To ask if anyone has ever had an irrefutable experience with a psychic?

[BlueDressingGown]

I'm just going to be really honest and say that the reason I'm asking this is because I'm afraid of death. I really want to believe that there is something after death, and so in the past I've thought about speaking to a psychic. If they could tell me one thing - just one thing that couldn't be explained away - I could say to myself 'Ok, there is something else out there' and be content and not let the idea of 'the end' terrify me too much. Yes I should probably seek counseling.

So my question is - does anyone have an irrefutable experience with a psychic - something they were told that can't be explained away? Mostly the experiences seem to point towards it all being a load of hooey (which is what I believe, but I want to believe it's not). Psychics seem to give very general readings and most are frauds that pick up on things that the person has said and regurgitates them, right? My friend saw a psychic and apparently her dead father 'came through' and told her that she was having her garden done - and it was true! Like your dad would bother coming up from the spirit world to tell you some mundane crap from your own life that you already knew!

And frankly, you don't even need to say anything at a 'reading'. If you said nothing apart from hello and 'no thanks, I won't have a cup of tea', and then just sat in silence, a good cold reader could make lots of deductions about your accent, age, place of origin, level of education, social class, marital status, likely income etc etc, and tailor readings/'predictions' accordingly.

The one time I went to a 'psychic' at my sister's instigation was (not surprisingly) when I was at a very low ebb, temporarily disabled by an accident and living with my parents back in my home country, on benefits, scruffy, overweight because I couldn't exercise, and probably visibly unhappy. My reading was all about how I would get better, move in with my boyfriend, be financially ok, start a business and have a baby immediately, and that (I asked) I was finished with education and would never live abroad again.

Within a few months I won a major PhD scholarship to a prestigious UK university, have a professional career, and have never since lived in my home country but in several others. My partner and I didn't have a baby until 16 years after that reading, and neither of us has ever had a business. She was giving me what she thought was a happy future for someone she perceived as 'local', working-class and down on their luck, based on the visual cues I was giving off.

Interestingly, my very groomed, poised younger sister, who saw the same woman within a few weeks of my visit, got a very international, high-flying, glamorous 'prediction', based on her appearance and manner - she still lives in our home town and has been dogged with considerable financial and health problems, and works in a crucial, but very gritty, field.

And honestly, it depresses me every time someone claims they know someone a well-known Snopes hoax happened to. How credulous can you get?

Oh yes - the "Snopes hoax happened to me" thing. Irritating.

Interesting, the Derren Brown clip above.

At one point he tells JK to stop nodding and she's astounded - "I wasn't nodding!!"
Just goes to show how much we give away without being aware of it. I'm a proper sceptic (as opposed to those who say "I'm a sceptic but a psychic got a few things right about me and that must mean its a bit real") and I've absolutely no doubt that even if I tried really hard I'd struggle to give NOTHING away. We're conditioned to respond to people. We nod and shake our heads and we smile and frown without even knowing it. People like Derren Brown are genius at tuning in to those micro movements.

Absolutely- my post about my nephew and "pairs" applies.

A friend had a psychic over for readings however he eventually kicked me out because he "couldn't get by my wall of negativity!" i.e. I couldn't agree with anything he was saying and wasn't giving anything away.

maursieq thats the last stage of cold reading called the "blame game".

It's where the "psychic" tells the sitter it's their fault for not getting any good hits . The fact that he asked you to leave means you must have really pissed him off! Excellent work

What sits very uncomfortably with me is that there are definite fraudsters and deceptive people out there professing to be 'psychic' and taking money from people who are in complete turmoil and consumed with grief. How anyone can deceive people like that for financial gain is beyond me, but it happens.

it's hard to know what to do with fraudsters though, or even identify them. The problem is even on this thread there are people who believe in this, and a fraudster is giving them a product they want. We couldn't possibly ban psychics. So, I think it's a losing battle.

i personally class all woowoo in the same bin, but of course psychics are a little more out there. religious people make claims about the origins of the universe, something very difficult to gain knowledge about, but psychics actually say they are going to make predictions. that in theory is much easier to test, has been tested, and surprise surprise there aren't really any credible psychics.

burnt yep the cues we give away with our body language, dress accent, demeanor etc. reveal a lot and must narrow the field down hugely. I would imagine that just by looking at me any vaguely clued in person would be able to guess broadly what I do and infer what experiences I might have had and what I may aspire to in the future.

Given that I am mid 30, puny and am currently wearing glasses cords and a Cardigan then it is unlikely that I'm in training /aspire to be an all in wrestler or work on an oil rig.

But I bet based on the info I've given in this post anyone could give a 'reading' and some or indeed most of it would be accurate.

I find it extraordinary that people appear not to have watched Derren Brown ...

Totally agree - I also find it amazing that no-one has an answer for why James Randi's $1million remains unclaimed

Every time this comes up, somebody claims "they couldn't have known," ignoring the fact that apparently they did. So either the sitter read far more into the information than it merited - which happens constantly with those who want to believe - or it was found out some other way (cold reading, hot reading, accomplices in audience, microphones, internet, etc, etc)

Because something can't be explained at the time, that doesn't automatically make it inexplicable

When I was 20 my then fiance and I went to Whitby for a day. I visited a fortune telling booth near the harbour [being a daft young lass]. It was all the usual generic rubbish but at the end she wrote something on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope and told me to open it on my wedding day! I actually opened it on the wall, eating chips about 5 minutes later. This is what it said:
Married Thrice
Widowed Twice
Third time pays for all.
We had a bit of a giggle about it and eventually the paper vanished in the mists of time [50 years ago]. I never forgot it though. I am now married for the third time. Dh2 died when he was 43. Dh1 died but long after we had divorced and my marriage to Dh3 has indeed more than made up for any earlier sadness.
Dh3 is 79 this year and I guess I hope that dh1's premature death fulfils the 'widowed twice' prophecy. It isn't madly woo but sufficiently coincidental to merit some second thoughts....

I read a book called DMT the spirit molecule over ten years ago at uni.

It was a very interesting book and I think worth reading.

The Greylady, she told you to open that on your wedding day? A note that basically says the man you about to marry is going to die. That's cruel. Why not just tell you to open when you're xx age, would opening that in your wedding day to dh 1 upset you?
I'm glad that you are happy, but does worrying about something happen to dh3 because of her prophecy play on your mind sometimes, but you mostly brush it off? I kind of got that impression when you said you are hoping.

If she gave a note to you, it's possible she gave a similar note to others, people who believe and they would base life decisions on it. That's wrong in my opinion, but I'm not sure what can be done to stop it.

Getting an accurate, detailed, specific reading about things that could not be known from the publicly available information about you, I think is quite convincing.

I am a private investigator and on this thread people are talking about the lengths psychics will go to, to find out detailed information about you before you visit them (microphones, collaborators etc). But I can't see how that can be true. Actually infiltrating someone's life - finding the real details, not the Facebook or social media details - is an intricate, time-consuming, and sometimes costly process. It's something you would maybe do once or twice in your life if you really needed to (custody battle, divorce, wills and estates type thing, and even then, you might hire someone to help.) But you couldn't do it for every single tom, dick and harry client that you saw, especially if they were paying you anything below £100 for a reading. It would just not be worth it. You would be doing an entire 24 hours work before you even saw them.

OP I'd also like to add that big international security companies and also the intelligence services in the UK and USA actively recruit and keep mediums on retainer, meaning the Establishment are, at the very least, undecided about life after death.

"OP I'd also like to add that big international security companies and also the intelligence services in the UK and USA actively recruit and keep mediums on retainer,"
Would you like to tell us a bit more about this?

Oh, and you don't need loads of information about loads of people- a bit about one person so you make what looks like a fantastic hit- and Bob's your uncle. Or, more likely, someone with the initial B- or who had something to do with the initial B-'s your uncle.............

Actually infiltrating someone's life - finding the real details, not the Facebook or social media details - is an intricate, time-consuming, and sometimes costly process

I don't doubt it for a second, but as we've seen on here mediums often don't need to go to those lengths when folk forget that they've provided much of the information themselves ... even when they later deny having done so

The mind is a complex thing and often plays tricks which fraudsters know how to manipulate, as with my own friend who insisted that her dad had "appeared" at such an event. On closer questioning it turned out that a completely different sitter was told about a place my friend and her dad had once visited - incredibly, she interpreted this as proof positive that her dad was present

She wanted to believe it, you see - wanted it so much that the facts were altered to fit

Hak - I was there, there was no nodding or encouragement on behalf of my colleague. He was completely still and in shock - he was told stuff about his past that had been very traumatic and that made no sense to the rest of us until we asked him what it had meant. He was asked any questions, the spiritualist in the church (or whatever you want to call him) simply gave him the information. Once he told us it all made sense. There was no charge for this, it was in the days before the internet, and it had all happened to him in another part of the country. He was quite subdued after the reading and had no idea how this man knew these things.I am genuinely curious too.

"OP I'd also like to add that big international security companies and also the intelligence services in the UK and USA actively recruit and keep mediums on retainer,"

Aye right. And your source is?

I would show my arse in Burton's window if it is the case. Such a claim looks great for psychics though, as it can't be disproved (as its all hush hush and covert) and makes it look like those 'in the know' place some credence in their woo-woo claims.

I would put this on the same footing as psychics who claim to have 'helped the police solve cases' yet no one can point to a single case where the intervention of a psychic has led to a conviction or even generated a useful lead. When so called psychics boast of 'helping the police with investigations' I suspect they're lying or at best, have phoned up unsolicited with a 'clue' they've heard from 'the other side' and the Police have thanked them and filed it straight into the waste paper basket.

"OP I'd also like to add that big international security companies and also the intelligence services in the UK and USA actively recruit and keep mediums on retainer,"
Would you like to tell us a bit more about this?

Hakluyt, with your name, I think you'd know more about it!

I have done jobs for companies like your namesake and they have always asked if I consider myself to have psychic abilities as they use freelance psychics for their projects, to trace assets. I have always said no. I was also told by an ex-foreign office type that the intelligence service uses psychics too for the same reason.

I agree with you though, that a small amount of correct information from cold reading can cause someone to feel that everything else is right. I was more referring to the very detailed, complex, correct information that some people have received.

I had an experience that brought me great comfort and still does.

I can understand people not believing, I struggle with what I was told as it was accurate.

i saw 3 a few years ago when dh died

all told me things that they couldnt have known, namely how dh died - suicide and where and method - and special jewellery - flowers - and other things

it gave me peace that dh was at peace now

I am absolutely PMSL at the idea that the intelligence services use psychics.

Despite the fact that there has NEVER, EVER been any real proof that ANY person claiming to have psychic abilities can do what they claim.

Guess the "Intelligence" services are rather badly named then!

I am sorry about your husband's death blonde but giving someone comfort and being anyway accurate and truthful is wholly different.

If you tell a child that their beloved dog has 'gone to live on a farm' rather than 'he was given a lethal injection by the vet' may be comforting for the child, but doesn't reflect reality in any way.

Ihadroweqrpolyester- stared at any good goats recently?

If you really did work for the intelligence Services, you wouldn't be talking about it on here.

And if someone claiming to be a psychic rings the police, they have to listen because it could be someone with real information pretending. So that's why psychics can say the police take them seriously and they have "helped with enquiries".

Re: mums calling for help when they are already dead
It may be on snopes as an urban legend but it was a much reported part of a very recent American case where 4 police officers swear they heard a voice calling for help, and even responded to it, to find a mother who had been dead for hours and an unconscious baby this is just one of the reports:
www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/09/lily-groesbeck_n_6833564.html
I'm not sure what to make of it but I thought some of you were being unfair to a pp who mentioned this story but didn't recall the details.