Do you believe in psychics?

[EwwwwDavid]

I've been to a few psychics over the years and some things they've said have been weirdly accurate, some not so much.
I had a very tragic bereavement about 12 years ago and haven't seen one since but done things I was told almost predicted what would happen.
Does anyone have any similar stories?
Ps im very much atheist and not at all 'woo' but sometimes reflect on things that are weirdly accurate.

I distinctly remember being in Spain and hearing two psychics laughing in Spanish about how thick tourists were to believe it (they clearly didn't realise I could speak Spanish).

Not at all, although I would love a reading from Darren Brown just to see his cold reading skills.

I totally agree with people who are saying stage/fairground psychics are bullshit - obviously they are.

But I don’t feel the same about those odd, random things that people have experienced. There surely are sometimes moments of premonition that can’t be explained- there’ve been a few on here that the hard-line debunkers have just sort of swerved, eg the woman who pulled up in a random village only to have a local grasp her hands and tell her some spooky stuff, or the people who have a brief vision when someone dies. I have heard so many of these (never had one myself).

There does seem to be a sixth sense some people have. When I was first pregnant, a colleague knew before I did. She wasn’t close to me at all, I’d never really chatted to her, and I wasn’t even ttc. She spotted me walking past her window when I was at most 4 weeks pregnant and she said to colleague B “Oh carrots is pregnant- I wonder if she knows.” Later on, when I did know and had told people, colleague B revealed that conversation. How does that work? That’s the sort of little, trivial but unexplained moment that the debunkers aren’t that interested in because there’s no “you’re being exploited” angle perhaps?

Those with precognition etc could presumably channel & enhance (if ‘real’)? Has anyone won the lottery jackpot more than once? You could manifest the odd number, presumably (?)

@Carrotsandbroccoli

I totally agree with people who are saying stage/fairground psychics are bullshit - obviously they are.

But I don’t feel the same about those odd, random things that people have experienced. There surely are sometimes moments of premonition that can’t be explained- there’ve been a few on here that the hard-line debunkers have just sort of swerved, eg the woman who pulled up in a random village only to have a local grasp her hands and tell her some spooky stuff, or the people who have a brief vision when someone dies. I have heard so many of these (never had one myself).

There does seem to be a sixth sense some people have. When I was first pregnant, a colleague knew before I did. She wasn’t close to me at all, I’d never really chatted to her, and I wasn’t even ttc. She spotted me walking past her window when I was at most 4 weeks pregnant and she said to colleague B “Oh carrots is pregnant- I wonder if she knows.” Later on, when I did know and had told people, colleague B revealed that conversation. How does that work? That’s the sort of little, trivial but unexplained moment that the debunkers aren’t that interested in because there’s no “you’re being exploited” angle perhaps?

Some random stranger approaching you and saying ‘I have a message for you’ would lodge in your mind as something unusual enough for you to listen. If they then said ‘I have a message from Anne’ your brain would immediately start casting for Annes you knew, if they ‘Anne says watch out for Steve’ and you didn’t know a Steve, you’d be on high alert for a steve. If a few weeks later your new colleague Steve then got a promotion over you BOOM! you’ve had a psychic connection.

And the ‘spooky feeling and then someone died’ ones are just poor memories. You know someone isn’t well, you think of them, you find out they died, your brain things ‘oh, I was just thinking about them yesterday’ and you build yourself into that narrative. I’m not saying they’re lying - I’m saying they attach much, much more significance to that moment because they know something happened. But stuff like that happens all the time, we just ignore it when we don’t get the confirmation bias.

I don’t think it’s a lack of interest but the first hurdle you have to get over with these moments is that you are hearing a very subjective account of what happened, and people are very unreliable narrators.

A person will swear blind that thing A happened, or thing b was said, and then if you have actual documentary proof to show them it often looks quite different in important ways.

If you explain this to people though they often get very defensive, they think they’re being called a liar. That absolutely isn’t the case, they’re being called human. We all do it, our subjective experience of the world is not like a cctv or a tape recorder, our brains are busy interpreting, creating meaning, missing some bits of information, adding others. It’s just how we work.

So someone in good faith describes to you their recollection of an incident which sounds inexplicable, but you’re hearing a version that has gone through that whole subjective processing before it reaches you. In some cases it might be obvious what has happened, but not always. For that person though what they are telling you is the truth as they experienced it, and it is too confronting to think that that truth might not be what happened.

Unless you can examine it objectively it is a bit of a stalemate really. You have to ask, knowing all that we do about the world, what seems most likely - “magic” or the fallibility of the human mind.

@Carrotsandbroccoli

I totally agree with people who are saying stage/fairground psychics are bullshit - obviously they are.

But I don’t feel the same about those odd, random things that people have experienced. There surely are sometimes moments of premonition that can’t be explained- there’ve been a few on here that the hard-line debunkers have just sort of swerved, eg the woman who pulled up in a random village only to have a local grasp her hands and tell her some spooky stuff, or the people who have a brief vision when someone dies. I have heard so many of these (never had one myself).

There does seem to be a sixth sense some people have. When I was first pregnant, a colleague knew before I did. She wasn’t close to me at all, I’d never really chatted to her, and I wasn’t even ttc. She spotted me walking past her window when I was at most 4 weeks pregnant and she said to colleague B “Oh carrots is pregnant- I wonder if she knows.” Later on, when I did know and had told people, colleague B revealed that conversation. How does that work? That’s the sort of little, trivial but unexplained moment that the debunkers aren’t that interested in because there’s no “you’re being exploited” angle perhaps?

And the pregnancy thing - why would she say it like that? Why would she announce a pregnancy like a mystic?

Here’s what I think actually happened (since you asked!) - she actually said ‘I wonder if Carrots could be pregnant?’ and you were, but hadn’t told anyone, so it therefore becomes significant.

And if you hadn’t been pregnant, it would have been forgotten.

And she probably guessed you were pregnant because you would be female and a certain age. I could say this exact thing about four of my colleagues right now - one of them got married about a year ago, so it’s not a massive leap to assume she’d be pregnant. I don’t know her well but I could take a stab in the dark.

I’ve been to two- both quite a few years ago, and years apart. The second one freaked me out a bit as he named a specific road we would be moving to- which was a road we had actually discussed moving to and were still debating on. We didn’t move in the end, which has definitely been the right decision for us. But that did really spook me and my DH when I got home and told him that night. We still can’t work out how he named that road- I had never wrote of it on social media and hadn’t discussed it with friends either.

@SeafrontBingo

Those with precognition etc could presumably channel & enhance (if ‘real’)? Has anyone won the lottery jackpot more than once? You could manifest the odd number, presumably (?)

They could ‘presumably’ do this and that? Why? The instances I’m thinking of always seem to be entirely random and unprovoked. I don’t think there’s any reason to assume they could channel or manipulate these weird insights 🤷‍♀️

@FoxInABox

I’ve been to two- both quite a few years ago, and years apart. The second one freaked me out a bit as he named a specific road we would be moving to- which was a road we had actually discussed moving to and were still debating on. We didn’t move in the end, which has definitely been the right decision for us. But that did really spook me and my DH when I got home and told him that night. We still can’t work out how he named that road- I had never wrote of it on social media and hadn’t discussed it with friends either.

He knew there were houses for sale because of Zoopla and he guessed that due to your age (wedding ring? Reactions to other cold readings?) you’d be looking to move, and dropped it in. Again, it’s only significant because you knew about that street, if you didn’t, it would have been something else.

@Pumperthepumper

And the pregnancy thing - why would she say it like that? Why would she announce a pregnancy like a mystic?

Precisely because (as I found out later when we discussed it) it was a weird thing she’d realised she could sometimes do - as in, she’d known other people to be pregnant before they knew themselves. It wasn’t something that came up - most people in our large organisation didn’t know she could do it, it was just a weird little ‘quirk’; she didn’t make anything of it or exploit it!

I think a lot of the responses I’ve provoked boil down to “I don’t believe things happen as you said.” Which is fine. But many people do know that things happened precisely as they said. Most of us don’t go through life gasping at every coincidence- we’re aware of the phenomenon of coincidence and take most of them in our stride. The very fact that one or two little incidents stand out as unexplained/too weird is precisely what makes them odd. If they could be explained by “she must just have been speculating about whether or not you were pregnant” then we would dismiss them along with every other minor event that makes up our lives!

And she probably guessed you were pregnant because you would be female and a certain age. I could say this exact thing about four of my colleagues right now - one of them got married about a year ago, so it’s not a massive leap to assume she’d be pregnant. I don’t know her well but I could take a stab in the dark.

See, this isn’t how it happened. I know humans are terrible witnesses blah blah blah but I do flatter myself that my knowledge of this incident might outstrip yours! She declared as a fact that I was pregnant. No speculation. There was no reason for her to think this. I wasn’t married, not even in a proper long-term relationship. It was totally out of the blue.

I find it weird. I don’t find what most people say most of the time weird. But this was. I don’t really get why you’re so hell-bent on de-weirding it? No one is being exploited, so you don’t get to do the concern bit 🤷‍♀️

[quote Carrotsandbroccoli]@Pumperthepumper

And the pregnancy thing - why would she say it like that? Why would she announce a pregnancy like a mystic?

Precisely because (as I found out later when we discussed it) it was a weird thing she’d realised she could sometimes do - as in, she’d known other people to be pregnant before they knew themselves. It wasn’t something that came up - most people in our large organisation didn’t know she could do it, it was just a weird little ‘quirk’; she didn’t make anything of it or exploit it!

I think a lot of the responses I’ve provoked boil down to “I don’t believe things happen as you said.” Which is fine. But many people do know that things happened precisely as they said. Most of us don’t go through life gasping at every coincidence- we’re aware of the phenomenon of coincidence and take most of them in our stride. The very fact that one or two little incidents stand out as unexplained/too weird is precisely what makes them odd. If they could be explained by “she must just have been speculating about whether or not you were pregnant” then we would dismiss them along with every other minor event that makes up our lives![/quote]
So if I go into work tomorrow and say ‘Sarah’s pregnant, I wonder if she knows?’ and I’m correct, am I psychic?

Not ‘presumably’ re: channelling any apparent precognition, but some can apparently tap into subconscious mind, control lucid dreaming etc.

@Carrotsandbroccoli

And she probably guessed you were pregnant because you would be female and a certain age. I could say this exact thing about four of my colleagues right now - one of them got married about a year ago, so it’s not a massive leap to assume she’d be pregnant. I don’t know her well but I could take a stab in the dark.

See, this isn’t how it happened. I know humans are terrible witnesses blah blah blah but I do flatter myself that my knowledge of this incident might outstrip yours! She declared as a fact that I was pregnant. No speculation. There was no reason for her to think this. I wasn’t married, not even in a proper long-term relationship. It was totally out of the blue.

I find it weird. I don’t find what most people say most of the time weird. But this was. I don’t really get why you’re so hell-bent on de-weirding it? No one is being exploited, so you don’t get to do the concern bit 🤷‍♀️

She declared as a fact you were pregnant (so she was oddly confident, which in itself adds confirmation credence to it) and you were. That’s why it’s significant. If you weren’t, you would have laughed it off.

That’s the sort of little, trivial but unexplained moment that the debunkers aren’t that interested in because there’s no “you’re being exploited” angle perhaps?

I’m replying to you because you said this.

@Carrotsandbroccoli

And she probably guessed you were pregnant because you would be female and a certain age. I could say this exact thing about four of my colleagues right now - one of them got married about a year ago, so it’s not a massive leap to assume she’d be pregnant. I don’t know her well but I could take a stab in the dark.

See, this isn’t how it happened. I know humans are terrible witnesses blah blah blah but I do flatter myself that my knowledge of this incident might outstrip yours! She declared as a fact that I was pregnant. No speculation. There was no reason for her to think this. I wasn’t married, not even in a proper long-term relationship. It was totally out of the blue.

I find it weird. I don’t find what most people say most of the time weird. But this was. I don’t really get why you’re so hell-bent on de-weirding it? No one is being exploited, so you don’t get to do the concern bit 🤷‍♀️

Not to mention, she didn’t actually say it to you, she said it to someone else, who told you. So you’re actually hearing their wording of it, not hers.

[quote Carrotsandbroccoli]@Pumperthepumper

And the pregnancy thing - why would she say it like that? Why would she announce a pregnancy like a mystic?

Precisely because (as I found out later when we discussed it) it was a weird thing she’d realised she could sometimes do - as in, she’d known other people to be pregnant before they knew themselves. It wasn’t something that came up - most people in our large organisation didn’t know she could do it, it was just a weird little ‘quirk’; she didn’t make anything of it or exploit it!

I think a lot of the responses I’ve provoked boil down to “I don’t believe things happen as you said.” Which is fine. But many people do know that things happened precisely as they said. Most of us don’t go through life gasping at every coincidence- we’re aware of the phenomenon of coincidence and take most of them in our stride. The very fact that one or two little incidents stand out as unexplained/too weird is precisely what makes them odd. If they could be explained by “she must just have been speculating about whether or not you were pregnant” then we would dismiss them along with every other minor event that makes up our lives![/quote]
But you weren’t even there when this conversation was had, @Carrotsandbroccoli, so it was reported to you later on by Colleague B, as she remembered it, when it was being recalled in the context of you indeed being pregnant — ie. she only remembered because it was a correct guess, that a woman of childbearing age was pregnant.

How can I believe in people who tell lies about what they can do

Yes. I don’t believe every person who claims to be a psychic is actually one, but I believe they exist.

@SeafrontBingo

Not ‘presumably’ re: channelling any apparent precognition, but some can apparently tap into subconscious mind, control lucid dreaming etc.

Can they?! That’s not what I was describing.

@Pumperthepumper

So if I go into work tomorrow and say ‘Sarah’s pregnant, I wonder if she knows?’ and I’m correct, am I psychic?

Can you hear yourself? You sound so childish.

There are occasionally instances where people seem to be tuned into another person , instances that are not easily explained.

In my one single experience of this, it was weird. The woman in question was a highly educated, kind and honest woman. We discussed the incident, along with colleague B. There was no drama, no lying, no trickery. In your mind, as you didn’t know her, it sounds off. But it wasn’t.

There does come a point (in my opinion) when you have to believe in some people’s experiences of the world beyond your own. I doubt you agree.

[quote Carrotsandbroccoli]@Pumperthepumper

So if I go into work tomorrow and say ‘Sarah’s pregnant, I wonder if she knows?’ and I’m correct, am I psychic?

Can you hear yourself? You sound so childish.

There are occasionally instances where people seem to be tuned into another person , instances that are not easily explained.

In my one single experience of this, it was weird. The woman in question was a highly educated, kind and honest woman. We discussed the incident, along with colleague B. There was no drama, no lying, no trickery. In your mind, as you didn’t know her, it sounds off. But it wasn’t.

There does come a point (in my opinion) when you have to believe in some people’s experiences of the world beyond your own. I doubt you agree.[/quote]
Excuse me? Why are you insulting me?

She guessed you were pregnant - I’m assuming you weren’t an eighty year old man at the time, so being a female of childbearing age, it’s hardly a leap to say ‘Carrots is pregnant’ and be right.

It’s significant to you because you want it to be, that’s it.

Excuse me? Why are you insulting me?

Oh please! You don’t think it’s insulting to repeatedly tell people they didn’t hear/see what they thought they did? To imply that they are dim-witted and gullible? Enough with the wide-eyed innocence!

It’s significant to you because you want it to be, that’s it.

Why would it be important? I didn’t seek out her information?!

@Furzebush

ie. she only remembered because it was a correct guess, that a woman of childbearing age was pregnant.

Do you go round confidently stating that random people are pregnant? Really? Why would you?

@Carrotsandbroccoli

Excuse me? Why are you insulting me?

Oh please! You don’t think it’s insulting to repeatedly tell people they didn’t hear/see what they thought they did? To imply that they are dim-witted and gullible? Enough with the wide-eyed innocence!

It’s significant to you because you want it to be, that’s it.

Why would it be important? I didn’t seek out her information?!

You asked me for my opinion! And then you insult me when it doesn’t match up with what you want to believe?

You’re defensive because you know it’s a non-event. You want it to be evidence of psychic ability, and because it so obviously isn’t, you have to resort to insults.