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Mediums,real or fake.

Hagar the Nice.

Hit me with your best shot.

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Napper Hawkins

You're a moron if you think any of it is real.

Kidchameleon

Plenty of mediums in the UK who do readings for free, therefore have no reason to be scamming you. Next time anyone is across the pond look up the SAGB.

DazMarz

Charlatans of the highest order. The above video proves beyond all belief that most of these so-called mediums and psychics can get most of their information from the internet. They'll also do a lot of cold reading and can get a lot of information from "shotgunning" information at a subject and then quickly homing in on a positive response from the subject, making it appear like they knew something they didn't.

I find it equal parts infuriating, pity-inducing and simply unfathomable how many of my friends believe in all manner of supernatural stuff. When I try to prise open as to why, I'm stonewalled with shrieks of "IT'S JUST REAL, OK?!". No debate, no investigation, no questions... and no asking about what kinds and what volumes of drugs/alcohol were involved at the time when these so-called supernatural experiences happened. Yeesh...

ziedth

lukesmom wrote: »

Yeah I get what your saying but he had details of conversations I had with my brother, that only my brother and I knew. How could he pick them all out of thin air simply by looking at my face? I don't know how he did it but to be honest with you I was a sceptic before I walked in the door and a believer leaving.

I dont want to push this as you obviously want to believe and i dont want this to seem like i want to be "right" but i just hate these people so much taking advantage of grief that ill give you my thinking on it:

Lets say your right and certain people have been given this gift from god (or whatever) dont you think its odd that every single one of them uses this power that can help literally millions of people to try and make money. I know if it was me that had this ability i would travel the world trying to help people and i certianly wouldnt aim to have my own tv show or charge €1000's for private sittings.

Sure you have to make a living and i understand that some people might use this power to make a bit of cash but not one of them uses it the way I (and i assume countless others) would. I couldn't live with myself if i decided to charge you €50 for a reading instead of going to help a family who just lost their kid.

Howard Juneau

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Plenty of mediums in the UK who do readings for free, therefore have no reason to be scamming you. Next time anyone is across the pond look up the SAGB.

You mean this? Explains a lot actually
http://www.sagb.co.uk/

Kidchameleon

Howard Juneau wrote: »

You mean this? Explains a lot actually
http://www.sagb.co.uk/

Ha no!

This is the link:

http://www.sagb.org.uk/

Capt'n Midnight

Info is easy to find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7pYHN9iC9I

Capt'n Midnight

even some animals can read human body language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

Clever Hans (in German, der Kluge Hans) was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks.

After a formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of his human observers. Pfungst discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem. The trainer was entirely unaware that he was providing such cues.

nozzferrahhtoo

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Plenty of mediums in the UK who do readings for free, therefore have no reason to be scamming you.

Bull.

This is a kind of "reasoning" I have seen espoused often on this subject. Many people act like the fact one of these charlatans is not asking for money is some how something that lends credibility to their claims.

It is not. For two reasons.

1) Not all remuneration comes in the form of instant cash. Some do it for attention, social status, sex, political power or influence, for the thrill of the deception or any number of other benefits or rewards. Take GAA players for example. They were often cited as not being paid in the past for the games they played or the time they spent training. But what of money from side projects? What of the fact when they went to the pub or doctor they did not put their hands in their pocket? What about the freebies, the favors, the social status and much more that they got benefit from. MONEY UPFRONT is FAR from the sole motivation people have for doing things. So do not try to sell these peoples lies on their behalf by pretending that somehow their not asking for cash upfront lends ANYTHING to their credibility at all.

2) There are those who actually believe themselves that they have magical powers. Sometimes quite strongly. So just because they are not asking for money and THEY do not think they are lying.... that does not in ANY way suggest they actually DO have such powers. It just means THEY think they do.

nozzferrahhtoo

lukesmom wrote: »

The one I went to was most definitely the real deal make no mistake and I'm a sceptic at the best of times., however I believe 95% are fake as fcuk.

Amazing how common that impression is. So many people think "The vast majority of them are fake except the one I just happened to go to".

The reason they are all fake is that there are tricks of the trade and so forth they all use. The only reason people think they are all fake except the one they happened to go to is that those tricks often work and convince even those who would consider themselves beyond convincing.

What a lot of these people rely on heavily is things like this....

lukesmom wrote: »

So tell me how could a person know all of that by looking at my body language?

.... as there is no way any skeptic or person you are talking to can explain things "After the fact" as they were not there. People like yourself are conned into going around asking that question because those causing you to ask it are safe in the knowledge that no one can retrospectively answer it.

To steal from a you tube video I saw once:

Imagine for example sitting in someones living room and they say "Look my lampshade is moving all by itself, it must be a ghost!!!". You look around however and find in another corner there is an electric heater running. You knock if off and sure enough the lampshade stops. Case closed.

Now imagine instead you are sitting with that guy in the pub and he tells you about the lampshade moving. He tells you it must have been a ghost. He swears blind "There is no way it could have been moving, all the windows were closed, nothing!".

How could you come up with the answer of the heater? Without being there and observing that crucial bit of data yourself. You could ask 1000 questions and not get lucky and find out about the heater. All you can do is make up possible explanations.

So, as I said, what these liars and charlatans RELY on is the inability of people like us on this thread to retrospectively give you explanations for events that we have no independent access to.

All we can do is give you examples of the KIND of tricks these frauds use. Tricks they use to make YOU give THEM the information they need which... even when you learn about them.... are often so slick that thinking back on it you will swear blind to all and sundry that you never gave them.

But time and time again people like James Randi have FILMED these people at work. The "marks" have sworn "No I am _sure_ that trick was not used on me I did not give them the information! They got it themselves psychic like!"

At which point Randi or others like him will actually play the part of the video where they actually DID play right into the "mediums" hands and they sit gob smacked and aghast to find they were tricked but the trickster fraud was so good at it that the "mark" was not even aware of it at the time.

If you are still convinced then I will make a deal with you. Next time I am in your area (I am currently in Germany but often return to Ireland) I will go to this psychic with you. He or she can try to convince me, or some verified random third party if you want to be really sure.

The only thing I ask is that I am allowed set up three cameras of the event. One trained solely on my face and hands. One on their face and hands. And one set up that takes both of us in from the side at the same time.

I rather expect that if you contact this person and run the idea past them however you will instantly get some spiel about how electronic recording equipment anger, interfere with, or in some other way hamper the spirits or the angels or the clarity of the crystal ball or whatever other piece of tomfoolery prop the scum in question claims to be using. Or the other excuse I hear often... one that James Randi was once publicly hit with... is that sometimes the power of the skeptical mind is enough to block the usual efficacy of the power in question. In fact these days when Randi's team are testing the claims of someone with paranormal powers he asks them to not even tell them when and where the test will be performed so that he can not be accused of using the power of his mind at the time to travel to the test room and disrupt the tests.

ruthloss

You will either cross water or pass water today.:rolleyes:

GorillaRising

I find it incredible that people are all too willing to except some kind of paranormal explanation as to their beliefs without actually questioning any of it.

Skeptics get called narrow minded, but this is the very definition of it.

nozzferrahhtoo

GorillaRising wrote: »

Skeptics get called narrow minded, but this is the very definition of it.

Indeed.

I do not need to be psychic to know that at SOME point in the course of this thread that this video will be posted. So I may as well be the first to do so. I may as well link it having stolen the Lampshade story from it.

johnny_knoxvile

I have to read my tea leaves before I can answer that for sure.

dazberry

Was in a pub a couple of weeks ago having a swift pint when this old guy beside starting telling me I was going through a very confused phase of my life, and that I had a brother in heaven. But he would never take money for his gifts, only takes payments in pints apparently.

Alas in my confused state coupled with mourning for a brother I never had, I forgot to buy him a pint, but finished mine as quickly as possible and got the hell out of dodge

GorillaRising

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Indeed.

I do not need to be psychic to know that at SOME point in the course of this thread that this video will be posted. So I may as well be the first to do so. I may as well link it having stolen the Lampshade story from it.

Oh yeah I've seen that before. Recognised the story.

corktina

Fake, all there is is what you can see.touch.taste hear or smell. There is nothing else, when you die, that's the end.

lukesmom

ziedth wrote: »

I dont want to push this as you obviously want to believe and i dont want this to seem like i want to be "right" but i just hate these people so much taking advantage of grief that ill give you my thinking on it:

Lets say your right and certain people have been given this gift from god (or whatever) dont you think its odd that every single one of them uses this power that can help literally millions of people to try and make money. I know if it was me that had this ability i would travel the world trying to help people and i certianly wouldnt aim to have my own tv show or charge €1000's for private sittings.

Sure you have to make a living and i understand that some people might use this power to make a bit of cash but not one of them uses it the way I (and i assume countless others) would. I couldn't live with myself if i decided to charge you €50 for a reading instead of going to help a family who just lost their kid.

Maybe your right and he picked up all that info by reading my mind. Maybe they are mind readers instead of mediums I don't know. Yes I was grieving hard when I went and so wanted to believe it was all true. Ill never know for sure anyway. I'm not going to rule out a possibility of him being just a mind reader. Obviously as a person grieving I would hope it's true and he's not taking advantage of me.

Wibbs

lukesmom wrote: »

Maybe your right and he picked up all that info by reading my mind. Maybe they are mind readers instead of mediums I don't know.

No no, not "reading your mind" that's magical stuff too. He would have been "reading" your body language and listening to cues you were giving him in conversation.

Obviously as a person grieving I would hope it's true and he's not taking advantage of me.

Some of these "psychic" people are actually genuine, in that they firmly believe they can do this. They do the cold reading subconsciously.

Ray Palmer

Didn't read the whole thread but here is some people being caught in the lie of being mediums and having special powers

http://www.cracked.com/article_20566_the-6-most-humiliating-public-failures-by-celebrity-psychics.html

Personal love is the guy reading the plaque on the picture before coming up with the name. The Australian guy fails so epically too.

Ray Palmer

Wibbs wrote: »

Some of these "psychic" people are actually genuine, in that they firmly believe they can do this. They do the cold reading subconsciously.

I really don't believe anybody could believe they have powers they are just lying. You can tell they are lying because they change what they are doing and saying when it doesn't work. See the link I provided.

The old man may the one exception but he isn't exactly reading minds.

nozzferrahhtoo

Ray Palmer wrote: »

I really don't believe anybody could believe they have powers they are just lying.

It is hard to believe. But it seemingly is true. Certainly a close reading of the works of Shermer and Randi turn up lots of examples of it. Especially around things like Water Divining.

The number of people who come before them who truly believe that they have some kind of ability or another and go away confounded as to why they could not prove it is amazing.

But often they show up and try to demonstrate their powers under certain "conditions" which seem to delude them as much as it deludes the target audience. With the introduction of a few very simple "controls" their powers instantly disappear.

So while it seems hard to believe or counter intuitive to you, I would certainly recommend not underestimating the human ability of self deception. Especially when those around feed, wittingly or otherwise, that deception. On of the greatest examples of this I can think of is the "fighter" Master Ryuken who came to believe he was invincible and had the power to over power others with his mind. Clearly a massive part of this delusion, as you will see in THIS VIDEO came from those around him feeding or partaking in that delusion.

So sure was he of his power in fact that he tried to pit them against a real fighter. The results are not pretty unless you particularly like watching an old man getting beaten badly and having his pride and his world view smashed in a few seconds.

I am sure if you got the entire worlds supply of "mediums" in a room the vast majority of them would be lying charlatans. But there will certainly be a not entirely insignificant minority among them who genuinely do believe they have something going on.

Ghost Buster

Go to Johnny Mc Hales pub, Castlebar and ask for a medium or go native and order a mejum......

Knasher

lukesmom wrote: »

Ok so I went to a medium last year.

Can I ask what prompted you to visit a medium and why you chose to see the specific person you saw?

chopper6

Saw one of this charlatans on telly once...he started off by sketching a very vague,generic old woman face and lead with "she was an old woman when she died...suffered with her back...Molly...no,Mary...yes,Mary"

With that some bird put her hand up and said "It was my gran...SHE was called Mary and had back pain.."

And the charlatan asked her a few more general questions whilst cunningly using the girl for facial inspiration for his sketch..in the end it looked like the girl with gray hair...he finshed by saying "Gran says Hi and not to worry she sends all her love etc etc"

Complete bollocks.

Ray Palmer

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

It is hard to believe. But it seemingly is true. Certainly a close reading of the works of Shermer and Randi turn up lots of examples of it. Especially around things like Water Divining.

Clearly a massive part of this delusion, as you will see in THIS VIDEO came from those around him feeding or partaking in that delusion.

.

You should have maybe read what I posted above the comment you responded to. I posted up a link with that story in it and referenced it in the post you responded to.

Certainly people may be deluded and a group can also be deluded. As for psychic readings I can't see how anybody could ever believe it. Water divining may very well be one thing people can be deluded by. Then again many people believe in "magic" based on coincidence.

"I was thinking about my mother then the phone rang and it was my mother !" It requires person to ignore all the times they thought of their mother and the phone didn't ring.

Probability and possibility is something people generally don't understand unless they think about it and even then many people don't understand it

nozzferrahhtoo

Ray Palmer wrote: »

You should have maybe read what I posted above the comment you responded to.

I did. And it changes nothing about what I just wrote. To anyone who has any trouble believing that some people without powers believe they actually do have some.... I would say exactly the same. Regardless of whether you want to pretend I did not read things I actually did.

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Certainly people may be deluded and a group can also be deluded. As for psychic readings I can't see how anybody could ever believe it.

I can. Your inability to do so does not change much. Some people are genuinely very good at reading others. Many of the tricks some Charlatans have to actively learn are things that simply come naturally to others.

Couple this with the penchant some people have for feeding such "mediums" information on the fly and such "mediums" will naturally incorporate that information into their spiel. Things like "I am getting a mary?" "Well I knew a Maurice" "YES! That is it! Maurice!" are tricks played by charlatans and unconsciously by those convinced of their own abilities alike.

Which results in an iterative process at the end of which the "mark" is convinced the "medium" has powers. And their certainty in turn feeds the certainty of the "medium". And so it continues. Their self belief in their own power is fed by those around them who tell them in awe that their power is working.

Again I would recommend never underestimating the human ability for self delusion. Some of the things I have seen are truly remarkable in this field. I have seen, for example, people with an entirely paralyzed arm who genuinely think there is nothing wrong with their arm. You ask them to touch their nose with the working arm and they do so. You ask them to do it with the dead arm and they will tell you they did so.... while what they ACTUALLY did was use the working arm to pick up the dead arm and touch their nose with a finger off it.

And they are _totally_ convinced their arm is working.

pharmaton

I have the power of cold reading. I used to do it subconsciously too. It's definitely a talent.

Ray Palmer

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I did. And it changes nothing about what I just wrote. To anyone who has any trouble believing that some people without powers believe they actually do have some.... I would say exactly the same. Regardless of whether you want to pretend I did not read things I actually did.

.

So why would you post another link to the exact same story I posted? It proved nothing made no difference. I am no pretending you didn't read it your comments suggested you didn't read it. It is your strange behaviour that would make anybody wonder why you would do something like this after reading it.

How you can read minds and know people believe themselves is kind of going around in circles. You don't know that and can only say you think it is possible . Where as I said I find it not believable. Your response has no more validity than mine except there haven't been any proven psychics so how can any one believe they are?

LeinsterDub

lukesmom wrote: »

Ok so I went to a medium last year. I didn't believe in any of that stuff, thought it was all a load of sh!te. I lost my younger brother from a tragic accidental death and the two of us were always as thick as thieves, very close. Anyway I said it can't hurt to go and see for the crack. I went in, shuffled a pack of cards and he told me how the brother died, who found him, how I tried to revive him by cpr. What kind of lad he was. What i put into his coat pocket at his wake. My kids names and a whole lot of other info. And message for my mam from my bro. I simply had to say 'yes' or nodded my head.

So tell me how could a person know all of that by looking at my body language?

Navan is a small place .Tragic accidents are generally the talk of the town