What do you think of tarot readings and psychic mediums?

[T1mom]

What do you think of Tarot card readings and similar?

I went to a 'psychic medium' yesterday who was highly recommended by close people I know.

I'm not sure if they were tarot cards or another type of cards. I picked 8 cards, she talked through them. They had relevance to my life but I am skeptical and think that any card could have been twisted to fit my life. She asked a lot of leading questions and I feel like I filled a lot of gaps for her.

My DH saw her separately and thought she was brilliant and bought every word she said. Thought she knew a lot about his life and past and believes every word she said about his future.

What do you think? I'm intrigued because so many friends have totally bought into it.

I think some are real, and some aren't. My Mum and myself have both had readings that were scarily accurate - they knew details no one else could possibly know - about the past and the future. Both times we were anonymous (ie. made sure not to book anything via FB)

I've had good ones and not so good ones. At one point I was reading my own cards but stopped that years ago, not sure why.

It's demonic. I would have nothing to do with it.

I believe there are real psychic mediums out there but most people who claim to be one are just cold reading. I’ve seen 2 which were highly disappointing and inaccurate and I would not waste my money on one again. For example the last one I saw told me my dad was coming through. Said he was a prim and proper guy who didn’t drink a lot etc etc. she couldn’t have been further from the truth! I think she was basing this on how I looked and spoke. It really felt like she was making it up as she went along. On the other hand I have my own tarot deck and many times the cards I have drawn have been incredibly accurate and specific to the questions I have asked.

Mediums are largely deliberate frauds preying on the vulnerable.

Tarot cards- meaningless except insofar as you could use them as a tool to think about your life- "there is an opportunity in your future but you will need courage to face it" or whatever- who does that not apply to?

By 'real' you mean people who come up with facts and things that happen in the future. Yes, the demonic realm can give those answers too! I would still avoid, although these days it's more likely to be Facebook or other social media sites where they get information.

I think some of them are very good at cold-reading and some of them honestly believe they're doing it by magic.

Most of them are just throwing stuff out there and relying on the people they're dealing with being desperate enough to latch on to it.

Con artists and emotional leeches, exploiting people’s credulity, often at times when they are at their most vulnerable.

I think it’s a load of old bunkum.

That sums it up.

I agree, most are charlatans. I believe that some people have 'thinner' connections to the spiritual realm but that doesn't mean that they can 'see' into other people's futures. These people could use that 'gift' for good purposes or the opposite.

I lost a child a few years ago in tragic circumstances.

A friend of a friend recommended a medium and, although sceptical, I went as I wanted to know if my child was at peace.

It was amazing!

I gave no clues, wore no jewellery, kept my expression bland. Yet he told me ALL about this child I’d lost and I came away feeling completely different and comforted.

I don’t understand how it works, but I now attend my local spiritualist church and regularly have contact with my family.

Some people may think I’m gullible or vulnerable or just deluded, but for me it has brought back some strands of colour in what was a very grey, bleak time.

It is mainly crap, but I have had a strange experience when the reader came out with my father’s first name - which is an unusual one - having had no details about me other than my first name beforehand. She didn’t actually know how/when he’d died or much about him, but it was weird nonetheless.

Anyone claiming to be able to tell the future is a charlatan. There are many hotlines you can call where the so called psychic will keep you talking for hours but bear in mind that they benefit from the 75p or more a minute that it costs you.

I used to work for a very famous psychic person and believe me when I say that money was their only motivation.

synchronicity on the other hand is very real and mystical

They would have found a way to discover it beforehand these people are extremely clever and resourceful

Derren Brown has done really interesting work showing how impressive cold reading techniques can be. He has no 'psychic' powers and his position is that no such thing exists, but he's an expert cold reader and has conducted parts of his live show as a 'medium'. I've seen one of these performances and the level of detail he came out with was pretty mind blowing.

He said he often had bereaved people come up to him after the show and beg him to put him in touch with their loved one - his act was so good and they were so desperate that they become convinced what he was doing was real. Desperately sad

Derren Brown is quite the genius who knows how to tap into the power of the subconscious mind.

I think of the two separately. Psychic mediums cold read and prey on the vulnerable and should be avoided. The Tarot - if you learn it each card does have a meaning which can’t be faked, if a psychic medium is giving their own interpretation to the cards instead of what they actually mean they can’t be trusted

I had a tarot reading at the pagan and witches festival a few weeks ago. I've always fancied one and i think you need to go in with open mind. I didn't draw them she had me hold them to charge them with my energy then she shuffled them and she drew them. Some things rang true some things were a little vague, I'm not gonna live my life by it but I wouldn't be against having another with either the same or a different reader.
The first thing she asked was, with so many readers around that day why did i choose her. She loved that I said it was her sign saying topaz tarot; topaz is my birth stone.

I'm glad it gave you some peace.

I had a largely accurate reading and have had past readings but I won’t spend my money on them now. I do online tarot readings for fun instead.

I don’t spend my money on them as I found out this medium had not only been a private detective as seen with a business on companies house but also had followed me and my other followers on Pinterest, my only social media I had!

The only mediums I trust are the ones who don’t ask for money, the ones who tell you things without even knowing, you normally get a vibe from these people who are telling the truth.

This is true.

The person I saw was a psychic medium reading cards. I'm not sure what kind of cards they were. Yes I could see the one that looked like heaven but aside from that I didn't actually see the detail in the cards. She could quite possible spin the narrative for any cards to fit what she thought I wanted to hear.

I agree with Tim Minchin - these people are either lying or mentally ill. Actually there’s another possibility- that they genuinely think they have some sort of gift.

It’s all harmless guff until it isn’t. I have no doubt that it helps some people, but I’m less interested in whether some people find it comforts them than whether it’s actually true.

A little old lady down the local spiritualist church probably isn’t doing any harm.

The ones I really reserve my ire for are ones like Sally Morgan - getting very very rich by putting on a small child’s voice and pretending to be in contact with spirits.

For people like her I really wish there was a hell because she’d have a special place reserved. Absolutely vile, vile parasite preying on people’s grief.

Logically, if you believe in demons then you also believe that these mediums are true then ?

Would this come under witchcraft ?

Our local theatre sometimes puts on one of these psychic medium evenings, and one of these days, I'm going to go just for the hell of it. I'd like to see cold reading and suggestion at play. Do I believe they can really do it? Absolutely not in a million years.

On the other hand, I wouldn't touch a ouja board or tarot cards with a bargepole. I think I may have something approaching an unusual and vague gift of sorts, but it isn't something within my conscious control. It comes on without any warning or conscious thought at all. It's happened twice this week already.