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.

Literally no one imagines that they could be the gullible one, or a poor judge of character.

Look at the responses here, so many along the lines of “well of course most of them are frauds…but not the one I happened to see who was amazingly accurate…”.

The world is full of people who have seen frauds but went away utterly convinced they were genuine.

People like Derren Brown have demonstrated again and again how it is possible to utterly convince someone you are psychic but without having any psychic powers whatsoever.

But.. no one ever believes that they fall into the category of people who could be conned. Other people might fall for that sort of nonsense, but definitely not them, they were ready for it and we’re very careful not to be tricked! Note - everyone who goes to a psychic believes they are being careful not to be tricked.

You’d really hope that the penny would drop, that people would join the dots and suddenly have that “aha moment” as realisation dawns, but they don’t.

Better by far to imagine that actually yes, you did happen find a genuine psychic, unlike those other poor people.

Quite, Nesbo. The naïvety is actually staggering.

The psychic I went to see told me the name of my husband and son (before he was even conceived)

Your husband's name would have been easy enough to find, but "knowing" your son's name "before he was even conceived" makes no sense at all

Unless you were set on a certain name for a future child - and even then you could have changed your mind - nothing was forcing you to give him the name some charlatan came up with

Literally no one imagines that they could be the gullible one, or a poor judge of character

Very few want to accept they've just spent good money for nothing either

Charge enough and hype the "service" up massively, and punters will defend what they've done out of some weird sense of self preservation

Nesbo. One of the questions I asked was about moving house, so she answered. As I was in a bad situation(with house being just part of it) and I wanted hope that it would end. That sounds lame when I write it down, but I felt better when she picked up on how I was feeling. I've had many 'woo' things happen to me, and I certainly believe there is something else afterwards.

I find this thing so interesting. I have been to some and one was very good but the rest were very hit or miss. Looking back when I did visit them I was in a very desperate, vulnerable place the first time grieving my Dad th second time I was struggling to conceive and so was desperately seeking reassurance. I am not sure if I believe in them these days. The last one I went to was not great and actually got quite irritated with me because the things she was saying did not resonate with me at all. I won't go back though, because, apart from them being quite expensive, my Nan before she got sick and passed away told me to stay well away from them. She and her sister went about five years ago and the both of them had the most awful run of bad luck ever since, one thing after another and they both got ill and passed away very soon after each other. They said pyschics bring bad luck. I don't believe this is true but it's still not a very nice association for me now

GrimDamnFanjo I hadn't realised that some of them have been so obviously caught out cheating

In case anyone missed it, here's the "link within a link" from your post, where Popov's wife was proven beyond doubt to be feeding information through his earpiece:

Though it won't make any difference to the gullible of course ... no doubt it'll be accepted that this one was cheating, but theirs will still be genuine

A friend once gave me a spare ticket to a psychic evening event at very short notice. Nothing booked in my name at all. Event was 300 miles from where I'd been born and grown up. I was highly sceptical but thought it would be entertaining.

The chap then referenced my grandmother by her full, unusual name. Maternal side so different surname from me. Cited details which were specific and accurate. It was very bizarre indeed. If it was a con I can't think how they'd have done it.

In contrast, went to a psychic sally thing with workmates and they'd clearly researched sad local events to reference. Chances were, someone in the audience would be linked in some way. Grim.

@Nesbo

Literally no one imagines that they could be the gullible one, or a poor judge of character.

Look at the responses here, so many along the lines of “well of course most of them are frauds…but not the one I happened to see who was amazingly accurate…”.

The world is full of people who have seen frauds but went away utterly convinced they were genuine.

People like Derren Brown have demonstrated again and again how it is possible to utterly convince someone you are psychic but without having any psychic powers whatsoever.

But.. no one ever believes that they fall into the category of people who could be conned. Other people might fall for that sort of nonsense, but definitely not them, they were ready for it and we’re very careful not to be tricked! Note - everyone who goes to a psychic believes they are being careful not to be tricked.

You’d really hope that the penny would drop, that people would join the dots and suddenly have that “aha moment” as realisation dawns, but they don’t.

Better by far to imagine that actually yes, you did happen find a genuine psychic, unlike those other poor people.

Absolutely. I will be the first to admit that I was feeling vulnerable when my sisters prevailed upon me to go to a 'psychic' they'd been to -- I'd been in an accident, had had to have several surgeries, was not long out of plaster and still using crutches, unemployed, had had to move back in with my parents, because my tiny bedsit was up three flights of stairs at the top of a steep hill.

I looked dreadful and I'm sure that vulnerability, self-doubt and mild despair was completely obvious in every bit of my manner and appearance.

That's what the 'psychic' went with, describing for me a future that she clearly meant to be reassuring and positive, for the person she judged me to be and the kind of hopes she felt it was likely I had -- I was going to move in with and open a 'little business' with my boyfriend and have a baby within the year, and we would always live locally. Instead, within a few months, I won an international postgraduate scholarship to an elite overseas university, had a professional career and didn't live in my home country again for nearly 30 years. I didn't look it or sound it, but in fact I was a past high-achiever having a run of bad luck.

My point is that this woman's own worldview wouldn't have encompassed that kind of future at all -- she could only 'predict' what she could imagine.

@spotcheck

I do think some people do 'know stuff'

I think most people are intuitive on some level- some more than others. I do think there are a lot of fakes out there.

But for people who say it ALL is woo- are you also the same people who believe you should trust your gut?
What is trusting your gut, if not just a bit woo?

Very different to me. I think trusting your gut is the opposite of ‘woo.’ So often we see things happening. For example a man might seem ‘super nice’ but perhaps we subconsciously notice that he gets twitchy/angry in traffic. Or he glazes over when you talk about something meaningful to you. These things don’t really ‘register’ but we know there’s something not quite right.

@middleager

I'm cynical.

Around 20 years ago, I was doing work experience at a local newspaper. We covered a Spiritualist meeting, where the leader would talk to the congregation with 'messages from the dead'.

Most of the attendees were in their 70s/80s.
The leader would say "does anybody know anybody who wore a flat cap and breeches?' Cue about 75% of the crowd putting their hands up.
The leader said "I'm getting a name through....Stan..." nobody put up their hand. The leader then went through every 'old fashioned' name until, finally, when saying "Albert" two people put up their hands.

They were being conned. The comedy 'Shirley Ghostman' illustrates this well.

Yes this is exactly it. Or they’ll ask ‘has anybody lost someone named Mary?’ Well yeah fucking everybody!

@carlydurly

A friend once gave me a spare ticket to a psychic evening event at very short notice. Nothing booked in my name at all. Event was 300 miles from where I'd been born and grown up. I was highly sceptical but thought it would be entertaining.

The chap then referenced my grandmother by her full, unusual name. Maternal side so different surname from me. Cited details which were specific and accurate. It was very bizarre indeed. If it was a con I can't think how they'd have done it.

In contrast, went to a psychic sally thing with workmates and they'd clearly researched sad local events to reference. Chances were, someone in the audience would be linked in some way. Grim.

It's a combination of cold reading and confirmation bias.

I can do a pretty good impression of cold reading, it's just about probability and picking up on things like body language, ethnic background etc. There are books on how to do it on amazon.

Anyone who claims to be a genuine psychic is either lying or deluded.

I totally agree about the charlatans. Did anyone else see the Derren Brown programmes where he accurately read a whole load of people who were moved and amazed, and then he explained how he did it. It's clever but not magic, it's pure cynicism to exploit people's pain like that, which was the point that DB was making.

But a weird thing happened to me right after a massive bereavement. I drove a long way from my home to stay with my parents. There was an accident on the motorway so I came off and drove through a series of random places I hadn't been to before. In one of them I stopped the car and took my dog for a short walk. A woman came out of her house, put a bag of rubbish in the bin, and then instead of going back in, she walked up to me. She told me a whole load of very specific stuff about my family member and how they had died. I was completely shocked. Still am, and can't explain it. It was far, far too random a setting for her to have access to any information about me, and obviously no money was changing hands.

I knew you were going to ask this question.

@Oberonsdream

Mine was over the phone so no cues were given away like they would at a f2f

Were you completely anonymous? If I had your name I could look up your mothers maiden name online.

Mel Smith - Doris Cockney

It's a combination of cold reading and confirmation bias

Yes, and as said the confirmation bias can be very strong

I've mentioned this on here before, but I got dragged to one of these by a pal who'd just lost her father and was hoping for a message
Nothing came through, but one chap in the audience mentioned something about Cromer and it turned out she'd once visited it as a child with her father. By the time we left she'd persuaded herself that this was her dad forcing the idea into the chap's mind - not the actual "psychic", remember - and it was somehow a message for her; worse still, it was later embroidered into a message which was actually given to her

I pretended to be a psychic for a couple of fetes. I found it amazingly easy to tell people things they were impressed by. You just start a leading sentence and then watch them like a hawk. "You've had a loss recently... " Teary eyes? It's a bereavement. Totally blank expression? Do a swerve into a missing object. You say "It's a lot closer than you realise" and hint.

Thing is, people give away so much. Every thing you say gives you more information.

Bet I could be a psychic if I had the ethics of a cake. It's either a scam or the psychic themselves is deluded.

No

@SusieBob totally get all that. How did they get my grandmothers unusual name though, as even if they'd known my name (which they didn't) there'd have been no link? It was distinctly what came out. If you were just throwing names out there you'd choose sue Jones or jo smith or similar.

I've literally never met anyone else with her first name, or last name, outside the family. She had no online footprint whatsoever.

I can accept the rest is bollocks but that bit was truly odd

It’s a load of old shit. I’m really good at cold reading, I can pick up on tiny facial expressions and could guess what people are thinking. I could so easily scam the vulnerable, it wouldn’t be difficult at all.

@PrawnofthePatriarchy

I pretended to be a psychic for a couple of fetes. I found it amazingly easy to tell people things they were impressed by. You just start a leading sentence and then watch them like a hawk. "You've had a loss recently... " Teary eyes? It's a bereavement. Totally blank expression? Do a swerve into a missing object. You say "It's a lot closer than you realise" and hint.

Thing is, people give away so much. Every thing you say gives you more information.

Bet I could be a psychic if I had the ethics of a cake. It's either a scam or the psychic themselves is deluded.

Ah this is much better put than mine, exactly this.

I can accept the rest is bollocks but that bit was truly odd

This is how I feel about my experience. I wish it hadn't happened because then it would be clear cut for me.

Bet I could be a psychic if I had the ethics of a cake
Chocolate éclairvoyants are the worst ones for this.

@carlydurly how did you get in touch initially?