Psychics

Inspired by the Astrology/Numerology thread.
Have any of you had any experience with Psychics? I've recently visited a Spiritual Medium who claimed she had a gift for seeing people who had passed-over who had a message for her clients.
In an hour she told me things about my past she couldn't have possibly known, very specific things, also the past of my mother, and boyfriend. It was quite disconcerting. I went in with an open mind but a healthy amount of sceptiscism and left completely amazed. She claimed my grandparents spoke to her and gave her very specific personal messages, as well as other family members and someone close to my boyfriend who had passed over came to give me a message for him.
Her predictions for my future are bright and I hope they come true. We can only wait and see.
This lady gave me a full hour, recorded the whole thing on tape and didn't charge the earth. Before the session she told me she believed that she had a gift and didn't like to charge people for it and got very annoyed when she saw pretenders out there conning people out of their money, but she had to make a living, she also works with the police and does some free work in special cases.
Anyone else have any interesting stories involving psychics?

Is that you, Angela? I didn't think so (there is a lot of personal history covered in there in some detail), but this weblog is referenced from Lasse Koskela's Java Weblog, and I see names such as Gregg Bollinger there along with yours. Seems way too much of a coincidence.
[ February 24, 2004: Message edited by: Eugene Kononov ]

Well, I am absolutely certain that's Angela's own website � she had once posted here in Javaranch about doing stand-up gigs, and I am so sure about this because that thread came to my mind (trying to do stand-ups for the first time, how hard it is to plan something to be funny etc) when I was reading Frank Skinners� Autobiography (yeah, he isn�t all that important or anything, I was bored and I got it for free!)
Between, it�s amazing what some (very few) physics seems to know � I never visited any myself, but have heard both good and bad about physics, mostly good though � now that may be because they (or at least the not so good ones) generalize their prediction or vision so much to fit his/her clients imagination.
However, I am really amused about the good ones though � I have no idea how they do that!
[ February 24, 2004: Message edited by: Ashok Mash ]

Eugene - you could always follow the link in Angela's own profile.

heard both good and bad about physics, mostly good though
...oh, yeh
they did bad things like nuclear bombs,
as well as good things like microwave ovens

Hi,
I thought the topic is psychics but the discussion is physics.
Regards,
MCao

Originally posted by Matt Cao:
Hi,
I thought the topic is psychics but the discussion is physics.
Regards,
MCao

I believe the source of this confusion is Ashok Mash misspelling psychics as physics.

Jim: Eugene - you could always follow the link in Angela's own profile.
Yeah, I missed it. Now the only quetion is, does Angela's psychic have an internet connection? Or to paraphrase it, why pay a psychic if any of us can tell Angela's past down to very gruesome detail for free.

When I was a graduate student, we had a guest from Istanbul while we were socializing in the dormitory lounge on a holiday. This guy claimed that he was a psychic and I was selected by fellow students to test him out.
He told me to look into his eyes and concentrate on thinking a 3-digit number. So I did. While looking at me, he first asked if there was a number 5 in it. I replied: "No". Then, he moved his eyes away from me and announced in front of everybody the 3-digit number that was in my mind at the time .
I was scared and my hair stood up.
[ February 24, 2004: Message edited by: JiaPei Jen ]

Hi,
I believe everyone have the psychics capabilities, just try to practice it, you will be better than others. It is part of a human survivor skills. For example, how do you know certain place is bad when you not even set foot into it yet. Some will practice psychics better than others, just like anything else, it depended on your DNA.
Regards,
MCao

Damn typos! Discussion is about �psychics� of course!
Once a psychic once told my then girlfriend that there is this �foreigner� in her life, which was true of course, but not so amazing because I used to live just hundred meters up same road where this psychic does her practice! � eh, okay then ..!

My website does not even touch on some of the specific stuff this psychic came out with. This is stuff i would never put on the web mostly because it relates more to other people than myself.
Also this psychic only knew my first name when the booking was made and lives in an city I had never visted before. She had no way of knowing the things she knew.

Hey Angela, can you provide an excerpt from one of your 5 minutes stand up gigs? I am curious if the modern British humor is still up to the high standards set by the Empire.

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
http://www.epinions.com/book-review-52B8-12A2A2A5-3942E8D0-prod1

Still doesn't explain the very specific detailed info she had about various people in my life.

I wasn't there so I have no idea how she "mined" you. Of course the simplest explanation is that she is friends with someone in your family and you didn't know it.

Actually, the simplist explanation is that she's psychic. Add in all that stuff about being a friend of the family and mining and it gets more complicated.

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
I wasn't there so I have no idea how she "mined" you. Of course the simplest explanation is that she is friends with someone in your family and you didn't know it.

OK let me clarify for the over-sceptical.
I made this booking over the phone after she was recommended by a friend. That friend didn't know a lot of the stuff she told me. This Psychic was based in a city 150 miles of any of my other friends or family, I happened to be visiting so thought I'd go and check her out.
All she asked for was my first name, she didn't even take a phone number or address, just took my name and gave me a time to turn up.
I arrived, waited in her waiting room while she was with another client, then she came out and brought me into the room. Again, she didn't ASK me anything, I've listened to the tape of the session over and over, within a minute she had told me my grandfather was there, she described how he had an injured leg (I never actually met my grandfather but my mum had told me he had a problem with his leg). She said he had told her about my new boyfriend (who'd only met a few weeks before) and then described my boyfriend completely accurately, his hair colour, his build (unusually thin), his profession, his age and some very specific details about aspects of his family history that I had only learned about a few days before and hadn't told anyone. She then went on to tell me his surname, and described how we met and that she knew we lived some distance from eachother,(200 miles).
She went on to make some predictions about our future which I can only wait and see if they come true.
Later on she talked about my mother, apparently her mother (my grandmother) was talking to her now and she described again in great detail many aspects of my mum's life that I've never shared with anyone and delivered a message for me to give to my mum from my grandmother that was very significant. She also told me what my profession was and described some incidents in my past. There was loads of other stuff too that could seem more vague, but I can't find any evidence of her mining me for info and I HAVE been looking because I found it difficult to believe myself that someone could be SO specific without knowing something, however it seems she does indeed have a gift.

I thought she did something clever. I highly overrated her ability. She did nothing that a friend of mine who is a magician can't do. The Amazing Randi has demonstrated exactly those kinds of "abilities" on TV. Do some reading on the subject and you will be amazed what you can do too.

Psychics display an interesting phenomenon about human psychology, and they employ fascinating mentally non-linear processes to pull of the act of "seeing into the future". It's great to study this very engaging topic, but sadly, you'll find that the more you learn about it the less mystical it becomes.
There's nothing mystical to it. Psychics operate using non-linear logic, sort of like illusionists do, and make us imagine things that are not really there. Also, they depend on tapping into that center of our brain that trusts our sensual experience to delude us, and then reinforce the show by appealing to our sense of self-puffery ("I saw it with my own eyes, and *my* impressions would have to be wrong for her to be a crank"). We like to think that we cannot be mislead in these ways, and practitioners of non-linear logic depend upon this.
It's a great line she laid on you about not really wanting to do it for money but having to make a living. She probably says this because more than one person has asked her to explain why she doesn't collect the one million dollar prize being offered to anyone who can prove the paranormal exists beyond a reasonable doubt. With this bit of schtick, she heads that one off right at the pass (another technique these people use--they often seed seemingly innocuous conversation with comments that anticipate many common skeptical questions).
The fact is, there is nothing paranormal about this woman or anyone else who claims these sort of things. I personally feel that what she's doing is unethical...I don't believe it's right to manipulate people's feelings and memories of loved ones passed on or about their own potential in the future, especially for commercial gain. It's a made-up service that doesn't really help anyone and tends to exploit the weaker amongst us on average.
sev

Nobody has yet said anything to convince me how she knew so many very detailed things about my past, my new boyfriend's past and my mother's past! I'm talking she mentioned specific instances, and the order in which they occured. These weren't things that happen to many people.

So this discussion is headed towards a religious war between us, because you do seem completely taken with this experience and rational discussion rarely budges such attitudes. (After all, you *did* see it with your own eyes, right?)
All I can say is this: consider all of the amazing things you have personally seen in your own life and things you can reasonably accept that others have actually seen (such as a Seigfried and Roy magic show, David Blaine before he got into tests of endurance, or Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear). Many of these things are totally incomprehensible, yet simple illusions to pull off *if* you know the trick.
So there are two possibilities here, and you are free to choose either one. They are:
1. This "psychic" knows a few of the tricks that have been used convincingly by even admitted fakes for centuries, or...
2. This person can actually see into the future and, with this power, chooses to live a life of relative squalor (compared to what they could be doing) providing answers for relatively insignificant people (sorry, but in the grand scheme of things, that's what you and me are) instead of allying themselves with some extremely powerful people and possibly changing the course of history for the better using their unique gifts.
If you had the potential to actually see into the future, properly used you could prevent wars, the effects on people of natural disasters, enrich yourself personally to no end...but I'm sure you'd choose to do readings for random slobs off the street for $19.95 a pop, right?
Do try to consider these two views irrespective of your personal experience with this person. These fakes recruit believers because they hope that, in making the choice I've presented you above, your personal experience will create enough cognitive dissonance in your mind to make option 1 as unreasonable to you as option 2 ought to be. Also keep in mind that every so often these fakes are able to pull off apparent impossibilities simply by hitting a lucky guess or two every now and then. If you did readings 8 hours a day for several years, every 1 in 1000 you'd hit so close that person would believe in you forever. You might be this person's 1 in 1000 (but probably not).
sev
[ March 20, 2004: Message edited by: sever oon ]