Psychics

[JTrader]

I've seen a few programs about psychics, and most have impressed me quite a bit -
Sally Morgan
Colin Fry
Tony Stockwell

I've been watching "The Psychic Detectives" on Sky 3 on a morning recently, and this has perhaps impressed me the most. Documenting cases where Psychics have worked for/with the Police In the US to solve real life crimes/incidents (disappearances etc).

Anyone know any Psychics?
Anyone a Psychic?

It can't be BS can it, not with so much evidence giving psychicness good credibility?

Any comments....

 

[shadowninja]

Yes. It's weird ****. That's all I'm saying. Some of the stuff freaks me out. Ignore that cold reading bull****. Some of it is. But when you don't tell them anything, that's something different. Especially when they only tell stuff about you via the internet based on one email and they just know you as "Darren". Cold reading my ****.

 

[JTrader]

It would be interesting to experience having psychic powers for a day or 2 i reckon. it might freak me out if i had permanent ones. though i'd imagine this is something psychics gradually come to terms with.

 

[BSD]

Lotsa stuff under this sky of ours that we can't explain, but that by itself or that alone shouldn't really be a reason to go into denial about phenomea we don't understand, but that yet seem to exist.

Eg, I firmly believe that our thoughts turn into things without having written a PhD on the Whys and Hows, lol:

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/psychology/34737-intent-2.html#post506068

Funnily enough I've believed that even before I ever heard of the likes of Andrew Carnegie et al.

But then thats clearly my dominant right side of the brain strutting its stuff.

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-arcades/17635-futex-test-paper-3.html#post507422

 

[Gumping]

Interestingly, Derren Brown has a chapter on cold-reading in his book. He basically sent a cold reading to a load of people. >90% of them responded that it was an uncannily accurate representation of them. He sent them all the SAME statement! He then included the statement he sent out, and this I thought, was also pretty uncannily accurate of me.
When he got the secretary of the company that did the research for him to write it out, she actually thought it was an attempt by him to read HER mind and he had to explain the point to her, and that is:

Alot of it involves just being very vague. He then added a transcript of a show by a psychic/medium-type person where he speaks to a theatre full of people about their dead relatives and you could see all of the statements contained in Derren's 'reading' throughout the show, and how he worked on the audience's responses to them for his cues.

Also, did you know that the people who invented the ouija board admitted they were making it all up? Didn't stop that spreading.

On the one hand, there is a multi million $$ industry on this stuff based on crooks and charlatans preying on vulnerable people, who want to believe, it seems...

But on the other hand....... I'm not sure I'd consign it all to the rubbish bin.

 

[the blades]

I've seen a few programs about psychics, and most have impressed me quite a bit -
Sally Morgan
Colin Fry
Tony Stockwell

I've been watching "The Psychic Detectives" on Sky 3 on a morning recently, and this has perhaps impressed me the most. Documenting cases where Psychics have worked for/with the Police In the US to solve real life crimes/incidents (disappearances etc).

Anyone know any Psychics?
Anyone a Psychic?

It can't be BS can it, not with so much evidence giving psychicness good credibility?

Any comments....

J - you wont need to guess my response - it's all bollox:cheesy:

I've heard a few tapes from believers who've visited them, they go something like;

Q."do you know a Jason"
A."No"
Q."You will meet a Jason soon. Do you know a Paul"
A."Yes, how on earth did you know that!!!!!".

UTB

 

[the blades]

Alot of it involves just being very vague. He then added a transcript of a show by a psychic/medium-type person where he speaks to a theatre full of people about their dead relatives and you could see all of the statements contained in Derren's 'reading' throughout the show, and how he worked on the audience's responses to them for his cues..

Another classic = the dead relative one;

"I'm getting a message from someone called Edith, does anyone know an Edith who's passed away recently"

Always a message from Edith, Arthur, Marjorie - and never Danny, Ryan, Jade.
Alway "recently" (ie any time in the last 10 years)
Always to a large audience.
Always ********.

UTB

 

[trendie]

Challenge Info - James Randi Educational Foundation

unclaimed $1Million prize.
psychics are clearly not materially minded!
(actually, I am quite fascinated by this subject, despite my sceptical response)

 

[Gumping]

Frugi makes an interesting (But deleted!!!?!!!) point about trade descriptions.

I hear that psychics are now supposed to quote a disclaimer that their 'readings' are for entertainment purposes.

I know a few companies that should state that when they release their accounts

 

[Trader333]

It is interesting that whenever dead relatives are supposedly trying to make contact they always, without exception, have forgotten their own surname, where they lived and almost everything of real detail about their life that would prove beyond any doubt that it could not be guesswork.


Paul

 

[Gumping]

It is interesting that whenever dead relatives are supposedly trying to make contact they always, without exception, have forgotten their own surname, where they lived and almost everything of real detail about their life that would prove beyond any doubt that it could not be guesswork.


Paul

Steady on, old bean...... the psychic is usually very descriptive of their red jumper :whistling

 

[JTrader]

Interestingly, Derren Brown has a chapter on cold-reading in his book. He basically sent a cold reading to a load of people. >90% of them responded that it was an uncannily accurate representation of them. He sent them all the SAME statement! He then included the statement he sent out, and this I thought, was also pretty uncannily accurate of me.
When he got the secretary of the company that did the research for him to write it out, she actually thought it was an attempt by him to read HER mind and he had to explain the point to her, and that is:

Alot of it involves just being very vague. He then added a transcript of a show by a psychic/medium-type person where he speaks to a theatre full of people about their dead relatives and you could see all of the statements contained in Derren's 'reading' throughout the show, and how he worked on the audience's responses to them for his cues.

Also, did you know that the people who invented the ouija board admitted they were making it all up? Didn't stop that spreading.

On the one hand, there is a multi million $$ industry on this stuff based on crooks and charlatans preying on vulnerable people, who want to believe, it seems...

But on the other hand....... I'm not sure I'd consign it all to the rubbish bin.

Yes i get all your points, and they are all valid and no doubt some frauds exist out there.

However, i'm mainly impressed by the psychic detectives, which is a series that does factual reconstructions of how psychic mediums have been recently employed by police forces, in real life, to help solve real life crimes/puzzles - such as locating missing/injured/unconscious/dead people etc. This in no way can be frauds or charlatans. Watch it at 0700 on Sky Three.

 

[PKFFW]

Wouldn't knowing everything in advance be a form of psychic power?

Surely there are some on here(and 1 notable ex-poster) who could claim that 1 million!

 

[gedward3]

My Mam went to a psychic years ago when i was young. She told her that the eldest of her 3 sons would become immensely rich and wealthy.

Just wondering if anyone knows of a good psychic who could find the original psychic and ask her where the money is coz i aint seen any of it............

J - you wont need to guess my response - it's all bollox:cheesy:

I've heard a few tapes from believers who've visited them, they go something like;

Q."do you know a Jason"
A."No"
Q."You will meet a Jason soon. Do you know a Paul"
A."Yes, how on earth did you know that!!!!!".

UTB

 

[JTrader]

OK, for the purposes of this discussion, i am willing to accept that all TV psychics like colin fry, sally morgan, tony stockwell are complete frauds. And wasnt that derek acorah shown to be a fraud anyway..?

But, having watched many episodes of the psychic detectives on Sky Three at 0700 on weekday mornings, which documents real life incidents of where different psychics have been used by different US police forces to solve real life crimes/puzzles where conventional police methods had failed/were failing, I firmly believe there is something to this psychic phenomenon as the facts of the investigations prove this, hence the reason for the factual program........!


...ay, tha can tek an hoss to watter, but tha cant mek it drink!

 

[acronym]

OK, for the purposes of this discussion, i am willing to accept that all TV psychics like colin fry, sally morgan, tony stockwell are complete frauds. And wasnt that derek acorah shown to be a fraud anyway..?

But, having watched many episodes of the psychic detectives on Sky Three at 0700 on weekday mornings, which documents real life incidents of where different psychics have been used by different US police forces to solve real life crimes/puzzles where conventional police methods had failed/were failing, I firmly believe there is something to this psychic phenomenon as the facts of the investigations prove this, hence the reason for the factual program........!


...ay, tha can tek an hoss to watter, but tha cant mek it drink!

Psychics do exist, of that I can assure you.
One would be correct in the assertion, that such an ability may well drive people mad, until, or unless they can control it.

However, in case your wondering, there are some good reasons this supernatural/normal phenomenon is placed in the rubbish bin with UFO's and the like, and these points are as follows;
Most commonwealth nations and constituent states follow "articles of faith", often read out before sittings of parliament etc, among which, a certain statement "because none of us can see the future", yada yada yada, god, queen/king/ sovereignty etc.
They supercede/outrank, always, all other laws, strangely enough.

Now, it would throw a real spanner in the works if someone actually could actually see the future, for a start-however, its my understanding, these "things" were enacted (possibly by henry the 8th? Cromwell? not sure)) as a means of in fact stamping out doomsday cults and their leaders, capable of convincing-well, jonestown, you get the picture, things could really get out of control if such a cult gathered to many followers.

Which leads to the second point, that most people who claim to be psychic, ARE actually just 100% nuts, or certainly in high percentiles, and either way, law for a long time now explicitly defines said claim of ability to be delusional, and a mental illness, regardless of checkable or verifiable facts, a fait accompli against any actual psychic.
Nobody, repeat nobody, is obliged to actually check facts in such a circumstance.

In short, it's a religious/ethics thing, the "false prophets" argument, or "its not right to change the future" seems to roll off the tongue of the average imbecile, religious or not. It just happens, like a gut reaction, almost inexplicable.
Ironic, given christianity is among the largest doomsday cults available, but there it is.

At any rate, that's a large part of the reason you don't see much credibility wise about psychics in most commonwealth countries at least, backward looking is "fun viewing" and non-problematic, maybe even helpful in certain circumstances, forward looking is-verboten.

Speaking of credibility, Randi's cash prize isn't his personal cash, it's backed by an insurance companies policy.

The human mind is an amazing thing, but subject to manipulation in all manner of spheres.

 

[Gumping]

Sorry J....... I do not own Sky TV and hence cannot comment about this psychic detectives show, or how fact-based it is. Hence, I shall now withdraw from the discussion and resume thinking about boobies.

 

[JTrader]

i dont own sky tv either. sky three its on freeview.

 

[Lee Shepherd]

Its true police do on occasions use 'psychics' but this is purely for the alternative thinking as they sometimes, note sometimes, pick up on something the average everyday copper could miss.

Lets be reminded of the millions of dollars and research to which has gone into psychic abilities, that being of remote viewing and psychic behaviour, mind reading ect and was dropped by all the government houses around the world as poppy c0ck.

All pyschics are frauds and deluded and clearly off this planet of realism. In challenges across all continents throughout the thousands of years, nothing ever has ever been proven and could be put down to guess work, vagueness and t.v programs that would defend themselves for money sake.

If they do exist then why doesn't one step forward, just one of them, only one is all that everyone needs to know to prove the existance of psychics. Until that one steps forward to be proven as a pyschic, governments will continue to train police officers and install cameras and use satalites to spy on potential enemies and threats to national security.

Only the weak and vunerable need something to hold on to and thus, the pyschic is born.

 

[BSD]

I really have no hard views either way on psychics, but just out of interest googled around for a sec, and first link I came up with was this rather interesting piece:


Could there be proof to the theory that we're ALL psychic?
'Up to 85 per cent of people may be clairvoyant' says a researcher

Dr Chris Roe places a pair of enormous fluffy earphones over the head of a blonde 20-year-old woman.

He carefully slices a ping-pong ball in half and tapes each piece over her eyes.

Then he switches on a red light that bathes the woman in an eerie glow, and leaves the room.

After a few moments, a low hum begins to fill the laboratory and the woman begins smiling sweetly to herself as images of distant locations start to pass through her mind.

She says she can sense a group of trees and a babbling brook full of boulders.

Standing on a boulder is her friend Jack. He's waving at her and smiling. She begins to describe the location to Dr Roe.

Half a mile away, her friend Jack is, indeed, standing on a boulder in a stream.

Somehow, the woman has been able to "see" Jack in her mind's eye, even though all of conventional science - and common sense - says it is impossible.

Is this simply a bizarre coincidence?

Or could it be proof that we all possess psychic powers of the type popularised in such films as Minority Report?

That is what Dr Roe is investigating. A parapsychologist based at the University of Northampton, he is examining whether it could indeed be possible to project your "mind's eye" to a distant location and observe what is going on - even if that place is hundreds of miles away.

And though the research is not yet complete, the results have been tantalising.

His early findings suggest that up to 85 per cent of people may possess some form of clairvoyance - the ability to "remote view".

And he believes that with only a modicum of training we can all sharpen our psychic skills.

"Our results are significant," says Dr Roe.

"They suggest that remote viewing, or clairvoyance, is something that should be taken seriously."

It would be easy to dismiss such claims as laughable, were it not for the fact that an increasing number of scientists are taking them seriously.

While Dr Roe's work may appear controversial, he is starting to garner the support of eminent academics such as Professor Brian Josephson, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Cambridge University, who says: "The experiments have been designed to rule out luck and chance. I consider the evidence for remote viewing to be pretty clear-cut."

The military is also taking a keen interest. The Ministry of Defence takes the phenomena seriously enough to have commissioned its own research.

Documents only recently released under the Freedom of Information Act detail a series of experiments on psychic phenomena.

Unfortunately, the actual details of the experiments that were carried out - and what the conclusions were - are still classified, and intriguingly the MoD refuses to say whether they were a success.

They claim that releasing such details would imperil the defence of the nation, and what little information has been released is described as "poor quality" by Dr Roe.

"Their analysis of the data is quite frankly, woeful," he says.

But the very existence of such files suggests that the military are taking the possibility of psychic phenomena seriously.

In fact, most existing scientific knowledge on clairvoyance is based on other recently declassified military research undertaken in America during the Cold War.

During the Sixties and Seventies, paranoia gripped the US military establishment.

Strange rumours began circulating that the Russians had found a way of harnessing psychic powers and begun wielding them as weapons.

Psychic skills such as telekinesis - the ability to move objects or control machines using nothing more than the power of the mind - were apparently being taught to soldiers in elite combat units.

They were also said to be using clairvoyants to gather intelligence from top-secret American bases.

If true, the American's believed, it would mean that the Russians could discover their most important secrets and even control the minds of their Generals.

So in the early Seventies, the US military began its own top-secret research to try to close the "psychic intelligence gap" with the Russians.

The CIA later joined them in a series of covert research projects that were given suitably innocuous titles such as Sun Streak, Grill Flame and Star Gate.

These were designed to track down the most gifted psychics in the U.S., unravel the mysteries of their powers and then find ways of teaching these skills to ordinary soldiers and agents.

The aim was to produce a new breed of "super-soldier" capable of controlling matter with their minds and gathering intelligence from afar.

But some in the military wanted to go even further.

The US Navy wanted to send confidential orders to their nuclear submarines using telepathy, which would be impossible for even the most sophisticated enemy listening devices to intercept.

And Major General Albert N. Stubblebine III, commanding officer of the US Army Intelligence and Security Command, suggested that one day soldiers might even be able to "walk through walls", using psychic powers to overcome the physical boundary.

And if that wasn't enough, researchers at Princeton University (where Einstein was once based) and Stanford were similarly tasked with investigating the paranormal.

Scientists at Stanford quickly focused on the use of clairvoyance, known as remote viewing in technical parlance, as the most militarily useful psychic skill.

Very soon, Stanford played host to more than a dozen psychic spies, whose paranormal skills were once demonstrated to President Jimmy Carter.

The remote viewers used a deceptively simple method based on what is known as the Ganzfeld technique to help "see" deep into enemy territory.

They induced an altered state of consciousness by seating themselves in a sound-proof room and wearing earphones playing white noise.

Pingpong balls sliced in half were placed over their eyes to obscure vision. The whole room was then bathed in soft red light.

The map coordinates of the "target" location would be written on a piece of paper, placed in an envelope and handed to the viewer.

He would be allowed to touch the envelope but forbidden to open it. Alternatively, pictures of the target location would be sealed in the envelope.

The remote viewers would then slip into a light meditative trance and their "mind's eye" would be drawn to the target location.

Pictures, feelings and impressions would then drift into their minds from the target, which might be located thousands of miles away.

To an outsider, this approach might appear to produce only hopelessly vague results that were no better than guesswork.

But the scientists investigating remote viewing found them to be surprisingly accurate, giving military intelligence a small but significant advantage over their cold war enemies.

Joe McMoneagle was one such "psychic spy". Given the codename "Remote Viewer No 1", his primary role was to use remote viewing to look inside Russian military bases and gather intelligence.

McMoneagle was recruited from US Army intelligence in Vietnam because of his amazing ability to survive while on reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines against seemingly impossible odds.

His commanding officers thought he was either amazingly lucky, psychic - or a double agent.

On his return home, he was tested for his remote-viewing skills at Stanford and found to have psychic gifts.

He went on to spend the next 20 years tracking Russian nuclear warheads and gathering intelligence.

His work eventually earned him the Legion of Merit, America's highest military non-combat medal.

"My success rate was around 28 per cent," says McMoneagle.

"That may not sound very good, but we were brought in to deal with the hopeless cases.

"Our information was then cross-checked with any other available intelligence to build up an overall picture. We proved to be quite useful 'spies'."

Word of America's experiments with the paranormal spread to the UK and while the military were sceptical, the Metropolitan Police spotted an intriguing possibility.

Could psychic powers be harnessed to help solve crimes?

They soon had their answer when a woman named Nella Jones came to their attention, claiming that she could help locate a priceless Vermeer painting, called The Guitar Player, that had been stolen from Kenwood House in North London in 1974.

Nella told the police that she had been ironing some clothes and idly watching the television when her mind suddenly focused on the whereabouts of the painting.

She hurriedly sketched it out and took it to the police, who were understandably sceptical.

But having nothing else to go on they followed the lead. The painting was eventually recovered from St Bartholomew's churchyard as a result of the information she gave them.

Again, it would be easy to dismiss Nella's guidance to the police as just blind luck.

Easy, that is, if she hadn't spent the following 20 years helping them ensnare murderers and other serious offenders.

"Nella gave invaluable assistance on a number of murders," says Detective Chief Inspector Arnie Cooke. "Her evidence was not the type you can put before a jury. But senior investigating officers have got to take people like her on board and accept what they are saying."

In fact, so useful was Nella to Scotland Yard that in 1993 they publicly thanked her and senior officers hosted a dinner in her honour.

Scotland Yard later wrote to her, saying: "Some police officers may have seemed sceptical of your abilities ... but it is a mark of those abilities that police turn to you time and time again."

Such anecdotes are all very well but there is statistical evidence, too, that proves that psychic skills are a useful tool for law enforcement agencies and the military.

In 1995, the US Congress asked two independent scientists to assess whether the $20 million that the government had spent on psychic research had produced anything of value. And the conclusions proved to be somewhat unexpected.

Professor Jessica Utts, a statistician from the University of California, discovered that remote viewers were correct 34 per cent of the time, a figure way beyond what chance guessing would allow.

She says: "Using the standards applied to any other area of science, you have to conclude that certain psychic phenomena, such as remote viewing, have been well established.

"The results are not due to chance or flaws in the experiments."

Of course, this doesn't wash with sceptical scientists.

Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, refuses to believe in remote viewing.

He says: "I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do.

"If I said that there is a red car outside my house, you would probably believe me.

"But if I said that a UFO had just landed, you'd probably want a lot more evidence.

"Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don't have that evidence."

Back at the University of Northampton, Dr Chris Roe hopes he can provide such proof one way or the other.

Next month, he will embark on a series of experiments that will be more rigorous than any so far attempted.

They will rule out fluke positive results and any unconscious biases held by anyone involved with the experiments.

And if that wasn't enough, he then plans to embark on research into an even more outlandish field: whether it is possible to remote view through time.

In other words, he will investigate whether it is possible for remote viewers not only to observe distant locations, but also to see what will happen at that place at a predetermined time in the future.

"Time does not seem to be a barrier to remote viewing," says Dr Roe, matter of factly.

Certainly, only time will tell whether he has been cruelly deluded, or has glimpsed a very intriguing future."

LINK:
Could there be proof to the theory that we're ALL psychic? | Mail Online