have a good sense of smell (or that any other organism has any other known sense/perception) might indicate the presence of human psychic powers is simply not valid.

And your reasoning behind this assertion is?

Capsium, I watch/read a lot science-fiction and I love the idea, but really they'd need different organs to perceive different signals. We'd know about them by now.

They could have sharp normal senses, but that's it really.

Of course sometimes the senses we have are underestimated. We get lots of incoming information that we ignore consciously. You might think "someone's going to knock on my door" and then a moment later they do.

This seems supernatural, but a possible explanation would be that your brain was processing sounds and made an educated guess. It heard the sound of a car which wasn't recognised as belonging any neighbour and so on.

If I'm listening out for a parcel delivery I can tell a van from a car, but I can also tell a van that belongs to someone who doesn't live here. Because of the layout of the roads here strangers turn in and then slow right down while they think "where do I go from here?"

Then there's all the body language stuff. That can be practised, but we use it all the time unconsciously.

And in one way we all 'see into the future', to some extent, when we make plans, extrapolating cause and effect.

As for talking to dead people, I never claimed we could. All I am saying is that there is much we do not know about human sensory ability and it's potential.

Back I view what can be considered supernatural to be quite subjective. One interpretation of the OED definition is just something that cannot be explained (currently) by science.

www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/supernatural

I have wondered if psychic readings can be attributed to to telepathy instead. That is, these "psychics" are actually taking information from your mind instead of from spirits.

I have read some articles that suggested telepathy could be explained by quantum physics.

and your reasoning behind this assertion is?
Really?
Logic.
Ok. So it is true that my Christmas tree lights can be set to a flickering mode.
Therefore, my cat understands Mandarin.

See? Bollocks isn't it?
Unless you have no grasp of logic whatsoever.

Well I see what you mean, but I think the OED means forever beyond scientific understanding. That is usually how people use the word.