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 went to a medium many years ago. I went with a friend but I went in first. She only had my first name, no address or other details. There was a fair bit of waffle. Then she said "Who is X?" It was a friend who had recently died. She then said two more names - all unusual not John or Jane but I won't say here. They were the names of my dead friend's mother and husband. She spoke at length about the funeral including the colour of the flowers and an unexpected guest who had turned up. All about a year before this reading. No social media or smartphones at the time. I'm normally fairly sceptical about these things - common sense tells you it can't be a precise science. I cannot explain how she knew those details and I have never met anyone else who can explain it either.

For those saying "Why don't they predict the winning lottery numbers" my understanding is they can't see something that isn't related to the person who they are reading and can't drum up specific random details like a series of numbers on a lottery ticket. Another friend questioned a different medium about this and she explained it was like sitting at a bus stop hearing a lot of chatter from random people around you. You will pick out someone saying a name or other information and pass that on to the person you are reading. It's like being tuned in to a certain radio station. The name she gave to this friend was of a dead relative who had been bellowing his name out. The voices are dead people I assume, trying to get a message out, she is just the messenger. Therefore she can't guarantee that anyone will be there for you that day so some people get nothing. I have no idea how they do the "You will marry a man in red and have twins" thing. Maybe that part is bullshit, I don't know.

In answer to the James Randi challenge, this medium was an elderly lady in poor health. She had had a difficult life. I don't expect she had ever heard of Randi - he's not exactly a household name - and would have no interest in putting herself out there for potential humiliation and multiple accusations of fraud. As I understand it it's not a precise science and most of the mediums I have met just don't have the need to put themselves under such pressure because they don't care if people don't believe them as lots do.

I'm not here to defend mediums and psychics. Personally I'm still on the fence about it and there are definitely lots of frauds out there. But it is arrogance to suggest that it can't be possible. I have no explanation for how this woman announced three (unusual) names to me plus other details that she could not have prior knowledge of. I know of people with other inexplicable experiences too. I'm just saying - be open to the possibility that there could be something in it as we don't know everything, can't explain everything, the human brain is an amazing thing. I don't believe in ghosts but if I saw one, I would.

In most cases, it's an act. They are very very good, but it is a very clever, manipulative act.

EG, I went to a few about 25 years back (with several colleagues,) in a hall (with a few hundred in the audience,) and the medium shouted 'does anyone know a Dave or a Paul or a Steve?' Everyone knew a Dave or a Paul as these were incredibly common names. (These days it may be different, very popular names.) This is the kind of thing they do.

They also know virtually everyone (over 40) has had someone close to them die, most people over 30 will be married or in a LTR, and many people over that age will have kids. (And many under 25 won't have.) That sort of thing.

As some posters have said, they pick on certain things that are obvious.

I went to a medium once (1 to 1) when I was about 23, and as I didn't want children at the time, I asked her if I would ever have children. 'If you want to' she said. What kind of answer is that?!

So although I believe that some people have psychic tendencies, or are even somewhat psychic, (ordinary people who don't shout about it/put shows on and charge money for it,) I don't believe the majority of people who put on shows are psychic. A few of them may have 'something' and may be genuine, IYSWIM, but in most cases, it's all show.

I certainly would never poo-poo anything anyone said his happened to them though, and I do believe some 'incredible' things are possible, and I am quite ope-minded (believe there is extra-terrestrial life, and ghosts etc,) but a lot of it IS fake. (Still think some is true! and I have experienced/seen several things in my life that I cannot explain.)

It's utter bollocks

Given the vastness of the universe I don’t think there is anything unscientific about believing there may be intelligent life elsewhere. That is not in the same category as believing in ghosts or mediums.

According to a medium I was supposed to cheat on DH. Twenty years on I'm still waiting.

It's all rubbish.

My in laws have booked tickets for us to see a well known medium later this year, I'm a bit nervous about going because I don't believe in all that, but am going as they have tried to do a kind thing (they believe in it quite strongly and didn't think to ask if i did). I'm interested in what had been said about data mining in advance. Is there a way of protecting your public information so i don't get any nasty surprises? They obviously have my name and email address as I was sent a copy of the confirmation by email (although not my home address as my SIL booked the tickets using her address). I am a bit scared at being blindsided by someone saying stuff about DH that is accurate, but can only have been found by research, because I don't want to get upset in public. Any ideas?

And get no one can explain how a total stranger can know private details about your life in the way that many people here have detailed. Even if they are mind readers, that's an amazing skill in itself.

Dayswithay, as I said above, twice in fact, my friend claims a psychic knew stuff with amazing, incredible detail, stuff they couldn't have known etc. I was there. It was cold reading and she wants to believe. She does believe. But she is mis remembering. Just as you've read this thread and hooked onto the "amazing" stories and not read the fact I've already provided a perfectly reasonable explanation twice.

“I cannot explain how she knew those details and I have never met anyone else who can explain it either.”
You told her more than you think you did.
Your friend told her more than you or she think she did.
The funeral was in the local paper (you said the names were unusual)
She told you less than you think and you filled in the gaps.

And being open minded means being prepared to listen to new evidence when it appears. More very similar anecdotes that are all succeptible to rational explanation is not new evidence.

Thanks everyone for sharing your stories.

As I said, I went in first before my friend. The funeral took place a year before, in a different town. I'm not here to promote mediums, I know some people will never be swayed. But it happened to me, there is no explanation. There are lots and lots of frauds out there. It is possible that some people have psychic abilities. Just that, it is possible. It's very patronising to tell people they have remembered a personal experience wrongly.

Don't knock the subject until you have been to a spiritualist church service a few times and seen different mediums

As I said upthread, I used to believe in it all and used to go to spiritualist churches. Funnily enough, at a time when I was vulnerable and needed to believe in something 'more'.

So I:ve seen lots of these people in action and it really is, like a PP said, a case of 1) those that actually believe they have a gift and 2) those who are deliberately scamming.

I'm both cases, they're probably very observant, judge on age/gender/clothes/subtle cues etc and they're picking up on information. Why, in our modern times, has mediumship never been proven?

It's a faith, like any other. There's no scientific proof, no evidence. Like believing in god.

It's all complete bollocks. Psychics fall into one of two groups.

1. A small number of people who genuinely believe they are psychic. These people are deluded.

2. The vast majority who know it's bollocks. These people are at best frauds and at worst dangerous.

So coincidence, false and selective memory, confirmation bias, body language, magicians tricks and downright fraud are all dismissed as impossible. Despite the fact that they are always possible, and much more likely than unknown powers that cannot be tested or measured

But surely those things relate to events or people that are in the past.Predicting the future is much harder to fake. And maybe only 1 of the 3 events comes true. But isn’t that the case with even scientific predictions such as weather. It doesn’t mean meteorologists are charlatans.

“It's very patronising to tell people they have remembered a personal experience wrongly.”

It honestly isn’t. The human memory is rubbish! We all remember things wrongly all the time- and unconsciously adjust our memories to suit our preferences. As the neuroscientist Steven Novella says “When someone looks at me and earnestly says, "I know what I saw," I am fond of replying, "No you don't." You have a distorted and constructed memory of a distorted and constructed perception, both of which are subservient to whatever narrative your brain is operating under”

Yellow skin. Your I'll.
No wedding ring white mark, parting of the ways with your partner, you say died , divorced. She goes from there.
Your 60. Has someone you love died recently. Parents
Your 40. Same question grand parents....
Your 20.. oh you will find true love , babies.

New opportunities. Your leaving uni,. Of course your getting a job.
You look rich.. travel....
You look poor. Hard times things are going to improve...

I said in an earlier post how i was told i would have twin boys, and i did but 8 years later,i saw another lady who told me i was hoping to move,[i was] and that the person i was hoping to exchange with had a change of mind,and that i would get a letter soon, telling me,i did get a letter the day after, also told me that a man i was involved with who was younger than me was hoping to see me soon, but at the moment he couldnt,as he was away from me[true he was working away] but i would get a letter soon, [no mobile phones in those days] and i should marry a younger man as if not i would be left a widow,
Another lady,before that told me i would receive some flowers and that the person who sent them wore a uniform ,i did after meeting a penfriend who was in the army and had been in the Falklands,he visited me and sent the flowers after he got home
A lot of other things she could not possibly have known,i had never met her before,and made the appointment on the spur of the moment

I'm occasionally asked if I'm psychic, which I'm not because it doesn't exist. I am extremely intuitive and good at reading people and situations, nothing more.

This may be vaguely outing, but here it goes:

A couple of years ago, I gave someone a supposedly life-changing reading of a deck of poker cards of all things. My sitter was deeply impressed with what I could see in the cards - including that she was a lesbian, which she hadn't told me, and had recently gone through a tough break-up.

Here's the thing: I'm not even vaguely psychic. And I'm utterly convinced that deep, transcendental truths aren't to be found in poker cards of all things. I've a pretty bonkers family, many of whom are into mediums and clairvoyants, that's how I picked up the technique. I also most definitely never told that woman about her sexual orientation or her break-up. As I remember it, I uncovered a queen and some spades and said something along the lines of "there's a woman in your past who was and, in some ways, continues to be of great meaning to you" and something like "I see you've been hurt a great deal by another person".

It was NYE and all done for shits and giggles - until she believed me. I've been trying and failing to explain to the sitter, a friend of a friend, what I actually did and that she'd arguably be better off to take love advice from a coin toss than from a divorced management consultant with an unfortunate taste in men. Nothing helped, she believes me to this day.

I stopped doing "fun" readings after that haopened to me as I categorically don't think others should be listening to me of all people.

"I went to one in 2016. She was pretty accurate. Told me that is despise liars... that I knew someone was lying to me in my friendship group and that no amount of confronting would get the truth from them. (Very true) then she said I would have a change in job, including my hours. That I would be reluctant due to past experiences but that it would happen. 14 months ago I was approached to cover something said I would do it while they found someone else and then became that someone else. I did really want to say no but felt like I would let them down if I said no.

She also told me that someone with the initial J was ill. I rubbished it and she moved on. A few months later my father in law admitted he had had tests for cancer. Mine and dh's faces were like WTF and told him about the reading."

but these are all fairly vague. A lot of people change jobs, and know people who get ill. It's the old 'scar on the left knee' line. Many people have a scar on the left knee, and would still be impressed by the medium if it was actually the right knee. If you have no scar, the medium will then say knowingly "well one day you will!"

"And what do you know! 6 years later, I banged my knee on a doorframe!"

Okay, head above parapet time.

I am psychic. I don't really like the word, I prefer to call myself intuitive.

I very much believe it is a skill anybody can develop and is just one of the human senses.

I've got ZERO inclination to prove myself to somebody who actively doesn't want to believe me. I seize up at the thought of being paid for it (my baggage, I have no problem with people being paid for this) so trying to prove it for £1m, no way! I find my skill useful and so do some of my friends.

I can cold read a person from a photo or life. Animals too. My favourite story was reading from a photo of a horse that "there is a dog in the barrel." After confusing the person I was reading for and digging for more information (intuitively, not from the person) the dog was a jack russell terrier and the barrel was blue. Horrified realisation dawned on the human! Months before, in the depth of a snowy freezing winter, the human had found a jack russel terrier dead in the snow. They couldn't get off the farm to take it to be scanned for a chip, and didn't quite know what to do with the poor thing's body - the horse had seen her put the body in a blue plastic barrel with secure lid outside, to keep it safe and of course cool. When the roads had thawed enough she took the body to three local vets, who scanned it and disposed of the body. The horse hadn't seen her take the body out and had been wondering about the dog that she thought was still in the barrel.

I've never seen the horse, (apart from photos) the farm or the dog.

I don't know how I could have made up the above information or inferred it. The owner doesn't do social media, we don't share friends or contacts, and she hadn't told anybody about it because people could be a bit funny about you plonking a dead dog into a barrel, even if it makes logical sense!

I use tarot cards - I find them helpful to bring to the surface stuff I intuitively knew already. They bring my thoughts into focus.

Do I talk to dead people? Dunno. I don't go out of my way to! I don't know where my information comes from, and I don't find it helpful to start trying to pin that down. I know some of it is from reading a person or animal directly - body language, facial expression, tone of voice, etc. I've known three people were pregnant before they knew - and I'm open to the possibility that I picked up on pheromones/hormones and embodiment. I think there's more to a person to read than that, which I loosely call their energy (I don't like it as a term because I can't pin down what that is) - and I perceive information I get from that as colours, patterns, (what others might call auras), a voice in my head telling me something, or I see a picture of something. Is the voice a spirit? Don't know, don't feel I need to know. It's a way of me receiving information.

The tuning in to a radio station is a good analogy.

I've got no interest in stage acts, and the ones I've seen I've not been impressed with.

I've been to see psychics. Some I've been impressed with, others I haven't.

I am insured for my readings, even though I don't do it as work, either paid or unpaid (befuddled I could add it to another policy I have at no additional cost). My insurer requires me to tell everybody at the beginning of a reading that this is purely for entertainment only. I've met people who work as psychics who are offended by this requirement of their own policy - I just see it as a sensible precaution to avoid being sued. shrug

I personally find intuiting the future very hard. I don't believe anything is set in stone, and my understanding is that what might be the outcome of a path somebody is on, can change with free will, if they or somebody else changes action. What I believe is possible with psychic/intuitive skills is that you can gather or confirm more info about your current situation and your options, and make an informed choice.

• because not befuddled!

"According to a medium I was supposed to cheat on DH. Twenty years on I'm still waiting.
It's all rubbish."
I imagine that if a medium says that to half their customers, a significant amount will have it come true, ranging from yearning for the gardener, to leaving DH for another.