Psychic

[ParkinT]

I have always been a big fan of James Randi.
As a fellow-magician, I remember many years ago when he carried a check for $1,000 in his wallet. Now it is a full-fledged foundation; which, to date, has been unable to find a true 'Psychic' or anything 'Paranormal' that can withstand scientific testing.
It is fun to read his comments about the 'pop culture' psychics (Sylvia Browne and whats-his-name who talks to the dead).

[ParkinT]

I know a few people who claim that they have experienced something like this...namely that they've started singing, and then walked into someone elses room only to find that song on the radio. I think there could be 3 explanations:
1) Coincidence
2) Hearing it at a low level subconsciously
3) My favourite theory...we subconsciously learn to associate radiowaves that we pick up with certain songs, and this triggers us to start singing them.

Probably 1 but I'd love it to be 3!

Bigal,
You bring up an important point. An observation I have made about people and psychology. Let me relate a simple illustration:
I often play cards with others. From time to time I will:
a. place my hand on the top of the face down deck
b. announce a card at random; with extreme confidence
c. draw the top card

Statistically, I am right about 1 out of 52 times. But, if luck is in my favor, I have just performed a miracle! And THAT IS WHAT IS REMEMBERED. The odds of that card appearing are always the same. We place significance to it based on the circumstances.
Another example to which many of you can probably relate. Just yesterday one of the lotteries in Florida came out as Zero, Zero, Zero, Zero. My wife made a comment like, "Wow that is amazing". No it is not. It is EXACTLY as amazing as any other combination of four digits. But we place a significance to four of the same (maybe more to four zeroes)!
Sadly, these (so called) Psychics on television use simple magician's tricks (of this I speak with authority and from experience) to fool people who are ready to believe in the first place.
Search YouTube for "Derron Brown" (particularly look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZmpsl3jI0). You will see some great examples of this.

[Datura]

ParkinT, you are of course totally right. People have forever believed manipulators, hucksters, clever showmen and the rest of them. There is something in many humans that just wants to be fooled, they want to hang on to the idea that there must be magic, that there must be more than plain reality, more and better than what mere humans are capable of perceiving.

And so they will get tricked and made fools of, willingly.

[Shaun(OfTheDead)]

Maybe it's some type of pseudo-evolutionary thing. Perhaps we as a species are meant to be divided into a handful of leaders and hordes of followers.

We can't have EVERYONE being fully aware and self-actualised or else everyone would want to lead !!...

...and of course if everyone wanted to lead nothing would get done because we'd all want to do things a different way.



So maybe we have developed a society that creates a throng of sheeple who sub-consciously look for an idea to buy-into and follow, but a mere scattering of persons dominant/intelligent/charismatic enough to think for themselves and make others follow.

[Datura]

Well, Shaun are you a sheep then? I am not. I never thought of you as one either really …

[Shaun(OfTheDead)]

I'm the black sheep.

[Datura]

But so am I -- two, how does that fit into your little scenario?

[Shaun(OfTheDead)]

Well that's good news then. We're not extinct!!

[Datura]

…hope not. I love being a black sheep, even have a bright yellow jacket that says in large letters: Revolution You should see the looks I get around here for that. Sometimes I just laugh right into their faces

[Dan Schulz]

I'm the black sheep.

I thought you were the Dread Pirate Roberts?

[vgarcia]

I don't believe in psychics as anything other than people who are skilled at reading others' verbal and body cues.

Everyone I know who has visited a psychic has gotten fairly vague answers to their questions, and in all honesty it's pretty easy to toss out a detail or two that makes the customer/client do some pattern searching on everyone they interact with.

[traynor]

I don't believe in psychics as anything other than people who are skilled at reading others' verbal and body cues.

Everyone I know who has visited a psychic has gotten fairly vague answers to their questions, and in all honesty it's pretty easy to toss out a detail or two that makes the customer/client do some pattern searching on everyone they interact with.

Depends what you mean by "psychic." If you lump in palm readers, crystal ball gazers, and astrologists, the term can mean almost anything anyone wants it to mean. If you mean "information gathered by other than the known physical senses," that narrows the field.

Stanford Research Institute was the main study area for "remote viewing," a term popularized to create distance from the ouija board and tea leaf set. The Defense Department pulled the plug on funding (with a great deal of fanfare) in the early 90s, to create the impression that it was no longer being studied. Not quite true.

[taranigma]

I run a psychic blog site and strongly believe in psychic abilities. There are scam artists out there, but also many intuitive, beautiful people, who are sensitive at reading others and the world around them.

Namaste to you all,

-Tara

[molona]

I don't believe in any of this stuff BUT (and that's a big butt):
1) I find it interesting that many people do fit their astrological sign. Aquarius fits me to a "T".

It happens the same to me... my sign describes me to the core!

Anyway, I do not believe in those things although they have always interested me. Still (Datura, probably you will not like this so don't read ) there is so much we need to learn, about ourselves, about nature, about so many things... that I can't simply say that it is just simply nonsense.

My story? Well, I did some palm reading just as a game, because I thought it was fun. Never believed in those things, and I still don't but... I stopped doing it. I was very accurate, specially when it was about things that were not nice. Deadly accurate. Literally.

I stopped it because I decided that I didn't know who was going to die next.

Now, about psychokinesis and Auras and that kind of thing... well, the human body does release enery, so I do think that we have an aura, which is the amount of heat we release. I accept the possibility that the amount of energy you release may vary depeding on your mood, and things like that, and therefore you may be able to try to guess who is a good person or not)

If psychokinesis exists (something I am not sure of), I would think that it is because someone is able to control the amount of energy (s)he releases, either consciosly or not, in the such a way that he may affect the forces around and move objects.

After all, they say that we only use a 10% of our brain... so who knows if the brain can be smart enough to have such a control?

[php_daemon]

The brain interacts with the environment through the perceptions. So it totally depends on them. Now if you think the sixth sense is actually a real thing, then human doesn't use it much at all. It's not been proven scientifically to exist, though.

However, it is likely that our brain doesn't make a proper use of the data it gets from all our senses. Then there's a quite strong premise that it is possible to improve that.

Talking about astrology, I'd question its accuracy, but would not be quick to dismiss it. We don't live in a vacuum. And every single particle that blasts into Earth affects everything it hits on the way. If some sort of particles at some period is more active than others, the way they influence any target is likely to be similar at any given time. In other words, if person A is born at the time when planet X is in a position k -- which causes a particular sort of particles to attack the Earth most actively -- and person B is born at a different time but when planet X is in the same position k, there are likely to be some resemblances between the persons A and B. All because they are bombarded with the same particles, so if one grows a tail, another might too. That is how I explain to myself this phenomena.

This must be the most scientific of non-scientific forums.

[molona]

You know that I just realized that this thread was started in May 2007? Obviously Traynor was interested about the subject and searched for it.

[php_daemon]

I know, but couldn't leave you alone at it.

[molona]

that says a lot about my perception!

Anyway, I thought it ws recent because appeared the first on the list... not much of a excuse though

[taranigma]

Wow, great discussion guys. I love what php deamon has to say about astrology.

[dave owen]

I hope it's okay if I post this URL (it's mine). I'm not spamming here, I just thought it was relevant to this thread. It's a test to see how accurate your horoscope reading is:
http://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.c...e-reading.html

Please don't discuss the results here in such a way that it would influence other people's participation, and please don't purposely try to skew the results.

[molona]

lol dave

[Crazybanana]

The brain interacts with the environment through the perceptions. So it totally depends on them. Now if you think the sixth sense is actually a real thing, then human doesn't use it much at all. It's not been proven scientifically to exist, though.

However, it is likely that our brain doesn't make a proper use of the data it gets from all our senses. Then there's a quite strong premise that it is possible to improve that.

Talking about astrology, I'd question its accuracy, but would not be quick to dismiss it. We don't live in a vacuum. And every single particle that blasts into Earth affects everything it hits on the way. If some sort of particles at some period is more active than others, the way they influence any target is likely to be similar at any given time. In other words, if person A is born at the time when planet X is in a position k -- which causes a particular sort of particles to attack the Earth most actively -- and person B is born at a different time but when planet X is in the same position k, there are likely to be some resemblances between the persons A and B. All because they are bombarded with the same particles, so if one grows a tail, another might too. That is how I explain to myself this phenomena.

This must be the most scientific of non-scientific forums.

You have a psychic board (ask the daemon) or a paid psychic phone service?

[molona]

You have a psychic board (ask the daemon) or a paid psychic phone service?

Hey, show some respect... after all you are a banana and you are nuts

[php_daemon]

You have a psychic board (ask the daemon) or a paid psychic phone service?

Not quite. But I do have a paid skype line. Look up drlo0ove.

[EveryoneCollects]

I've just won next week's lotto, and I'm off to blow my credit card with the winnings.