Should we believe a good psychic???

[Abracadabra]

Hello,
I have very recently been seing a psychic. I wasn't really skeptical but not really convinced either when I booked my appointment.
This psychic happened to be very good. He was mainly right on everything he said about me and my family and my situation...but most incredible, he named someone (he asked :"Now...can you tell me who's ...?", quoting the name of someone that was particularly involved in the issue he was referring, when I obviously didn't mentionned it before)...I was in shock when he said that name. From then I was a bit scared, and would have run away from the room.
Now, I believe someone can be "sensitive" and "gifted" enought to sense things from your past and present... can someone tell you your future though?
The argument was that if what he told me about family/me etc was true, why would my future not be true as well...
I still believe that one decides what it's destiny is, and what's in the past/present could "leave a trace" somewhere...wherever that is... but how would your future be "stored" somewhere as well?!?!? I don't believe that but I am having troubles being objective as I am not very happy with what he told me about my future (:p) but as he seemed to be quite good for the rest... I'm slightly insure!!!
Let me know what you think...!?

[MischiefMonkey]

Should we believe a 'good' psychic?

Short answer - no.

We should look at the evidence and examine other possibilities as to how they get their 'information' other than from spirit.

Are you familiar with cold reading?
Probability and 'lucky guesses'/remembering the 'hits' and discounting 'misses'.
Hot reading?

You say ' I have very recently been seing a psychic'

To me, that would imply you have seen them on more than one occasion. Was 'the name' revealed on your first visit or a subsequent one? Could you have let slip previously?

When you booked your appointment, what information did you give? Full name? Telephone number in case the psychic needed to cancel? Address? In other words, enough information do do a bit of research on you before the appointment?

"Now...can you tell me who's ...?" is typical of cold reading - asking you a question and letting you fit it to your circumstance. Was it a full name or just first name? Is it a common name?

It is incredibly unlikely that anyone has 'real' psychic ability - all that have been tested have failed. Even the 'best' when transcripts are examined are doing nothing but cold reading. Some have been caught out cheating - having gotten information about the sitter before the sitting.

So even if the information seems good, they almost certainly have gained it by terrestrial means.

So should you use this as a basis to believe any future predictions they make? Again no. Why would the future be 'fixed'?

(Wanted to write more, but have to go out.....Welcome to UK Sceptics Abracadabra:smiley:)

[lazerustheduck]

I once watched a program where a psychic did exactly what you were describing and they claimed also not to have given him any information. The thing is it was done as an experiment by Randi and the reading was taped. It was shown exactly where the gentleman had cold read the information and showed they had in fact given information when they were convinced they hadn't. Even after seeing this they denied the evidence that was in front of their face.
So when you say good psychic I'll still interpret that as meaning good cold reader.

[Abracadabra]

Thanks!!
I am familiar with cold reading...and I believe that you can tell a lot if you're good at it... (and I know I'm not a difficult person to "read" for some things...).
To answer your question MischiefMonkey, I didn't say it the right way...it was the first (and pobably only) time I've seen a psychic.
As for the name, you're right it was just the first name...and I believe it is quite common here in the UK but still, quite spot on! I didn't give it before and for the info you give they're very very basic. The name of that person is not directly connected to me, so I don't think they would have been able to find her name by searching on me...but still could be a possibility.
I think he was an excellent "cold reader" as appart from talking to my dead grand father.. (:p) he did say things that were very true but maybe easy to "guess" if you're good.
Anyways, thank you for your replies...
and thanks for the welcome :)

[Abracadabra]

By the way lazerustheduck... I love that!!!
"I Tried To Believe.
Sarah Palin believes Jesus will come back in her life time to which I reply hasn't Jesus suffered enough.- Paraphrased from Bill Maher. "

[NorthernSoul]

I'm feeling a J-A name, James, Jason, Janet, Jackie, Jack, Janine, I bet I'm spot on ;)

[Trinoc]

I'm feeling a J-A name, James, Jason, Janet, Jackie, Jack, Janine, I bet I'm spot on ;)
My great uncle Jehoshaphat! How on earth did you know about him!

[NorthernSoul]

Man I'm good 8)

[Admin]

I'm feeling a J-A name, James, Jason, Janet, Jackie, Jack, Janine, I bet I'm spot on ;)


My great uncle Jehoshaphat! How on earth did you know about him!

That is quite literally how it 'works'.


he asked :"Now...can you tell me who's ...?", quoting the name of someone that was particularly involved in the issue he was referring

It's standard cold reading. They pretend to come up with a name by quizzically enquiring "Who's X?" - then you scan your mind for X and fill in all the links, meaning and detail yourself.

Asking "who's X?" is just the same thing as asking "do you know anyone called X?". It's just that doing it the first way makes it look psychic.

It's a method of asking veiled questions.

[Trinoc]

It's standard cold reading. They pretend to come up with a name by quizzically enquiring "Who's X?" - then you scan your mind for X and fill in all the links, meaning and detail yourself.

Asking "who's X?" is just the same thing as asking "do you know anyone called X?". It's just that doing it the first way makes it look psychic.

It's a method of asking veiled questions.
I would love to go to one of these readings with a complete phoney life story prepared for myself, and answer all of the "questions" pointing to the fake me rather than the real me, then reveal the scam at the end ... but I don't think I have the concentration to pull it off.

Does anyone know of someone who has done this?

[lazerustheduck]

Sorry I know the information will be around somewhere, but who was the person who went round to a psychics for TV show and had a reading. Unfortunately for the psychic she had accidentally researched his brother instead of the right guy?

[chillzero]

Trinoc,
That doesn't work. What happens is the psychic claims that your negative attitude put them off, and that they were reading the lies that you were concentrating on in your head.

How do I know this? I used to be heavily involved in the psychic community.


Abracadabra, what you have to remember is - they didn't tell you anything. They asked if you knew anyone. I you had said no, they'd have said you will do at some point. It's a win-win question if you are open to believing them.

[Trinoc]

That doesn't work. What happens is the psychic claims that your negative attitude put them off, and that they were reading the lies that you were concentrating on in your head.
They claim that if they get anything wrong. Nothing will shake their belief/fakery, or the true believers ... but if you videoed it all and put it on YouTube then the people could decide.

I'd like to see more about the case of the wrong brother that Lazarus mentioned - I don't think they could worm out of that one.

It wouldn't stop their scam careers though ... Sylvia Browne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Sylvia_Browne) is still making a fortune even after the mine disaster fiasco (http://www.ufowatchdog.com/sylviabrowne.html).

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

They claim that if they get anything wrong. Nothing will shake their belief/fakery, or the true believers ... but if you videoed it all and put it on YouTube then the people could decide.

I'd like to see more about the case of the wrong brother that Lazarus mentioned - I don't think they could worm out of that one.

It wouldn't stop their scam careers though ... Sylvia Browne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Sylvia_Browne) is still making a fortune even after the mine disaster fiasco (http://www.ufowatchdog.com/sylviabrowne.html).

I've transcribed several readings from videos I've found online (which are likely to be edited in the first place).

EVEN when you spell it out in as simple and as blatent way as possible what is happening, people will still believe something psychic is happening.

Psychic followers have conditioned themselves to believe a number of plainly stupid excuses. These include things like mediums will sometimes give the wrong answers anyway. The message may actually be meant for someone else, but if more than one person thinks a message applies, then it is a good message as opposed to a particularly vague one. They also seem to have a cognitive dissonance going on, in that if you point out when a psychic has just asked a question, they do not see it as a question.

All we can keep doing is highlighting what is going on. When someone is willing to use their critical thinking faculties at even a basic level, the whole thing suddenly becomes obvious for the charade it is. Most believers are happy to invent reasons to keep on believing.

[Trinoc]

OK, another possible approach. Explain to the psychic that you will just sit there poker-faced throughout the reading and say nothing at all. Better still, have a screen between you and the psychic to avoid giving anything away by body language. If they can then come up with anything at all remotely pertinent to your life, then either they really are psychic or they have cheated and researched you in advance.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

OK, another possible approach. Explain to the psychic that you will just sit there poker-faced throughout the reading and say nothing at all. Better still, have a screen between you and the psychic to avoid giving anything away by body language. If they can then come up with anything at all remotely pertinent to your life, then either they really are psychic or they have cheated and researched you in advance.

There's a couple of good articles on BadPsychics linking to a blog where a guy tried the poker-faced approach. One psychic got everything wrong, the other ended up shouting at him ;)

http://badpsychics.com/thefraudfiles/modules/news/article.php?storyid=853

http://badpsychics.com/thefraudfiles/modules/news/article.php?storyid=852

So it can be done, but dare I say it, the results are predictable ::)


The other problem is defining what is pertinent. It's fairly obvious to the average skeptic what is meaningful and what is meaningless. But to many people they see vague generalities as something that applies to them and count it as a hit. Many believers also mis-interpret probability - Ian Rowland's cold reading book has some good examples of ways to guess house numbers for example.

Very few psychics are willing to be tested properly under the conditions you describe. We seen Derek Ogilvie fail miserably when Randi tested him. It seems to me that psychics and mediums just change their claims when a suitable test approach is defined - they just claim that isn't exactly what they claim to do. It's very fustrating, but revealing at the same time.

[Abracadabra]

I would love to go to one of these readings with a complete phoney life story prepared for myself, and answer all of the "questions" pointing to the fake me rather than the real me, then reveal the scam at the end ... but I don't think I have the concentration to pull it off.

Does anyone know of someone who has done this?

I thought of doing that next time...but it's a bit expensive /session just for the experiment!


I'm feeling a J-A name, James, Jason, Janet, Jackie, Jack, Janine, I bet I'm spot on ;)

Man..you're good, my name starts with a J ;)


Trinoc,
That doesn't work. What happens is the psychic claims that your negative attitude put them off, and that they were reading the lies that you were concentrating on in your head.

How do I know this? I used to be heavily involved in the psychic community.


Abracadabra, what you have to remember is - they didn't tell you anything. They asked if you knew anyone. I you had said no, they'd have said you will do at some point. It's a win-win question if you are open to believing them.

I guess you're right. It's just still impressive, if not psychic, to spot the right name...
I know he was defo reading my "body language" and was rectifying depending on my reaction.

If anyone tries once to really play a game coming with a real-fake story, please post it!!!!

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

He was mainly right on everything he said about me and my family and my situation...but most incredible, he named someone (he asked :"Now...can you tell me who's ...?", quoting the name of someone that was particularly involved in the issue he was referring, when I obviously didn't mentionned it before)...

I think you need to go back and think about this bit again. You say the psychic got a name related to an issue he'd been talking about. How did you get on to this issue? Was it cold reading again? Did he mention something vague that you interpreted as referring to something that was going on in your life? Was it something he could have made an educated guess about from details he had about you? Maybe something to do with your location? Or something age related? An illness, that he might have got non-verbal clues about? How many questions did he ask before you settled on this particular issue? How many misses inthe conversation up until this point?

Either way, we all do lead pretty similar lives when you strip away the small detail. So it likely was just been cold reading that got you to settle on this issue.

So once you've settled on this particular issue, at some point after that (after you've maybe had a few misses along the way), you get the question. "Now....can you tell me whos.....?". Note how the medium does not immediately or explicitly imply that the person they are asking about is related to the issue. You could have identified a person entirely unrelated to the 'issue'. In this instance, the medium has just probably been very lucky to get someone related to something else you've been discussing. But if they'd come up with someone not related to the issue, they'd still be claiming the credit. It works all ways for them! Once again, it was probably you that gave the information to the medium that the name they gave you was someone known to you and was related to the issue.

So it's not the medium who has made the connection, it's the sitter.
It would be much more impressive if the medium was able to tell you a person's full name (forename and surname) and say it was in relation to an issue which they had also explicitly mentioned. I obviously wasn't at the reading, but the above would be my best guess on what happened.
This is why transcripts of readings are so important, it is only when you can analyse the conversation in a methodical way that you see all the little verbal tricks. It's the main reason why people can come away so impressed from a reading. It is so easy get a false impression of what has happened.

[Abracadabra]

Hi FarSideOfTheMoon,

I just spent 20min replying to your post with details of how and what happened and my screen froze...and lost everything...>:-)

So i'll be short this time...

Basically he first gave me a reading of my aura...then started talking, I didn't say much, but probably my body language is very expressive. He asked me "tell me why you feel so lonely since February"... so I told him maybe because I broke up with my friend (that was actually slightly later). So as you said we all have similar lives, but he still got the issue right (why are you still waiting for that person...). Then he talked about my family (got right number of sisters and brothers I have). Then talked about my relationship issue again and said "Now changing the subject...can you tell me who is ...?" So I said who it was and then we were back in the subject...

Some of my friends said he said to many things that were right to be just luck...but I have the tape, I might listen to it one day...

I had said much more in my previous post but technology isn't always reliable!

thanks a lot

[skbuncks]

Hi FarSideOfTheMoon,

I just spent 20min replying to your post with details of how and what happened and my screen froze...and lost everything...>:-)

......snip

On long posts I periodically highlight what I have written and Ctrl+C it. If I subsequently lose it then I can recover with a quick Ctrl+V

skb

[MischiefMonkey]

Hi FarSideOfTheMoon,

I just spent 20min replying to your post with details of how and what happened and my screen froze...and lost everything...>:-)

So i'll be short this time...

Basically he first gave me a reading of my aura...then started talking, I didn't say much, but probably my body language is very expressive. He asked me "tell me why you feel so lonely since February"... so I told him maybe because I broke up with my friend (that was actually slightly later). So as you said we all have similar lives, but he still got the issue right (why are you still waiting for that person...). Then he talked about my family (got right number of sisters and brothers I have). Then talked about my relationship issue again and said "Now changing the subject...can you tell me who is ...?" So I said who it was and then we were back in the subject...

Some of my friends said he said to many things that were right to be just luck...but I have the tape, I might listen to it one day...

I had said much more in my previous post but technology isn't always reliable!

thanks a lot

If you have the tape, perhaps you could transcribe it (or upload it if not too personal). It would be easier to point out the cold reading that way:smiley:

The more you describe, the more it sounds like pure cold reading.

[Trinoc]

On long posts I periodically highlight what I have written and Ctrl+C it. If I subsequently lose it then I can recover with a quick Ctrl+V
Get Firefox and you can simply click on the "Back" arrow to go back to the type-in page. Of course, if it was the user's PC that froze then either they need a new PC or there was a system screw-up.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

On long posts I periodically highlight what I have written and Ctrl+C it. If I subsequently lose it then I can recover with a quick Ctrl+V

skb

Yep, Ctrl-A will do the Select-All, just in case anyone is unaware of that.

[lost thought]

Hi FarSideOfTheMoon,

I just spent 20min replying to your post with details of how and what happened and my screen froze...and lost everything...>:-)

I had said much more in my previous post but technology isn't always reliable!

thanks a lot

Hi this is more my bag, It coould be one of three things.
1. Graphics card, is it on-board, can you put a new one in.
2. memory do you have enough ram, 1gb or 2gb is the standard now.
3. virtual memory, is your hard drive to small/slow, if you wait will the pc catch up.

If it is not any of these then I affraid you have a software problem, or need a new pc. PM me for advice.

Lost Thought O0

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Hi this is more my bag, It coould be one of three things.
1. Graphics card, is it on-board, can you put a new one in.
2. memory do you have enough ram, 1gb or 2gb is the standard now.
3. virtual memory, is your hard drive to small/slow, if you wait will the pc catch up.

If it is not any of these then I affraid you have a software problem, or need a new pc. PM me for advice.

Lost Thought O0

If it's a laptop - be careful about overheating. Been there >:-)

They aren't designed to sit on the lap, eventually the amount of fluff sucked in will clog up the heat exchanger and fan. I had a long period of freezing before I realised it was from overheating.