Just got back from a live medium show ....

[tonystarksrighthand]

I went in being completely open minded. I don't need to think I believe it or not. I'm glad I went and it was a great show.

She was fantastic. 2hrs live show. No breaks.

Would love to know of others experiences.

The cynic in me, says she should could get all from Facebook .... linked in etc .. it's all there to see.

The non cynic, she new exact names, exact circumstances etc

Would love to know others thoughts.

@Pumperthepumper just my first name??? There's billions of people with my first name? Also, I have absolutely nothing on social media that would tell all this information about me, it's closed right down on privacy due to work.

Your first name, plus the area you’re seeing the psychic in, and you’re likely friends with the person who booked it (first and second name). It’s really not hard to bypass privacy settings on social media.

@Pumperthepumper I wasn't from the area. It's ok, I have nothing to prove. I know what I know. Everything she said to me wasn't possible to have guessed. She was absolutely spot on with it all. The information just isn't out there in the public domain.

But you are friends with the person you went with on social media?

And you’ve changed from being a total sceptic (although one who goes to mediums?) to a complete believer in magic abilities?

He didn’t tell me anything, it was my colleague who was in his late forties. He told him about his mum dying, how he and his siblings went into care (he was a Barnardo’s boy, I found this out afterwards) and about a particular situation in the home. Remember this was well before social media, it was a drop in event so the spiritualist didn’t know who was in the audience and there was absolutely no fishing, it wasn’t a q&a - he just spoke to my colleague who was very shaken by it.

Oh, and the spiritualists were just announced on the night

Did you book in advance?

No - I explained in my post it was a drop in event at one of the spiritualist churches. I’m ashamed to say we went for a laugh, someone in the group had seen a poster for it.

So, you walked in, no advanced booking, the spiritualist was announced on the night, no prior warning of who was going to be there, and they spent the evening telling your colleague things he already knew about his childhood?

Before you take offence the last part was meant to show that they are taking the biscuit out of people suffering, which is horrible. Thanks for the sarcasm though.

They didn’t spend the evening telling him, they asked him if he would take a message, he said yes, they gave him the message, he looked shellshocked, it was over in about 5 minutes - but otherwise yes, which is why I’d like to know how the hell he did it.

I’ve been to other mediums where the fishing was laughable - this was completely different.

And there were several spiritualists, not just one.

They knew him from the home.

He was in his late forties - he was in the home as a child! Plus the spiritualist was younger than him.

Then someone else recognised him from the home and told the spiritualist. The fact that you think that’s less likely than someone having actual magical powers is exactly why these people get away with it.

I've heard people talk about mediums knowing things they couldn't, frighteningly accurate, unbelievably specific etc. I've been to the readings with these exact people and witnessed the cold reading and the way these vulnerable people hung onto the "hits" and forgot the "misses". It's tosh. Clever tosh, but tosh nonetheless.

The home wasn’t local to the church.

Honestly, I have been through every single permutation but for one of the other spiritualists to have been in the same home in another part of the country, to recognise my colleague from 30-plus years earlier, to have knowledge of the events leading up to him being orphaned and the situation in the care home and then somehow been able to share that in front of the audience is less than likely too.

*One of the other people there

Neither my colleague or myself are named on social media by our actual names. You wouldn't be able to find either of us by our given names.
The OP asked for people to share their experiences. I've shared mine. Absolutely I was a sceptic, beyond a sceptic. And yes I went along with the attitude like when I was a teenager and went to see the gypsy at the fair with my mates and listened to the whole 'you're going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger' bollocks. This experience was absolutely nothing like it.
I don't have anything to prove to you. Unlike you trying to prove to me it was all bollocks. Everything that I heard was deeply personal and individual to me. I never said anything about her 'magical abilities.' But just to clarify, I don't believe in unicorns.

It’s still more likely than someone being actually magic and rather than making real money somewhere using those gifts, instead they hang about church halls in the hope they can tell people things they already know.

But you do believe that people can by psychic.

While I have an open mind about psychic stuff, this kind of show is just entertainment, as pps say, with plants, backstage staff, earpieces etc. The only way I would be able to believe a medium would be if I saw one myself, in a neutral place, and she knew nothing about me beforehand including my name.

I have no idea if he made money elsewhere - I didn’t know who he was, he was just a spiritualist who was at the church.

I’m more than happy to hear a reasoned explanation for how he knew what he knew, but yours doesn’t cut it - it’s a massive stretch of the imagination. I’m sure there’s something far more plausible but I’ve never worked out what, and having told this story several times on MN over many years no-one else had either. As I said, I’ve been to other mediums when it’s been obvious (and clever) how they do it.

It’s much, much less of a stretch to say that someone else there knew your colleague from the home. To claim the spiritualist was literally magic is massively more improbable.

I went to a spiritualist church once as part of research for a novel— my point stands. You can tell a lot about the congregation at that kind of church purely from the fact that they’ve shown up.