Paranormal TV Shows (megamerge)

solas

When the boy was put on the spot in front of the cameras (with his mother mentioning his poor performance in from of them) he began to say the spirits were making him sleeping and didnt want him to talk, looks to me like the kid wanted a get out.

common autistic tendencies, very little eye contact and difficulties socialising. I smiled, he was a very beautiful and genuine child.

solas

Brains tests show he had empathic tendencies? Empathic, like, putting yourself in their shoes, or empathic like Diana Troi?

a bit of both if I'm not mistaken, as far as I'm aware it really refers to levels of sensitivity to others feelings and emotional states. They did a few tests, the hospital ones which diagnosed him as adhd in the first instance showed high levels of electrical activity in the brain although they couldn't define why it was there so the mother took him to another doctor (who took a more philosophical approach to helping children overcome difficulties of adhd) who also performed tests using equpiment which mapped the activity in the brain, also diagnosed adhd and in addition mapped the area which is physiologically associated with empathy and perception (and other things I can't quite remember) and regarded him as highly sensitive in that respect.

Zillah

Please distinguish your usage of empathy, refering to the ability to sympathise with others, and empathic abilities, being the paranormal capacity to sense the emotions of others.

If its the later, I'd like to know what part of the brain is associated with empathic abilities and what medical practitioner is incorporating such things into his practice.

solas

I wasn't under the impression empathy was a paranormal ability?

I couldnt tell you what part of the brain is associated with empathic tendencies although they did mention it in the program.

maybe have a google for the program, channel four usually have logs of those shows.

[from the dictionary definition:
1. identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. See Synonyms at pity.
2. The attribution of one's own feelings to an object.]

Zillah

There is "empathy" which is the ability the human brain has to understand and sympathise with the emotions of others. It is not a paranormal ability. It uses mundane cues (like expression, body language, tears) to understand the feelings of others and cause an appropriate reaction, like sadness or anger.

Then we have Diana Troi-like Empathic Powers where there is communication between the brains and you literally "sense" the emotions of others.

Hence when you said "a bit of both" I was a bit taken aback that a practicing Doctor would diagnose something like that.

MiniMetro

Watched the program, sad more than anything else. The mother of the girl was just a little psychiatric, probably understandable after 7 miscarraiges. The daughter showed absolutely nothing. "Psychic Lady: What did you feel your friend was telling you. Girl: Good. Psychic Lady: yeah thats right." It was quite clear that the only thing the mother could see was pound signs hanging over the daughters head.

The boy was diagnosed as suffering from adhd. You could understand why the mother started to look for other explanations for his brain activity. What the psycologist lady said was that these signals would suggest the child was capable of great empathy as they were deep in that area of the brain. She also said that this was the same area of the brain that some research suggested was related to ESP. The mother took from this what she wanted i.e. that her child was capable of ESP, when in fact this was not what the woman had said at all.

Over all it was a program with one hoaxer and one sick child.

The son of the psychiatric lady had it all sussed out.

solas

There is "empathy" which is the ability the human brain has to understand and sympathise with the emotions of others. It is not a paranormal ability. It uses mundane cues (like expression, body language, tears) to understand the feelings of others and cause an appropriate reaction, like sadness or anger.

Then we have Diana Troi-like Empathic Powers where there is communication between the brains and you literally "sense" the emotions of others.

Hence when you said "a bit of both" I was a bit taken aback that a practicing Doctor would diagnose something like that.

I'm only familiar with one kind of empathy. Everything I relayed to you was discussed in the show tbh.

solas

mini metro wrote:

Watched the program, sad more than anything else. The mother of the girl was just a little psychiatric, probably understandable after 7 miscarraiges. The daughter showed absolutely nothing. "Psychic Lady: What did you feel your friend was telling you. Girl: Good. Psychic Lady: yeah thats right." It was quite clear that the only thing the mother could see was pound signs hanging over the daughters head.

I have to agree, at the end she even had her "performing" at public gathering. Mother does tv on occasion too apparantly. It's an american trend to celebritize spirituality and one which is catching on over this side of the atlanatic pretty fast too.

The other child I could completely empathise with as I'm familiar with the symtpoms of autism and adhd. (which is not a sickness inso much a condition) mother wasn't completely satifised with the diagnosis as she felt it was a derogatory label when in fact a lot of kids within the spectrum are highly intelligent perceptive and productive individuals. I didn't feel like she was looking for a psychic label (she was concerned for her child who was afraid of things he was seeing) and seemed relieved to finally have some kind of medical confirmation that he was just highly sensitive and consequently found a solution to helping him with the difficulties associated with adhd with that particular psychologist.

mysterious

aoife2k wrote:

i've been a huge fan of MH for a while now and at the start it amazed me at what Derek was able to do...it was brilliant 'cuz he only over got 'taken over' the very very odd time... in the new series it happened in almost ever show and more and more things kept happening...that's when I lost interest in him.

I was quite sad when i found out he was found out but that's probably because i believed every last word that came out of his mouth

That a tip of the iceberg but your right, when he was found out, more to come from that I guess. again it will, be even more disheartening to believers, He reminds of dishonest people, which IMO I don't believe a word or action he does, that could mean nothing to someone else, but that's how I see it and him. I believe he tricks people more often than people allow themselves to believe. The smart thing he did was he made millions from it. does everyone honestly believe he's for real. Anybody can fake being possessed they do it all the time on set on TV, take Lost, the whole set of emotions, and it looks for real too.

I suppose my opinion will not be liked. it's not comforting to believers I know. but as I said, the truth will come out eventually.

I've watched the shows, and I've seen the lives one too, which were not great IMO.

For one he can never look honest when talking, he darts around all lot, much aprehension about him, wait's for the moment sorta thing when nothing happens, another trend I think is he seems to get more dramatic in the recent ones, where he attacked the gorl presenter, I would nearly bet my life he faked that. Otherwise he's insane.... to me, it's all predictable. I won't be adding to this thread anymore as I don't want to change people views, I just want people to be a little more aware as to what they believe on T.V and the entertainment field.

He maybe a medium, but not WOW. though people believe him, that make's it WOW.

solas

link to the neurofeedback program used to treat add/adhd for anyone interested. (from docu) http://www.eegneurofeedback.net/

6th

It has to be said that the doctor who performed the second test is not a doctor of medicine but a docotr of philosophy.

Zillah

Well that is rather different isn't it

magnumlady

I watched the programme as well.
I really felt so sorry for the kids, being pushed into something that I don't think they should have been.
Some parents astonish me. Why can't they just let the kids be kids, do they not realise how harmful it could be.

solas

6th wrote:

It has to be said that the doctor who performed the second test is not a doctor of medicine but a docotr of philosophy.

apparantly she is a fully qualified psychologist. have a google.

http://www.ipcollege.com/aluminae.htm

she is listed as a facilitator in the dept of psychology. described as a "Cognitive Scientist & Neurofeedback Practitioner" here

6th

Sorry I said philosophy be mistake i meant psychology, my point was that she was not a doctor of medicine as i knew some people (including Zillah) would take it.

6th

while watching Cutting Edge: My Child’s Psychic (Channel 4). Eight-year-old Oliver claimed that he was seeing dead people. His mother preferred to believe that this was not the product of an over-stimulated imagination by someone diagnosed with a hyperactive attention deficit disorder but a sign of paranormal abilities. Nicola, a medium, was not only proud of her 15-year-old daughter Heather’s psychic connection with her dead twin, but was also keen to develop her healing skills.

Now when it comes to communication with the dead there is no such thing as a happy medium, however vapidly serene some practitioners of the craft appear. You either believe it or you don’t. This documentary fielded few sceptics. Both mothers were allowed to keep asking their children leading questions. Oliver ended up having brain scans conducted by a doctor (of philosophy). Much talk about fairy frequencies, crystals and wraith masters made the programme sound like a Dungeons and Dragons convention. It seemed to want to show that while it’s natural for any caring parent to think that their child is special, it becomes unsettlingly weird when they are seen as some kind of new “highly evolved species” dubbed “ indigo” or “crystal” children, with powers to heal the world. Nicola’s son thought it was all bunkum. “She’s just going through a midlife crisis,” he declared.

Part of this article.

SkepticOne

Another article about Indigo children in the Grauniad of 5th August

http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,,1837347,00.html

Then Nikki produces a number of blindfolds. She puts them over the eyes of half the children, and instructs them to walk from one end of the room to the other.

The idea is for the un-blindfolded kids to telepathically communicate to the blindfolded ones where the tables and chairs and pillars are. Nikki says this is half an exercise in telepathy and half an exercise in eradicating fear.

"Part of the reason why you are here," she tells the children - and by "here" she means put on this planet as part of a super-evolved Indigo species - "is to teach the grown-ups not to feel fear."

The children nod. And the exercise in telepathy begins.

And it gives me no pleasure to say this, but blindfolded children immediately start walking into chairs, into pillars, into tables.

solas

I saw two very distinguished aspects to this program.
In the first instance there was a mother who was convinced her child was "special" and in making her believe as much via some fluff organisation.

I saw oliver and the dilema of his mothers concern for his son who was struggling to deal with the conditions of adhd, she didn't show any desire to validate that he was "paranormal", she was looking for answers as to his experiences.

from http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,,1837347,00.html

Eight-year-old Oliver Banks thinks he sees dead people. Recently he thought he saw a little girl with black hair climb over their garden fence in Harrow, Middlesex. Then, as he watched, she vanished. When Oliver was three he was at a friend's house, on top of the climbing frame, when he suddenly started yelling "Train!" He was pointing over the fence to the adjacent field. It turned out that, generations earlier, a railway line had passed through the field, exactly where he was pointing.

Oliver's mother, Simone, was at her wits' end. Last summer, at a party, she told her work colleagues about Oliver's symptoms. He wasn't concentrating at school. He couldn't sit still. Plus, he'd had a brain scan and they'd found all this unusual electrical activity. And then there were the visions of people who weren't there. Maybe he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)?
At that moment, a woman standing nearby interrupted. She introduced herself as Dr Munchie (her real name is Manjir Samanta-Laughton). She said she couldn't help but eavesdrop on Simone's conversation. She was, she said, a qualified GP.

"Well, then," Simone replied, "do you think Oliver has ADHD?"

Dr Munchie said no. She said it sounded very much like Oliver was in fact a highly evolved Indigo child - a divine being with enormously heightened spiritual wisdom and psychic powers. Oliver couldn't concentrate, she explained, because he was being distracted by genuine psychic experiences. She said Indigo children were springing up all over the world, all at once, unconnected to one another. There were tens of thousands of them, in every country. And their parents weren't all new age hippies. They were perfectly ordinary families who were realising how super-evolved and psychic their children were. This was a global phenomenon. Soon the Indigo children would rise up and heal the planet.

Perhaps, Dr Munchie said, given this new diagnosis, Simone and Oliver might like to attend an Indigo children meeting at the Moat House Hotel in Bedford? Channel 4 was going to be there. Maybe the TV crew could follow Oliver about?

Simone was desperate for answers. She wasn't going to close off any avenue. So that's how she and Oliver ended up appearing in the forthcoming C4 documentary My Kid's Psychic.

It is a touching but badly named programme. Oliver isn't psychic. He has ADHD. I telephone Simone after watching a tape of the programme. She tells me he's responding well to cod liver oil. In the documentary, Simone looks bewildered to be at the Indigo conference, which seems like an incongruous mix of hippies and spiritualists and normal but frazzled families like hers.

"That woman, Dr Munchie, seemed to be running it," Simone says. "Some of the people there were really away with the fairies. Most of them were. 'I see this and I see that.' One man was saying his children were 'the best people ever'. I don't want my child being called an Indigo child, thank you very much."

Still, Simone doesn't regret appearing in the programme: "It really helped Oliver enormously to learn that other people see things."

At the end of the program Oliver was undergoing eegfeedback therapy with Dr. Kaur, a technique which moitors bio feedback and retrains the brain based on the info suplied.

EEG Neurofeedback is a non-invasive technique in which the practitioner uses sophisticated technology to measure the natural electrical activity of the brain (the electroencephalogram, EEG).

When an individual performs a task the EEG information is collected, analysed and presented back in real-time, in a form that he/she can consciously see the changes in electrical state of the brain which relate to functioning and less well functioning brain states.

Using computerised feedback technology in the form of a real time game or display the practitioner helps the individual modify these brain states. In this way the brain progressively enhances its ability to learn and overcome deficiencies, not previously possible without this technique despite many educational or health strategies having already been employed.

I've contacted D. Kaur with regard to her professional education as a psychologist and cognitive scientist just to clarify.

6th

solas wrote:

I saw oliver and the dilema of his mothers concern for his son who was struggling to deal with the conditions of adhd, she didn't show any desire to validate that he was "paranormal", she was looking for answers as to his experiences.

I felt alot for Oliver and like you say his mother wasnt out to set him up as the next "saviour" or primetime smash.

It almost wasnt important to me whether they had "gifts" or not, the attitued of the first mother ruined it for me.

solas

cutting edge make programs that encourage you to think and observe and make up your own mind at the end of it. In my opinion they showed two broadly different circumstances, very blatently different from each other.

A case where a child is experiencing "paranormal" occurances and a wannabe celebrity. I doubt anyone who watched didn't cringe at the cult like indigo circus monkey training, then again I wonder how many watching actually recognised Oliver's scenario and understood how it was for him. (and his family)

solas

received this earlier.

Dr.Kaur wrote:

Thank you for your email.



My Ph D (Doctor of Philosophy) is in multidisciplinary Cognitive Science. This included developmental psychology and prior to that I had also studied applied psychology and neurophysiology. I then qualified by training in EEG Neurofeedback techniques for 3 years with a Medical Doctor, one of the top professionals in the field who also ran a full-time Neurofeedback Clinic. Over the last 10/11 years it has been this background, training and experience that has allowed my practice to achieve the good results for children and adults alike. As a result we have not only been to help children with autistic spectrum disorders but also push the boundaries of EEG Neurofeedback – we have treated hitherto untreatable conditions such as congenital nystagmus validated professionally by independent opticians thus allowing children to read the blackboard and teenagers to have the vision to learn to drive.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me. If you would like to post this email to any individual or group, please feel free to do so.

BTW, our website (www.eegneurofeedback) is being updated and will include further case histories of autistic spectrum disorder written by the parents of children who have had treatment at our practices.

Kind regards



Dr S Kaur

Think I may go back to school, I know what I want to do.

6th

I'm sure pH wont mind but a post of his should help a few of us out, cheers pH

pH wrote:

......

These are a sample of what's on over the next couple of weeks:

• Medium
• Ghost Whisperer
• Haunted Homes
• The Girly Ghost Hunters
• Miracles
• Afterlife
• Derek Acorah's Ghost towns
• Most Haunted
• Most Haunted Unseen
• The Mystery of the Ghost Galleon
• Ghosthunters
• Street Psychic
• Jane Goldman Investigates
• The Best of Jane Goldman Investigates
• Haunted Travels
• Castle Ghosts
• Haunted Hotels
• America's most Haunted places ...
• A Haunting
• Dead Tenants
• Ten Ways (to contact a ghost)

And for those who were wondering about Jane Goldman coming back ...

pH wrote:

They're on LivingTV (on Sky) @ 01:30 am - 02:30 am weeknights starting 21st September
She's "Investigating" Dowsing, Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Spell Casting, Past Life Regression, Talking to the dead, Poltergeists and Voodoo.

cormac_s

You should check out youtube for some sci fi TV stuff from The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS). Called 'Ghost Hunters' the show isnt related to the UK show called Ghost Hunters - but its damned good material for people wishing to know how to put together an investigation in a defintely scientific way (no mediums on this show!). Its worth the time of any paranormal researcher to check it out I think

Ziycon

Most Haunted Lives on @ 9pm on Living TV tonight, i know its publicly disgraced but its a good bit of entertainment!

Barbieliveshere

quite scary tonight with everybody being scratched!:eek:

Ziycon

Very interesting that two crew members had deep claw like cuts on their bodys an one had like finger nail scrapes on his back, but it seemed that it only happened to anyone that stepped into the circle supposed to be used to summom demons!
Very interesting tonight i shall be watching halloween night one aswell!

hellboy99

Wonder how many people still think it's a fake after tonights show ? The cuts looked really bad and real to me on Stuart & Jon :eek: , even when Yvette broke down didn't look fake, if it was she deserve's an Oscar. Can't wait to see the show tonight

Ziycon

hellboy99 wrote:

Wonder how many people still think it's a fake after tonights show ? The cuts looked really bad and real to me on Stuart & Jon :eek: , even when Yvette broke down didn't look fake, if it was she deserve's an Oscar. Can't wait to see the show tonight

I totally agree, no one in their sane mind would cut themselves that deep, they were some serious injuries! and Yvette could'nt of faked her break down, sure when it started they cut back to the studio for 5-10 mins, surely if it was part of the show they would of kept showing it! Also they cut the show about 20 mins short due to more of the physical injuries on the crew, the last injury being the worst, very deep cut on i think it was Jon's leg!
Very interesting night!

Barbieliveshere

There is no way yvette could have faked that!! She was seriously scared and was obviously angry when her husband karl stepped into the circle! Jon was standing on his own in the corner when he was cut first!! Stuart was standing with his back facing the wall! And if someone cut him then there would be marks on his jacket and his t shirt but there wasnt! It was really good last night and i will be definetly watchin again tonight!!

cormac_s

MH has burned its bridges with me. bit like the boy who cried wolf ... doesnt matter if everything they say is true from now on in, I still wont bother watching. plus, you'd be surprised what people would do to try and regain lost credibility ... still its a major money spinner