Nope, it is all bullcrap.

They are all bullcrap. But, I second the idea of letting your wife go at least once if she wants it... because she might feel better. Take it like it's a shrink, he might do nothing at all but listen, and sometimes that's what people need.

Also... You always have Penn and Teller's #%&*$# episodes to show her if she comes back believing their crap.

You mean sometimes that's what women need. As we all know, women don't want any solutions, they just want someone there to listen.

Cops are like any other people, some ore skeptics, some are believers.

But regarding the "mediums" acting on cases, it's true some of them are called or come in to offer "help", which usually ends up being interrferrance. I do not know of any case solved with the help of a medium, and neither does the FBI-



Or maybe they hide it with the rest of the X-Files.

http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/psychic-detectives-have-a-perfect-record-35601

Thanks for reminding me of the utterly disappointing "I Want to Believe" movie.

Right- and you can do the same thing. Guesses from some reasonable suppositions (check in the forest outside of town) statistically have chances of some of them matching up to something, it's the same shotgunning effect that they can do on audiences. If you have a large audience, chances are, some of them will have basic facts in common for their demographics (the chances of having one or both parents deceased for example), and they spot those patterns and start narrowing it down further- it looks like they have ESP. After a while, they can get good at it, but not for the reason they think. If they start believing their own powers, it's because they've started to acquire superior deductive reasoning skills from all the practice, but they could start believing that they have an extra sense that no one else has. Or they never get this delusion, and they do know they are conning people.

But you don't hear of the majority of the time they're wrong in helping to solve crimes, you only hear about it when it appears to be right, therefore, it gives the impression that they're usually right. What's funny is that FBI or law enforcement forensics investigators also make educated guesses when they form psychological profiles of potential suspects or determining locations of crime scenes, only they're backed up with more research and patterns of other similar cases that they look at as a basis for comparison. No one claims that they are psychics for doing it.

Sylvia Browne was notoriously inaccurate in solving crimes, and of course those times never really get brought to anyone's attention- or if so, somehow her audience overlooks those times. Cognitive bias is a known phenomenon.

This stuff is not real- and if it were, there are too many weird implications of it that should be going on. They should be the rulers of the world, certainly doing more than cheap tricks or just kind of being idle doing talk shows and making money off of royalties like that. People want to believe there are answers to questions in life, that's the basic psychology that psychics and mediums exploit.

Past Life Regression:
Why was everybody royalty or some other high-ranking individual in their past lives? Do the "ordinary people" not get another chance? "I'm sorry but you didn't do enough with this life to earn a new one." If that were the case the world's population would be shrinking at an alarming rate, not expanding at one.


True story:
About 20 years ago I began working as an installer at a cable company in the eastern San Fernando Valley. While in training my trainer and I had a job to pick up some converters from a customer. When we arrived I just stood at the door. He asked me if I was going to ring the bell and I said, "No. They should know we're here." He asked how and I pointed to the sign on the door stating it was a psychic. I rang the bell anyway, and when the person answered the door she asked, "How can I help you?" I replied, "Don't you know already?"

Why does Hitler's horoscope reading make him sound a good guy like everyone else who shares his birthday? I have yet to read a horoscope that explained why a person is just not a good friend or someone good to know or doesn't have ulterior motives. Everyone is on the path to success and everyone just needs to be patient until it happens. Why do I see something that I have in common with every sign of the zodiac? The PT Barnum Effect makes use of that- people want to believe they are special, that there is no one else in the world like them. People's vanity is definitely there to take advantage of, all these things appeal to that. It works.

I did get a fortune cookie once which said, "Someone will benefit from your generosity." Nice try. A little flattery, ok, I get that, but it actually wasn't my fortune. Someone benefiting from my generosity is their fortune by definition, not mine.

Another time I got one that was completely blank. Either it was a blank piece of paper that got through somehow, or someone at the factory was having a good joke.

the only skills they have are reading clues from their victims and scamming your money. It is impressive how they can learn from you while making you think they already know the answer. Petting the goats at a nature center or feeding the ducks at a lake are more useful to me for processing grief to me.

No


Wheels

I've met people who have and they seemed to think that it was pretty legit but they were mainly credulous idiots, teens (redundancy) or on drugs (probably redundancy also). I doubt there's anything to "mediums" per se that can;t be explained by the inevitable transfer of currency but I have witnessed, and have had, some uncannily accurate insights from time to time.

Having very perceptive insights isn't what makes psychics and mediums what they claim they are, though. Any 'non psychic' person can gain very sharp perceptions about people- whether they were naturally born that way, or through habits. For example, sales people can get very perceptive reading others, people who interview job candidates, people who date people a lot, women especially can get good at it, the natural manipulators of men that they are and that they've been practicing since they were children playing with dolls, role playing, learning social and relationship games

What separates the psychics and mediums from perceptive or sensitive people is that they claim they are bringing these messages from other worlds and things like this, not that they are just intuitive, very perceptive people. A medium claims to be a conduit between us and the spirit world, not merely a perceptive person. So therefore, the way it works is they get the person emotionally attached to this message (they're receiving messages and instructions from dead loved ones), and that's how it works. The psychics you go to won't just be happy that you pay for one session, they want you coming back, that's how they earn their money- much more from a few steady clients rather than a bunch of people who go in once and never again. The messages from beyond will get more compelling and draw the people in further, that's what it's designed to do.

Hell no.

Take her to a good Church with a great minister and perhaps he can help introduce her to Jesus Christ. Through him perhaps she may find peace for her mother's memories.

I can't remember now, exactly, but it seems to
me in one of Pratchett's books about the
investigative chief of the City Guard, there's
a short statured clairvoyant who escapes
custody, and while he dances around it he never
comes out and says it...

No, but we're not into the supernatural, biblical nor otherwise.

Just be there for her. Talk about it when she wants to talk, reminisce about the good times, hold her when she wants to cry.

Is there a grave site? Every so often I suggest we visit her parent's graves, make a day of it and visit family you haven't seen in a while, especially seniors.

Totally agree with your post MarkG.
But she is adamant she wants to go, so I am just going with it.

Never have and never will. I don't believe in that stuff.

Don't believe in anything, actually. There are things I know, and things I don't know, but I don't "believe" anything except I don't know everything.




The Jedi Master

There is some "supernatural" stuff that I find hard to refute based on what people I trust very much tell me firsthand.

But your average "psychic/medium" isn't part of that...

The dividing line between 'natural' or 'unnatural' or 'supernatural' should be suspicious. If something exists, if something is capable of existing and people know that it exists in the natural universe, then it's natural. If spirits exist, then spirits are natural the same as trees or birds or insects or bananas or any element on the periodic table, what makes them supernatural? When something happens that only a few people can see and can produce for everyone else, then it's supernatural and we should always question that.

The problem is that it's always a few people who have these powers, ever since the first shaman popped up, it's always a few people who bring us this information, it's something that not everyone can see without their vision. Always challenge that, and have no self interest in mind, that certainly helps, that is, resist their attempts to influence your sense of vanity or what you have to gain from it.

These select people who must necessarily have information that you and I don't have and that you and I can't have without their esoteric abilities or knowledge must be challenged. Challenge all of them, have a skeptical mind for people who claim to know or see these fleeting things that disappear from the corner of our eyes when the rest of us turn to look, or we couldn't see or know to begin with. Watch how they get wise to what should be a first inclination to disbelieve and say things like, "Well, everyone is capable of perceiving the message, everyone can see it, I just bring this out in people, and they have to be open minded and if not, then that's their fault." That should be very suspicious right away.

Man, if this stuff is going to be on the final exam I'm screwed.