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?

On the subject of "something they couldn't have known", I've a friend who insists she went to a psychic evening and was told not only where she holidayed as a kid, but a very unusual thing she did when there

I was there myself - got dragged along against my better judgement - and what actually happened was this:

Psychic didn't "read" my friend at all; others, yes, but not her
One attendee mentioned Cromer with details the psychic later spun a story on
Cromer happened to be the place my friend holidayed in
The info on what friend did there was (understandably) not mentioned at all

So the account my friend gives is entirely down to a wish to believe, based on someone else's experience and built into a narrative which simply didn't exist.
An extreme example of confirmation bias perhaps, but not unusual

@Frabbits the last part of your statement is simply incorrect though. you do not know that every person is deluded or lying. that's your assumption but not based on a provable (or disprovable) fact. At best you could say the ones that have been tested have so far proved to be frauds. but there's a lot (I'd imagine some people in this thread or my late grandma for example) who have never been "tested" so how would we know they weren't real.

To me most of it is total bollocks. I would be concerned if a vulnerable person was systematically conned who might be grief stricken and desperate for something to hold on to their loved ones. However, I have a dear friend who has the weight of the world on her shoulders, overbearing mother, useless DH, ungrateful children, demanding boss and piss taking colleagues. She goes to a psychic/shaman/healer from time to time maybe one or two times a year. She gets to see someone who listens to her, puts her first for a couple of hours and provides a a release all for far less than any therapist or other professional would charge. After each visit, she is full of beans, recharged her batteries and ready to face the world again. I could not care less if that psychic is a fraud, whatever they claim to be, it has a real uplifting benefit for my friend that is all that matters. Sometimes the 'placebo' effect is as good s the 'real' thing!

If any of them were real why don't they claim a prize?

I believe the usual answers vary between "Don't have time for this / am not interested in the money / tests are rigged to make them impossible to pass"

More likely, perhaps, that an (almost inevitable) failure could damage the quite nice living that many are already making

OP, I quite agree that many mediums or psychics use cold readings and also look up clients on social media. The ghost hunter type programmes are a load of old rubbish too. If your partner was trying to say that all mediums were genuine and that the ghost hunter programmes were sound, then I can understand you getting your knickers in a twist. However, I equally don't think you should be forcing him to believe that all mediums are fake and that anything beyond the realms of known science doesn't exist. You are entitled to your atheist opinion but you can't ram it down his throat. None of us know do we. By the way, I'm really sick of this "hill to die on" expression.

Our daughter went to see a psychic while we were on holiday.
My Mil died last year in the July. My mother died in September of this year.
He asked our dd to write the name of the grandmother figure who is looking after her from out of this world.
She wrote down my mother's name which is very unusual.
Mum had full mental capacity body was giving up.
Mil had dementia but had good health.
He described it as my mil and gave my name.
He did tell her that we were on holiday but I was ill.
Yes we were and yes I was but hadn't told dd.
This was the only part we could have believed.
Dd asked about her pet that she lost in February he described our sons dog.

I'm really sick of this "hill to die on" expression.

Have you only recently started hearing it? It's very old.

Yeah we do. We absolutely know these people are lying.

We know how these people read minds, see into the future and all that gubbins. We know. It's an easily explainable and replicatable trick. When someone else comes along and does it, it's the same trick, usually with the intend of exploiting often very vunerable people desperate for some sort of hope or message to cling on to from someone they have lost.

If someone could actually do it they would be able to prove it, and they very quickly would be very, very rich and very, very famous.

YANBU. He is a gullible fool.

I wouldn't necessarily go quite as far as saying it's an automatic LTB, but I certainly would not have entered into a long-term relationship with anyone who believed in woo bullshit.

I don't think I believe in psychics but I believe in something more than we currently understand, and have had some odd experiences myself that have made my previously very cynical husband change his views. As for animals abilities, no one has yet figured out how Monarch Butterflies know how to go where they go each year when they migrate as no one butterfly survives the north and south trip.

@Frabbits ok I will give you a billion pounds if you can prove my late grandma wasn't one... .. .. we will be waiting a while I think.

I’m with you OP. I look askance at people who are gullible enough to believe in the face of the lack of evidence for and the reams of evidence against. I feel the same way about religion too.

Cold reading is an absolutely amazing skill. The number of people who will swear to their dying day the psychic knew things they couldn't have known is evidence of that.

I'd like to see recordings of these readings and I bet my last rolo I'd be seeing fantastic cold reading, false and selective memory rather than psychic abilities.

This guy is a real POS. Listen to his attitude when it's clear he's been rumbled. He flounced like a toddler having a tantrum.

He featured heavily in the documentary I watched and mentioned in my OP. In another scene he speaks to a member of his audience with such distant and says he's much "quicker" mentally than she is, because she said she didn't know what he was talking about with his statements that didn't apply.

Derren Brown included a written cold reading of his in one of his books. It was geared towards people in their 20s. Most of the people in his test group were amazed by its accuracy; one girl felt as if he'd read her journal and found it all too personal. They translated it into Spanish for another group and the translator thought they were playing a trick on her because it described her so well. It described me very accurately too.

@Frabbits "We do know however, that EVERY single person claiming to be psychic is either deluded or lying. We know how it's done, we know why it's done. There is nothing mysterious or unknown about it at all."

Every single one? You don't allow for any exceptions at all?

Note - I'd never suggest anyone part with money to go and see one, or give personal info, or go to a show (unless for fun).

I saw one years ago. In a town I wasn't from.

Didn't know her from Adam, before the days of social media.

She kept saying billy is always with you. He is your grandad he has one leg.

I kept saying no your wrong no billy no grandparents with one leg. No legs yes but one leg no. She would not let it go and said ask your mum he said.

Billy was my grandad William and he had one leg. I didn't know this.

So yes some of them I do believe have something some of the time.

I fear you are right @Dpi8 I wish some of that stuff was real though. I would love to have a little bit of contact with my deceased father. I’m an atheist though, so not holding out any hope.

I remember that. Some of them were really embarrassed and a couple actually angry I seem to recall.

Put cold reading and taking advantage of the massive weakness that is the human mind together and they're set for life!

There's just so much evidence out there that we absolutely cannot rely on our memories.

I bet in some cases these so called psychics actually implant false memories too.

Oh my god that's exactly what happened there's no way they could have known that... Then they go tell their family member who also now remembers the thing that never happened

The CIA did remote viewing experiments. The conclusion was that statistically the information the participants described was correct too often for it to be down to chance, but that it was not reliable enough to be used for espionage.

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/ask-molly-did-cia-really-study-psychic-powers/

Wasn't there also some stuff about how the lack of proper controls meant that they couldn't discount the possibility of fraud or collusion?

The document I read involved placing a series of numbers hundreds of miles from the participant. The control would surely be just not telling them the numbers. I actually think this setup was tipped against the remote viewer, because it’s rare they can travel that far and remain in the earth dimension.