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How do clairvoyants know things??

383 replies

Homer2 · 14/04/2026 13:45

I have never believed in this, I saw one once just for fun at my aunties house and she wasn’t great. She did say a few things that were accurate, but I put this down to being guesses or general vague things that would be relevant to the majority of people.

However, recently my friend went to one. She recently lost her dad and her partner. Without telling the clairvoyant anything, she knew how her partner died and what his name was. She mentioned my friends dad blowing kisses in a weird way, with the palm of his hand instead of his fingers, which is something he did used to do. How would she know these things??? I don’t honestly believe in it, but can’t understand how she’d know such specific things

OP posts:
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secretmum41 · 14/04/2026 20:20

beefthief · 14/04/2026 15:36

Their other approach is to rely on faulty memories of 30+ year old events. Can you remember exactly what was said? Of course not, the wording will have twisted and turned over the years.

Google "cold reading", as it's by far the more plausible explanation.

Please don’t be so patronising. I remember her words exactly. Did you even read my post? Absolutely NO-ONE knew of my termination. Cold reading was not a part in my particular experience.

If you want to give your general comments, then please don’t tag me and patronise me and my post like that.

Figcherry · 14/04/2026 20:20

Pre internet I was visiting my dm and she asked me to go to a psychic with her.
The woman didn’t ask questions she just gave me some cards to shuffle and told me to put them face down in a circle.
As she lifted each card she read what it told her eg ‘this card says your dh has a new job but It’s the same company however he will get more money.’
That really resonated with me as my dh had just been promoted within the civil service to a different department. It was so specific. I don’t know how the woman didn’t it but she told me at least 4 specific events and I’d never heard of or met her before and didn’t live near my dm.
She also read the cards really fast. She wasn’t pausing to study my reactions.

blanketsnuggler · 14/04/2026 20:48

Many years ago - pre internet, I went to a medium in Edinburgh ( I was working on a touring show and moving around the UK a lot at the time). I booked in under my first name only. I am imagining the things he could have worked out from meeting me was that I was not local, and not married. How could he have possibly known anything else about me? I was determined not to give anything away through my reactions to what he said.
He told me that I was needed work wise in many different places, and received thanks on a daily basis. I would be married in 17 months and I had recently met my future husband. I would have a boy and a girl, and the person telling him this was a maternal grandma or great grandma who was particularly short, not much taller than me sitting down. (I am 5ft 6)
Apparently my g gma was 4 ft 8 tall.

I moved in and got engaged to my boyfriend (someone who had helped out on the show a few weeks before, who went on to work alongside me) exactly 17 months after the reading.

Thinking this was a bit freaky, when the show moved onto Dublin, I sent off for a written consultation with him using only my middle name and the info came back the same.

Blondeshavemorefun · 14/04/2026 20:55

I believe there are some real ones about

I gave a fake name and withheld my telephone number so couldn’t be googled via Facebook, et cetera

The things she told me about how my husband died - he hung himself were unbelievable - How did you know somethings?

My husband was very skeptic and she even said he didn’t believe in the afterlife, but he’s here now telling me you were right

She mentioned where his glasses were on the microwave - As I said, how he died - And a few other things, but honestly, no one could have known which is why my mind with blown away

It gave me peace that hopefully that he was in a better place

OctopusFriend · 14/04/2026 21:03

@Blondeshavemorefun , well I'm glad that the experience gave you peace.
It's a very traumatic thing to deal with, and I'm sorry for your loss 💐

AlwaysAnxious32 · 14/04/2026 21:12

These kinds of things keep me awake at night tbh. Whether it's true or not. I'm not a believer at all.

BUT

When I was 18, I'm now 33. My brother dies suddenly, I was already a bit of a lost cause and wayward soul in the sense that I was out every night of the week getting black out drunk and just being a menace basically.

One night, not long after he passed, I was out drinking yet again, a girl approached me outside in the beer garden, I'd never met her, or even seen her. She told me that she could see a little boy in blue, with a football and Lego. She said she felt like she couldn't breathe, also he wanted me to know he likes the frogs.

My brother was buried in a blue football kit, he played football, loved Lego, and we put ornamental frogs at his grave. He had asthma and allergies and died of an asthma attack and anaphylaxis.

She didn't know me, I didn't know her, it was bizzare. I often question whether, in my grief I made it up. But I know I didnt.

Anyhow. I still don't fully believe there is anything after we die, unless I can get some solid proof which is unlikely. It genuinely haunts me. I suffer really badly Existential OCD and anxiety since then, I'm sure that experience is what triggered it.

Blondeshavemorefun · 14/04/2026 21:32

OctopusFriend · 14/04/2026 21:03

@Blondeshavemorefun , well I'm glad that the experience gave you peace.
It's a very traumatic thing to deal with, and I'm sorry for your loss 💐

Thank you

TunnocksOrDeath · 14/04/2026 21:34

I did card readings at a charity event once, cribbing from a single chapter in a generalist book on fortune telling and using an incomplete set of cards because we couldn't find a full deck. So e.g. if you turn cards for man, care and old person, then you'd spin a line "interpret" it as someone's Grandad wanting them to know that he loves them very much and not being able to express it for some reason - all very vague and fits a number of scenarios which you can expand on if they respond.
It was totally fake, but a number of people genuinely thought I had 'the gift'. You have to pity them really.

Goatymum · 14/04/2026 21:45

My mum had a similar experience years ago (she’s been dead for 26 years!) when she saw a medium in a group setting. Afterwards I asked her if the medium could’ve known the info and she said no way. The internet was in its infancy, there was no social media and it was a really specific thing.
Im sure she probably just mentioned this fact to the friend she was with and forgotten she’d done so and the medium overheard.

CurlewKate · 14/04/2026 21:47

The other important thing to consider is that we don’t remember the misses, only the hits.

MabelAnderson · 14/04/2026 21:48

OctopusFriend · 14/04/2026 19:20

Why didn't she just say to you -
"Get home quickly, your kitchen is flooding!"

It wasn’t me she said it too, it was my friend. It wasn’t ’your kitchen is going to flood’ it was more along the lines of ‘I can see a lot of water in your house’ type of thing.

OctopusFriend · 14/04/2026 21:56

MabelAnderson · 14/04/2026 21:48

It wasn’t me she said it too, it was my friend. It wasn’t ’your kitchen is going to flood’ it was more along the lines of ‘I can see a lot of water in your house’ type of thing.

So why didn't she tell her to go home straight away? A lot of water in your house is surely a problem? I don't understand.

MabelAnderson · 14/04/2026 22:10

I don’t think it was as clear as ‘this is happening now’, my friend didn’t understand what she meant and thought it might be a future prediction or just wrong. Anyway I was curious and went to see her a week later . I had seen tarot readers before with friends, it had never felt very accurate , but this young woman was quite different, a few things only made sense later but the stuff she said was not generic, but oddly specific to me and my life at the time.

Rhaidimiddim · 14/04/2026 22:13

My sister is a clairvoyant/medium.

When we lived together as teenagers in the 1970s, she always knew when the bus inspector was going to get on the bus and so we should get the full 21p fare and not the 16p fare. She also gave me information and warnings about stuff later in life, long before social media existed.

There are cold readers, and there are clairvoyants.

I recommend you read the book Extraordinary Knowing by Elizabeth Lloyd for the best explanation of how clairvoyance might be possible.

tsmainsqueeze · 14/04/2026 22:19

PrudenceDictates · 14/04/2026 19:58

it was over 30 years ago and i remember it with clarity

No you don’t. That’s not how memory works at all. Memory doesn’t take a photo; nor is it a stored file you can refer back to.
Every time you recall something your mind recreates the whole scene anew. It adds details in, and is biased towards how you want to remember it.
What you’re “clearly” remembering is not what happened, but reconstructed memory of a reconstructed memory, as convincing as it may seem.

You don't know how my mind works , i do remember it with clarity .
Speak for yourself.

NotAnotherScarf · 14/04/2026 22:21

One question for everyone who believes in clairvoyancey

Why don't they win the lottery every week of even pick the winner of the 3.30 at Kempton if they can see the future?

PrudenceDictates · 14/04/2026 22:52

tsmainsqueeze · 14/04/2026 22:19

You don't know how my mind works , i do remember it with clarity .
Speak for yourself.

It’s how EVERYONE’s mind works, for goodness sake! It’s well researched and documented.

Try reading some science instead of woo claptrap.

MasterBeth · 14/04/2026 23:14

secretmum41 · 14/04/2026 15:16

For those saying googling, social media etc .. what about the days before this? Saw a ‘clairvoyant’ back in 1990, so way before internet, mobile phones, social media etc. We went as a group from work. She told me a couple of things which were true and not easily guessable, but then she hit me like a ton of bricks when she said the baby I had terminated was doing well in the spiritual world, and would not have survived the living world, so the termination of was the best decision. No-one knew I’d been pregnant or terminated. Absolutely no-one. I was 18. I didn’t tell a single soul. There is no possible way she could have known this information at all. For me, this cannot be explained in any way other than she truly did have spiritual insight.

But of course there is a possible way she could have revealed this information without knowing it at all.

She could have guessed / taken a stab in the dark.

It would be completely understandable if you found this miraculous, but please consider the possibility that she could have just guessed/tried it out. Respondents to "psychics" naturally respond to guesses/stabs in the dark that fit and dismiss those that don't. It's one of the bases of cold reading.

secretmum41 · 14/04/2026 23:17

MasterBeth · 14/04/2026 23:14

But of course there is a possible way she could have revealed this information without knowing it at all.

She could have guessed / taken a stab in the dark.

It would be completely understandable if you found this miraculous, but please consider the possibility that she could have just guessed/tried it out. Respondents to "psychics" naturally respond to guesses/stabs in the dark that fit and dismiss those that don't. It's one of the bases of cold reading.

Think what you like. I know exactly how my experience went.

Imbusytodaysorry · 14/04/2026 23:18

Blondiebeachbabe · 14/04/2026 14:03

I believe in it. Didn't used to, but have had far too many weird things happen now.

Many years ago, I decided to leave my first H, due to his continued cheating. I had not told a living soul about this. One night my H was out, and I was sat browsing the internet looking at houses, to see what I could afford on my own. My phone then rang and it was my Mum. She explained that they'd been to the village hall that had a Medium night on. She went on to tell me, that a Medium had told her that she could hear someone calling out my name, and to tell me that a move of house was indicated, a good man, and happiness. My Mum obviously thought it was nonsense, as in her mind I was happy. I should add here, that I have a VERY unusual name. I did indeed leave, get a new house, and met my now DH.

This same Medium told my Mum that she would come into possession of a guitar in unusual circumstances, and that she would win the lottery. About a year after the reading, my parents were sitting in the garden at midnight, and a guitar came flying over the fence, and landed on the lawn. Then, a few weeks later, they did indeed win the lottery (£20k).

Mum is no longer with us, and I was watching a Medium on Tiktok, who told me that if you want contact from loved ones who have passed, you have to ask out loud for it and ask for a sign. I asked out loud for my Mum to show me a butterfly. I didn't tell anyone about this. A few weeks later, on Mother's Day, my DH gave me a card from the dogs. It was a plain card, with a pin badge in the centre of a beautiful butterfly. I wear it on my coat now.

Shortly after that, I asked my Mum to show me a bumblebee. The next day, I see a FB advert posted by a lady with the same name as my Mum, who happens to make woollen bumblebees. The name of her company was my Mum's favourite flower.

I asked about 2 weeks ago for Mum to show me a feather in an unusual place. The next day, my dog was sitting in the garden with a white feather stuck to his lips! This has never happened before!

DH and I were talking about MIL one day, she has also passed away. One of us said something a bit negative and a huge canvas flew off the wall.

I saw a Medium a few months ago - the first and only time I have ever done so. My friend booked it, and gave the Medium no details about us whatsoever, not even our names. This Medium knew my Mum's name. Not the initial or anything vague, she said the right name, first time. She also knew lots of things she had no way of knowing. She knew that the adoption my son was talking about, was no longer going to happen. She said my son was about to meet a new woman - this has now happened. She said that my Mum mentioned that someone had been taking naked selfies! Bear in mind, I'm mid 50's! I denied this of course, but actually I had sent DH a saucy selfie a few days before - the only time I have ever done so in our 17 years together. She knew what my husband's job is. She knew that I had a sibling that passed and what their name started with. She knew that the day after the reading was a special day for my Mum (it was their wedding anniversary).

My Mum went to see a Medium many years ago. She had just lost her sister. She (my aunt) was called Pauline, but close friends called her Polly for short. The Medium was rubbish. Went they all got up to leave, a woman who had been sat next to my Mum in the audience said "That guy was rubbish. He didn't give anyone any real detail. I mean, you'd want someone to say" :

"Hey, I have your sister here, her name was Pauline, but everyone called her Polly for short".....

My Mum was convinced that her sister used someone else to get the message through.

I have a few more like this. Very strange! I now believe! Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. You can't see radio waves or your broadband signal, but they are very much there regardless!

Amazing post.
Nobody believes until it happens to them.

secretmum41 · 14/04/2026 23:18

PrudenceDictates · 14/04/2026 22:52

It’s how EVERYONE’s mind works, for goodness sake! It’s well researched and documented.

Try reading some science instead of woo claptrap.

Maybe you should try to stop being so rude.

MasterBeth · 14/04/2026 23:19

PrudenceDictates · 14/04/2026 22:52

It’s how EVERYONE’s mind works, for goodness sake! It’s well researched and documented.

Try reading some science instead of woo claptrap.

Although what you're saying is rude and unlikely to be very persuasive with the previous poster, it's also true. There is a lot we don't know about how our brains work, but there is a lot we do.

Psychology and neuroscience give us really good explanations for many experiences that may feel miraculous, and also give us good reasons as to why our brains are prone to believe they are miracles/psychic/supernatural, even when they inevitably aren't.

MasterBeth · 14/04/2026 23:21

secretmum41 · 14/04/2026 23:17

Think what you like. I know exactly how my experience went.

I am not denying how your experience felt to you, I am asking you to consider in what way your experience would have felt any different if she had just guessed.

secretmum41 · 14/04/2026 23:23

MasterBeth · 14/04/2026 23:21

I am not denying how your experience felt to you, I am asking you to consider in what way your experience would have felt any different if she had just guessed.

Stop patronising me. Maybe open your mind up to there being more out there than you choose to believe.

MasterBeth · 14/04/2026 23:30

secretmum41 · 14/04/2026 23:23

Stop patronising me. Maybe open your mind up to there being more out there than you choose to believe.

Sure. If you do the same and consider that there might be less.

In what way would your experience have felt any different if she had just guessed?