DP believes some psychics are real, I think he's lost it

[Dpi8]

A discussion about a documentary I watched last night descended into an argument today when chatting over dinner. It was about Derren Brown and how he tests so called psychic mediums in an attempt to prove that it's a load of old rubbish - which I agree with him on.

He got majorly arsey with me when I told him about cold reading and the other techniques they use, such as using vague statements that could apply to most people in the sitters demographic. IE, telling an elderly lady that they have a parent in the spirit world who had a dodgy knee.

I asked him for some examples from which he reached his conclusion that some are genuine but he wasn't forthcoming with anything of any substance, simply mentioning some bloke from the Ghost Adventures series who wanders around buildings 'debunking' certain things for plausible deniabily then making up shite of his own to 'prove' the contact.

This is a hill I'm prepared to die on as I will not accept that such tosh is in any way genuine.

AIBU to say that absolutely all psychics are full of shit?

You are clearly one of the sham ones then as a couple of them don't!

A couple of psychics don't have doorbells, says Elphame on Mumsnet? And people say there's no proof!

(Are you sure they're not just Mumsnetters who don't answer the door?)

How often does this come up in conversation that it matters?

Personally, I think the absolute conviction that there is nothing bigger than us, or outside of our comprehension and those who are open to the possibility, are somehow mentally lacking, is very arrogant.

How can you discount entirely that there could be something you can't conceptualise? It's impossible to prove either way, so in itself is nothing more than an equally strong belief on the opposite side of the coin.

But yeah, those psychics who charge old ladies to speak to Brian are full of shit.

No psychic has ever, ever proved that they can do anything other than easily replicated magic tricks.

As such, until proved otherwise the only logical conclusion to reach is that they are full of shit - either they are so deluded as to actually think they are psychic or, as is the case 99.999% of the time, they know they aren't psychic but are just complete and utter frauds.

Am absolutely flabbergasted at the sheer number of people who believe in this utter, utter nonsense.
Marks to be exploited by charlatans who prey upon people’s misery.
I’m entirely with you OP.

Years ago, my sister had a phone call from her friend, saying half-jokingly "Are you alright? Amy (her three year old daughter) just told me you've fallen down the stairs!" Bizarrely, my sister had indeed tripped and fallen down the stairs a few minutes earlier. We never forgot that strange moment, so weird.

Ha ha. He's an idiot.

This is my favourite reply

Lol.

Yes.

Atheism is a lack of belief. Athiests don't go around believing there is no God. It's a perfectly logical position to take.

You don't actively go around not believing in a lot of things without the need to call it a system, do you.

Quite.

I’m also amazed, and dismayed, at the number of MNers who believe in ghosts, poltergeists and the ‘paranormal’. Absolutely incredible in this day and age.

I don't actively believe in psychics, ghosts and the like and I don't believe in god but I would definitely label myself as Agnostic. I do believe that the vast majority of people who "practice" in these areas are using mind games and trickery but I don't let that take away from the fact that I do keep a small part of myself open to the possibility that there are things beyond what we understand.

I think the society we live in makes it seem like we know everything about how the world and the universe works but the truth is, we don't. We don't even fully understand how the human mind works - not in a complete way.

I wouldn't judge people who do believe. For now, I'll make my life choices based on fact, what I can quantify and the best information available to me. As long as you're not trying to make me override those choices because of some mystical force, we're fine and I'm happy to hear about your beliefs.

It wouldn't be the hill I would die on with someone. His belief, however flawed, isn't harming anyone. And I doubt it's something that has a particularly big impact. If he's suggesting he bring his physic round to consult on your finances, then you can fight your battle but his ain't it.

On a side note; a psychic told my mum that it would end in tragedy if I ever got on a motorbike so I never got near my uncles bike. Even the kid-friendly ones some folk on the estate had were a no-go. I hated that bitch 🤣.

🤦‍♀️

I remember when a researcher on Most Haunted set Derek Accora up , and he fell for it. The guy was a complete fraud, as are many others. That said, my step dad was in an audience with Colin Fry, my SD is a total sceptic, however the stuff CF threw out to the audience couldn't have been more apt for my SD. He kept quiet but it made him cry.

I don't have a doorbell! It didn't occur to me that perhaps I'm psychic, just that people knock... but I shall test my psychic ability by playing the euro millions this week. I shall report back if I win the jackpot!

Could you please offer a rational explanation for something I've seen. A hairbrush slide off a table by itself, quite slowly and deliberately, when it was several inches from the edge.

I wasn't drunk / on drugs / suffering any mental health problems/ carbon monoxide poisoning/sleep deprived.

The table was level, no earthquake. It just slid off for no reason and I saw it.

Everything we suggest you will insist is impossible, but draughts, slippery surfaces, slight inclines or someone making stuff up on the Internet are all far more plausible than a spirit without enough imagination to do anything cooler.

ETA: I'd like to know how many times you've told this story, too. A few weeks ago on a woo thread, someone told the story of how she got lost on the way back while on holiday and had definitely entered a time slip, no other explanation. In the first post she was clear she'd done the journey at least once (so might have been only once). In the second retelling, she had been doing it all week and it was physically impossible to take a wrong turn and the local who helped her could not understand where she'd gone wrong. She had been looking for a pond as a landmark and saw a frog. This was, apparently, clear evidence of a time slip (frog, but no water) rather than evidence that she was in fact closer to water than she thought.

The story was embellished with each retelling (what is it now, I wonder) and evidence that she was actually not as far from her desired place as she thought was seen instead as evidence that she had time travelled.

There are two possible rational explanations:

1. You were mistaken in some way about about what you saw.

2. Everything we know about the physical nature of the Universe is wrong.

I know which one seems most likely to me.

Have you read this book? http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/overview.html

You should.

Yeah, you’ve got me there. It was the ghost of Vidal Sassoon, defo.

I saw that ghost. Gave me a right shock. That's why my hair looks like this.

84% of the population of the world identify with a religion. That means the majority of people believe in a spiritual realm as well as a material one. As a religious person, I do believe that psychics are harmful. But I think YABU to be shocked that people believe in such things, as those who believe only in the material are in the minority globally.

It sounds fascinating but I understand why it could also be a curse having the ability to see things. I’d love to read an AMA thread on psychic abilities if you ever have a quiet evening 😂

On the contrary I wouldn't insist anything is impossible, I'd love a rational explanation but I've been thinking about this for the past 30 odd years and can't come up with one.

I wasn't mistaken about what I saw, I just can't explain it.

That book sounds interesting!

i think you'd have to be psychologically unsound to have such a level of unwavering arrogance to believe you categorically know everything about the the universe, to be so sure that psychic abilities don't exist.