"I can see dead people" A medium tells us what happens when you die (29th Jan on ATS LIVE)

Well, that sucked.

I feel really bad now, and I didn't do anything wrong. I queued up #4 and did what the show's producer told me to do, and even wrote my question down so that I wouldn't hesitate when asking it (like the producer suggested). I couldn't invent a brown haired guy with a leather jacket who was my life-long pal and went on boating trips with me until he died from a chest issue, and I sure as hell didn't force the medium to run off that cliff with all that specificity she kept rattling off.

I don't know anyone that died like that, who was my friend. Not family either. I know guys who died, but they died of overdoses, suicides, car wrecks, cancers and other crap like that, and none of them were what I (or they) would call friends. Just guys who hung out and we all ran into each other in bars and parties and such.

My friend - the one I asked about - was a woman, and she was murdered by her own schizophrenic son, who smashed her forehead and face into a formica table until her brain shut down and she died. Here's a link to the news story.

www.uticaod.com...

She and I lived next door from ages 4 and 5 (respectively) and literally raised each other from puberty (1968) until we parted ways in the summer of 2000, when it became clear that our significant others were never going to get over the fact that we're not really brother and sister. We never saw or spoke to each other again, but when she died, it ended up being me that had to settle her final expenses and it took 5 months to get her buried, battling all kinds of sh*t (including her own mom's crazy) to make it happen. Since then, my home has been "active" and all i wanted to know was whether it's Rhonda or not. A medium should've been able to sense something. The place has been a zoo at times with the activity. It's not like I'm trying to make a cold connection with someone I barely knew, or who'd passed a long time ago.

Believe me. My question was legitimate and I wanted that woman to at least be able to tell me if Rhonda was crossed over or not. All indications are that she's lost somewhere here and needs help. If I could find her, I'd do what it takes to fix the mess she's likely in. I got a call that some assh*le on tyhat show suggested that I was being "duplicitous". Man, I just want to find out if Rhonda's in trouble. I didn't want that medium lady to run into a brick wall on the air.

Crap. That sucked bad.

reply to post by NorEaster


You handled it well. Your only other option was to go along with inaccurate information, and that would have been much worse.

I don't think any medium claims 100% accuracy. They admit they have "misses".

I guess I'm confused how someone can "connect" or "tune in" to someone, without being with that person face to face. This phenomena has always confused me...

reply to post by NorEaster

thx for calling in, they have hits and misses. Name of the game, I certainly appreciated all calls and it made no difference ot me if she got hits or not, i m pleased you all got involved skeptic and believer.

reply to post by zazzafrazz


I enjoyed it Zazz, I hope she'll come back again sometime.

reply to post by NorEaster


I'm not sure why they decided that your question was a hoax NE, but if they said it was, live on air, based on nothing but speculation then that sucks big time and I would be upset too.

Edit to add
You made the mistake of asking about someone who died in a non conventional way that couldn't be easily guessed at, your never going to get an answer out of a "psychic" for something like that

reply to post by NorEaster


If the question was legit, then we do apologise. Sometimes things come across differently in situations on live radio, what with the need to hurry them along and make sure everyone gets heard.

Originally posted by neformore
reply to post by NorEaster

 

If the question was legit, then we do apologise. Sometimes things come across differently in situations on live radio, what with the need to hurry them along and make sure everyone gets heard.

Hell, I believe in after death communication. I've had several experiences in my own life (my mom stayed in our housing projects unit for six months after her death and pestered me mercilessly until I graduated school and moved on) and if this guest I have now isn't Rhonda, then I don't know who the hell it is.

I was hoping for some information on this thing. If it's not her, then I need to get rid of it. If it's her, then I need to figure out how to help her. It's a sticky situation. I wish it'd gone better. Sorry for the weirdness. I really didn't want that to happen.

Zazz, I thought you did an excellent job interviewing the medium. Very well done! I hope to hear more things like this from you.

I asked a specific question which unfortunately she got wrong.

But to be fair it's a rather difficult question to answer.

I asked:

How does a spirit attach itself to a place and is there a difference between a latent memory image and a spirit?

She did get right that some spirits attach themselves to places they feel comfortable, however she ignored what a latent memory image is.

For those that don't know, sometimes an emotion can be so strong it leaves a sort of fingerprint behind. A copy of the person, not actually a spirit, but an energy that when excited by other energies can sometimes be perceived as an image.

One of the most famous examples of this nature is the Lincoln Death Train.

First off... great job Zazz!

Secondly... I'm in the middle on this topic with a "healthy skepticism" so I guess I'll pull flack from both sides...

I believe in psychic phenomenon... and there is even peer reviewed science in a recent article of Psychology Today. I absolutely believe in remote viewing. I think psychic phenomenon are real, I have experienced it (most people I've talked with have also), and as our science gets better we will understand it better.

However... the medium part I have more questions about. And maybe it's just because I have never experienced this myself. I have met mediums who I think are credible and respect. I met and talked with Chip Coffey at Scarefest in 2010. He seemed sincere, caring, mater of fact, direct and insightful.

This lady tonight... I was not as impressed with her. She claimed to not read people but tried to do this. She was throwing out generalities "Someone around this person is related to the letter J" and the only time I heard her voice light up was when asked a question that she could use to promote one of her products. At times I could hear her fishing for audio clues to hook into. She flat out missed the mark totally on one reading, and I'm not sure of how accurate she was on the rest.

I give her props for coming on live and trying. Some people said they could tell she was "a liar by her voice" but I hold that comment in question... how can they tell this? I would love to hear this vetted ATS style.

Contrasting her with Chip is night and day. Chip was half sick, jet lagged, yet I came away with a healthy respect for him even if I don't know in the end what I believe on this subject... I leave an open skepticism. If all I had as reference was tonights guest I would say I don't believe.

Thank you so much Zazz for bringing her on and keeping the discourse respectful. Look forward to more!

I loved (I believe it was Sceptical Overlord???) grilling her about the generalities she was throwing out.

All in all very balanced and a wonderful show!

Best show I've heard on ATS to date!


edit to add... great meeting several of you in chat tonight!

Thought I'd post this here too..



I enjoyed the show too... was very good.

The medium, as I thought, was terrible.... she flapped, was vague, asked vague, probing questions and got almost everything wrong.

I could actually do better.

I found her cringe-worthy and found the way most of the people responded to her quite sickly too.

I LOVED Skeptic Overlord's chat with her.... he was EXACTLY how I would have been, respectful but pulled no punches.... he was a credit to ATS and was pretty much the only one to put any pressure on her or question her.


I thought the Mubarak question in particular was hilarious....

He wasn't dead, obviously.... but the Medium didn't want to say one way or the other and it was only because S.O. said the reports were sketchy and it was unclear whether he was dead or not, that she said "I feel he has one foot in both worlds"

WTF??

You didn't know... just say that.

Was funny she had an answer or "Spirit" for every question too.....

Pretty good reception if you ask me.


Very entertaining but also very annoying

reply to post by NorEaster




Unfortunately that's what these people are like.... frauds.

Anyone with a genuine gift in an area like this would probably not advertise and probably not charge money for their talent.


Seriously, this show was entertainment and I feel a little sad that people honestly called in to hear about dead loved one's, that's why this kind of thing does more harm and good.


I understand that people need closure and in a way I see the argument that these charlatans actually DO provide a service in that sense... but really they're just lying to the person and giving them false hope and false info.

Originally posted by whatukno
For those that don't know, sometimes an emotion can be so strong it leaves a sort of fingerprint behind. A copy of the person, not actually a spirit, but an energy that when excited by other energies can sometimes be perceived as an image.

One of the most famous examples of this nature is the Lincoln Death Train.

Are they the “ghosts” that do things repeatedly and they don’t engage with the living at all. Like watching a spirit walk down the stairs and you don’t see them doing anything else. If I remember quartz stone/rock also holds a memory as well. like a video.


By the way the show was AWESOME. I'm trying to come up with a good idea for another guest. Though you guys did say you had a few ideas lined up already. Still If something pops into my mind ill pass to on to you.

Long night of trying to sleep and mulling over conversations I had with friends who heard the show. My friend Lucy insists something that has kind of settled in on me as an interesting notion, but to embrace it would mean dealing with something that she's been adamant about since the day we met, and it's something that I don't believe to be true. Still, because of how spectacularly inaccurate the medium was with my reading last night, I feel as if it wouldn't be fair for me to not offer it as a possible explanation on her behalf. After all, I'm assuming that this woman has made a living as a medium, and that means that she's no rookie at doing the on-air cold-call thing.

The level of specificity in her reading, and how confident she was in it - while being so unbelievably wrong - was startling, and Lucy made that point to me again and again last night when we talked. Lucy has this belief that I've got something bizarre about me that she insists that I refuse to deal with. She points out very specific instances where my anger at people has caused them intense physical and circumstantial harm. One guy I clashed with actually died from a grand mal seizure, with no history of epilepsy at age 40 - which, from what I understand, is very rare (to acquire epilepsy at that age or to die from a grand mal seizure as your first seizure). She actually believes that the activity I'm experiencing is being caused by my refusal to accept the fact that my Rhonda is dead and gone forever. The following is what she thinks might've happened last night on the show.

She insists that the woman's description of the guy with the light/medium brown hair with the leather jacket was her seeing me, projecting myself to her as a way of using her to tell myself that I'm the cause of this paranormal activity. Her reasoning is that (and I have to agree with her) the only leather jacket wearing guy I know is me. My hair (before I recently decided to go for a shaved head look) is/was light/medium brown, and the gesture that the medium described the guy performing - the wiggling of his fingers to indicate himself to be "someone good with his hands, perhaps a musician or artist" is a gesture that I used to make when someone asked me what I did for a living (a performing musician and singer - a guitarist). Here are a couple links to verify what I'm referring to...

A promo photo from the late spring of 2009, just before I "retired" from live shows.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/19ad7fa27809.jpg[/atsimg]

The Myspace page I had for that act (it's still up because I'm lazy about cleaning up my messes). Note that the last gig was Memorial Day weekend 2009. We buried Rhonda the following Saturday in my hometown, where I ran into an old pal (convicted coc aine smuggler I played guitar for back in the 1980s) who convinced me to write a true account of those years, which ended my professional playing for good. The book is called Black Flies in the Backyard With Snowshoes and is selling pretty good actually. The guy knows a lot of people who know a lot of people. That stretch of his life has a lot of fans.

www.myspace.com...

Lucy believes that the "chest injury" that the medium was referring to was ...well...she thinks it's a broken heart over what happened to Rhonda and the fact that I wasn't there to protect her during that six terrible years leading up to her murder. I don't know, but I did want to offer it as a possible explanation.

Rhonda's son, Ryan, was a great kid, and I've known him his whole life. In 1998 I moved the two of them from one place to another, and he thought we were all going to finally be a family. She and I weren't going to be that kind of couple, but a 17 yr old doesn't think in nuances like that. He quit school and went to live with his dad after that week, and we were pretty sure it was because he was pissed at us for not finally pairing up. I never saw him again, and never knew about his illness. I've lived over 800 miles from that area since that summer. So yeah, I could see a broken heart here. I know I could've done a better job at handling Ryan that the guy she ended up with did. At least I wouldn't have been scared of him like Billy was. I'm a lot bigger than Billy, and Ryan wanted me to be his dad. That probably would've made a difference. Lucy sees that part of the reading as being my spirit telling her to tell me that this is why I'm causing the disturbances in my home. That I can't face the heartache, so I'm manifesting it all myself and attributing it to Rhonda to keep her alive.

I don't know if the medium lady just chunked the reading completely, or if Lucy is right and she was seeing my own spirit when she did the reading. I just thought I'd offer it as a potential explanation since - as Lucy insists - the woman certainly hasn't been making a living by being that wrong on-air with live calls. besides, Lucy thinks I'm a psychic freakshow, so who knows, maybe I am and don't even know it. I don't know anything. It sure wouldn't be the first time that someone accused me of being bizarre like that. It's a go-to for several people I know whenever they're trying to figure me out.

Originally posted by davespanners
Can I phone in and ask why some mediums feel it's ok to con people into believing that they are communicating with peoples beloved dead relatives and how they get to sleep at night?
Can we have a cold reader in the studio to balance things up a bit?

edit on 19-1-2011 by davespanners because: (no reason given)

- I have to agree. I think once you've left this world, you can't be "called" back. I do however believe there are entities that maybe pose as people we know, but I really don't think grandma can come back and communicate and honestly, she probably doesn't want to.

reply to post by NorEaster


I wouldn't think too deeply about it NE
When a youngish person tells a medium they have lost a friend they automatically start fishing for it being a motorbike / car accident because that is very common cause of death for younger people, especially guys
If you had said you wanted top know about mother / grandmother she would have started on a different tact

Chest injury can also cover heart attacks lung cancer, car / motorbike crashes or as you pointed out a broken heart or almost anything you want to try to shoe horn it into.

Once she had got onto the young guy path then saying leather jacket was just playing the odds that most younger guys have a leather jacket, I do you do most people do.

Please don't let it worry you NE

Originally posted by davespanners
reply to post by NorEaster

 

I wouldn't think too deeply about it NE
When a youngish person tells a medium they have lost a friend they automatically start fishing for it being a motorbike / car accident because that is very common cause of death for younger people, especially guys
If you had said you wanted top know about mother / grandmother she would have started on a different tact

Chest injury can also cover heart attacks lung cancer, car / motorbike crashes or as you pointed out a broken heart or almost anything you want to try to shoe horn it into.

Once she had got onto the young guy path then saying leather jacket was just playing the odds that most younger guys have a leather jacket, I do you do most people do.

Please don't let it worry you NE

edit on 30-1-2011 by davespanners because: (no reason given)

I understand. I'm just trying to be fair, and that was the one theory I heard that was the least of a stretch, even though it was a stretch. I don't know. I've listened to these kinds of shows before and the level of specificity she immediately went with was really odd. She ran right out there and stayed right out there. It was very startling and really uncomfortable at the moment. I was really trying to figure out how she could be right, but damn, there wasn't anything I could grab onto at the time. This was the best anyone could come up with since then, and after thinking it all over.

Frankly, I agree that Occam's Razor insists that she simply ran off a cliff on me, but I hate when I see that sort of thing happen. She'll live, though. Nobody lost a limb over it.

reply to post by alienreality


I do hope that's sarcasm. Anyone can see that's photoshopped

reply to post by ladyinwaiting



That's because mediums are a fraud. If they were real and really had a 'gift' to speak with the dead, they'd never be wrong about one single detail. It just goes to show their information was obtained by what's easily known or through demonic spirits.


As for those that continue to say reality is a dream, there's no such thing as truth, etc. You are an idiot. Let someone punch you in your jaw to snap you back into reality. Go tell a child living with an abusive parent or one that was sexually molested that this reality is only a dream and that there's no such thing as right or wrong. All you're spouting is so called new age garbage.