Has anyone ever seen a medium? AIBU to now believe that some people have psychic ability?

[abitspooked]

I recently saw a psychic medium and I sound say about 80% of what she said was accurate. Some things were actually startling. She knew nothing about me before I went in, except for my first name. I can’t believe some if the things she could see inc. names and details about relatives on the ‘other side’ (even though these are from a different culture / language). Other very accurate details too. I couldn’t believe it.

Had anyone else had a similar encounter? I was open minded before I went but am now convinced that some people have psychic ability, based on my own direct experience. AIBU?

I never understand this oft posted view. Set aside that I think it’s bollocks so it’s a moot point. But if you were good at it, why should you not make money?

People who write great songs, or can lead a business, or argue successfully in a court - they all charge for their skills. Why not psychics?

I do the same as a party trick. I can guess a person birth order, how many siblings, male or female. It’s a total trick.

you can tell so much too from clothes, jewellery, hair

@VaddaABeetch “you can tell so much too from clothes, jewellery, hair”

no, you really can’t.

but I think you can gauge a lot if you get the person talking - which is a lot of what Derren Brown is showing. Total fraud if they want to chat.

btw I don’t know how your party trick works but everyone guesses I’m the older sibling when they try that. I’m not.

I have a friend who loves to see a psychic. She shared the recording of the last one she saw, claiming she was scarily accurate, knew things she couldn't possibly have known, said the psychic told her not to tell her anything.
When she played the recording, it went a lot like this;
Psychic "I've got a man coming in with black hair."
Looks towards friend for a response.
Friend either replies 'Yes, I'll take that!' in which case psychic continues to describe man, or friend replies 'No, can't think of anyone like that.' And psychic then changes it. 'Maybe it's dark brown, yes, dark brown, very short?'
It's like the psychic is guessing until she receives a positive response.

At one point, psychic was listing names, and said 'I've got a John here.'
Friend says 'No, don't know a John.'
Psychic then says 'Maybe it's James?'
Friend says no.
Psychic then claims its 'Jack'.
Eventually, she gets a name right and then sticks with that one.

When you listen to it, with no bias towards believing it or not, you see how the client makes it clear when the psychic has guessed correctly.

When people want to believe, they'll cherry pick the things that were right, no matter how many tries it took for them to guess correctly. That's how every reading I've ever heard of has worked.

I don’t believe in it - but in India last year, after we had bought a very expensive rug which was being packed up, the salesman read my daughters’ palms. We didn’t ask him to - I would never even think to ask for any type of reading - he just did it spontaneously and he didn’t ask for any money. Afterwards when they were out of earshot, I said to him he had read their characters very accurately. He said - “your older daughter has had a great sadness which has really affected her - but in a year or so things will come right and her life will take off and fly”.
he was right about the sadness - and a year later her life has transformed and she is thriving.

when he read my younger daughter’s palm he hesitated initially, then folded her hand closed and said “you’re lucky. You’ll always be lucky”.
I asked him when she’d gone about the hesitation and he said - there’s something painful coming, but it will all
come right”. There was indeed something horrible and painful on its way, which has not only resolved but seems to have led to better things.
Obviously he was totally non specific, no details and it’s easy to fit events into predictions. He was a very good salesman so clearly good at reading people and judging character. There was just something about the whole encounter which felt strangely meaningful - and it gave me hope for both girls which has been helpful for me.

Barely any point in posting now that the 'scientists' are here but for your sake, OP, I once went to a medium because a friend was going and saw the guy too. I told him NOTHING about me at any point and he described my family, aspects of my personal and, most of all a chillingly accurate picture of the relationship I was in quoting names, background and reasons for conflict. I was staggered, at the very least he read my mind, more than that, I don't know but I think some have an ability.

20 odd years ago I went to see a psychic medium with a friend. I'd stepped in at the last minute as another friend was unable to go. We traveled to another town so I was a complete unknown.

I went in to see the woman first. She told me, in detail - names, numbers, sums of money, relationships between people - an event that was going on and causing me hell in my life. She went on to tell me how events would play out, again in detail, time scale, everything. At the end she asked me if I had any questions. I asked one thing, she answered. That also played out exactly as she said. Until I asked the question, I hadn't spoken other than to say hello. As I got up to leave she said I would always be ok as someone was looking over me and they were in the room. She then, in detail, described a woman I recognised as an aunt who had died and to whom I had been very close - she had two particular identifying features that made her unmistakable and very distinctive.

When my friend went in I sat stunned and, to a certain extent I still am by it. The events she predicted played out as she said they would - all of which were out of my control.

My friend came out and said it was all generic bollocks.

I'm certain if there were test conditions they could not have been any more rigorous than my experience that day. To those who say, 'but they only told you about you and what you know', well she really didn't. She told me the future. It's not changed anything, but it was bloody amazing.

I had an experience like this, about 98% of what she said to me was correct. Names, things that happened, places that meant something, names I didn't even know until I asked wider family and they intact meant something. Not common names either. The way a close relative died, which wasn't let's say an average death!

@JacquesHarlow
😆

I love the notion that someone's dead relatives want them to know that they're well...

They're not well at all. They couldn't be less well. They're DEAD.

As long as they are happily dead...😃

Funny too, how the people that 'come through' never has a conversation with their 'loved one', it's only a vague reference to 'that time aunty may left her knickers in the mangle'.
So much bollocks pedalled to the weak and vulnerable

It’s a load of absolute nonsense. I’m willing to accept that some of mediums might get a ‘’vibe’’ from the way people present to them and they can probably tell a lot from subtle hints.

You’ll find in these cases the person having the reading will tell them things without even realising they spoke, or their eyes light up, or they’re so desperate for it to be real they cling on to the most vague descriptions and play mental gymnastics to try and make it ‘’fit’’

It’s a load of leading questions and Barnum statements. They can’t speak to the bloody dead. I’d love to listen to some recordings of these ‘’amazing’’ readings 😂

I'm a very experienced psychologist and I do a 'psychic' routine for a laugh sometimes. It is a combination of cold reading and knowing enough about enough people to be able to make predictions about new people when you meet them. It is a scam - most are fairly harmless but some very harmful. Be careful OP

This. I've also worked in psychiatry and I can cold read people with astonishing accuracy. I have no psychic powers whatsoever. You would be surprised by the information you can glean by the way people present themselves, their body language and their micro expressions

Also clairvoyants are a scam in that most of the time they tell you genetic information like how you’re going to come into money or change jobs in the next 5 years’’ but then also if they tell you something specific like ‘’You’ll meet a man named John who is an engineer and get married’’ then if you want to believe it, it can be a self fulfilling prophecy because you discount every man you meet who doesn’t meet those criteria 🤣 or you’ll meet a man with a similar name and tell yourself she was scarily close

but then also if they tell you something specific like ‘’You’ll meet a man named John who is an engineer and get married’’ then if you want to believe it, it can be a self fulfilling prophecy because you discount every man you meet who doesn’t meet those criteria 🤣

Yes, your brain literally does this- confirmation bias and your reticular activating system. This is why if you buy a certain type of car, you will suddenly notice loads of cars that are the same whereas before you never noticed them so it seems as if they have increased. They haven't, you just ignored them before because your brain wasn't looking for them.

Yep, exactly. Then you’ll get people saying things like, ‘’They told me I’d have a car accident one day and a few weeks later, I did! Or ‘’I didn’t but my mum/dad/sister did. What a coincidence!’’ 😂 Yes, that’s exactly what it is. I had a friend say something similar to me expecting me to say ‘’Wow! How weird!’

Some people genuinely do think. They can tune in to the vibrations. But often they are mediocre, maybe can tune in a little and fake the rest.

In my experience It's something that comes to you almost randomly whilst going about daily life. Often it doesn't make sense but in time the accuracy blows you away. But this could be weeks later! I've had information given that makes me cry and I don't dare share it. What if I was wrong! But sadly I've not been wrong.

I'm always doubting how genuine mediums are that can tap In quickly. Maybe it's practice? I don't know.

Do psychics advertise themselves as having different skills? Do some say they can see the future but not channel dead people's messages? And how do they know experiences of the still living, is that another separate skill?

IME, it’s people who are unhappy with their own life that visit mediums.
I’ve only known two people who did, both in seemingly perfect relationships.
In both cases, they were told that their marriages would end, and that’s exactly what happened, no more than a couple of months after they had their readings.
I believe that the Mediums they visited picked up on their underlying feelings through body language, but were ultimately the catalyst for both their relationship breakdowns.
For this reason, I would never visit one. I have been married to my DH for 40+ years. I’ve worked with him constantly to make it work, and don’t want a complete outsider to sow the seeds of doubt that might destroy an ultimately great relationship…

I was going to suggest the Derren Brown show too, the ‘readings’ he can do are very impressive and he’s clear that it’s all rubbish.

I posted above about my experience but speaking more generally on this subject.

When these 'monthly woo' threads come up I'm always really surprised at the vehemence of those who think it's nonsense. There's a real strong need to rubbish this and I wonder why.

The stories supporting the subject often negate the arguments against, but that doesn't stop people saying again and again further down the thread 'only people with unhappy lives go' 'they get you talking' or stuff like that. I didn't have an unhappy life when I went, I had a problem (as do many people at any given time), but that's not why I went I stepped in when someone dropped out. I didn't say a word to the woman. Ok, she might have read in my 'micro expressions' that I had a worry in my life - but she came up with absolute specifics, names, sums of money etc....she didn't know if my worry was money, health, relationships or that I'd lost my purse. How did she know?

Years before my visit to a psychic Derren Brown lived on the same street as me. One night, in the pub, he was doing the rounds 'reading' people. When he came to me and my two friends he passed over me and 'read' them. I wasn't interested in his sideshow act and wasn't going to fall for his act and he could tell. I was obviously then and remain sceptical. I just can't explain my experience any other way than to say what happened.

Nobody has to believe. People can choose a more 'ahem' scientific approach to things, people can cast doubt, but this strong need to be against is really interesting. I wonder what the nay sayers think is in it for people who tell their experience in a positive way? I mean, I have nothing at all to gain from telling what happened? Why so strongly anti?

The stories supporting the subject often negate the arguments against

But, @Churchview , they really don't. An unsubstantiated, anonymous, apocryphal story doesn't support or negate anything.

"There's a real strong need to rubbish this and I wonder why."

Because so-called psychics are scammers, and just like any scammer they exploit vulnerable people with false hope in order to extract money from them.

Thanks for answering @Littledidsheknow .

Ok, I get that, but given this is a chatty, opinion based forum that's all we have.