Believe what a medium has said?

[wellhelloyou]

Has anyone had a reading from a psychic medium (or like) and had something exactly came true? Not something vague but something specific almost word for word?

I was at a show where the “psychic” picked someone in the audience, and talked about her late father (the subject was young - late teens/early twenties, so it was by no means likely or probable that her dad had died). He told the young woman her fathers name, nickname, his nickname for her, and his hobby. She confirmed the accuracy of all of these. The amazingly accurate psychic’s name? Derren Brown

Exactly. No psychic powers involved.

Did anyone see the programme where he got people in an advertising agency to draw an entrance to a "Pet Heaven". When it was done, he immediately got his drawing out of a sealed envelope, and it was pretty much identical. Same animals at the entrance, same gates, same signage above the gate.

They were all amazed, until he explained how he had actually got them to draw what he wanted them to draw, without them even realising. He didn't even have to talk to them beforehand.

There’s a story on the front page of the BBC news app about a thirteen year old who disappeared 50 years ago and no trace of her was ever found. It’s believed that she likely was abducted/murdered.

Even if we conceded that there is only a tiny minority of genuine psychics/mediums, it surely stands to reason that one of those would have been contacted by her, or any of the other cold case mystery people with regards to what happened to them? If they were genuine they wouldn’t even need to crow about it on the internet, because they would be sure that their contact was legit.

This is what could be termed real mediumship isn’t it? Rather than someone being able to win the lottery or whatever. And yet this has never happened ever.

Good grief. Even on here people are twisting what they've been told to make it fit.

Luton is not a London connection. Unless you're talking airports and then that would have been a hit with saying Gatwick, Stanstead, Heathrow or Biggin Bloody Hill. Or Croydon.

That's how people get manipulated into believing bollocks.

More than a century before the James Randi Foundation prize, keen debunker PT Barnum, in his book The Humbugs of the World, also offered a monetary prize ($500) to anyone who could prove their ability to communicate with the dead.

Like the Randi prize, it remained uncollected.

Luton is not a London connection.

I did notice that. It's way more of a retrofit than Dungannon becoming the Dungannon Road.

she charged a pack of cigarettes a person (so €8 or so each at the time) she told us stuff that no one could have known

Pure class, that 'psychic'. And everything you say she said, NC08, is very general and guessable. In a group of several women of childbearing age, the chances are that someone has had a miscarriage are very high. And if you didn't have an auntie whose name began with K, the chances are someone else in the group would have, or if not an aunt, then another female relative. And having a dead grandmother who'd had chilly feet when alive is pretty usual, as well -- it's not exactly unusual in elderly people. As are the vague generalisations about imperfect relationships and travel and family illness. Credulous people even remember 'predictions' about an illness preventing travel or that they aren't going to happy with their current partner, and let it stop them going abroad or prompt ending things with a current boyfriend, or thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Like the Randi prize, it remained uncollected.”

Didn’t Houdini do something similar?

On Derren Brown's "predictions", there's an fascinating piece here:

The interesting bit starts at 2.30, and though it's obviously all trickery I'd still love to know how it was done!!

There's one born every minute! Some people are just extremely gullible and suggestible. I was once introduced to someone, heard their accent and said, “hello, are you from Stoke?” and they were absolutely gobsmacked by my apparent intuition.

I’ve given this example before on MN:

Psychic: You’re not from Stoke, are you?
Punter: Yes
Psychic: Ah, I thought so (Punter thinks psychic is right!)

Psychic: You’re not from Stoke, are you?
Punter: No
Psychic: Ah, I thought not (Punter thinks psychic is right!)

Bertrand yes, it seems so:

www.thegreatharryhoudini.com/occult.html

Didn’t Houdini do something similar?

Yes, he did. His prize was in conjunction with the Scientific American. Also unclaimed!

Apparently his friend Arthur Conan Doyle fell out with him over it. Doyle was a keen spiritualist.

Ah, cross post with Puzzled

Oh yes-poor old Conor Doyle. He fell in with Spiritualists after his son was killed, I think.

He did, but how he ever believed in the Cottingley Fairies is harder to understand!

I think that was after his son was killed too, wasn’t it? He must have had a bit of a breakdown.......

A palmist told me when I was 20 that my future husband would die in his forties.

He didn't. But I worried for years about that and was unable to say anything to him!

Ok I'm approaching second marriage now but he's in his 50s already or maybe he was talking about a third...

It's not worth it in my experience.

@Connieston, what an unfair thing for that person to tell you. Despite not having many feelings either way about this stuff, I too would have had that concern in the back of my mind for years if someone told me my husband was going to die young.

In a way it was such a blessed relief when it didn't come to pass but it was a hell of a burden to put on me when I just wanted a bit of comfort in those wobbly first few years away from home!

My mum did it was something along the lines of someone will come in to your life driving a “x colour” van with reg “letter x” and then my brothers dad came in to her life in that van! So weird as she’s such a skeptic like me she’s had some wrong ones too!

I was told that i would meet my husband after he came back. He was helping his brother. And we wouldn't be "rich" but comfortable.

A few months later. I met my husband. He had just come back from helping hus brother set up a restaurant.

She got the comfortable part wrong. But unfortunately, the rich part right.

Sometimes i wonder if I dreamed it, but my good friend was with me.

Yesterday, we had to help clean out my mil's house. She HATED me. I was thinking uncharitable thoughts about her when i pulled our garage door closed when i entered it.

A large axe jarred loose from the wall, "flew" out from the wall and the blade landed on my leather slipper. With my foot in it. It moved 2xs its length from the wall.
Over a small appliance.

My husband heard/saw it as the axe came off the wall. He was across the garage at his work bench. Otherwise he wouldn't have believed it.
Sil thinks mil is up to tricks.
I'm burning sage and I'm considering calling an exorcist.

When I was 17 my mum and sister raved about a psychic they'd seen. They wanted to go back, and my mum insisted I went. I'd no interest, but she paid for me. I was doing A Levels and worked evenings in a supermarket. I made a point of keeping on my shopgirl uniform thinking she'd make generalisations.

She said I'd do well academically and that I would study in another city that was like my home city but not. Which was correct.

She said I wouldn't marry until later in life and the man I married was very likeable, and he would want to marry me for a long time before I agreed. Over 30 years later I'm still not married. My (likeable) partner would love us to get married but I'm not fussed.

The weirdest thing: she said 'Next year you're going to go to Canada.' I said, 'No, but I'm going to Florida next Easter.' She was adamant I was going to Canada and that someone would give me an address and it was important that I kept that address because it was my link with Canada. I had zero interest in Canada so shrugged it off.

I went to Florida and met a couple of guys from Montreal who stayed in the same motel. As I packed for the airport, one of them knocked on the door to say goodbye. He gave me his address on a piece of paper. I was preoccupied and threw it in my case. When I got home I wanted to contact him but couldn't find the piece of paper. It turned up a while later, so I wrote to him and that summer I went to Montreal. It was only a while after that I remembered what she'd said.

10 years later, my mum and I went back to see her and she was completely useless, so must have lost whatever superpowers she'd had.

I don't believe in it but I do have a true story about a reading I had years ago....
The lady described my then boyfriend very clearly (I gave nothing away I assure you - in fact I was really trying to catch her out) She told me someone he was very close to was going to die very soon and that I would have to convey the news to him. A few days later I got a call from his grandad in Spain telling me that his Nan had been secretly ill for a while had passed away. I had to tell my boyfriend.

She also told me one of my parents was going across water and that their marriage would end (ridiculous at the time) a few years later my dad went on holiday met another woman (they are now married)
Whilst I still think its all crap I didn't go and see this woman again as she only gave me bad news!
A friend saw her a while later though and she predicted her meeting her new husband through work and that he would have a foreign name and this also came true....spooky.....

I take it all with a pinch of salt.
However, I did go to one who said she connected with my grandad. My grandad used to say ‘pops back’ every time he came in the house as a greeting. A daft phrase and unusual. She said exactly that phrase, which shocked me. Still trying to figure out how she knew to be honest.

When my OH had separated from his then wife he was struggling to come to terms with it and in some turmoil. He saw a medium. Very unlike him, he’s pretty cynical and grounded.
But the woman told him it was going to be ok and that his marriage was not salvageable, but he was going to meet a woman very soon who would be his future. She described me and his then wife physically (we’re chalk and cheese), described my personality, told him the country I was born and told him the initial of my first name. We met two weeks later and have been together since.

She made a CD of the recording and I have listened to it. Those were the most accurate things on there - the rest was mostly waffle, but I sometimes wonder if it played a part in us being together. He was convinced when he met me that the medium had predicted me and that we were meant to be together. We’re really happy, don’t get me wrong, but still.

Sorry to disappoint BertrandRussell and Puzzledandpissedoff but psychics do help police and have a proven track record. This is a programme that was on not long ago.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_Detectives

Mediums got loads of business out of my Mum when she was grieving for her mother. The bastards.

www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/magazine/psychics-skeptics-facebook.html

This was illuminating. I knew that mediums use lots of observation tactics, like body language, but they also look up people on facebook and social media and target them at meetings.