Hi folks, went for a private face to face meeting with a well known Psychic a few days ago, beginning to wish I hadn't now. My Mum came through and advised about a health problem for a member of my family, this has now left me quite worried as one member of my family passed away with this many years ago and another has got it (not cancer), I got into a little stramash with this person as I thot this message should not have been passed on to me,and I asked if really sure this message was for me, answer "your Mum told me" there have been a few bereavements this year and the opportunity came up to go see this psychic and I just wanted to try and get some info on their passings, and also any info on family members who had passed.

Has anyone on here ever been to see a psychic? and even if not what are your thoughts on them? this person had a newpaper column for around 15 years don't want to make name public, well liked and seemingly very accurate

Like to know your thoughts on this topic thanks.

i have visted a psychics i found the message i got was very correct i was very surrprised at the knowlage of my mum and dad as they passed some 20 years ago i now attend a church which invites differnt psychics each sunday i do beleve that they a tallent to reach the spirit world but its not for me

There's an elderly gent in the USA who has been studying psychics since he was 17 years old. He has offered a reward of $1m dollars to anyone who can prove their psychic abilities and so far, nobody has proved it. He seems to think that there are a lot of con artists out there, but also a lot of deluded folk who truly believe they have psychic gifts when they don't. It's called cold reading, where there are hit and miss questions where many will tick the right box and where there are general points which could be made about many of us. There was a tv programme called Extraordinary People where a Scots guy who calls himself the Baby Whisperer and who claims to speak for babies and young children came up against various tests which seemed to disprove his abilities. He then had an ECG test whish showed that there was certainly something very different going on in his temporal lobe compared to the rest of us.
My own feeling is that there's no evidence to prove psychic powers and am therefore not a fan of the claims made by such folk.

Hi Mary , I have never had a meeting with a psychic , I have always
felt for myself , that it's , better to leave well enough alone . I guess I'm a scardey cat. cheers.

I went to a stage show of John Edwards the American Medium.
During one of his reading with a member of the audience he suddenly broke of and moving to the opposite side of the stage he pointed up to the balcony and said that he needed to speak to David, with that he went back to reading the other person.
He eventualy came back to our side of the stage and asked for a show of hand of people who thought the messsage was for them.
I was one of the people that put up their hands, if you have ever watched his show on TV he always asked questions to verify who the message is for.

the first question was theres something about a
Blood Sausage, the only thing I could think of was Black Pudding, anyway a few people put their hands down at that.

his next question was does the a name beginning with S mean anything, when you are standing there your mind goes blank and for the life of me nothing came to mind.

Next question was theres an Irish connection, my mothers side are all from the South,at that there were only three of us left.

The third question was does anybody here have a brother that commited suicide by hanging himself, this got me puzzled as my brother did commit suicide but not by hanging, he poured petrol over himself and lit the match,

By now I was the only one standing but was still not sure he then asked me what is the significance of the numbers 4 and 4 it was my wife who realised that our youngest granddaugter was born on the 4th of the 4th

In the session that followed it became clear that the Letter S was probably my late cousin Shirley who's son had indeed commited suicide by hanging himself.

Now it doesnt prove anything but yes I do believe in Psychics

I'm with Angel, never been to a psychic and never intend to go to one. I'm not a believer in them, I feel they can con you into thinking they have special powers.

Was there a message for you?

Mediums, psychics or whatever ye choose to call them, in my case I term these Mystic Meg buffoons. . . charlatans.

Their MO is startingly simple.

They simply gush generalistic and sweeping twaddle knowing that many folks are vulnerable and that they will believe what they want to believe. These bunkum merchants simply prey on their customers aka "victims" susceptibility to spurious mumbo jumbo.

The practice of jiggery pokery is not rocket science, that is why these con artists practice it as they wouldnea get a job as wet sweeps assistant in a Bombay Public Cludggie.

"Och Rabbie yer such as sceptic!" I hear the "believers" call.

Aye yer deid right thurr! Ye see fowks, when it biles doon to the crunch it's awe jist a load of auld Grannies' pish.

Mind ye, each tae their ain. Me I dae science.

I've some good news and I've some bad news. Which would you like to hear?
You mean that kinda thing?

Hi folks, thanks for your replies.

Angel, ya big scaredy cat I was asked to sit facing as to be able to see my eyes! had a strange feeling of looking right into my soul

Dave Grieve, I'm sorry to hear that of your brother, its tragic and I have watched "Crossing over with John Edward" on cable and he was a guest on Larry King's show quite a few times.

Tee, I did not go to get good/bad news and I never broached the subject of my family's health, this came thru from a question to the psychic which had absolutely nothing to do with health.

I am no pushover, but there are probably a lot of desperate poor souls out there who are.

I think I will just have to put this down to a bad experience. I had always wanted to meet this person but what a disappointment.

Two other people also came thru I think I know who they are, but no names were given just a grandfather/mother person/s and I kept asking if I can have names, but none were given.

Albert it probably is a load of p**h!

Actually, there is quite a body of evidence to support the contention that some people have "psychic powers", as you term it. The proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research are replete with instances of death bed visions, clairvoyance, telepathy, etc. Most of the evidence is anecdotal, not laboratory based, but none the worse for that. If one or two people were to report such things, I could perhaps shrug them off as coincidences, but when thousands of ordinary people report such things, I feel that there is, at the least, food for thought in the matter.

As far as commercial "psychics" go however, I have a deep distrust of anyone who claims to exercise these powers for financial gain. That's not to say that they are necessarily all con artists, but where money is to be made from such claims, I would be very wary about accepting them at face value.

As with anything else, Benny. Everything is worth, at least, thinking about.

Morning all
First of all thanks Maryhiller for your kind words, my brother and my cousins son commited suicide for the same reason, they had both gone through bad divorces with two pretty vindictive woman who point blank refused to allow them access to their kids.

Luckily I have never been in that position so I cant say what was going through their mind to lead them to end it all especially my brother Earls way of going, he lasted for almost a week in hospital before he died.

Yes Tomi there was a message for me, but I dont thinks its for this board.

As for the other non-believers well all I can ask you is if you have ever had any kind of personal experience that you could not explain anything that went against you beliefs, I dont mean going to a Psychic, something that happened to you alone?

Everybody is different, in my family I have seen things that defy believe. My eldest daughter since she was a toddler has told us things that she couldent possibly know about the family that had died before she was born, on the other hand my wife and youngest daughter have the spiritual awareness of a plank of wood.

To each his own

Dave, you make a good point about individual experiences. My wife and I have had things happen to us that defy logic......or at least our logic. There is an explanation for everything, if you want to take it. I tend to agree with Benny's summation though, there are undoubtedly people who have the capacity to tell you about things past, but who needs to know that. I don't subscribe to the belief that it is possible to either call up spirits at will or to predict the future. Even if it were possible, I would rather the future remained something to experience when I get there.

Hi Dave you are very welcome, it's all so very sad.

I asked the Psychic about my own experience of the 'visitations' to my home, did not come up with anything of relevance, just "oh these spirits can sometimes filter through?!

Ashfield, I agree with you don't really want to know what the future holds, and I really do not believe for one moment that my Mum would have given the message she supposedly did and leave her family with worry.

I have found a key in my bag and don't know where it has come from...very strange.

hi proudmaryhiller and all
dont try to explain things that happen
our loved one,s do have their way in giving
a message ,and it cannot be explained never doubt
what may happen,
have you ever went into a room and something not quite
the way you left it ,
when I give someone news and they ask how did you know
that, I cant answer and anyone who uses the gift for money
that gift will be lost to them,
always show compassion and kindness ,at times this is hard
as things are sent to try us,


bless all

Dave your post has been on my mind all day.
What a terrible to happen to your brother and your cousin's son. I do emphasise with them.
I considered the same end for the same reason.
I have absolutely no idea who my ancestors are and for that reason my children were (and still are) the most important parts of my existence. My wife knew that the only way she could hurt me was through my children and did everything she could to destroy what we had between us, She succeeded with my only son (11 years at that time) and it's taken us almost 30 years to put a "patch" on the relationship. My solution at the end was to dispatch her with extreme predudice but I couldn't lay that on my kids either so I left England to save them the shame.
Funnily enough the divorce papers; which I received abroad, were finalised exactly one week prior to what would have been our 13th anniversaire ... something spiritual about that I always thought.
10 grandkids and two great grandkids later she's still a vindictive mental case (*) who hardly sees hide nor hair of them ... they hide from her when they see her on the street.

(* She once insisted that the psychiatrist handling her case be changed because after interviewing me he told her he thought I was quite a nice guy )

One thing for sure, she didn't get a red cent out of me at the divorce hearing.
Sorry it's not on topic but I had to get that off my chest tonight.

I'm not a believer in any form; I either know something or I can be persuaded to accept something if I think the case is strong enough for me to accept. Belief or faith or trust are not my persuasion. Even in my personal relationship with Mary, for example, ask me if I trust her. The answer is no; I know her. She knows me. That's enough.
I once experienced the "Tunnel of Light" journey where I was being welcomed by a very dear friend (my ex-wife's father as it happens) who'd died a short while before.
I don't know if that was spiritual or if it was a natural reaction of the brain in a near death experience; the other explanation given, so maybe/maybe not but, contrary to what some might believe of me, I'll keep an open mind while reserving judgement on those who claim to be "in touch" with the spirit world.

Hi Sweetpea, howya doin, totally agree with you.

Tee, so sorry to hear all that has happened to you, truly awful. Nasty people hopefully will get whats coming to them. Wot goes around...

hi all,
tee read your post I do understand that
some people believe some dont, last year I was in
hospital and my family told not to hold much hope,
Im here and lived to tell the tale,
was asked why I never would further my gift and the
answer is I dont want to,
you have had a terrible time but now gifted with your
grandchildren and great grandchildren what ah blessing
dave its true what goes round comes around
people who are nasty will have a lonely life

god bless all

Actually it is the worse for that. These 'psychic' powers evaporate when subjected to rigorous examination. If there were any psychic powers, it would be possible to detect them, else they're not powers at all. Since they cannot be reliably detected, reports of them are technically indistinguishable from hokum.

You can "shrug them off as coincidences", because coincidences happen a lot. In fact, what would be strangest would be if there were no coincidences at all.

I've a notion the chap tamhickey is thinking of is James Randi, amateur magician and debunker of psychic charlatans.

There's an old and well-known investment scam that goes something like this.

The scammer writes a letter to about a thousand people telling them he has a sure way of predicting the stock market. To half of them he predicts that ABC Inc is going to rise in the next week, and to the other half, predicts that their shares will fall. That's all he does. He doesn't ask for anything.

The following week, he checks the share prices, and if ABC Inc has risen, he discards the half of his targets to whom he predicted a fall (and vice versa if ABC Inc falls, of course). To the remaining five hundred, he writes again, this time predicting to one half of them that DEF Inc will rise in the next week, and to the other 250 or so that DEF Inc will fall. That's all he does. He doesn't ask for anything.

He repeats the process with other listed companies, halving his audience each time, until he's whittled the original thousand down to about sixty. By this time, however, that sixty have had five 'correct' predictions in a row, one after the other. They are beginning to think 'This guy has got some good information, he's never been wrong yet'. To the remaining sixty or so, he now writes to say that he has more predictions about the market, but this time his advice is for sale. However, he's 'shown' his bona fides by having demonstrated up to half a dozen correct market predictions, without a single mistake. Let's say he says his fee for his next 'market report' is £250. The incentive is now strong to 'believe', and if even just half of the remaining sixty send him £250 for a punt on the market where it looks like they could clean up ten times that or more, he can clear seven or eight thousand pounds. He had no special knowledge at all, but used a process that makes it appear compelling that he has.

A similar psychology may be operating here, where the 'psychic' is whittling down his targets merely by the law of averages. When you are convinced the process is focussing down on you, the compulsion to believe 'there's something in it' can be very powerful, even though mistaken.

Thanks for that, Alex. Busy composing my emails right now. Won´t include any GG punters of course.

Firstly, most of the instances of "psychic" happenings in the annals of the Society for Psychical Research are not capable of "rigorous examination" in the scientific sense. They do not take place in a laboratory, nor are they reproducible on demand. They are simply episodes in the lives of individuals, for which no satisfactory logical explanation has been found, despite intensive investigation. "Coincidence" is, of course, one possible explanation for some of the cases, but many of the cases would need not a " coincidence", but a whole series of "coincidences" to act as a suitable explanation. I think we can reach a point when "coincidence" as an explanation becomes more unbelievable than what it is intended to explain.

Secondly, the statement that because something cannot be detected it therefore does not exist,is not at all a good argument. As the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. With all his genius, Newton could not have detected the existence of cosmic rays, for example, because the apparatus required for their detection did not exist in his era. I have no doubt that there are many natural phenomena taking place all around us which we are still incapable of detecting, despite the great advances since Newton's day.


" Since they cannot be reliably detected, reports of them are technically indistinguishable from hokum." I take it you believe the current cosmological Big Bang theory to be hokum then?

If they're not reproducible on demand, then they are not 'powers', for there is no way to distinguish between them and mere chance. That's what it means to say something is or has a power : the ability to show a demarcation between control and chance.

In other words, you are offering a statistical argument, whilst at the same time saying that the phenomenon is not capable of being analysed statistically!

This is confusing phenomenon with explanation. The claim for psychic powers is that they exist, not that they're undetectable. It is one thing to show that psychic phenomena exist, but a different issue to give an explanation of how they arise. Newton could not give an explanation of cosmic rays because he didn't know the phenomenon existed, but here, the claim is being made that psychic phenomena do exist ; therefore, it follows that they must be detectable without any logical necessity to explain how they arise. The problem here for the claim about psychic phenomena is that they can't even be shown to exist.

Why would I believe that? The Big Bang theory has convincing evidence in measurable traces via the 4K background radiation throughout the universe. That's why it survived where the Steady State theory failed.

Good post Alex.

Alex away an bile yure heid and take yur cynicism wae ye ave hid anogh o yur pontifacitin and holier than thou attitude

Well, that's ma gas in a peep.

Happy St Andra's Day tae you tae!

Well Alex, am I glad I let you post that first, you pontificating holier than thou cynic.
Can I take it you've heard of Morrison Cross? (Did I let myself get roped in there?)
Anyway, way back in the early 60's though I let myself be talked into attending a physic's meeting in Birmingham by my very intelligent girlfriend of that time. It started out in much the same way as described in Dave's post:
Will all those who ... with more than half the attending people rising to their feet, followed by, Those who ... and so many sitting down again.
That was when I stood.
"I'll see you in the pub across the road when this is finished", I told my girlfriend and then left.

I hadn't heard of Morrison Cross -- I was probably too busy pontificating somewhere -- but a quick sally through the back issues of Google showed up a fair raft of FSA type warnings. You didn't get approached or scammed, did you? That never happens to us holy wullies. (OK, Prince Ndabaninge Nsotolese was down on his uppers after his father was murdered by business associates in a cocoa mine and helping him squirrel his fortune out of the country was the least I could do, being holier than a'body else and all that, but that was a special case.)

I'm racking my brains (disnae take much, as The Boss used to tell me) to remember where I read it, but there was an account in a book on this kind of thing about a well-known US psychic, whose clients included the rich and famous in US politics and showbiz, who had died. On going through his things to sort out his estate, his executors found shelves and bookcases and suitcases full of newspaper cuttings and research notes. He simply targetted those he was doing 'readings' for by ferociously going after every tidbit of background information he could find, which is an odd activity for someone who could call on the supernatural world to do the legwork for him instead. It was possibly either in a book by James Randi, or Martin Gardner (sometime writer of the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American, and like Randi, amateur conjurer).

I remember someone who went to one of those theatrical sessions by that dear old psychic con artist the late Doris Stokes. Unknown to most of the audience queueing up to get in, but not the woman I had the account from, old Doris had a number of accomplices who were planted in the queue whose job was to strike up conversations with those waiting beside them, and by didn't of crafty digging techniques, milk them for seemingly innocuous information. This was then relayed to Doris before the show started, and of course you can imagine how she worked this into the act to the astonishment of those who were completely oblivious of the casual and unremarkable 'conversations' that had taken place in the queue.

I've known some pretty intelligent people who've been taken in by this flim-flam. Sometimes I wonder if it's because they're unwitting accomplices in the sense that they want to believe it, rather in the way that as audience members, we want to suspend disbelief when watching a ventriloquist. We are disappointed if we can see his lips move, and consider him good if we can't see the lips move. Or like the stage magician, we know it's trickery but for the purposes of entertainment, don't want to 'see the joins', but to enjoy the spectacle.

Only for about $12,000

Gee whizz, I'm sorry to learn that. I guess these people are good at being plausible. Dante should have a tenth circle of hell for these wretches.

Lately I've been getting calls from people trying to persuade me I've been oversold credit protection insurance payments. Always come up as number withheld, and fishing around for information about our credit cards and loans and mortgage. I'm usually fairly polite before hanging up the phone on them. You learn to be really suspicious these days.

Not as sorry as I was. Me and a good few hundreds of others. It only came to light after 9/11 when Morrison Cross jumped the border; into Paragua if I remember correctly, to avoid investigation by the US authority.
Could have done with some psychic assistance then.

Sorry to hear a man of your caliper got stung, Tomi.. <snickers>. Remember my son. "Trust No one!"

Oh aye, regarding those cold calling chancers, I always feel slightly obliged to lead them on with the hope that they will a nice big juicy sale, with a few "can you hang on a few minutes" pauses thrown in and then dispense with the pleasantries.

Nothing pishes these numpties aff more than wasting their time. After all, time is their money. It is rather strange, yet quite fulfilling that further calls from thus treated pests are not forthcoming.

I can safely predict that as the world revolves, light follows day... Hmmm. might need to gen up again a wee bit on that one.

Aw that guid RAF trainin' gone tae waste Rabbie.

I've perhaps related this story before, but my age prevents me of remembering

Orsen Welles told a story on a chat show of, when he was a young actor, being a "fortune teller" at a fair, to make some money when unable to get acting work. He admitted he had no gift for seeing into the future though. He said one day a young woman came in,she was laughing and dressed in a bright floral dress and hat. He immediately said to her, "you've recently suffered a terrible loss" and she broke down crying. Her husband had died the week before and her friends had persuaded her to get dressed up and go to the fair for a break.

It was the last time he ever played the fortune teller. He equated what happened to the way, at the time, a hotel clerk could assess a customer in their short walk from door to desk and decide whether to offer a room or not. I guess when we meet people, there are always clues about what's going on with them, ..........whether we see them is a different matter.

I think that's true, there's lots of 'micro-signals' we pick up without being consciously aware of them. I guess too that, when someone has reached marrying age, such as the woman in the Orson Welles story, the chances are high that she's going to have some relative or acquaintance who has died anyway, because we've all had that experience and can probably all think of someone close who has gone.

Like when a politician`s lips move it`s a fair bet he`s telling a lie.

Ash, Orson Welles the fortune teller, reminds me of a story when I was at RAF Chessington (Joint Services Rehabilitation Centre). An anonimous benefactor sponsored a day out at the races (The Derby) for those patients fit enough to make the short trip from Chessington to Epsom; a couple of miles by bus. It was my first ever occasion at an actual racetrack and I was totally amazed by the fun-of-the-fair scene; stalls with striptease dancers, Gipsy Rose Lee fortune tellers, jugglers, trick-cyclists, etc.. One stall had a Gipsy who claimed to have X-ray eyes. He could not only see into your future but tell your age by seeing through your skin.
One of my mates, another wee Jock, who had fallen off some rigging on a naval training ship and was lucky to be alive never mind walking, went up to him and said in a voice filled with wonder, coupled with a Glesca dialect, "Hey Jimmy. Huv ye' really goat X-ray eyes?"
"That is the gift I have"
Then swinging one of his legs onto the guy's table, the wee yin says, "How's ma effin fractures daen?"
The dozens of people assembled around his stall were laughin' their heids aff as the Gipsy rained down more curses on the wee barra than he had plates, screws and stitches in his legs and elsewhere on his body.
(My carreer as a scrap metal collector hadn't started at that time so no comparisons please )

Superb. Only a Glaswegian!

Pure class THH

The laffs ye huv tae brek yer legs fur.

Maybe of interest:

Full story here:
http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday...entre_1_1990915

GG.

€7.44 an hour full time? Is there a nightshift rate?

Just a follow up to this post, after my brother died we lost touch with his ex wife and daughter, it turned out that his ex wife would not tell her daughter anything about her father or his family and when the mother died at the age of 43 her daughters step father destroyed all photographs and documents that would have enabled my niece to find us, however my nieces maternal grandmother was good enough to tell her to search for the Grieve family which she did on Facebook contacting any Grieves she could find and asking if there was any chance of being related, luckily she found my sister living in Newcastle England and with my sister arriving yesterday for a months holiday my niece who it turned out lives in another part of Joburg will be joining us for a BRAAI/BBQ on Sunday.

Bravo to the grandmother, and to your niece for perseverance and determination. And a kick in the clackers to the stepfather for destroying family records.

I've spent the last few years engaged in family research, and that's one way of coming to an appreciation of the value of even the slightest document or piece of evidence. After my father died, my mother threw away piles of old photographs, not out of any wish to prevent anyone seeing them, simply because it was part of her grieving process, but the effect has been similar. I remember he had many old photos from his time in the Merchant Navy during the war, when he sailed on, and was torpedoed in, the notorious Convoy PQ17. Pictures, navy pass book, memorabilia, all gone. Today's photographs are future history, and even the most seemingly insignificant and ordinary can have a great significant and value in thirty or forty years' time.

Bet you've a lot of catching up to do on Sunday, and I hope you let us know how it goes.

Brilliant news Dave. Nice to hear happy endings. Enjoy the Braai.