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 went to see a psychic stage show in London once about ten years ago because a friend had free tickets.

He said he was getting a “Mary”, who knew a Mary who had passed, she was waiting to come through. A woman in her 50s put up her hand and said Mary was her Nanny.

So off he went - grandad is there too, they’re smiling, grandad is wearing a flat cap, one of them has a walking stick - until the woman leapt up and said “oh no, I don’t mean grandmother, I mean she was my nanny. My parents employed her”

He didn’t even miss a beat, he just skimmed over this utter cock-up and carried on. I’ve found his name via some intense googling, it was Joe Power!

It’s all such nonsense, I feel bad for people who are hurting so much they believe it and hand over money

[quote Carrotsandbroccoli]@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?[/quote]
To demonstrate a psychic gift that makes people pay attention to me.

ESP is real, but people won't know that unless they've experienced it personally. I understand that completely. That was my view until I had my own evidence.

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

I didn’t ask you for your opinion? Do you mean when I posed the rhetorical question ‘How does that work?’ Sorry for any confusion- that wasn’t a direct question to you.

Are you going to keep on about me ‘insulting’ you? Don’t you think your tone was rather childish? Apologies if not. Are you always so easily offended on AIBU?!

@Carrotsandbroccoli

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

I didn’t ask you for your opinion? Do you mean when I posed the rhetorical question ‘How does that work?’ Sorry for any confusion- that wasn’t a direct question to you.

Are you going to keep on about me ‘insulting’ you? Don’t you think your tone was rather childish? Apologies if not. Are you always so easily offended on AIBU?!

No, I think it’s much more childish to hear a second-hand story from a third person and believe it to the point your back is up when people point out what a non-event it is.

To demonstrate a psychic gift that makes people pay attention to me.

See, that could be insulting- to the colleague in question, who I got to know much better after that, and who was hugely respected and has now sadly died.

But carry on with your character analysis of people you don’t know.

@Carrotsandbroccoli

To demonstrate a psychic gift that makes people pay attention to me.

See, that could be insulting- to the colleague in question, who I got to know much better after that, and who was hugely respected and has now sadly died.

But carry on with your character analysis of people you don’t know.

Why would it be insulting? What would her reasoning be otherwise?

No, I think it’s much more childish to hear a second-hand story from a third person and believe it to the point your back is up when people point out what a non-event it is.

This is interesting, and evidence to me of how unpleasant you are being.

Why is it so important to you that a person you never knew couldn’t tune into someone else’s life?

There are senses we don’t fully understand. I’m not even using the word psychic here because that seems to send people into a tailspin. But sometimes people can tell when someone is pregnant by looking at that person. They may not know themselves what cues they are picking up on. She herself speculated it might have been something about the way I was carrying myself. Who knows? She could do it but it was, and remains, unexplained

Is it really so hard for you to believe that some people can pick up in little minute clues that even they don’t understand? That there are things we communicate about ourselves that we are not even aware of? Not everything can be explained by the five senses.

[quote Carrotsandbroccoli]@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?[/quote]
I don’t, no, but there are people who do. (I’ve had someone confidently proclaim I was pregnant when I wasn’t, for instance.)

Why they do it, I don’t know — presumably it’s a relatively low-stakes way of claiming low-level psychic powers/ intuition/ garnering attention?

If the woman is actually pregnant, people remember your prediction and you get to look wise and claim special powers.

If the woman you’ve identified doesn’t announce a pregnancy, people will probably not remember your ‘prediction’, but there are all kinds of plausible reasons why you can say you were ‘right’ (the pregnancy ended in early miscarriage etc,) and the nature of the situation means no one is going to go interrogating the woman to verify your claim.

Why would it be insulting? What would her reasoning be otherwise?

You are kidding? How is it insulting to accuse someone of attention-seeking, especially when you don’t know that person?

What else could her reasoning be? Again, can you not conceive of a reason for sharing a quirky bit of information besides “look at me”? Some people are genuinely interested in people and stuff.

@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?

Bear with me here, but....

Could the colleague be able to smell pregnancy? Not being aware of course that's why they could detect a pregnancy but that's the indicator on a subconscious level.

We know that some medical conditions trigger a change in smell that that some dogs can accurately detect.

I think it's entirely possible that some people may have this ability. They don't notice a change in smell but there's a trigger on some level.

@Carrotsandbroccoli

No, I think it’s much more childish to hear a second-hand story from a third person and believe it to the point your back is up when people point out what a non-event it is.

This is interesting, and evidence to me of how unpleasant you are being.

Why is it so important to you that a person you never knew couldn’t tune into someone else’s life?

There are senses we don’t fully understand. I’m not even using the word psychic here because that seems to send people into a tailspin. But sometimes people can tell when someone is pregnant by looking at that person. They may not know themselves what cues they are picking up on. She herself speculated it might have been something about the way I was carrying myself. Who knows? She could do it but it was, and remains, unexplained

Is it really so hard for you to believe that some people can pick up in little minute clues that even they don’t understand? That there are things we communicate about ourselves that we are not even aware of? Not everything can be explained by the five senses.

You’re the one who started slinging insults.

I said upthread, I’d be an excellent psychic. I’m really good at reading people - I can pick up on clues in facial expressions, on body language, tone of voice.

It’s entirely possible I’d look at my colleague and subconsciously think ‘Sarah hasn’t finished her lunch’ or ‘Sarah looks a bit tired’ then use my existing knowledge of her - young, female - to confidently say ‘Sarah’s pregnant, I wonder if she knows’ to another colleague who, blinded by my incredible psychic ability, shares it with Sarah a few weeks later when Sarah shares the news that SURPRISE! She is pregnant.

Sarah then is also intrigued by my psychic ability so we have a conversation where I say: yes, I do this all the time (and I do - I always know when my husband is going to be ill, for example). And hooray! Years later Sarah, still wide-eyed with wonder, at my incredible gift, shares it on the internet as evidence that there are paranormal gifts, because she experienced it.

So no, I don’t believe that it’s impossible to make predictions. I do believe that it’s possible to explain it, because it is.

The random villager I'm still puzzling over...

@Carrotsandbroccoli

Why would it be insulting? What would her reasoning be otherwise?

You are kidding? How is it insulting to accuse someone of attention-seeking, especially when you don’t know that person?

What else could her reasoning be? Again, can you not conceive of a reason for sharing a quirky bit of information besides “look at me”? Some people are genuinely interested in people and stuff.

Can you conceive of another reason except attention seeking? Any at all?

A while ago my baby niece died, aged three days. Obviously a tragic thing to happen to anyone but her parents had spent six years trying to conceive and had given up hope. So she was their miracle baby - and then they lost her. Her name was Evie.

Her mum, who is one of the most sensible and practical people I know, went to some shitty “steak and a psychic” night at a local pub. She knew really it was bollocks but at the back of her mind there was the thought of her daughter coming through. The grief vampire doing the cold reading asked if anyone had a dead relative beginning with E or I (both incredibly popular initials at the moment), and a lady popped up straight away to say that she had had a sister called Emma.

My niece’s mum went home and cried all night, because what if it had been Evie, and could she have asked her if she was all right and did it hurt to switch the life support off.

The sheer rage I felt of understanding for the first time that these frauds are playing with people’s emotions in return for cash, is still with me. For every person they give a bit of vague comfort to (“your mum loves you and she says look at the piece of special jewellery of hers you kept”) they wreck the equilibrium of many other grieving people. It should be illegal.

And for all the people saying “he knew my husband’s name”, just think that unless your husband’s called Xerxes he probably has a guessable name. You’re literally doing the work to make it fit. Save your money next time and spend it on something that really would mean something to whoever you hoped would speak to you through a psychic.

@GrimDamnFanjo

Bear with me here, but....

Could the colleague be able to smell pregnancy? Not being aware of course that's why they could detect a pregnancy but that's the indicator on a subconscious level.

Could be something like that as far as I know? Am open to suggestions (just not suggestions that run counter to the situation as it happened and the characters of the people involved!)

@Pumperthepumper

Can you conceive of another reason except attention seeking? Any at all?

Are you actually asking me this, as in can I think of any reason for someone sharing a piece of information other than for attention-seeking?

Yes, I can. I believe I already stated it. Why, can you not? Are all your interactions based on attention-seeking?

@Pumperthepumper

Whilst I appreciate your lengthy answers, I really think you are barking up the wrong tree. I didn’t offer my example to be debunked by you. I’m confident enough in my own reading of people and situations to know that that stuck out as odd. You are quite off the mark with your attempted debunking, as I’ve said.

You expect random people on the internet to believe that you are outstanding at reading people and that you could easily do all the things people have mentioned. Maybe you could, maybe you couldn’t. Who knows? We can all only operate on the basis of our own interpretation of the world. Some people seem to be able to tune in on a slightly better frequency, and it’s not always explained by clunky, obvious things like ‘Sarah didn’t finish her lunch’ or ‘Sarah looks like shit, maybe she’s up the duff.’

Why is it so important to you that no one, ever tunes in to things in a different way?

I apologise for saying you sounded childish.

[quote Carrotsandbroccoli]@Pumperthepumper

Whilst I appreciate your lengthy answers, I really think you are barking up the wrong tree. I didn’t offer my example to be debunked by you. I’m confident enough in my own reading of people and situations to know that that stuck out as odd. You are quite off the mark with your attempted debunking, as I’ve said.

You expect random people on the internet to believe that you are outstanding at reading people and that you could easily do all the things people have mentioned. Maybe you could, maybe you couldn’t. Who knows? We can all only operate on the basis of our own interpretation of the world. Some people seem to be able to tune in on a slightly better frequency, and it’s not always explained by clunky, obvious things like ‘Sarah didn’t finish her lunch’ or ‘Sarah looks like shit, maybe she’s up the duff.’

Why is it so important to you that no one, ever tunes in to things in a different way?

I apologise for saying you sounded childish.[/quote]
Why is it so important to you that no one, ever tunes in to things in a different way?

It’s the exact opposite - people do tune into things in a different way. Where we differ is: I don’t think it’s paranormal, and you do.

But thanks for the apology.

[quote Carrotsandbroccoli]@Pumperthepumper

Can you conceive of another reason except attention seeking? Any at all?

Are you actually asking me this, as in can I think of any reason for someone sharing a piece of information other than for attention-seeking?

Yes, I can. I believe I already stated it. Why, can you not? Are all your interactions based on attention-seeking?[/quote]
Yes: I’m asking you, what other reason did she have for confidently asserting you were pregnant to another colleague? Why did she do that, if not attention-seeking?

It’s the exact opposite - people do tune into things in a different way. Where we differ is: I don’t think it’s paranormal, and you do.

It rather depends on your definition of paranormal, doesn’t it? What is it that you object to in my example? I’m not saying “God told her I was pregnant” or “My dead great-grandad told her” I’m just saying that she knew in some way that is outside the normal 5-senses type scenario; I didn’t know, I didn’t tell her, she didn’t think she could hear, smell, taste, touch or see my unborn child in any way. So, if she did indeed know, that’s, by a loose definition ‘paranormal’. This breaks down, of course, when we add in your belief that she was a liar and/or attention-seeker. But I myself am confident enough that she wasn’t.

To answer your other question, I think people share information and observations about stuff because humans are interested in the world and each other. It’s very bleak to suggest that any information-sharing is attention-seeking,

@Carrotsandbroccoli

It’s the exact opposite - people do tune into things in a different way. Where we differ is: I don’t think it’s paranormal, and you do.

It rather depends on your definition of paranormal, doesn’t it? What is it that you object to in my example? I’m not saying “God told her I was pregnant” or “My dead great-grandad told her” I’m just saying that she knew in some way that is outside the normal 5-senses type scenario; I didn’t know, I didn’t tell her, she didn’t think she could hear, smell, taste, touch or see my unborn child in any way. So, if she did indeed know, that’s, by a loose definition ‘paranormal’. This breaks down, of course, when we add in your belief that she was a liar and/or attention-seeker. But I myself am confident enough that she wasn’t.

To answer your other question, I think people share information and observations about stuff because humans are interested in the world and each other. It’s very bleak to suggest that any information-sharing is attention-seeking,

Paranormal in that it can’t be explained.

Sharing ‘I wonder if carrots is pregnant?’ is totally different to ‘carrots is pregnant, I wonder if she knows?’ She was centring herself in that conversation, not you.

Yes, paranormal in that it can’t be explained- or at least not with the tools we have and understand. It was based solely on her seeing me walk past her window. I know you want to explain it with other clues that you, with your powers as The Mentalist, would have spotted, but they were not involved. I barely knew her - she only knew my name because I was new and had been introduced in a meeting.

Yes, the two statements you’ve suggested are very different. Neither ‘centres’ the speaker as such any more than any other sentence. This sounds like clutching at straws.

Look, I don’t have a hypothesis here. I was interested in the poster who suggested the scent of pregnancy on a subconscious level. That’s hard here because I was outside and she was inside… But I’m interested in the idea of some sort of data that we emit that some people can pick up and most can’t. I find it interesting, and I’ll admit it does put my back up when people are so closed off about these things. It’s galling to hear someone state categorically things that they can’t possibly know for sure, especially when it involves calling other people liars.

@Carrotsandbroccoli

Yes, paranormal in that it can’t be explained- or at least not with the tools we have and understand. It was based solely on her seeing me walk past her window. I know you want to explain it with other clues that you, with your powers as The Mentalist, would have spotted, but they were not involved. I barely knew her - she only knew my name because I was new and had been introduced in a meeting.

Yes, the two statements you’ve suggested are very different. Neither ‘centres’ the speaker as such any more than any other sentence. This sounds like clutching at straws.

Look, I don’t have a hypothesis here. I was interested in the poster who suggested the scent of pregnancy on a subconscious level. That’s hard here because I was outside and she was inside… But I’m interested in the idea of some sort of data that we emit that some people can pick up and most can’t. I find it interesting, and I’ll admit it does put my back up when people are so closed off about these things. It’s galling to hear someone state categorically things that they can’t possibly know for sure, especially when it involves calling other people liars.

To me, it’s the opposite of being open-minded. You’re so desperate to believe in something woo you’ve absolutely closed your mind to logic.

It’s clutching at straws to pretend she was doing anything other than gossiping with a colleague about her psychic ability, and using you as a topic for that.

@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?!

But you didn’t see/hear it? You weren’t even there. Somebody told you later, after you’d told them you were pregnant.

Honestly if you’re a woman of a certain age in the workplace it’s my experience that people do speculate over whether you’re pregnant/trying, especially if you’re in a relationship.