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 went to one and 100% believe she knew stuff she could not have possibly known, even got names of long dead pets, the grave yard many miles away a friend was buried in (I didn't even know the name myself until I checked afterwards). The reading was a great comfort for me. Sadly she took her own life last year.

Perhaps and I entirely see your point.
But when I sent to see a 'so-called' psychic I wasn't vulnerable. I wasn't looking for or given any false hope. That's just my experience. It cost me a fiver. The woman I saw didn't look like she was getting rich off the profits.

You might not have been, but plenty, plenty of people who go and see these people out of desperation are definitely that. The psychic happily takes their money and lies to their faces, instead of, y'know, recommending they go and see someone who can actually help them.

We know how psychics work and it's got nothing to do with anything fantastical or magical. It's pure exploitation by scummy, lying arseholes.

@Magnastorm It's pure exploitation by scummy, lying arseholes.

Maybe not in all cases though. That's definitely what some people are saying here.

Why not? People charge for their time, regardless of what they do. Are mediums supposed to live in poverty?

A person charging for a service which is always based entirely on lies, such as "psychic" readings, is a scam artist.

@Churchview

The virulent “anti brigade” always remind me of Copernicus and the Catholic Church.

He was of course very much on the right lines but society was not ready to accept his ideas.

Of course there are scam artists out there. Probably most of them. But there are a few people with a genuine ability. Science hasn’t yet caught up although it’s getting there. Go back 100 years and you’d have been scoffed at for saying time isn’t linear. It’s mow proven not to be but the scientific knowledge and technology to be able to devise experiments to demonstrate that are recent developments.

Saw Derren Brown years ago, he had people in tears with his accuracy. He concluded by saying he's not psychic, never give your money to these people.

Utter shite scam for the very gullible. Much like crystals, reiki, healing by looking at photos or holding a lock of hair and whatever that bollocky drumming thingy is.
If ever tempted to visit a psychic spend your money on a private mental health and iq test instead.

We used to see one years ago who was really good. At first I thought my friend told her stuff about me, but when she talked about my grandparents she told me things my friend could not have known. She would tell us things that were going to happen. We'd kind of forget about it after a while, but each year, we'd listen to the recording with her & realise so many of the things she predicted had actually happened. Maybe we just made it fit, I don't know, but at the time it made me believe. My DH does not believe at all, but Id like to think there's something beyond death.

I've never been to a medium because I think they are all charlatans but I recently visited a kinesiologist (I started another thread about it). She asked me out of the blue if I had had a bereavement when I was 22 (I had, my Mum). I have spent the whole time since wondering how she did this. She knew nothing about me apart from the medical issue I went to her for. I still don't believe in this stuff but there was no way for her to know this information about me.

Google yourself and reflect back on how much of what she said could be found online and with an ancestry account.

Another vote for a combination of cold reading, clever guesswork, etc,...
As for the stuff that they get wrong, they say stuff "It doesn't make sense to you now but it will" and you then ascribe meaning to it as you they have implanted the idea in your brain.
I might go to a psychic for entertainment, a bit like going to a mentalist type show.
Unfortunately you do get psychics that are very predatory and will try and take advantage of vulnerable people. I know of people where the psychic was saying that something would happen to their children or other impending disaster, that they knew something about their DH (hinting at an affair), ..... All of course to be revealed in the next session.

All of them should be considered scam artists, given that no single psychic has ever demonstrated ability beyond that which can be fully explained.

Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidence. Waving away healthy scepticism with "oh, maybe one day there will be a real psychic" doesn't cut it.

When I was a child there was a gipsy camp about a 10 minute walk away and every so often you’d get gipsies coming to the house to sell lucky heather, home made bits like baskets and clothes pegs or offering to sharpen knives.

DM and my stepdad almost always bought these or used eg the knife sharpening.

We got to know a Romany woman who we rehomed our cat to after DB became very allergic to him and she lived nearby but not on the camp, I don’t think she was from the camp, she had been married to a non Romany man and had 4 sons by him. We went to see the cat every so often.

Once when I visited (I was about 11) there was an older woman there, probably in her 60s. I was just fussing over the cat and speaking to his new owner. The older woman started chatting to me but just asking where I lived, went to school etc.

She then told me information she couldn’t have known, and said something about an old man watching over me. She gave his name and said there was another man too. She then mentioned my talents and said things about singing and languages, I hadn’t mentioned anything about this at all.

I went home, didn’t say anything about it to my mum and a few weeks later visited the woman again (I was sort of friends and same age as one of her sons) but this time with DB, it was her birthday so we brought her flowers and a card.

We started chatting again, over tea/juice and cake and I asked how the old woman was (it was her great aunt I’d seen) whom I’d seen before and was told she was just visiting and returned home. I then asked (egged on by my younger DB, I didn’t usually do this) if she was a gipsy and did she have a fortune 🔮 telling ball?

Our friend laughed and said yes she was a gipsy, no she didn’t have a fortune telling ball but was said to have “the gift”. She said she didn’t have it though. We all laughed and we went home.

Fast forward to when I went to secondary school and I found out I was very talented at languages and singing (I’d known about the singing before though).

It was also when gipsies coming to the house were less and less common, and one cold morning DM saw one at her door selling lucky Heather which she bought. DM invited her in for tea as it was very icy and slippy outside (we had steep hills where we lived too). This gipsy saw me and mentioned languages again and said for DB he was very creative especially with art and music (both are true).

When she’d gone, DM got to talking with me, asked about the woman with the cat and chat turned to gipsies and I told her what her great aunt had told me. When i told her the names of the men, one was George (my great uncle who’d died when I was 8/9) and the other was Felix who was my dad’s dad (my grandad) who I never saw as my parents were divorced but we knew he was still alive.

Both these men lived a long way away though, and the gipsy would’ve had no idea about them and I’d never told her or her great aunt/niece about these men. it had just come up.

My mum was quite taken with it all (she’s always been a bit woo).

One of my best friends is a working psychic, she's not a charlatan going home and having a laugh about these idiot clients, nor is she a Sherlock Holmes style intellectual who can make wildly accurate deductions about strangers.

This is a lifestyle for her and really a kind of religion. I can tell you, she certainly believes it.

You start off going to a psychic circle and developing your psychic abilities, there's a whole thing to it. She's never 'done me' by the way, I've never asked.

It’s a scam every time. Some people are very good at it! It’s a mix of them reading micro expressions etc well and confirmation bias.

I’m also from an area (near Beddington Lane, Purley Way and Mitcham) where there used to be lots of gipsies living.

When I first started work back in late 80s you’d often see gipsy women selling lucky heather outside the Drummond Centre shopping centre in Croydon.

About 10 years later I worked on an estate near Valley Park, Purley Way and would often see burned out caravans (new ones) after a gipsy had died. You’d sometimes see them in the Asda car park or in Asda there.

My bosses at the time had a sort of respect but were also nervous of them. I was always told to drive home quickly from work, or if I wasn’t driving that day to be careful getting the bus or tram round there when it was dark. But then again the area was a maze of industrial parks and estates so not the safest areas to hang around in.

No she didn't OP. It's NOT REAL

My mum had one the other day it was really upsetting but true every thing she said.
She knew my dad was abusing my mum for years and still is now.
And what family have been doing to my mum.
She knew my mum had just been evicted. She knew out of 6 kids which one had mental health issues and what had just happened to make a 14 year old child be sectioned.

She also knew who was pregnant. The due date and that the baby would be coming early. Prior to this there was no mention of a baby coming early. She named a health issue and said it would get picked up baby would come early and be ok not to panic but be prepared.
low and behold it's happened.

She didn't know my mum and mum booked with an email address that isn't hers and paid cash. Bizarre but she knew so much.
Mum isn't on social media or anything for this random woman to know any of this stuff.
I get some people don't believe in any of it but there wasn't a way for her to know any of this.

She also knew who was pregnant. The due date and that the baby would be coming early. Prior to this there was no mention of a baby coming early. She named a health issue and said it would get picked up baby would come early and be ok not to panic but be prepared.
low and behold it's happened

Not being facetious but if she can predict what's going to happen why cant she predict the lottery numbers then? surely if this were possible, all psychics would be multi millionaires now....

I get what you say. But suppose you don’t say anything or at least anything concrete which no one knows about.

In my case, the woman visiting the friend of ours apparently lived in Devon and had come to visit relatives for the week. This was also back in the day when there was no internet, people had house phones and some people had home PCs but these were still rare and only if you could afford it.

My great uncle (I got his name mixed up with my other great uncle) Freddie she couldn’t have known of.

My grandad on my mum’s side I didn’t know his first names until my dad died and it was on a marriage or another official certificate my DM had. My dad certainly didn’t tell me his names and I wasn’t in touch with him until I was 13.

Most charlatans don't admit to being charlatans.

I had a shocking experience - I was late to the event which was £25 meditation / reki then a medium after

Did not believe any of it

Was contacted by an colleague who does 5 years ago and we weren't close but the stuff was scarily accurate and I was stunned as prior to the meditation I had not even thought of her in years

A few years ago I think in early 1990s there was a story in the Sun or something about someone who stopped off at a truck stop or one of those motorway or A road snack vans or cafes.

Apparently the woman working there gave him winning lottery numbers, not sure how much for but maybe a few hundred thousand or a million pounds. I can’t recall if she looked like a gipsy or said she was.

That could be a total coincidence or it could be a gift. I recall me and my boyfriend then reading about it and joking about if we could find the woman and get those numbers for ourselves (it wasn’t that far away).