Skpetic Definitions of the Paranormal

El_mariachi

As it turns out so-called unexplained phenomenon are in fact very well explained.
Just some don't seem to listen.
In response to the thread in the main section.

Apparitions: Products of over active imagination, exaggerated by spooky settings (grave-yard, haunted house etc.). Picture are highly sought after but when found are invariably hazy and unclear and pareidolia kicks in.
Pareidolia


Anomalies: Deviations from the norm.

Cold Spot: Subjective experience of a dip in temperature. Drafts and other much more likely explainations are never considered for some reason.

Demonology: Person who studies demons, negative spirits and devils. Not offered as a course in Trinity

Ectoplasm: Usually paper mache most often spewed from a mediums mouth. Popular with turn of the century mediums not so much now (too messy). Houdini kicked its ass. Ectoplasm

Meter-Electro Magnetic Field tester: Used by most paranormal Investigators very badly. They never check for known anomalies in a room (like wires etc.) and usually never realise that most EMF detectors are one directional. The ones that are omni-directional are not very accurate.
http://skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia6.html

EVP-Electronic voice phenomenon: Auditory pareidolia with a healthy dose of apophenia Apophenia

Ghost: More over-active imaginations.

Ghost Hunt: Waste of time.

Ghost Investigation: Waste of money.

Haunting: Either over-active imaginations exaggerated by personal belief and a bit of apophenia. Or a marketing ploy to invigorate a failing business (hence why so many haunting happen in hotels)

Intelligent Haunting: More of the above really.

Orb: Dust

Ouija: Ouija Mostly Ideomotor Effect. Good fun at sleepovers.

Paranormal: Not explainable by science or natural causes. Goes by the term Woo-woo in skeptic terms

Poltergeist: Same as most hauntings just more ridiculous. Please note no one has ever been killed by any form paranormal phenomenon.

Religious Demonologist: AKA exorcists AKA dangerous scam artists. Exorisms are not funny and can be every dangerous to people with psychological problems. Avoid

Residual Haunting: Complete woo and bull****. No evidence what so ever.

Shadow Ghost: Most likely a shadow with more pareidolia

Spirit: Religion

Vortex or vortice: Tourist trap. No magnetic anomalies detected at claimed sites

Remember kids: a little critical thinking never hurts;)

Oryx

I agree with the majority of that. You will actually find if you give most woo-woo folk the time of day, is that they do have a capacity to detect bullshit, same as you. Unfortunately, paranormal has become a dirty word, and anyone who believes in some paranormal phenomena, is assumed to believe it all, which is not the case.

El_mariachi

Oryx wrote: »

I agree with the majority of that. You will actually find if you give most woo-woo folk the time of day, is that they do have a capacity to detect bull****, same as you. Unfortunately, paranormal has become a dirty word, and anyone who believes in some paranormal phenomena, is assumed to believe it all, which is not the case.

In my experience they tend to.
A person who believes in psychics tend to believe in ghost and is more open to alternative medicine and such. Though they do have a capacity to detect bull**** they rarely use it on them selves.

I should have expanded the list to include stuff like mediums and spoon benders and stuff. My point is that paranormal phenomenon always have a much more likely explanation.

Oryx

El_mariachi wrote: »

In my experience they tend to.
A person who believes in psychics tend to believe in ghost and is more open to alternative medicine and such. Though they do have a capacity to detect bull**** they rarely use it on them selves.

I should have expanded the list to include stuff like mediums and spoon benders and stuff. My point is that paranormal phenomenon always have a much more likely explanation.

Yeàh, include mediums. Id like to see how you regard my kind.:) And how you explain it without using the word fraud, which is a given in some cases, but not all?

Ive met loads of people in the woo woo world. Some I run a mile from, but many are well educated, careful, and wise, and dont suffer fools any more than you do. They just have experiences that have made them believe certain things you dont.

El_mariachi

Oryx wrote: »

Yeàh, include mediums. Id like to see how you regard my kind.:) And how you explain it without using the word fraud, which is a given in some cases, but not all?

Ive met loads of people in the woo woo world. Some I run a mile from, but many are well educated, careful, and wise, and dont suffer fools any more than you do. They just have experiences that have made them believe certain things you dont.

Actually I can.
While most of the big name mediums Edwards, van Parragh, Browne etc. are quite obviously the f-word.
Some cold reading is believed to be subconscious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading#Subconscious_cold_reading

The test is rather simple. Eliminate the possibility you are cold reading by not interacting with the subject. have him answer yes or no only.

Oryx

El_mariachi wrote: »

Actually I can.
While most of the big name mediums Edwards, van Parragh, Browne etc. are quite obviously the f-word.
Some cold reading is believed to be subconscious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading#Subconscious_cold_reading

The test is rather simple. Eliminate the possibility you are cold reading by not interacting with the subject. have him answer yes or no only.

Which is what you should always, always do. And its how (if you are well taught) you are taught to work. If a subject begins to elaborate youll find me waving my arms and going no, shut up! Tbh, I cant even look at the subject Im reading for, as it suggests things to my logical brain. I have to stare into the corner of the room. So, what then?

(Im not being argumentative here, Im genuinely interested in your take on this. Ive questioned this from the beginning, the last thing I want is to subconciously delude myself, or anyone else. )

El_mariachi

Could be your answers start of very general and start getting more hits depending on the response of the subject.
Exactly how accurate are you?
do you get full names every time?

Oryx

El_mariachi wrote: »

Could be your answers start of very general and start getting more hits depending on the response of the subject.
Exactly how accurate are you?
do you get full names every time?

God I dont want to drag this off topic, but sure a mod can split it.:)

First off, it doesnt always work well. Thats not a get out, thats reality.
But, when it does work well this would be how it goes: (and I work visually, so names Im terrible at, because I have to 'see' them. I try, but I explain to the sitter that names are hit and miss) Description of the person: gender, age range (older/younger), hair style, colour. Clothing. I usually offer a detailed description of them first, and ask if they recognise that. Generally I can say the relationship to them. Father, grandfather, brother. Once thats accepted, Ill give things like age and any other year dates they offer, I quite often get the year of birth of the sitter. If an age or date is not exact, I dont take it as a hit. From that you move on to how they died. Again you need to be exact. Not 'chest' or 'abdomen' but 'heart attack' or 'bowel cancer'. To confirm that, I quite often get a sense of the length of an illness in months, or if sudden or a few days fading away, or whatever. This is not a vague thing, but something like she was two days in hospital, or he was 6 months from diagnosis to death. I try not to give it if it feels vague, as thats fluffing. All going well, you then get images of where they lived, or what they worked at, that kind of thing. Again it has to be unarguable, not 'he worked indoors' but 'he was a butcher'.

All that said, that is when it works as it should. If I could guarantee I could do that with every single person I sit down with, Id do nothing else but this ever again. You get bad readings too, where you just cant get the stuff. Its not a case of getting it wrong, more not getting it at all.

El_mariachi

Oryx wrote: »

God I dont want to drag this off topic, but sure a mod can split it.:)

First off, it doesnt always work well. Thats not a get out, thats reality.
But, when it does work well this would be how it goes: (and I work visually, so names Im terrible at, because I have to 'see' them. I try, but I explain to the sitter that names are hit and miss) Description of the person: gender, age range (older/younger), hair style, colour. Clothing. I usually offer a detailed description of them first, and ask if they recognise that. Generally I can say the relationship to them. Father, grandfather, brother. Once thats accepted, Ill give things like age and any other year dates they offer, I quite often get the year of birth of the sitter. If an age or date is not exact, I dont take it as a hit. From that you move on to how they died. Again you need to be exact. Not 'chest' or 'abdomen' but 'heart attack' or 'bowel cancer'. To confirm that, I quite often get a sense of the length of an illness in months, or if sudden or a few days fading away, or whatever. This is not a vague thing, but something like she was two days in hospital, or he was 6 months from diagnosis to death. I try not to give it if it feels vague, as thats fluffing. All going well, you then get images of where they lived, or what they worked at, that kind of thing. Again it has to be unarguable, not 'he worked indoors' but 'he was a butcher'.

All that said, that is when it works as it should. If I could guarantee I could do that with every single person I sit down with, Id do nothing else but this ever again. You get bad readings too, where you just cant get the stuff. Its not a case of getting it wrong, more not getting it at all.

Seems like very standard stuff that are quite easy to get it cold reading. Course it's really hard to say exactly without seeing it in person.
One thing that bugs me, why is it that you can get all that information and not the persons name?
A full name is the only thing you can't get normally from cold reading.
You usually get them at the start like "who's james?" or "i'm getting a james or a john". But after they tell you a guys other details first you won't get a name.

Oryx

El_mariachi wrote: »

Seems like very standard stuff that are quite easy to get it cold reading. Course it's really hard to say exactly without seeing it in person.
One thing that bugs me, why is it that you can get all that information and not the persons name?
A full name is the only thing you can't get normally from cold reading.

Lol well I challenge you to hit, bang on the money, the current age of a friends relative, dead or alive, even when youve met them, without any prompt other than seeing said relative. Or even to guess the year of birth of a random person sitting next to you on the bus. Its not easy. I cant do it.:) Its true, you would need to sit in on this to see what you think.

I do get names, but the trouble for me, anyway, is I have about a half a dozen stock names that my logical mind always throws up, which I always have to dismiss. Unusual names, particularly unusual spellings I sometimes get. Its terrible that this alone gets me accused of cold reading. Damn!:)

See, I believe this cos i see the stuff in my head, to the point where (as mentioned here ages ago) I picked out a dead person that I had linked to in a photo, because it was the mental image I saw. So you say cold reading, but Im bloody seeing these people. Why, then?

El_mariachi

Oryx wrote: »

Lol well I challenge you to hit, bang on the money, the current age of a friends relative, dead or alive, even when youve met them, without any prompt other than seeing said relative. Or even to guess the year of birth of a random person sitting next to you on the bus. Its not easy. I cant do it.:) Its true, you would need to sit in on this to see what you think.

I do get names, but the trouble for me, anyway, is I have about a half a dozen stock names that my logical mind always throws up, which I always have to dismiss. Unusual names, particularly unusual spellings I sometimes get. Its terrible that this alone gets me accused of cold reading. Damn!:)

See, I believe this cos i see the stuff in my head, to the point where (as mentioned here ages ago) I picked out a dead person that I had linked to in a photo, because it was the mental image I saw. So you say cold reading, but Im bloody seeing these people. Why, then?

If you see this stuff how do you know what they died of?

Oryx

El_mariachi wrote: »

If you see this stuff how do you know what they died of?

Oh christ this is hard to say concisely. Sometimes you feel it physically within yourself. I had one link make me feel like I was choking. Other times you mentally see the person with that area 'lit up'. Generally its like a gut feeling for what it was, I cant really explain it properly here, its even hard in normal rl conversation. And as for going for the typical illnesses, Ive had plenty of heart attacks yes, but all kinds of other stuff too, which for me, is far more useful proof.

El_mariachi

So you can successfully self diagnose a heart attack/ bowel cancer/ whatever.
determine their exact job and age but not name?
Not seem a bit off no?

This isn't anything special these exact claim are used by a lot of psychics and is not hard to do by cold reading.
As for actually feeling it?
Well the human mind does have on amazing ability, the ability to fool its self.

???

So do you tend to do more medium work than 'normal' psychic stuff?

El_mariachi

Some more so-called unexplained phenomenon, explained.

Spiritualist Medium: Cold reading
Hot reading can be done subconsciously apparently.

Dowsing(and other physical divinations): Ideomotor Effect and a nice big helping of Subjective Validation

Telekensis (and the other kensis's): More of the ideomotor effect if not an outright fraud.

Magick(with a k): Magical Thinking

If you think i'm leaving something out feel free to add.

iamhunted

El_mariachi wrote: »

Meter-Electro Magnetic Field tester: Used by most paranormal Investigators very badly. They never check for known anomalies in a room (like wires etc.) and usually never realise that most EMF detectors are one directional. The ones that are omni-directional are not very accurate.
http://skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia6.html

thats just complete and utter misinformation there. You want an EMF to be one directional obviously plus "They never check for known anomalies in a room (like wires etc.) " - such checks are standards for the majority of paranormal groups.

the rest of it I'd probably agree with you on