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.

[quote Pumperthepumper]@EarlyModernEnglish and even if you do want to believe in a paranormal connection, why would the ghost start giving cryptic information out? Why not say ‘my name is Sarah Green, my address is 123 Fake Street and my date of birth is 13.07.73’?[/quote]
Well, I don’t know. I mean, if there were some weird and wonderful world of stuff that we don’t yet understand, why would it conform to our expectations?

Not saying I believe it was one thing or another- just that sometimes I find the sceptics’ approach equally baffling. Like all the ‘why didn’t she tell me the lottery numbers, huh?’ sort of thing! Very narrow and very revealing too.

@EarlyModernEnglish but you still can’t think of a more rational explanation?

I’d argue is more narrow-minded to ignore the logic of these situations because it’s not what you want to believe.

It's utter bunkum and I find it ridiculous that people in 2021 still 'believe' in these things.

I actually find it quite abhorrent, especially those charlatans that take money from grieving people and pretend to be in touch with their loved ones.

It's fraud, pure and simple.

... sometimes I find the sceptics’ approach equally baffling

Maybe that depends what they're sceptical about?

I'm the first to accept that there's so much we don't know and can't always explain, but I feel pretty safe in saying that whatever "powers" may be out there are unlikely to switch on just because some random's paid for a ticket/sitting/whatever

Personally I’m looking forward to an afterlife of tapping on furniture and cryptically referring to myself by my first initial.

@Voord

Personally I’m looking forward to an afterlife of tapping on furniture and cryptically referring to myself by my first initial.

Personally, I'm going to spend my time moving small household objects and then putting them back somewhere conspicuous, and coming through to stage mediums with vague mutterings about someone with the initial 'M', or it might be 'N', who may or may not have died because of something related to his or her chest, and once we've established that someone in the audience had a great-auntie Nellie who only had one lung, I'm going to make cryptic remarks about long-dead pets' initials, and the earring Maureen lost in 1957 being down behind the fridge.

I’m going to preempt by giving my loved ones a series of embarrassing nicknames so when a psychic asks ‘is there a fucknuts here?’ they’ll have to stand up 😂

@Voord

Personally I’m looking forward to an afterlife of tapping on furniture and cryptically referring to myself by my first initial.

I’ll be dropping feathers and appearing as a mystical white “orb” in badly developed photographs, personally.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

... sometimes I find the sceptics’ approach equally baffling

Maybe that depends what they're sceptical about?

I'm the first to accept that there's so much we don't know and can't always explain, but I feel pretty safe in saying that whatever "powers" may be out there are unlikely to switch on just because some random's paid for a ticket/sitting/whatever

Well, yes indeed - but if you look at my posts you’ll see I was talking about something quite different, namely the strange, unprovoked experience one pp had and another pp’s bizarre explanation of it.

[quote Pumperthepumper]@EarlyModernEnglish but you still can’t think of a more rational explanation?

I’d argue is more narrow-minded to ignore the logic of these situations because it’s not what you want to believe.[/quote]
Is that the definition of narrow-minded? Rejecting a slightly bizarre but quite specific theory (that the random woman spontaneously guessed that pp had lost a specific family member in a specific way just by looking at her) and saying that, instead, there must be a better explanation?

I’m not sure.

@EarlyModernEnglish well yes, when you can’t think of a single other (better!) explanation!

But what’s wrong with just saying it’s unexplained?

Like, there could be a perfectly logical explanation but it’s unlikely to be one you can just guess. It would have to be something like the random woman knew someone who’d coincidentally got a connection to someone else involved in the accident etc etc And because we don’t know, it’s still unexplained to us

But it can’t just be “she guessed right.” Can it? Seems wildly unlikely.

I don’t have any problem saying things are ‘unexplained’ (unless, of course, it’s a transaction on my bank statement).

I understand that we need to rationalise and understand a lot of stuff in life. But I don’t get the need to explain everything
Seems a bit joyless.

@EarlyModernEnglish

But what’s wrong with just saying it’s unexplained?

Like, there could be a perfectly logical explanation but it’s unlikely to be one you can just guess. It would have to be something like the random woman knew someone who’d coincidentally got a connection to someone else involved in the accident etc etc And because we don’t know, it’s still unexplained to us

But it can’t just be “she guessed right.” Can it? Seems wildly unlikely.

Why can’t it be ‘she just guessed’? I suggested a sequence of events:

Sees the pp looking shocked

Guesses bad news

Aproaches and says ‘I’m psychic’ (giving credence and confidence)

Says ‘I have a man here’ (50/50 guess of being right)

Says ‘he’s hurt’ (not a massive leap)

PP says ‘my brother just died’

Psychic says ‘yes, of a head injury. Or maybe neck? Or chest?’

Coroner later confirms chest injury. Suddenly that part of the guess becomes significant.

Is this really so far outside the realms of reality as you understand it? And also, my first guess was she already knew about the accident from the papers, but the pp said it wasn’t in the papers until later. So knowing that, what’s your more rational guess than above?

@Pumperthepumper

I’m going to preempt by giving my loved ones a series of embarrassing nicknames so when a psychic asks ‘is there a fucknuts here?’ they’ll have to stand up 😂

Love this

An earlier poster put something really good about how fallible the human brain is. What we think we remember often isn’t right at all. They also said people get very defensive about this, think they can’t be wrong are being accused of lying when in fact it’s just your brain being, well, Human. We’ve seen that a few times very clearly on this thread.

Psychics are not real. They either believe they are, or are knowingly faking, but it’s not real. Never.

The skills involved can be impressive though

@Pumperthepumper

Just looking at your latest post and then the information that the pp gave… you have changed a few things. Eg according to pp, the random woman went straight to young man who was surprised to be dead - no “he’s hurt” etc. So I don’t know.

I suppose I have two points:
A) it’s very, very unlikely to just guess specific stuff and if you’re looking to explain away incidents you have to give the people involved some credit; yes, we are fallible, but most people have remembered the strange incident because it seemed really odd, and someone coming along and saying “Oh you just remembered it all wrong” is facile at best.

B) some things are quite strange, and add to the weirdness of life. As long as no money is changing hands and no one is being exploited, can’t we sometimes shrug our shoulders and just revel in a bit of mystery? Do we need to roll up our sleeves and get to the bottom of things every time until we’ve wrung all the joy out of every spooky Halloween story told around the fire ?

[quote EarlyModernEnglish]@Pumperthepumper

Just looking at your latest post and then the information that the pp gave… you have changed a few things. Eg according to pp, the random woman went straight to young man who was surprised to be dead - no “he’s hurt” etc. So I don’t know.

I suppose I have two points:
A) it’s very, very unlikely to just guess specific stuff and if you’re looking to explain away incidents you have to give the people involved some credit; yes, we are fallible, but most people have remembered the strange incident because it seemed really odd, and someone coming along and saying “Oh you just remembered it all wrong” is facile at best.

B) some things are quite strange, and add to the weirdness of life. As long as no money is changing hands and no one is being exploited, can’t we sometimes shrug our shoulders and just revel in a bit of mystery? Do we need to roll up our sleeves and get to the bottom of things every time until we’ve wrung all the joy out of every spooky Halloween story told around the fire ?[/quote]
I don’t understand what this means. What exact wording do you want me to use? If you tell me, I’ll
rewrite it for you.

I’d say that asking for an explanation means people would like it explained, yes. And that it’s perfectly possible to enjoy a story knowing it’s fictional.

Also, I didn’t say ‘you remembered it wrong’. I said that with hindsight, your brain attached more significance to certain parts of the story.

Like the time - you think about someone you know isn’t well, you think about them while you’re making your lunch. You later find out they died at 11:45. Suddenly the timing of that becomes significant -you’re unlikely to know it was that exact time but it’s close enough that your brain thinks ‘that’s exactly when I was thinking of them!’

[quote EarlyModernEnglish]@Pumperthepumper

Just looking at your latest post and then the information that the pp gave… you have changed a few things. Eg according to pp, the random woman went straight to young man who was surprised to be dead - no “he’s hurt” etc. So I don’t know.

I suppose I have two points:
A) it’s very, very unlikely to just guess specific stuff and if you’re looking to explain away incidents you have to give the people involved some credit; yes, we are fallible, but most people have remembered the strange incident because it seemed really odd, and someone coming along and saying “Oh you just remembered it all wrong” is facile at best.

B) some things are quite strange, and add to the weirdness of life. As long as no money is changing hands and no one is being exploited, can’t we sometimes shrug our shoulders and just revel in a bit of mystery? Do we need to roll up our sleeves and get to the bottom of things every time until we’ve wrung all the joy out of every spooky Halloween story told around the fire ?[/quote]
But you probably have remembered it wrong

And saying that isn’t insulting you or calling you a liar, it’s how brains work.

I witnessed a handbag snatch many years ago. An assailant in denim snatched an old lady’s bag, jumped into a white Neto and his mate drove off. I followed them but they got away. When I returned I gave my details to the police who were there.

Later on I was interviewed and gave my info

Except I was wrong about many things. The ages of the people invoked, the clothes they were wearing, the bag. The police explained that witnesses were often way off on those things. Not lying, just a bit crap at remembrance your brain fills in the details.

Metro. I remember the bloody car better than the people!

The skills involved can be impressive

They can, yes, and as with the PP's example of someone dying because of their "Head ... neck? ... chest?" the "psychic" is looking for a reaction from the subject who's too wrapped up in the experience to notice

Not just that subject either; chances are someone sitting next to them will start reacting at the mention of something or another, and there's another mark lined up, with time for observation until their turn comes

@BillMasen

I witnessed a handbag snatch many years ago. An assailant in denim snatched an old lady’s bag, jumped into a white Neto and his mate drove off. I followed them but they got away. When I returned I gave my details to the police who were there.

Later on I was interviewed and gave my info

Except I was wrong about many things. The ages of the people invoked, the clothes they were wearing, the bag. The police explained that witnesses were often way off on those things. Not lying, just a bit crap at remembrance your brain fills in the details.

There’s a thing on buzzfeed, I’ll see if I can find it, where you have to answer questions based on well-known logos, like ‘does the monopoly man have a monocle?’ It’s a real eye opener to how our brains store information.

It’s called the Mandela effect.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/christopherhudspeth/crazy-examples-of-the-mandela-effect-that-will-make-you-ques