StaceyMontgomery
Well, that *still* makes professional psychics sound like cheats to me. If I had a special talent that I could not control, then I don't see how I could charge money up front for a session where those talents might show up… but probably wouldn't.

But not everyone who reads cards or does palmreading, etc, claims to be a “professional psychic”. And people who DO claim to be perfect psychics are either exceptionally gifted and attuned to their ability to be psychic(which is extremely rare and the people probably don't publicize, seeing as it's migraine-inducing stuff), or full of shit and shouldn't be taken seriously(more common, and more likely).

Everyone is psychic to a point- dreams that come true, knowing who's calling before you answer, predicting TV episodes or movies, etc. People who read tarot know how to trust their natural intuition, and study a long time to understand the cards. As a matter of fact, tools like palmreading(There's actually a science to it) and tarot cards are TOOLS, to help trigger the natural psychic..ness…of people. That's why fortunetellers charge- for the service of using their tool to get a result.

StaceyMontgomery
Well, that *still* makes professional psychics sound like cheats to me. If I had a special talent that I could not control, then I don't see how I could charge money up front for a session where those talents might show up… but probably wouldn't.

That's why a lot of people should be wary and do reserech into a certian pyshic before buying that pyshic's services.

But you know, there's alot of pyshics that has been trained, who were the real deal.

otherwise how do you explain those unsolved police cases that the cops couldn't just crack on thier own for years, that was suddenly cracked by some pyshic that was brought in to help? All those unsolved cases being cracked by pyshics couldn't had been sheer pure luck.

There are some that say that the real reason why some people who has pyshic ablities were so that they could help people who were in need, and that thier ablities only come to them when they're in an situation where they're really needed.

Which would explain that every time I had an dream that came true, it inolved an situation where I could jump in and be helpful. or an situation that had to do with me. like in the case of my friend's bike accident, I actually used an sweater-jacket thing of mine to bind up her arm not only to stop the bleeding, but to keep her broken arm from being any worse than it was before. when she was taken to the hosptial, the doctor there said that it was a good thing that I did what I had done otherwise she would had lost way too much blood.
So maybe I had those sort of dreams because I was needed to do something vital in such a situation to save somebody. No matter how small it might had seemed at the time.

But again, who knows. I'm not speically trained in this sort of thing.

I do feel uneasy when people say “Everyone is psychic…” because there's a veiled criticism there, don't you think? There's an implication that we're all psychic, but some of us are just too stubborn too admit it, or too slow witted to notice it, or something.

I don't think anyone is in a position to know that about anyone else. I mean, maybe I'm wrong about psi stuff - I've certainly been wrong about other things. Perhaps I have a big surprise coming my way. But even if some people are actually psychic, that doesn't mean I'm psychic, does it?

I feel comfortable saying that I've never had a psychic experience. I'm pretty sure I would have noticed something like that.

Aurora Moon
otherwise how do you explain those unsolved police cases that the cops couldn't just crack on thier own for years, that was suddenly cracked by some pyshic that was brought in to help? All those unsolved cases being cracked by pyshics couldn't had been sheer pure luck.

Shoot some links our way on that. The stories I've read about psychics in police cases usually could be explained (or, unfortunately, many times hurt the case).

StaceyMontgomery
I do feel uneasy when people say “Everyone is psychic…” because there's a veiled criticism there, don't you think? There's an implication that we're all psychic, but some of us are just too stubborn too admit it, or too slow witted to notice it, or something.

I don't think anyone is in a position to know that about anyone else. I mean, maybe I'm wrong about psi stuff - I've certainly been wrong about other things. Perhaps I have a big surprise coming my way. But even if some people are actually psychic, that doesn't mean I'm psychic, does it?

I feel comfortable saying that I've never had a psychic experience. I'm pretty sure I would have noticed something like that.

Oh no,I didn't mean to imply that. What I mean is, some people are able to undo their social and cultural programming to see that they're psychic, or are able to notice it better. That doesn't mean other people can't. It's impractical to believe that people can see, hear, perceive something that isn't with our main five senses.

It's not a matter of intelligence when it comes to understanding our inherent psychism, it's a matter of not explaining it dismissively. How many times have you known a friend to be upset, depressed, or someone in your family to be in agony emotionally? Or had a bad feeling about how a day was going to go, and then something bad happened? We're taught that these things aren't real, or have nothing to do with being “psychic”. A lot of kids believe in magic, psychic stuff, and it's not until other people tell them these things don't exist that they learn to be skeptical of these things.

So it has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with how we're conditioned in life. Maybe you don't have the same talent or gift that someone else has, but in itself, that's not a negative thing. It means your gifts are elsewhere, and you contribute to the world in another way.

Rori

Aurora Moon
otherwise how do you explain those unsolved police cases that the cops couldn't just crack on thier own for years, that was suddenly cracked by some pyshic that was brought in to help? All those unsolved cases being cracked by pyshics couldn't had been sheer pure luck.

Shoot some links our way on that. The stories I've read about psychics in police cases usually could be explained (or, unfortunately, many times hurt the case).

Yeah, I can see how it could hurt an police case in some instances, so I'm not going to argue with that.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/psychics/index.html

This link explains it all well and also lists plenty of cases that was solved by psychics that the police couldn't solve on their own. (as well as some cases where the phony ones led people now-where). and you know this link is good since it offers an balanced view of it… from both the side of skeptics and from the side of “believers”.

beware though, there's a lot of chapters that you'd have to browse though. but it's still a intersting read.

Aurora Moon
beware though, there's a lot of chapters that you'd have to browse though. but it's still a intersting read.

That's fine by me. I love true crime. Thanks for the linkage.

chapter 8 is espeically intersting.

In 1980, Etta Smith, a shipping clerk in Los Angeles, heard an announcement on the radio about a house-to-house search for Melanie Uribe, a missing woman from her neighborhood, as documented in A&E's film and Larsen's Psychic Sleuths. Smith had an impression that the woman was not inside a building but outside in a certain area, and though she'd never before had such an overwhelming sense of something, it seemed so vivid that she reported it to the police. “It was like someone was talking to me,” she said. She felt that the nurse had been hit in the head and dumped in a canyon, which she showed to a detective on a map. She said there was a dirt path going to her. When he seemed not to take her seriously, she decided to go have a look on her own.

As Etta drove through the target area in Lopez Canyon, she had a feeling of “urgency.” Spotting some tire tracks in the dirt, she felt them and sensed the trauma that had taken place there. “It was like a thermometer going up.” She got back into her car and drove, but her daughter told her to stop because she'd seen something. What she had spotted were a pair of white nurse's shoes.

Smith knew who was there. She drove away and spotted a policeman. She waved him to a stop and told him about the body. He told her to go home. She did, but then two detectives came to bring her in for questioning. She agreed to take a lie detector test, and the police later said that she'd been judged “deceptive,” so she was treated as a suspect, strip-searched, and put into a cell for three days. They planted an undercover cop in the cell with her to try to find out why she had come forward and whether her information had come from neighborhood gossip, as suspected. The cop reported that her motive was money.

Then three men confessed and Etta was released. She filed a wrongful arrest suit, asking $750,000 in damages. The jury awarded her $24,000.

She says she never had another such vision, or if she did, she was smart to not report it.

Fortune telling, whether remotely accurate or not, is actually a form of witchcraft. Hopefully, in your conscience, you remember way back when and you just knew it was wrong to be messing with demons, because that is where the tellers get their influence from. See 1 Samuel 28 for more info.

joeychips
Fortune telling, whether remotely accurate or not, is actually a form of witchcraft. Hopefully, in your conscience, you remember way back when and you just knew it was wrong to be messing with demons, because that is where the tellers get their influence from. See 1 Samuel 28 for more info.

Well, Divination tends to be related to witchcraft, but it's actually a separate thing. And, we're not “messing with demons”. I don't know many experienced people who even acknowledge the existence of “demons”, much less “play around with them.”

(speaking without permission on behalf of Witches and/or fortunetellers) Thank you for your concern, though, I understand where you're coming from. I don't think there's any way I can convince you that we're not dealing with demons here, and you're not going to convince me that we are.

joeychips
Fortune telling, whether remotely accurate or not, is actually a form of witchcraft. Hopefully, in your conscience, you remember way back when and you just knew it was wrong to be messing with demons, because that is where the tellers get their influence from. See 1 Samuel 28 for more info.

congratulations. you just went and insulted every pagan/wiccan there was…. as seeing as they have as much as an natural aversion to Demons as much as Christians do. They do not worship Satan or any other demon as you would think. Instead, they basically worship THE SAME THINGS THAT CHRISTIANS DO, they just have a DIFFERENT name for it and a different method of worship.
For instance–they believe that the one powerful ruler of the universe (in your case, god), is in fact an Goddess. They follow the same golden rule as Christians do (treat others good as you would like to be treated, with forgiveness and love). So when you think about it, it's basically the same stuff just wrapped differently.

And even then, not all fore-tellers/psychics are wiccan/pagan. I know several psychics that ARE CHRISTAN, AND THEY BELIEVE THAT THEIR GIFT WAS SENT FROM GOD TO HELP PEOPLE IN NEED, SUCH AS HELPING POLICE OUT ON CASES WITH KIDNAPPED CHILDREN! So yeah, you just insulted Christan psychics who were trying to do good. How could their gifts come from demons when they're doing a lot of good with it? Therefore, it has to come from above.

Aurora Moon
And even then, not all fore-tellers/psychics are wiccan/pagan. I know several psychics that ARE CHRISTAN, AND THEY BELIEVE THAT THEIR GIFT WAS SENT FROM GOD TO HELP PEOPLE IN NEED, SUCH AS HELPING POLICE OUT ON CASES WITH KIDNAPPED CHILDREN! So yeah, you just insulted Christan psychics who were trying to do good. How could their gifts come from demons when they're doing a lot of good with it? Therefore, it has to come from above.

They mostly argue, the demons would make these people do good things to mask the evil that's supposedly pervading their lives. At least, that's the excuse I've seen every time I've tried to engage someone who honestly believes that this sort of thing is wholly evil.

There's often no arguing with people who are convinced stuff like tarot, palmistry, or astrology are achieved through working with demons. I don't know many pagans or witches who believe in demons, and those that do don't tend to feel that daemons(spelled differently) aren't evil, but they don't use daemons OR demons for stuff like fortunetelling. Meh. Like I said, there tends to be no use arguing, because people aren't going to change what they believe just because it offends someone else.

That's true on both ends of this. :3 Not gonna change what I believe, neither is joeychips. As he's entitled to his beliefs, I'm not gonna push him any further on the issue.

MagickLorelai
They mostly argue, the demons would make these people do good things to mask the evil that's supposedly pervading their lives. At least, that's the excuse I've seen every time I've tried to engage someone who honestly believes that this sort of thing is wholly evil.

Heh. I guess in a way that could make sense if such things were used by people who could easily be influenced by interior moves.
That is, unless the people had only good things happen and only did good things…never actually did any evil at all.
So if those same people never sinned at all in the traditional sense, and had NO INTENTION to then how could they be influenced by demons when they still continue to use their god-given gifts only for good, even in their own privative lives?

But of course that's just me.

My problem is not with Joeychip's beliefs and such. In fact I applaud him for having such firm beliefs.

However, my problem is with how he words his posts. Every time he posts, it seems as if he's preaching his beliefs and shoving it right down our throats. (which can be very rude). And he also words things in a way where he basically could easily insult people out there even if he probably didn't mean to. Like how he said: Witchcraft=demons. When a lot of wiccans out there and other such people, doesn't use or get the aid of demons as you said. In fact most wiccans would be repulsed by such a idea.

Aurora, trust me, I know. But, it's part of his belief system to think that witchcraft= The Devil. And, that stuff like fortunetelling is entirely witchcraft. He's entitled to his beliefs, and unfortunately, they're gonna conflict with people who practice witchcraft, AND people who do fortunetelling. Personally, I'd rather he be able to insult and offend people, then to have to worry about his ability to say offensive things being taken away from him. If his opinion is that Fortunetelling is evil and demonic, then he can say so.

'Cuz the day he can't, is the day we sacrifice freedom for the sake of other people's comfort level.

you're right of course. But he still has to expect the consqences of saying things that might be offensive to other people.

For instance, saying something like “See 1 Samuel 28 for more info.” is basically telling everyone to go read the bible of an religion that they may not even believe in. He should have condisered the fact that not everyone here is the same religion as him, or may not even believe in the bible competely.
So of course he should expect the consquences of people complaining to him about his posts.

people have the freedom to say anything they wish, but to not be held responsible for anything they say is just plain silly. you get me?

He's free to express his opinions, just as I'm free to express the fact that I'm offended by half of the things that he posts.

I've never met a fortune teller, but I've had a few encounters with “magicians”.

“Is this your card?”

No.

“Is this your card?”

No.

“Is this your card?”

No.

“Is this-”

It's not my card, so shut up.

For anyone interested in this topic, I highly recommend “Why People Believe Weird Things” by Michael Shermer. He discusses, using controlled experiments, how many of these psychic and other supernatural events happen every day.

We humans have successfully evolved so far because we have looked for and found patterns in the world. Thing is, we're also very prone to over- and underestimating those patterns. People remember that dream or premonition that came true!! …and forget the thousands upon thousands of dreams and premonitions that never did anything. And we're not very good at fundamentally understanding statistics either. Very unlikely events happen every day. Something that would happen to one-in-a-million people happens 5,000 times every day around the world (since there are roughly 5 billion people in the world). So the fact that an unlikely event occured is not enough to label it as a legitimate psychic or supernatural event.

There is a one million dollar reward, bonded by “The Amazing Randi”, to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural event. You would think any one of the psychics who are good at their craft would jump at that chance. But the problem is no one can ever succeed past statistical likelihoods. Try predicting a coin toss, and you'll find that you probably get it right roughly 50% of the time (maybe a little better, maybe less, depending on that particular time). And no psychic has ever done better than the expected 50% (give or take). No psychic has ever done better at any other prediction better than the expected statistical likelihood.

Like I said, I highly recommend “Why People Believe Weird Things” by Michael Shermer. It's an excellent read.