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Old 08-21-2018, 12:53 PM
 
30,030 posts, read 11,623,237 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth View Post
You just haven't met the right one, yet.
Apparently you have been convinced you have.
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Old 08-21-2018, 01:22 PM
 
Location: Phoenix, AZ
20,328 posts, read 14,547,380 times
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There are a million flavors of charlatans in the world. From those who peddle big jackpots and get already poor people to waste their money on lottery tickets, and casinos with all of their lures to part fools with their fortunes, a bajillion kinds of remedies and snake oil for everything that ails you, and everything that doesn't ail you, various kinds of religion and cults where anyone with a lick of sense can see they're bilking their believers, your iTunes gift card scammers who are nailing college kids and old people for hundreds or thousands, gurus and guides galore. If you pay attention in life, you'll see that most people will talk to you not to get honest advice, but to get their biases confirmed, or to fight with you if not, to get validation if they can. Humans are silly. We pay for tons of things that aren't legit in the slightest.

In the big picture, the grand scope of scams and cons, I think that your psychics and mediums (even assuming they're all fake, and I assume nothing) are pretty small potatoes.

When I was running my little "psychic reader" act at the flea market all those years ago, I couldn't bring myself to charge anyone more than $5. It was just too absurd. But I was broke and hungry, and there were people willing to toss me some cash to "read" them. Really, I figure, they were paying me to sit with them for ten minutes and give them very focused attention and speak nicely to them. It's completely possible that no one else was willing to give them even that, in life. It reminded me of the "Therapy" stand on the Peanuts comics.
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Old 08-21-2018, 01:28 PM
 
Location: Central IL
20,726 posts, read 16,283,321 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin View Post
Yes, I have seen examples like that. A woman who had recently lost her son went to a medium, and I heard the recording. The medium actually asked the mother how the son had died. Asked directly. Even though, supposedly, the son's spirit was right there. She didn't ask the spirit. And the mother told her.

But all these stupid examples say nothing about whether there are spirits or not.

Those of you who are so sure you know -- it's only because you have been indoctrinated into the philosophy of materialism, in which spirits are not possible.
You speak very obliquely - are you saying that YOU KNOW? And if YOU know then how do you know you know and why are you immune to the indoctrination that others haven't been able to avoid?

Or are you saying you DON'T know therefore you have escaped indoctrination but you also don't have any special knowledge either?
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Old 08-21-2018, 04:46 PM
 
8,192 posts, read 3,396,865 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reneeh63 View Post
You speak very obliquely - are you saying that YOU KNOW? And if YOU know then how do you know you know and why are you immune to the indoctrination that others haven't been able to avoid?

Or are you saying you DON'T know therefore you have escaped indoctrination but you also don't have any special knowledge either?
I have read a lot about that kind of thing. I believe the universe is made of information (spirit). Lots of scientists believe the same. Materialism is not universal among scientists. Materialism is illogical, in my opinion, and it is not actually backed up by any kind of science. It is popularized by evangelists like Dawkins.

No one can explain how consciousness and intelligence could be created out of dead mindless "matter." They think they can. It's very obvious to them, but they are ideological, not scientific.

I am an agnostic, in that I know that I can't possibly know the specifics of what life is, etc. But I don't close myself off from the spiritual dimensions. We can be spiritual without being dogmatic.
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Old 08-21-2018, 05:06 PM
 
Location: Rural Wisconsin
19,649 posts, read 9,192,474 times
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Around 1900, as many of you probably already know, there was a HUGE Spiritualism "craze" in the U.S. Never came to anything because even though there were many offers for anyone who could prove they truly could contact the dead, no one ever collected the money. Harry Houdini, for one, put a lot of time and effort into disproving the claims of the most famous "psychics" of his day, and not a single one passed his scrutiny and exposure of the tricks these so-called mediums used.

Now do I think that some people are "gifted" at reading people under 'normal' conditions? Oh, yes, absolutely -- but do I think they possess some kind of supernatural power? No.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...ndi-paranormal
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Old 08-21-2018, 05:09 PM
 
4,299 posts, read 2,801,433 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oklazona Bound View Post



Penn and Teller when they had their show called BS (spelled out) set up a fake astrology business and gave every customer the exact same reading. Afterwards each person was interviewed and all were amazed by how the reading was spot on.

I respect Penn but that doesn't really discredit astrology. If anything it proves that people don't research and will believe any astrology reading out there.
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Old 08-21-2018, 07:51 PM
 
30,030 posts, read 11,623,237 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickchick View Post
I respect Penn but that doesn't really discredit astrology. If anything it proves that people don't research and will believe any astrology reading out there.

I think it discredits humanity. People are just pretty dumb for the most part.
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Old 08-22-2018, 06:03 AM
 
13,273 posts, read 8,392,925 times
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My mother in law had the gift. I witnessed it one evening. She was intuitive extraordinare! She also had a sixth sense about ppl. She knew things and struggled with sharing it with the person or just staying quiet. She had no problems telling me what a peon I was on her eyes. She was right though... anyone who hurt her son deserved that opinion....
My best friend in junior high..her grandma had a spiritual gift. She was good at picking up on energies...
I think it's possible to have the gift...
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Old 08-22-2018, 06:54 AM
 
Location: City Data Land
17,156 posts, read 12,912,897 times
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It's better to wear those than larges.
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Old 08-22-2018, 02:32 PM
 
Location: Free From The Oppressive State
30,226 posts, read 23,643,056 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nov3 View Post
My mother in law had the gift. I witnessed it one evening. She was intuitive extraordinare! She also had a sixth sense about ppl. She knew things and struggled with sharing it with the person or just staying quiet. She had no problems telling me what a peon I was on her eyes. She was right though... anyone who hurt her son deserved that opinion....
My best friend in junior high..her grandma had a spiritual gift. She was good at picking up on energies...
I think it's possible to have the gift...
Well, I've shared this story on this forum (City Data as a whole, not this particular area), but I will retell it here in light of the quoted post.

Back in college, I befriended someone who was brilliant in math and helped me understand it very well. Her explanation was so simple and made perfect sense that I asked out loud, "Why didn't anyone ever say it like that before? I've wasted so many years trying to get this because no one ever explained it that way."

She and I became fast friends. We hung out a lot, and we had another friend who joined our little group to become 3. Math girl and I would even go to Denny's and do math homework, that's how much we enjoyed not only math, but each others company.

So, it should not be a surprise that when she met a guy, she wanted to introduce him to me and the other girl. We'll call other girl...OG. The night arrives, and Math Girl picks us up to drive over to her new bf's house to meet him.

We arrived, got out, walked up to the door, rang the doorbell, and the split second that he opened the door, before he ever even said "hello", every single alarm bell went off inside me. I can't explain the feeling, exactly, but I can try by stating it was heavy, I was filled with fear...sort of, I tensed up, I was on high alert, and I just felt an overwhelming dread. It was like thick, dark, and horrible. And all he had done up to that point was open the door.

We went inside, he gave us a house tour, we then sat down in the living room, and there was talking. I have no idea what we talked about, how long we were there, I don't even remember doing much talking at all, if any. I just remember that I knew he was a bad person. A lot of people like to argue with me about this stating that he "must have done something" to make me think that - his mannerisms, or something he said, or his tone, blah, blah, blah, because, and I am paraphrasing from what someone said on this very forum when I told the story: It had to be something. There was no way that I would "just know" because even trained police detectives can't do that.

Well, guess what. There was nothing for anyone to see or hear. All he did was open the door. Literally, the first second seeing him is when that feeling totally enveloped me.

On the way home, my friend wanted to know what I and OG thought about him. The feeling was so strong, I could not lie to my friend. So I tried not to reply at all. I diverted attention away from me to OG. OG of course gave glowing reviews, and Math Girl was happy. She then turned back to me and wanted to know what I thought. Math Girl and I were such good friends, she really actually wanted to know, and would not relent despite my attempts to move on from the subject with "Oh, it doesn't matter what I think, what matters is that you're happy" and other such statements. She would not let up. She started to get upset with me and demanded to know why I wouldn't tell her what I thought.

Well. As evidenced by replies to my story from people on this very forum, just how do you think I'm going to tell someone, "He's evil....but I can't tell you why because I don't know why, I just know. I felt it." Yeah, who believes that nonsense? But that's exactly what I had to end up telling her. Guess how that went over?

As time went on, Math Girl and I grew apart, mainly because of what I said, and mainly because, as it turns out, I was also right. She didn't see it at first. He was a control freak. He tried to control everything about her, and he sure as heck didn't want her coming around me. He would sit outside her work (she worked in a restaurant at the time while in school), and would watch her through the glass windows of the restaurant until her shift was over, and then driver her home. (I found this out much later.)

Fast forward to 3 years later. I had not seen or talked to Math Girl in 3 years. I was sitting in a Denny's, ironically enough, when I saw a waitress's back, and I knew that back. That was Math Girl. I went up to her, said, "Hi, Math Girl."

She turned around, saw me, her face filled with...shock, horror, not sure what else, and the very first words that she said to me were: "OMG! OMG! OMG! You were right, he tried to kill me."

After 3 years, that was what she said. Not "hello" "how are you doing" "what do you want", but that. She didn't talk much about it, but I found out that he had legit tried to actually kill her. She had moved away from the area for awhile and was now back, putting her life back together. Even though I offered her my phone number, I knew, and she knew, unfortunately our friendship was over because...she would always look at me in horror and regret for not listening and treating me badly when I told her the truth. I knew that I would always look at her with sadness that it happened, and that I should have tried harder to protect her from someone I knew, somehow, was very bad.

I wrote all of this to say: I'm not clairvoyant. I have no "gift". I don't see the future, I can't read people as a clairvoyant claims, I have no special powers.

What I do have are very, very strong instincts. My instincts were trained very early on in my life due to an horrifically abusive household from the time I was born until I was 4 1/2 years old. There's always icing on the cake in any situation: I developed extremely strong instincts that have never, ever been wrong. The only time I fail is when I don't listen to them, make excuses, etc. I've learned not to do that anymore.

I don't think anyone out there has some great gift or special powers or can see the future. But I do believe that I'm not the only person who has a very heightened sense of awareness of everything that goes on around them. It's exhausting to live this way, to be honest, but it also protects us from a lot of problems that a lot of people find themselves in.

Everyone has instincts. Some have stronger instincts than others. And some of us have extremely strong instincts. I'm not "bragging" about mine, I earned mine the hard way and would not wish that on anyone, I'm simply pointing out that instincts play a huge part in some of these "readings" from "psychics". (Along with, as others have said, research and/or throwing out very vague statements and having the other person fill in the blanks for them, unknowingly.)

If I had called myself a psychic and you witnessed what I just wrote, you would claim I was "real". I'm not a psychic at all, nor have I ever claimed to be one. It's all instincts, and that's what I believe a lot of psychics rely on.

Last edited by Three Wolves In Snow; 08-22-2018 at 02:44 PM..
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