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?

In some respects the deluded ‘mediums’ are more dangerous than the cynical frauds. At least the frauds are alert to the fact of what they’re doing and would be more likely to steer away from anything that might cause harm and therefore get them into trouble.

The deluded - i.e. all the others - are less likely to have that brake on their imagined ‘predictions’ and ‘messages’.

I’d like to see the whole practice outlawed TBH.

PLEASE somebody read the bit of book I linked to earlier!

I just did, and loved it; the manipulation came across loud and clear

Actually I'm going to read the whole thing; I've never bother with Dorothy L. Sayers before, but really enjoyed the writing style

Oh, you have a treat ahead of you, Puzzled. Gaudy Night is the best of them for me, as I'm a Harriet Vane rather than a Peter Wimsey fan. But Strong Poison is a good place to start.

Oh, puzzled-i’m so excited for you!

Yes-start with Strong Poison and go on to Gaudy Night. They are the best of them. Clouds of Witness is fun too. And Murder Must Advertise. I wouldn’t bother with Five Red Herrings unless you fall hopelessly for Peter and are desperate for a fix........

An ex friend of mine's mum passed away after a very short period having cancer. She saw a medium 18 months later who told her that her mum didn't like where her dad had moved the bench in their back garden (her dad had literally just moved it that week in order to cut down overhanging trees) he also said her mum said to thank her granddaughter for her acorns- my ex friend had visited her mums graveside in the weeks prior and her daughter had collected up some acorns & placed them on her mums grave- they were alone & the cemetery was empty on that day. He also said her mum was 'raising a glass' to toast my ex friends sister (her other daughter's) good news - she'd recently got engaged. That's pretty specific for someone who's a con artist don't you think.
I believe there are some people with a special gift like the person who my ex friend saw but agree a lot are fakes.

Okay, okay, you've convinced me about the books

Actually I volunteer in our local library - I'm here right now as it happens, but there's nothing doing which is why I'm on MN. The only Sayers book on the shelves is Whose Body? but it looks fairly short ... would this be a good one to start with?

(And if this isn't a derail I don't know what is!! )

OK so ghosts are all around us, and some people can communicate with dead. Well that's disappointing. I would have hoped people have more interesing things to do and messages to convey from afterlife than complain about benches..

I went to see a medium years ago, kept an open mind and almost left early. He asked me some questions and I couldn’t answer any of them positively. At one point the medium said if I couldn’t answer the next question positively he would have to call an end as he couldn’t read me. I said this was fine and then he did the strangest thing. Without saying anything he moved his arm into a distorted position in front of his body and held his distorted hand with his other hand.
My brother who had died about 4 years earlier had had numerous strokes and this was the position he was in every day. It totally blew me away. The reading was quite short but medium did use phrases my brother would have used and I can’t get over how he put his body into this strange position.

I dabble with the cards myself. They are strangely accurate, they don’t predict the future really, more they tell me what is going on currently and how to deal with any issues. I read them for friends as well and, again they just seem to say what is going on. I have no idea how they work and I appreciate many people will tell me it’s all rubbish. I never say anything negative, even if that’s what I have read as it isn’t a science and I don’t want people to worry.

I didn't believe in fortune tellers but went many years ago with to support a friend.

It was pretty shocking! She went straight in with "(name of ex) is really annoying you but you keep delaying finishing the relationship. You'll be off to (name of city) soon for your (course name) degree and the relationship will just finish naturally - so save yourself the angst of ending it now. true

She gave two options of husbands name, his occupation and how many children I'd have true

She went on and on and it was all true! She did mention that I would die an old age and some thing about working with a big metal bowl when I change careers later on. Not sure if they'll come true or not!

My Mum's friend can read Tarot cards. She doesn't do it for money. When I was a teenager, she told me I will have a boy, and after a long break, a girl. Two other people, one of them a medium, told me the same thing. My son is 15, daughter 5.

The same medium told me few years ago we will get a new flat, but not yet, towards the end of that year. It was March. We got great council flat 2 weeks later, so I thought she was wrong. We were only able to move in in November...

Yes twice. One was Gysey Rose Lee descendant who said we were looking at houses, but that it wasn't a normal looking one loads of stairs- we had just looked at a town house that day. Also, she said that we were thinking of buying a caravan, which was true. We were both in our early 30's and decided a more expensive house so never bought one.

That's pretty specific for someone who's a con artist don't you think.

Sadly, it's all part of cold reading technique.

We feel information is more specific than it actually is, that's how these people get away with it.

It's not a con unless they try and sell you the fact it's all real and not open to interpretation.
Just setting up myself as I too am sensitive, and a direct descendant of the Petulengro's and Gypsy Rose Lee.
By law mediums, clairvoyants, and the likes have to display the fact that it is for entertainment purposes only.
If they don't they can be prosecuted.

Sadly, it's all part of cold reading technique.

We feel information is more specific than it actually is, that's how these people get away with it

I can usually spot when I'm being 'cold read', and am careful not to divulge anything verbally, although I appreciate that body language cues are huge in cold reading.

But when someone from middle England who has no reason to suspect I have foreign grandparents says "I have your grandfather Karl-Heinz* here for you" it is quite specific, and it took me aback.

*not his real name, although it's not a common foreign name.

I'm not a believer in this kind of thing - if I was I could have said yes to your question for a number of years. I've never had a reading but I was approached by the heather seller in the street who told me that "I would never get back the love I had just lost but I would soon meet someone new". The background is this was a few weeks into my first term at uni my school boyfriend and I had ended up at unis 100s of miles apart and we had just decided to break up. Of course I meet someone else a few weeks later and we were together for the rest of my time at uni. Wow - she was right!

Except I was a sad slightly tearful looking teenage in late October/early November in a town with a big student population. She could have picked any sad looking student told them that and probably been right.

Except in my case she wasn't - Uni boyfriend and I slowly grew apart in our mid 20s, I moved back to my home town shortly after we split, went to an old friends wedding bumped into school (ex)boyfriend and Reader, I married him. I could have spent the 5 years I was with uni boyfriend telling people a fortune teller had predicted our love but I was smart enough to see that she was just trying to get me to part with some cash for a sprig of "lucky" heather (I didn't buy any).

a direct descendant of Gypsy Rose Lee.

Im a direct descendent of train driver, but i bet it doesn't mean I'd have the foggiest idea of what to do if you put me behinf the control of the 8:30 from Paddington to Bristol train.

Anyway wasn't Gypsy Rose Lee a stripper rather than a medium so unless you were lookinf for advive on nipple tassle twirling from the beyond, i can't see what help she'll be.

I don't believe in the ones you pay. But I believe that someone people can be shown things in their dreams, that will happen. I don't believe they can control what they get shown. My grandmother is one of these people. She never seeked any compensation, but only tells the good news not bad ones. The last 'dream' she was shown things happened last year when she was shown a family friend death a day before he died. She called everyone in the family to visit him and ask for his forgiveness. That is when we found out he had been admitted in the hospital but was feeling better. He had a bad infection. She even insisted my uncle took a day off from work to visit this freind. My uncle couldn't leave mid shift but spoke to him over the phone instead. She didn't tell anyone he was going to die but that we needed to ask his forgiveness. Weird right? What was weirder was when the death call came and grandmother came clean.

Funky

There were two I usually add the fortune teller, not the burlesque dancer.
I totally agree, my family have made an absolute fortune doing this, and I've battled with my conscious for 30 years, believing as others that it's a con.
Until recently I've stopped battling and come to terms with who I am and any gifts that have been passed down.
Lots of it is passed down through genes and nothing to do with being Romany, or anything else.
E.g I can see aura in people and colours in music, it's called Synesthesia I'm also Clairaudient too. Only 1/2000 people have this and it's hereditary. So this isn't because I'm Romany, but a member of my family passed it down.

It's all bullshit. There are no spirits to give insights. We are cells and electrical impulses and once we die we decay into nothing. There is no "soul" to live on.

Derren Brown did a Seance program, which I think will be quite eye-opening to a few of you.

@HarrysOwl - but how could he have possibly known that my ex friends DD had collected acorns on their last visit to the cemetery and placed them on the grave? They were ALONE and she'd never even told anyone about it not even her husband? That's not something you could read from a persons body language

Were you there, Hugo?

I thoroughly recommend the video at the end of the link below. It’s only 10 seconds long and is in French but with English subtitles. It says it all...

She called everyone in the family to visit him and ask for his forgiveness. [...] She didn't tell anyone he was going to die but that we needed to ask his forgiveness. Weird right?

What's weird is the forgiveness! What on earth were you all supposed to have done to this man that the entire family supposedly had to ask forgiveness for? Didn't even one person say they were busy and weren't going to cater to someone's daft whims?

Lots of it is passed down through genes and nothing to do with being Romany, or anything else. E.g I can see aura in people and colours in music, it's called Synesthesia I'm also Clairaudient too. Only 1/2000 people have this and it's hereditary. So this isn't because I'm Romany, but a member of my family passed it down.

Synesthaesia is a well-known phenomenon, with various neurological explanations and a definite genetic component, but clairaudience or clairvoyance has ever stood up to a well-conducted objective, repeatable test, and nor has the existence of auras. Saying you've 'inherited' clairaudience is like saying you've inherited an invisibility cloak.

how could he have possibly known that my ex friends DD had collected acorns on their last visit to the cemetery and placed them on the grave? They were ALONE and she'd never even told anyone about it not even her husband? That's not something you could read from a persons body language

It's just hearsay. You weren't either at the cemetery or the 'reading' -- you have no way of knowing what combination of mistakenness, wishful thinking, confirmation bias, exaggeration etc took place in the account of the events that was passed on to you, possibly entirely innocently.

I’d like to see the whole practice outlawed TBH

Ah, c’mon, it’s great entertainment when they make “accurate” “predictions”!
There’s no harm in giving such performances and even charging for them; it’s when it’s been sold as true, and/or preying on vulnerable bereaved people that such scam stars should be charged with deception or fraud.

It’s weird, though. As I said above, no one thinks magicians, doing seemingly impossible things, are really using magic. Why they should believe that mediums are? Bizarre.