Psychics And The Paranormal

[LosingMyReligion]

I think I'm an athiest, because I don't believe in the supernatural anymore.

 

However, sometimes, because of psychics, I find myself wondering about supernatural things and thinking, "what if there is something to it?"

 

Like I remember once watching a television talk show where this little kid fell out of a three story window. Long story short he fell, fractured his arm, but--otherwise--was unscathed.

 

The little kid said that some guy named Earnest caught him. It turns out that Earnest was his dead grandfather that he'd never even met...The dad says he never talked to him about Earnest, so he couldn't have possibly known...

 

That is the sort of thing that keeps me from being all the way athiest....

 

Other things...

 

1.) How do psychics, like Sylvia Browne, seemingly know everything? Well most look fake anyway...they are always guessing...But she seems to not guess as much as others...

 

2.) What about ghosts and paranormal activity? the unexplainable...

 

3.) Alien abductions?

 

4.) Psychic children

 

5.) are people trained to be psychics?

 

These are just questions I've always had.

[Dave]

1.) How do psychics, like Sylvia Browne, seemingly know everything? Well most look fake anyway...they are always guessing...But she seems to not guess as much as others...

They don't know anything. They are all frauds. Browne is just better at lying than the others are. She makes such broad predictions, and thousands of predictions, that whatever happens she can claim to have predicted it.

2.) What about ghosts and paranormal activity? the unexplainable...

Ghosts and such do not exist. Don't believe what you see on the SciFi (which stands for science FICTION) channel. So far ALL paranormal activity has been explained as fraud or misinterpretation.

3.) Alien abductions?

What aliens? Produce one. Read this.

4.) Psychic children

Huh?

5.) are people trained to be psychics?

No, they are trained in fraud. See my link above to "cold reading.

These are just questions I've always had.

but are you willing to accept the answers or do you still need to believe in a Universe with magic in it?

 

Brown and her ilk are frauds. Study up on a technique called "cold reading." Also do some reading and studying. Read this for a start.

[StewartP]

5.) are people trained to be psychics?

Yes.

 

Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm getting a book on cold reading.

 

It works something like this:

John Edwards/Sylvia Browne/Some other vulture: I'm getting an "M" does that mean anything?

Desperate sap in audience:Yes! Yes! My husband was called Michael (tears)

JE/SB/SOV: (thinks, young woman in tears; husband) Michael died suddenly?

DSIA: Yes (sobs)

JE/SB/SOV: It was very sudden wasn't it? (thinks, probably heart attack or car crash)

DSIA: No, he was ill for some time

JE/SB/SOV: (shit! quick!) But it was very quick when he crossed over wasn't it?

DSIA: Oh yes

JE/SB/SOV: (phew! got away with it) Well Michael says he's in a happy place and you're not to worry about the money

DSIA: Oh thank-you, you're wonderful!

(Audience is left amazed)

 

Notice at no time does the psychic offer information. Its always questions. It's the punter that provides the answers and the psychic turns it around to make it look like it came from him/her.

 

The rest is intelligent guessing and people forget the wrong guesses and remember the hits. Combine that with the tv editing of the shows and you're left with a very impressive performance. Also remember that often the tv audience have filled out cards detailing what they want the psychic to help with.

 

What about the "not to worry about the money" thing the psychic threw out? Well, since Michael died young a left a widow and maybe kids there is probably some legal/financial thing outstanding. Plus the Desperate Sap in Audience just said how wonderful the psychic was the the audience assume a hit.

 

Everyone should watch the South Park episode on John Edward. Young Stan explains how these swine work. (search www.youtube.com with "South Park" and "John Edward")

 

Also available on the internet are transcripts of psychics' shows. Once you actually analyse the comments and count the missed guesses they come over pretty damn weak.

 

http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/ is a web site run by a lady whose son is missing. She now runs a support group for people with missing children On this site you can read peoples testimonies of how the psychics come circling like buzzards. It is dispicable.

[LosingMyReligion]

1.) How do psychics, like Sylvia Browne, seemingly know everything? Well most look fake anyway...they are always guessing...But she seems to not guess as much as others...

They don't know anything. They are all frauds. Browne is just better at lying than the others are. She makes such broad predictions, and thousands of predictions, that whatever happens she can claim to have predicted it.

2.) What about ghosts and paranormal activity? the unexplainable...

Ghosts and such do not exist. Don't believe what you see on the SciFi (which stands for science FICTION) channel. So far ALL paranormal activity has been explained as fraud or misinterpretation.

3.) Alien abductions?

What aliens? Produce one. Read this.

4.) Psychic children

Huh?

5.) are people trained to be psychics?

No, they are trained in fraud. See my link above to "cold reading.

These are just questions I've always had.

but are you willing to accept the answers or do you still need to believe in a Universe with magic in it?

 

Brown and her ilk are frauds. Study up on a technique called "cold reading." Also do some reading and studying. Read this for a start.

 

Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Slow your roll...I wasn't looking for any reason to continue to believe. As I've said I'm practically 99% athiest now...

 

I was seeking logical answers for all of these things that I used to believe in wholeheartedly...I would simply like to know how people are duped by these kinds of things...particularly psychic children. Because you never expect a kid to be a con artist, so you assume when they have an NDE and say they visited a land of unicorns and bunnies that they are telling the truth...

 

However, I don't believe in any of it anymore and I don't long to...I am just being thorough. So when I completely denounce my belief in all things super natural I'll feel like I have the answers...

 

 

Anyway, totally agree StewartP. I always thought it was obvious, even when I did believe...Most of them were just playing some guessing game and people took the bait. Sylvia has a forum for her lies with Montell...I am sure he doesn't believe but he is in it to get paid.

[RedPillAddict]

I hate Sylvia Brown. I don't see how anyone can buy into her crap.

I mean, come on! $700 a question?!!

I have yet to see an "update" show on Montel where they say she was correct.

She is just avery good liar.

I have seen her use the same name for "spirit guides" for multiple people.

[LosingMyReligion]

LOL! So true...I used to watch her shows and she is so unbelieveably good at what she does...which is con people.

[dibby]

A friend of mine at college didn,t believe in ghosts....until he saw one. He even walked up to the "light" he saw saying to his friends, "Nonsense. It's a trick of the light". That is until the light turned out to be a person who looked at him and walked through the wall.

 

I have had pychic experiences. But I don,t expect other people to believe. It is a personal matter.

 

I think there is something to it. But it can be difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. I am very sceptical when people start using their supposed psychic powers and making big bucks from it and gaining celebrity status. We don,t need to look to others or their spirit guides to follow our spiritual path. We can do it ourselves. If we aren,t careful we will substitute old superstitious nonsense (fundyism) for new superstitious nonsense (alot of new age stuff).

 

Derren Brown is a mentalist (not psychic in anyway) and does some amazing things through cold reading, mind manipulation etc. He performed as a medium once and had people in tears by telling them about their deceased loved ones. And he got a load of atheists to believe in god by mind influence and suggestion. (All corrected afterwards)

[Dave]

I was seeking logical answers for all of these things that I used to believe in wholeheartedly...I would simply like to know how people are duped by these kinds of things...

Then follow the links I provided.

particularly psychic children. Because you never expect a kid to be a con artist, so you assume when they have an NDE and say they visited a land of unicorns and bunnies that they are telling the truth...

They are telling the truth about what they believe they saw. Why would an NDE be any different than any other dream?

However, I don't believe in any of it anymore and I don't long to...I am just being thorough. So when I completely denounce my belief in all things super natural I'll feel like I have the answers...

Then follow the links. In those links you'll find out how these people defraud and victimize others.

[Kurari]

I've had some weird experiances, so I'm not entirely certain. Once my ex-fiance I got on the conversation topic of psychics and we were messing around. So we decided to see if we could do it.

 

My ex was very close to his grandfather when he was little and would visit his grandparents often until his grandfather died when he was five years old. That was all he ever told me, and I had never seen pictures or had any descriptions of his visits. He wanted to know about his grandfather, so I started thinking about that. Then I just started voicing whatever came into my head. I saw a bedroom with a large bed with a plain coral colored bedspread, dark maroon carpeting, a large bay window to the left of the bed (facing from the doorway), a big dark brown wood dresser opposite the bed, and a nightstand on each side of the bed with different lamps, and a big watercolor painting of a landscape above the bed with a barn and two horses grazing.

 

My ex went white as a sheet and said that was exactly what his grandparents bedroom looked like.

 

I've also had weird experiances with haunted places, ghosts, and just knowing when stuff was going to happen that didn't have an explanation.

 

That's pretty much where I leave it. I've had a bunch of odd experiances without an explanation. They were sort of fun, and I admit to having guilty pleasure to reading about supernatural stuff and visiting graveyards and haunted places. But I don't really think I'm psychic or hold much opinion on "professional" psychics.

[LosingMyReligion]

I had this one weird experience where, before my dad died, this swarm of bees came into our tree. The bees, for no reason, just stayed there for several days...Then on the day my dad died(in the house)the left.

 

For that reason I still question and, to some extent, believe in the paranormal...

Right now I don't because there really isn't enough proof. There is more proof against the existence of the supernatural than there is in support of it...

Anyway, Why would bees do that? Was it just a coincidence?

[Dave]

A friend of mine at college didn,t believe in ghosts....until he saw one. He even walked up to the "light" he saw saying to his friends, "Nonsense. It's a trick of the light". That is until the light turned out to be a person who looked at him and walked through the wall.

That proves nothing except that your friend is very gullible.

I have had pychic experiences. But I don,t expect other people to believe. It is a personal matter.

You BELIEVE you've had such experiences. Belief is not proof.

I think there is something to it. But it can be difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff....

No, it's all chaff. They're all fraud or delusional or susceptible to belief in such things.

Derren Brown is a mentalist (not psychic in anyway) and does some amazing things through cold reading, mind manipulation etc. He performed as a medium once and had people in tears by telling them about their deceased loved ones. And he got a load of atheists to believe in god by mind influence and suggestion. (All corrected afterwards)

I seriously doubt that she got one Atheist to believe in anything. There is no difference between a "mentalist" and a psychic. They are both frauds.

 

I had some friends that once believed in this garbage. I had them take me to their favorite fraudster and this person started to tell me all about my son that died at the age of 5 in a tragic car accident. The problem was I never had a son.

 

 

....Why would bees do that? Was it just a coincidence?

Coincidence. Abscounding bees only hang out in one place for a day or two until the scouts find a permanent home.

[LosingMyReligion]

Coincidence. Abscounding bees only hang out in one place for a day or two until the scouts find a permanent home.

 

Thanks

 

I didn't know that. All my relatives and friends told me was that it was the archangel or something...lol

[Gaura]

I've had enough experiences in my life to convince me that science can not (currently) explain my entire life. It's one reason why I'm Pagan.

 

Short story, if a bit bittersweet because it involves William, my stillborn. The day I took my EPT test was a weekend with a psychic faire nearby. Well, turns out two of my friends were vendors, one as a psychic and the other as a healer/ wandmaker. Well, ran into the healer friend first and merely asked her "Hey, can you tell what's different? She thought for a second and couldn't see anything obvious so she sensed my aura (she doesn't have the Sight so she has to use her hands) which is when she realized that I was pregnant!

 

HOWEVEr, there are a lot of frauds and charlatans out there. I might add that a large number of the best psychics I know don't do much for the public.

[godlessgrrl]

People see and experience weird shit, that much I don't doubt. (Hell, I've seen some pretty weird shit myself.) But I have a serious problem with thinking weird stuff has anything to do with, say, anything outside the realm of the natural world.

 

If there were a single psychic that could predict stuff on multiple occasions and have it verified under scientific conditions, by researchers who actually know what the fuck they're doing and aren't going to assume there's something unusual at work, I might think there's something to that particular individual's psychic ability.

 

If ghost hunters could come up with anything other than digital camera artifacts (no, people, they're not fucking orbs, they're places where the camera "guesses" what info to fill in) and some odd EM fluctuations that can't be reproduced, I might be less skeptical about ghosts.

 

If somebody credible produces an actual, for-real alien body, then maybe I'd give some weight to the idea that we've been visited.

 

Coincidences seem weird, but note that human brains are hardwired to look for patterns and relationships. In that light synchronicity isn't that odd.

 

I'm never going to say that people don't see and experience unexplained or weird stuff... but that's all it is, unexplained. Unexplained doesn't equate to supernatural or miraculous or whatever, it just means nobody knows yet what caused it.

 

So yeah. Approach claims of the supernatural or paranormal with the same scrutiny that you would for, say, the Bible.

 

And I'm rambling now so I'll shut up.

[Dave]

I've had enough experiences in my life to convince me that science can not (currently) explain my entire life. It's one reason why I'm Pagan.

Why should science have to explain your life?

Short story, if a bit bittersweet because it involves William, my stillborn. The day I took my EPT test was a weekend with a psychic faire nearby.

If they didn't advertise, would anyone have showed up?

Well, turns out two of my friends were vendors, one as a psychic and the other as a healer/ wandmaker. Well, ran into the healer friend first and merely asked her "Hey, can you tell what's different? She thought for a second and couldn't see anything obvious so she sensed my aura (she doesn't have the Sight so she has to use her hands) which is when she realized that I was pregnant!

No one has an "aura." People that claim to see or feel them are fakes. Pregnant women do have that "glow" (hormones) and it's not all that hard to guess.

HOWEVEr, there are a lot of frauds and charlatans out there. I might add that a large number of the best psychics I know don't do much for the public.

They're all frauds.

[Gaura]

Dave, yes people DO have auras, they're just really difficult to sense. Think about it for a minute, we have electric potentials coursing through our entire body every minute on account of nerve impulses. Remember, that's why we need electrolytes like potassium in the diet. Well, all that electrical activity results in an aura. Not nearly so woo-woo as people make it out to be. I had just barely learned I was pregnant and I wasn't even close to glowing yet. My friend hadn't seen me in some time and didn't know about us trying for a child. There is no earthly way she could have known.

 

That faire did advertise a little, but mostly within the Pagan and New Age communities in that area. Definitely a small faire. While those two friends chose to go public with their talent, my reference is to other friends who will only read for their close friends. I have a friend like that in Texas, she doesn't go public. She's good at it-- very good-- but she is sort of a private person in the rest of her life too so being in public is not her favorite thing. She's the type that would be perfectly happy in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere with her dogs, her books, and lots of stuff to cook.

[NotBlinded]

Okay, on the way to work this morning I was sitting at a stop light when my radio turned itself up. I'm not kidding. I looked down and the volume bar was being displayed. I had turned it up earlier, but the volume bar would have been gone by this time. I thought, well maybe I had left the knob in between notches and it slipped out, turning the radio up. I put the knob in between notches and then turned it to where it fell into a notch. Nothing happened.

 

I have no clue how that happened. I even questioned my short term memory. Supernatural...I doubt it, but somehow my radio turned itself up and I wouldn't mind knowing how the heck that happened.

[StewartP]

This is an interesting page:

Concerning The Scientific Study Of The Human Aura

 

One of the issues its waht do we mean by aura? Because of course we do have a physical aura. For example, If I am close to you, you can smell me. I have a detetctable aura of odor. (not nasty of course) If you put an infa red detector next to me, you'll sense me, similar if you put a water vapour detector next to my skin.

 

But what most people mean when they talk of auras is the colours apparantly surrounding people that correspond to their chakra or their energy, and can be seen by sensitive people.

 

That is a different kettle of bullshit.

[The Sage Nabooru]

Dave, do you mind if I jump in and remind you that you're being an asshole?

 

It's easy to dismiss everyone else's experiences because they're not yours. Get over yourself. Nobody has the answers to everything and neither do you.

 

Jesus fucking Christ, it pisses me off when militant asses like yourself preach to everyone else how they know better about What Really Happened than the people who were really there do.

 

I'll say it once and probably again: This website and people like you have seriously made me hate atheists. I'm so damn sick and tired of their thinking that all they have to do is say "It's bullshit" and their making that statement proves to them that it's fact. Then when somebody calls them a fundamentalist they get all pissy and whine about how open-minded they are and how everyone else is the poor half-brained loser for not agreeing with everything they say.

 

It never occurs to them that perhaps they're putting themselves through the same mind-filtering false-intelligence bullshit that fundy Christians and Muslims do.

 

So I seriously fucking hate you, and everyone like you. In fact I may very well leave this board, because I'm damned nauseous over the Richard Dawkins fellatio, the raising of atheism to the very salvation and pinnacle of human development, the hypocrisy, and the blind single-minded asshood of so many atheists. At least Christians teach themselves to be humble. You people make me sick and I've had it.

[dibby]

Hi Dave

 

Do you feel safer taking refuge in your dogmatic certainties? I find your responses are just sweeping generalisations, often inaccurate and tend to just completely rubbish other peoples opinions. You don,t seem to be an open minded sceptic. I guess you must know my friend pretty well to call him gullible!

 

I seriously doubt that she got one Atheist to believe in anything. There is no difference between a "mentalist" and a psychic. They are both frauds.

 

There is a great deal of difference between a mentalist and someone who claims psychic power. A mentalist is a showman or performer who uses various tecniques to influence people, or read them.

Derren Brown is not a she ....at least he wasn,t the last time I looked at him. And whether you doubt it , or not doesn,t change what happened.

 

 

A question to you open minded people: Do you think there are things we will discover about consciousness and the mind that could include a psychic dimension in the future? I mean, the discovery of electro magnetism must have seemed "magical" to our ancestors. Now it seems natural and normal. Maybe in a couple of hundred years things will look very different.

[KenneyVTX]

A question to you open minded people: Do you think there are things we will discover about consciousness and the mind that could include a psychic dimension in the future? I mean, the discovery of electro magnetism must have seemed "magical" to our ancestors. Now it seems natural and normal. Maybe in a couple of hundred years things will look very different.

 

My view of the universe is simple: "there are two impossible things, all else is a matter of probability". With that in mind, we may at some point find that what we understand today as psychic phenomena may be only a matter of EM. I'm not entirely sure we could accurately measure psychic phenomena in scientific conditions whether they be real or percieved. What tools would we use? What units of measure would we express the results in? Would we understand the data once we had it?

It has only been in the recent past that the human genome has begun to be mapped, this basic understanding will be crucial to all future understandings of human biology.

There have been entertainers all through history that have been understood the human condition enough to exploit that. We have them today as well, they are called illusionists.

Science has provided many things that would be considered paranormal or magic at an earlier period in history. Levitation, something many sages and wizards of the past have claimed to do, is possible. All it requires is a huge magnent and enough energy to power it. This experiment would have been considered magic not so long ago, but it does not require anything mystical, just sufficient energy to get the result.

[Jun]

From Wikipedia -

 

Debunkers of paranormal activity deny claims of the existence of auras. The magician James Randi, for example, has for many years offered one million US dollars to any person capable of repeatedly detecting auras; no one has yet succeeded (although at least one person has tried and failed). (see The $1 million challenge) The test would involve the aura reader standing on one side of a room with an opaque partition separating them from a number of slots which may contain either actual people or mannequins. The aura reader should be able to identify which are real people and which are not.

 

As for chakras, "In Eastern thought, the chakras are thought to be levels of consciousness, and states of the soul, and "proving" the existence of chakras is asking to "prove" the existence of a soul." From Wikipedia.

 

 

[Kurari]

Dave, you've made your views abundantly clear and are being a total jerk about it. You're only making it obvious discussing anything with you is a complete waste of time.

[Rachelness]

Derren Brown is a mentalist (not psychic in anyway) and does some amazing things through cold reading, mind manipulation etc. He performed as a medium once and had people in tears by telling them about their deceased loved ones. And he got a load of atheists to believe in god by mind influence and suggestion. (All corrected afterwards)

 

Derren Brown in fantastic. I'm sure he's just as good, if not BETTER, than every last so-called 'psychic'. But he comes right out and says, this is NOT paranormal pheneomena, just simple mind suggestion. He really makes 'psychics' look ridiculous, not to mention Christian Evangelists. If anyone hasn't seen the video in which Brown 'converts' a bunch of atheists, I highly recommend it. -> Here.

[Dave]

Dave, yes people DO have auras

Uh.... no, they don't.

, they're just really difficult to sense. Think about it for a minute

Don't need to. We, nor any other animal, have "auras."

we have electric potentials coursing through our entire body every minute on account of nerve impulses.....

And that is not strong enough to create any kind of an aura that could be sensed by anything other than special equipment that amplifies it greatly.

That faire did advertise a little, but mostly within the Pagan and New Age communities in that area. Definitely a small faire.

Why did they advertise? Shouldn't the psychics already know about it?

While those two friends chose to go public with their talent, my reference is to other friends who will only read for their close friends. I have a friend like that in Texas, she doesn't go public. She's good at it-- very good--

Yes, she is good at convincing people she is not a fraud. That doesn't mean she is not a fraud - and she is. NO ONE has any kind of psychic powers. If they do, tell them to go collect their million dollar prize. If they don't want the money they can donate to charity. Until they provide absolute, infallible, empirical, evidence of their "powers" or "gifts" I shall continue to call them the frauds they are. Just remember - one has to be open minded enough so that all the garbage falls out.

 

 

Dave, do you mind if I jump in and remind you that you're being an asshole?

No, I realize that some people like you have to attack those that don't agree with them. I'm not attacking people, I'm attacking junk science.

 

 

Hi Dave

 

Do you feel safer taking refuge in your dogmatic certainties?

No, I don't need to hide behind anything. I'll stay out here in the real world. I'll stand behind the science and logic that tells me that all this psychic stuff is pure BS. I see you can't attack the science, so you need to attack me.

A question to you open minded people: Do you think there are things we will discover about consciousness and the mind that could include a psychic dimension in the future?

There is no scientific evidence that would point in that direction. There is no possible mechanism for it to happen.

 

 

Dave, you've made your views abundantly clear and are being a total jerk about it.

And your ad hominem makes you a total jerk.