OllyK

Here we go again lol!

I do not doubt W69's integrity and indeed I do belive that she honestly thinks that the spiritualist was spot on. By the sounds of it you were not there and are basing your belief on your trust of W69 and her perception and memory of what happended and not what was actually said. Memory is a very funny thing, it distorts things and remembers what you want to remember and can very easily forget things that do not fit the pattern.

Very important point, and I hope none of the believers feel that I am being bigotted here (I could say "your wrong and leave it at that ), I am honestly trying to understand why people belive in the light of the evidence and see if anybody can arrange a scientific observation of a reading so that we can try and find out once and for all. I am more than happy to be persuaded they are genuine if there is the evidence there to support it. Conjecture, speculation, second hand interpretation etc are not evidence - why do you think the courts will not accept it?

Both I and Randi will agree that we as a species do NOT know everything about everything, far from it. Anybody who claimed to would be a fool. However, that there is an answer for everything is very true, we just don't know those answers yet. The human is a funny creature, we like answers. You have yourself selected your answer on Spiritualism, you belive it to be genuine based on your experience. You can't or won't accept the scientific evidence that it is a con, but prefer to cling to your answer that this person really can contact the spirits - your choice.

Nothing wrong with tree huggers, they love nature and want to protect it, I have no issue with that as a philosophy. I do have issue if they start blowing people up to make their point however!

I struggle with this. If the person is stating hard facts without prompting or questioning then why would there be need for interpretation for what they said? Either they said something and it was a clear unequivocle (sp?) fact that cannot be denied or it was some wooly statement that you had to interpret and find some association to match up with some event in your life. If this is the case, she is telling you nothing, she is just letting you make your own story up as you go and she throws a few things in the pot as things progress.

Glad you are keeping an open mind!

Not sure what this achieve. If I am right then she is obviously talented in deception, going off the cuff leaves one open to the deception. As I say, if we can set some rules up before and video tape the session, then we would know at the end if she was genuine or fraud. If she is genuine, great, I go and claim Randi's $1 million, if she is a fraud then we have saved innocent victims - I win both ways!

AsifScoob

Ollyk,

I doubt if someone as intelligent and resourceful as yourself (just look at how quickly you type!!) could be fooled so easily. There is no scope for deception with the method that Sharon Neil uses.

She refuses to listen to any information you seek to provide her and states that she will tell you, how could she know my father died, without knowing his full name, for that she would have to know my full name, which I stated she did not.

Why dont you go and try one for yourself? My feeling is that even with your level of scepticism you will end up believing. You need to have an open mind too. Why the video recorder, are you expecting to see flying white sheets around the room?

Its just you, her (a small, little, blind lady) and a tape recorder. You can do whatever checking you like, (she cant see you what you are upto).

If its a win win situation then go for it mate, you clearly have nothing to lose - except your scepticism!

Asif

[Edited by AsifScoob - 1/30/2004 12:21:48 PM]

moses

some of then are in bed with demons we call them jinns

AsifScoob

Moses,

As you know most Muslim people seem to have a strong belief in this sort of stuff. I'll be honest I dont know enough about the Qu'ran to have an answer as to where this issue sits in terms of religon.

There certainly are a lot of Muslims, including friends and family of mine who believe in them.

Asif

OllyK

I didn't say she DID research it, it is just one of the plausible explanations. Yes I would love to hear the tape - a copy done on a tape to tape and posted would do equally well.

Key point "easily explainable", if it was obvious to everybody how they did it, how many people do you think would believe? That's the whole point, they have to appear credible, they have to be able to come out with things they shouldn't know.

It is amazing what you can pick up from people just by looking at them. Silly little things, do they have a wedding band? Do they have a tan line where a weddign band was? Do they have jewellry with names on that aren't theirs? How are they dressed? Do they bite their nails. Are their teeth white or discoloured?

Now I am not saying I could state things and be 100% right (but then neither do the spiritualists - it's a hazy thing the spirit world you know), but you can draw certain conclusions:

Wedding ring - probably married
Tan line where a wedding ring was - probably separated or divorced
Jewellrey - Mother / Father, Grand Parents, Partner or Children is the most common if it is not thier name.
Discoloured teeth - possibly a smoker or drinks a lot of coffee.
Bitten Nails - possibly nervous about something, recent upset if it is just a couple of nails on otherwise well tended hands.
Short or broken nails - could be a manual labourer of some kind

OK - these are not exact, but they give a lot of clues. When you put them together you start to make some educated guesses. If the person is there, then chances are they either beleive or want to belive. If I went to one they would very quickly know I was skeptical and I would be given short shrift and asked to leave. If you have a beliver then it makes their work so much easier. Draw them in (pacing statments - very common negotiating technique). Start with simple statements they cannot disagree with:

"It's wet and miserable out there today" or other weather related questions are classics. Once you have had 2 or 3 positive responses from somebody on the trot, it is amazing how much likely they are to agree with you, be forgiving of little errors and so on. Do some research on negotiation techniques - again you will see they are the techniques employed by spiritualists.

Then you can chat to them with vague statements and questions and get them to provide you with the information without them even realising it. Have seen it many times when they have found something out in passing and then revealed it as some big thing later and the person being read has completely fogotten about it as the information was gained in passing and didn't seem important at the time.

Statements will often be vague to start with, makes it easier to form an association as there is more breadth for the person to latch on to, this keeps the "pacing" element going forward and gets the person more and more onside, so when little slips occur later, they tend to get glossed over.

As a final point AsifScoob

Do me a favour, get a bit of paper and draw a line down the centre vertically and put "Hit" on one side and "Miss" on the other. Play the tape to yourself in the quiet of the room.

If the she makes a statement that is correct and acurate, by that I mean not open to interpretation (this will be the hard bit) then put a mark under "hit". If the statement has "similarities" but is not 100% accurate then put a mark under "miss"

If she asks you a question and you answer in the negative then put a mark under "miss" - beware of the reverse negatives i.e. where you say "Yes" but she was actually wrong, they are nasty as you end up thinking they are hits when they are not? "I'd be wrong if I said he died before 1993 wouldn't I?". She has made a guess, she is wrong with the guess but you say have to say "Yes" - very cunning turned it all round, this technique is used a lot when they are really not sure but think they may be wrong!

Anything that you think "mmm well could be, it's close" is a miss, if you have to ponder on it then the question is vague and are making general associations to events in your life.

Also be careful of the multiple guesses
"I think there is an 'a' in the name or maybe an 'e' or something like that, I can't see clearly, possibly an 'o'". That is 3 guesses, she is watching your facial expression to see if she is getting a hit but not giving you the chance to say "no" and break the line of positive association.

Be interested to see your results. Be interesting for somebody who doesn't know you so well to analyse it as well!

moses

bros asif i dont believe in the taweez etc , all u need to do is have faith, see this superstitious crap i aint in for it


but the demon is true, their beings like us but we cant see them , they can see us, even if u look at the bible its in it, even jesus cast them out


their descendants off satan , they live among us and some people as in witchcraft people do seek their help

OllyK

My typing speed is more to do with me spending 12 hours plus a day behind a keyboard rather than my intelligence, however, thank you for the compliment

Really?? If you were in the same room and said anything other than yes or no, then there was plenty of scope for deception.

Hmmm, I suspect that s mis-direction. Seems to me you are saying you did offer some information initially? Wonder how much more you gave away without realising it?

Well she has a 50:50 chance of being correct on this! Again without hearing exactly what was said by both parties this open to huge amounts of speculation. How old are you as a matter of interest? If you are under 20 then I would say it was a very good guess, if you are under 30 then it was a reasonable guess and if you are over 30 then I would say that she was playing the odds.

There are other indicators as well, not wanting to get personal here, but if you are over weight for example, there is a reasonable chance that your father was. This being the case there is also a chance that he would die at a younger age. There are a lot of other factors that can be taken in to account as well to make an educated guess.

I have made the offer a number of times on this thread already. I have also stated the conditions. As you seem to know this woman quite well and have her details then please feel free to contact her on my behalf to arrange a meeting for when she is next in the Midlands. I suggest that you tell her up front that I am sceptical and would like the reading to be conducted under scientific conditions. If she agrees to that then I am happy to discuss with her the specific conditions that we are both happy with and the measures that would be considered a sucess. As far as I am concerned providing she can provide more non easily determinable facts about me than would be expected reasonable by chance then I will accept that she is genuine. If she claims that she can hit 100% then that's fine by me.

My first suspicion is that she will outright refuse. If she does not then I think it very unlikely she will ever arrange a concrete date and place for this to be conducted and stick to it. If I am correct on this, then that ought to tell you something!

In this day and age, it is best to use the ritchest medium (no pun intended) possible for recording the event, besides video makes a far more compelling argument that audio alone. In addition it would allow for my facial expressions to be recorded to see if I am giving anything away.

"Yes but she is blind" I hear you cry, she would not be the first person to lie about such a thing to make a more convincing argument, and that still does not discount the possibility that somebody else is looking on and feeding her my reactions via an ear piece or even a series of taps on the legs provided by some mechanical device (both of which are methods that have been used by mediums that have been exposed as frauds - hence why we need to discount it as a possibility)

I would hope not, the use of sheets, flying objects and erie sounds stopped being used by mediums after Harry Houdini exposed a large number of mediums as frauds (he had a 100% exposure rate - funny that). In those days they added to the atmosphere by such simple tricks, which would not fool anybody today as they are well known about. The remaining mediums distanced themseleves from the use of such techniques as not doing so would immediately arouse people's suspicions.

Think we have covered this one!

As I have stated before the gauntlet is down - please get in touch with her on my behalf. She will never see me for a reading as she has far more to loose than I. If I am wrong, I shrug my shoulders and say "OK" and assimilate the experience in to my knowledge base. If I am right, she loses her livlyhood, stands the risk of imprisonment for fraud and will take down a great number of other mediums with her. I doubt she is prepared to put it on the line, but as always - I look forward to being proved wrong, ball is in your court!

OllyK

Really?? I don't find it that odd at all. For a woman to be with an older man is very common, almost the norm to be honest. Now if the woman in question had been 40 or so then it may be a bit harder as she may have a toy boy. But for a 20 year old to be with an older man I would say that as a guess you'd be right well over half the time.

I am assuming of course you weren't there, otherwise it would have been blatently obvious.

Again without transcripts I can't give a definitive answer, with it and could say how it was done no problem. Please try to remember how fickle the human memory is, and if somebody is in the confidence of another (which is what con tricks are about, hence the name) then they will overlook little in-acuracies, or give little bits of help here and there without even realising as they want the other person to suceed.

AsifScoob

I understand what you are saying Ollyk, but you are wrong.

You need to accept my word to a cartain extent, in the same way that I am accepting yours and that neither of us is simply trying to wind the other up.

I have stated, VERY CLEARLY, that I did not give her any information. She had my first name and mobile phone number and that was that. And please dont start on this is sufficient information etc. Look at this week with the Hutton report? Even the Govt would have trouble finding me on that basis.

I will email you her appointments number and you can take it from there. Please let me know how you got on.

In the meantime, with your typing skills you should be able to tell me the date my Father died very easily?

If you like, you can phone me up and I will play some excerpts from the tape down the phone to you. Not prepared to send a copy of it to anyone as it is very personal.

BOING!

Ball is back with you!

Asif

OllyK

That is a bold statement, I don't have the confidence to say the same about you. I am prepared to say that based on the laws of physics and my understanding of the way the world works it is very very very unlikely that she is genuine, but as ever I am happy to proved wrong, as yet however, I haven't seen a single bit of evidence that would stand up in court.

I do accept that you are honest and that you truely belive that the events occured as you remember them. I just question the acuracy of the human memory, it is fickle to say the least.

Don't even get me started on that one!!

I did not state as fact that she researched on the internet or otherwise, I just put it forward as a plausible possibility.

I appreciate the offer, and obviously if there is personal details on there it should remain so, as such to take snippets out of context would not serve any great purpose. Those higly personal moments are when you are at your most vunerable and likely to be when things "slipped" out.

AsifScoob

Olly,

Sorry mate, this is where my typing skills get streched to the limit. When I said you were wrong I meant in terms of your assertions as to what events took place and how they took place.

I fully accept that I could be proved wrong on this one.

You have speculated considerably as to how you perceive the course of events to have been and I have stated and will continue to state that these are incorrect (better choice of word?)

They transpired as I indicated previously. With very little information from myself, ie just my first name. She did not interrupt any information coming from me therefore gleaned something of value. In fact she warned me beforehand not to give any information at all.

She is very clear about this. I knew this anyway as I had heard her on the radio and was impressed enough to doubt my own very healthy scepticism.

Again, I also played the tape to my Brothers who would know enough about our Father etc, but also, especially in the case of my eldest brother are VERY sceptical. My eldest brother burst out laughing over the telephone when I told him what I had done, but was silenced when he heard the tape. And this is a guy who argues very eloquently and rationally over what he believes. He is a strong believer in science and rational explanations, probably due to him being an accountant!

I will reiterate, there was no way whatsoever for her to know the things that she said, no way.

If I told you my Father was Howard Hughes, Walt Disney, or Adolf Hitler, common sense aside for a moment (and in a VERY big way LOL!) How would you know whether I was telling the truth or not? ie how would you investigate as to who my father was?

My point is that my Father could be someone World famous, but unless you read on one of the many websites that Howard Hughes had x number of kids, one of whom was an asian guy from West London, who drives a Green Subaru, called Asif and is a member of Scoobynet, calling himself AsifScoob - how would you know whether that was me or not and that he was my Dad?

The point is, even if there was some website called 'www.find dead fathers and the day they died by using their sons first names.com' you would still have lots of difficulty in finding the date my Father died, you need lots more info to be able to confirm something like that. And I dont need to tell you that the odds for guessing it correctly are 365 to 1, pretty tough.

Sorry if I appear to be too flippant there but it is a very strong point - with no prompting from me whatsover, she told me the date he died, how he died etc.

I cant ignore that and neither should you.

I await, from anyone, a rational, scientific, explanation as to how she would have known the exact date my Father died, bearing in mind the circumstances I have already outlined.

Asif

OllyK

Not quite, and the online availability of Births Marriages and Deaths is very poor in this country compared to the US. However the paper records are public and anybody can go an look in to them.

Personally I would start with your birth certificate and try and locate that. That can then be cross referenced with the electorial register, again publically available. Once your identity has been confirmed the birth certificate will give your parents details, this can then be cross referenced to the death register which would give date as well as cause of death.

I am not a Private Investigator or in the process of researching people for a living, but from what I have said above, I very much doubt it would take a lot for somebody who does do such things for a living to track the relevant details down.

OK that may not account for everything, but it is certainly a start. And I am still not stating that this is how it was done, just one of a number of possibilities. If you want to find things out about somebody, it is suprisingly easy if you have the time and inclination to do it.

As I mentioned in my e-mail, I will try and contact this woman and see if she is prepared to give a reading under controlled scientific conditions. I would put money on the fact should would not attend such a reading, even if she initially agreed to do so. That in itself should speak volumes, I will keep you posted.

AsifScoob

Not wanting to be pedantic, nit picking, or whatever, but how could she find my birth certificate without even knowing my full name?

Even if she did know my name the amount of effort she would put in to gain a £25 fee doesn't seem worth it somehow. Plus she would have to pay someone in England to do it, as she lives in Ireland and is blind.

All that time and effort would be more profitable in studying horse racing form, IMO.

She probably wouldn't agree to see you if you specify too many conditions, but then she might. Offer to meet her on her terms if she will meet you on yours?

Good luck

Asif

weapon69

Blimey this thread has taken off

First things first. I have a wider experience than just seeing a spiritualist.

Buzzer i can email you some of the info if your interested. I have read alot about it aswell as i don't want to have blind faith as someone put it. The stuff one spiritualist told me about B2Z was just spooky.

There are many cynics in this World about mediums/spiritualists/whatever and they are well entitled to think. But as my Grandad once told me (the most hardened cynic i ever met on the whole thing-but had his mind quickly changed after something happened) 'There's definately something'.

weapon69

Oh yeh, just to add OllyK-my memory is fine thank you. all the stuff that was said was recorded on cassette tape and written down. I've got loads of the things now and yes, she was adamant in what she said and very precise.

Buzzer

W69

I'd be over the moon if you would/could mail some of it, obviously please dont put anything in that may be of a sensitive nature. I will delete the transcript once i have read it.

I'm glad you've offered as it is difficult to get detailed first hand information and i think it will counterbalance what Olly has said. I'm still open minded but Olly has produced some good stern debate and i need something to set against it.

One thing i would say to Olly is that there does seem to be a generalisation in your debate that ALL spiritualists are con's. I'm not sure about this as there are con men in every avenue of life and maybe some or even most are tarring people with the same brush.

So W69 it would be a great asset to me for me to read your encounter as i feel you have nothing to gain from sharing your beliefs

Many thanks

Pete

OllyK

As I keep stressing, I am not saying this is how it was done. Also I am over simplifying things as well. And as I have said before, without having been present at the reading all I can do is provide "reasonable" real world explanations for how this may be achived, I cannot state categorically that I am correct, just that to me it seems more likely than she can actually converse with the dead.

Watch the David Blaine trick when he goes up to somebody in the street and asks them to think of somebody that means something to them. As he asks them to name them a car passes behind him with the name of the person on the car. How the bloody hell does he do that. I can make some educated guesses and Blaine would never claim it was anything other than mis-direction and deception.

But if he claimed it was super natural, many people would go well it must be bcause he says so and I can't work out how it was done. As I have said before, we like answers, and if we can't work it out ourseleves then we are often happy to cling on to what other people say. Because you can't find a scientific explanation for what happened does not mean there isn't one, nor does it automatically mean that it must be something super natural. I work on the boundaries of what I know, when something conflicts with that at first appearance I will keep trying to find logical explanations for what has happened. I will not jump to an illogical conclusion without some convicing evidence. If that evidence is forth coming, I am happy to re-think my views, but you can bet the all of science will turned on its head and will be doing the same thing as well.

I don't understand why, if these people are so acurate, why do we still have courts? Why don't we just have half a dozen mediums in rooms, telling us if people are guilty or innocent of the charges against them. It would save a fortune in court costs and time.

Why isn't a medium running the country? If they are so acurate and know what has happened and what will happen then surely they would be the best person to run the country?

Why doesn't a medium win the lottery jackpot every week?

Why don't mediums ring the people who are going to be involved in accidents today and tell them to avoid the situation?

Why do you have to go and see a medium, surely they know you want a reading and should call you??

Ok maybe I seem like I am taking the mickey here, but if you really had this power to see in to people's souls, to know people's pasts, to know what is going to happen in the future, where missing people are etc etc, wouldn't you be out there in everybodies face doing your damndest to sort all the mess out, or would you hide away in your little corner taking £25 a shot off people who come to see you? Food for thought!

Well I am afraid that's what it is. There is no proof, absolutely no proof whatsoever that spiritualists are genuine. "Yes but I experienced X, or I belive Y" is not evidence, it just means you were unable to see through the deception.

I continue to offer the challenge, and I am taking Asif up on his offer to contact 'Sharon Neil' to try and find genuine proof. Others also continue to look for proof James Randi offers $1 million to anybody, and yes I mean anybody who can provide conclusive proof of the supernaural. As yet nobody has suceeded, many have tried and failed (dismally).

Show me that proof and I will be happy change my views. I won't ask you to do the same if it turns out that Sharon is a fraud, after all, there may be another genuine medium out there (and indeed there may), but if you can hold your belifs without the need for any proof, I can't see further proof against your beliefs will make a jot of difference.

However, as I have said, Sharon will never allow herself to be tested under controlled conditions, so I will never be able to prove she is a fraud, nor will she be able to prove she is genuine, but then she doesn't need to, her followers have blind faith!

[Edited by OllyK - 1/30/2004 3:59:13 PM]

weapon69

Buzzer YHM

Buzzer

W69 thanks

I'll pick it up when i get home

Many thanks

Pete

john banks

I'm with OllyK. Some people are vulnerable, suggestible, have poor memory, poor social skills, as well as being totally self obsessed with brain diarrhoea that you can observe an incredible amount about them just by doing nothing. These types self select as repeat attenders at conventional and unorthodox healers or helpers. Often these people forget they told you something a few minutes ago and are amazed how you know it (because they tell you the same stories time and time again). Sometimes I have had consultations where I've literally said nothing apart from their name and hello, and they do the whole thing themselves without interruption, as well as wrapping the whole thing up, thanking you and leaving. Some of these people don't even realise you haven't said anything except hello and goodbye.

AsifScoob

John,

Begging your pardon but you are confusing genuinely sick people with people who are seeking answers to different questions.

Presumably the people that come to see you with their self diagnosis leave with a prescription from you? Is this right?

Speaking for myself, I dont believe that I am sick, whether physically or mentally, just because I went to see a medium. Who knows? I could be completely mad???

Olly, I dont know the answers to those questions, perhaps you can ask Sharon if you manage to get through. I can say that she has never pretended to have ALL of the answers, to everything.

She knows that she can sometimes get it wrong. The most important aspect for her is that she can really get the crucial stuff spot on, as she did with me.

Its also worth mentioning, as W69 did, that in fact as a doubter I went in there with a very heightened sense of where she may be trying to con me or whatever. Therefore I remember all the details very clearly with the tape to back it up.

I came out a with a different perspective on the whole thing. I am even more scathing of the conmen and women now than ever before, as they actually work to the detriment of the genuine mediums such as Sharon Neil.

Have a nice weekend.

Asif

[Edited by AsifScoob - 1/30/2004 6:26:34 PM]

john banks

Not really, a lot of them aren't sick, they just think they are. They cannot recognise this, many similarities really with spiritual types. I say this as when I was young, impressionable, overeducated but relatively socially inept and naive I was hoodwinked by a spiritual crowd. The things I believed were incredible Leaving and growing up was the best thing I ever did.

No, evidence based prescribing and medication licensing would not support this bad practice. And it would only reinforce the maladaptive patterns of behavour.

AsifScoob

Just checking on those points!

So would you say that I am sick, which you seem to infer in your previous post?

Asif

john banks

I don't know if you are sick or not, difficult to tell over the internet as you are missing all those cues that you only gain from face to face contact.

Speaking in tongues, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, prophecy and healing are all phenomena which I have investigated and pursued in some of the well known circles in which they arise in the UK including from imported "celebrities". I found them all shallow, faith based (I use that as a deliberate slur as it denies the chance for testing with any objectivity) and with no tangible connection with reality. I found witting or unwitting manipulation of vast groups of apparently healthy and competent individuals who were obviously a bit naive and incredibly suggestible. I was one of them. I doubt after the sights I observed and participated in that there would be much in the way of phenomena that would at all surprise me. A few nights in a city A&E department soon helps you distinguish reality from fiction and makes you grow up quickly.

Buzzer

W69

YHM

Thanks again for that, thats helped a lot

wwp8

anyone knows any decent ones in south yorks????

OllyK

Yes there is a degree of generalisation. But I have also admitted there is a possiblity that there really is somebody out there that posseses psuchic ability. I have seen large numbers of mediums shown to be frauds, I have yet to see one prove they are genuine. And by prove I mean scientifically not that somebody has interpreted what has been said and is satisfied by the answers.

Science does not draw conclusions from a single experiment, science proposes an explanation for something. Experiments are then designed to test that theory. If the experiment fails then we look to a new theory. If the experiment suceeds we question it, we analyse the experiment for flaws and we re-test to confirm. After a number of tests return the same result we can say with reasonable confidence that we belive our theory to be correct, however, it still takes only one incident where it is proved wrong (and I don't mean that the experiment was faulty) for us to have to re-evaluate that theory. For every time we repeat that experiment and get the expected result and not a failure we strengthen our belief that the theory is correct. We can never be 100% however as there is always the chance that at some time it could be proved wrong.

Why did I say all that? Well based on current experimentation we have mediums tested and failed = 100%, mediums tested and passed = 0%. It isn't a certaintainty that they are all con's but the evidence to date is very much stacked against them.

Vunerable - yes that can be a factor, Suggestible - definately, poor memory - that has little to do with it, as I will cover later, everybody's memory is amazingly poor and highly selective. Social skills - again I don't see that as relevant, this is largely down to belief systems and rationalisation not about social interaction. Prince Charles is very competent socially and yet he is a big beliver in homeopathy and other things I would consider to be supernatural and hocus pocus.

Everybody does, I know I have done it. I know I have also told somebody the same story more than once. Again this is down to human having poor and selective memory. We remember what seems important and relevant to us at the time.

Asif, we have been having a frank discussion for a while, and I can assure you I do not think you are suffering from any kind of mental illness. We have a difference of opinion, that's healthy. I may say that I think you could be gullible, but that is only relative to my beliefs. I belive that I am right and I think you have been suckered, you no doubt think much the same about me, or wonder how I can be so blind to something that is so glaringly obvious to you, and I would expect nothing less.

Memory I hold little store in, audio tape I have more faith on. However as we discussed earlier, due to the personal nature of the tape it would not be right for me to analyse it and to take selected parts in isolation would be dangerous to say the least. Until I can get something to look at in more detail, either from somebody else or directly if she will agree to see me, I cannot state categorically if she is genuine or not, just that based on my experience to date I think it highly unlikely.

OK so we are getting somewhere. We have an admission that she does not get everything right. I see a vrack appearing in her armour. This makes measuring very interesting. We start getting in to how many right things does somebody have to say versus how many wrong for them to be considered acurate. I can imagine that if she managed to get half a doznen "big" things right then many people would be convinced. Personally I would like to know how many little things she got wrong before she got the big ones right, that is more telling to me. The little wrongs to do the probing to get to the biggie!

I would be convinced if she got 60% right, absolutely spot on, first time,no ambiguity, whether they be big things or small. For me a biggie does not counteract 10 little wrongs! Given enough guesses chances are you are going to hit on a close association somewhere along the line.

I know Asif will counter that this is not how it happened. Until I see the proof for myself I remain unconvinced.

Nope sorry it is crap, everybodies is. Humour me for a moment. How many times did you eat peas in the year you say this medium? (If you don't eat peas, choose something that you do eat reasonably regularly). Now please tell me how many peas you ate on each of those occasions.

Assuming you drove to work today, you no doubt passed quite a few cars. I am assuming you saw them otherwise you would have had a nasty accident. Please list the make, model and colour of each of the cars you passed this morning.

What was the 37th sentence you spoke today?

Would you like me to go on? You saw or experienced all of these things first hand. Some a while back and some today and yet you can't remember them. Why is that? Because at the time they did not seem relevant. Based on your experience of life to date your brain saw no benefit in remebering the details of these things as it was highly unlikely you would ever need to recall them again.

So now we know that the brain actually remembers very little of what it processes, lets now look at selectivity.

Think of some major event in your life, something you feel you can reveal every detail of. The first time you managed to swim un-aided, the day you first kissed etc.

Now start trying to remeber all the elements of that day. What was the weather like? What were you wearing? How many people were in the pool? How many passers by went passed while you were walking out of church?

You remember the event in great detail, but you only remember the parts that you felt relevant at the time.

The same principal works on a shorter term as well. So based on this, why should you remember every detail of the meeting with the medium? What were you wearing (should be an easy one), what was she wearing? Was there a table between you? What was it like? Did it have a cover on it? If so what was it like? What was the 35th word she spoke to you? (OK, go look that one up on the tape). You see what I am getting at, you do not remember every single tiny detail. The fact that you now belive will also affect this, the misses will become less obvious.

Now Asif admitted that she was not spot on with everything, that she got some things wrong. Both you and he seem pretty clear on the things she was spot on with, please can you list from memory the things that she got wrong? How many things did she get wrong? Now go and look at your transcript or listen to the tape again and count them up. How many did you miss?

Now assuming I am right and you did not get the number of misses spot on, then your memory of the event is not as perfect as you seem to think it is. Now that we have established that, what else do you think you may have forgotten or overlooked that may suggest to you that this could and I do stress could have been a cold reading? I suspect you could listen to the tape and look at the transcripts 100 times, but as you belive she is genuine you will miss the tell tales that somebody else would pick up to indicate cold reading techniques.

weapon69 - you also have a transcript it would appear. If the content is not of a personal nature would you be prepared to post it up or e-mail it to me for me to pass comment on? As discussed with Asif, selected hi-lights would serve little purpose, so unless you are happy to let me see all of it, we will have to wait for another day.

Yes I am an insomniac - this is why I have the time to mull all this stuff over and over!!

Brit_in_Japan

Excellent thread.

I will start by saying I am also in the "prove-it" camp. If these psychics do have this special power, it should be repeatable under scientific conditions. It should be possible to do this without gaining clues, verbal and non verbal, from the person being "read". Analysis of the questions/answers would also be required to check whether what was revealed was statistically significant (loaded questions, likelyhood of a specific answer to a given question etc).

I also wouldn't be surprised if there have been occasions where unscrupulous psychics have targetted an individual before a reading, obtaining data which would be "impossible" to know otherwise. Even better if that individual was a sceptic. Then after revealing the information they could dine on their "powers" for years to come, news spread by previous unbelievers.

I'm not saying that's what happened to the good people on here, but I'm sure it has happened.

mik

Not gonna post any arguments on this thread, but just popping in to say "what a bl00dy entertaining read", and congrats to all for keeping it adult .......it's like a window into ye-olde-scoobynet.

FWIW I sit on the "need scientific proof" side of the fence. (Actually I can barely see the fence from where I am )