I Was One of America's Top Psychics -- And Like All of Them, a Complete Fraud

reply to post by prsjm3qf


Or they dont bother to even look at all.

A long time ago I used to practice my "psi" abilities on a daily basis for years. I was pretty good at it and then I got bored because I didn't think outside the box and thought of clever ways to use it or challenge myself. Today I can barely move a ping pong ball and even that has random success. I do know for a fact that real "psychics" if that's what you want to call us are real, but I don't really believe in tarot card reading, or mediums and other spiritually related psychics.

Perhaps it's because of the media telling me this, perhaps it's just me being a skeptic and as an engineer I'm fascinated with the concept of using psi and I would like to one day volunteer for some tests once I become good at it again. I've heard from time after time that the Randy Million Dollar challenge is a bogus and I believe they also said that you can't bring someone to record anything and that even if you prove it to him, he'll be a skeptic because he makes money for being one. But I don't care about the politics in this...

Moving a pencil, moving a ping pong ball, moving an empty soda can or levitating small objects in water is pretty obvious that nature doesn't work this way. If you sit a can on its side and roll it around back and forth from the opposite side of the room, it's clearly not air moving it. Yes, a psiwheel can be affected by air, and a psiwheel under a glass bowl is so much harder for some reason but it's still doable.

I don't want to be popular for doing this, I don't want to make money off of it, I just want to know more about how it works and possibly learn more about how the human brain can interact with the world around us. I was never able to read minds but I certainly can read visual cues that other people make that lead me to believe in what they are thinking. This is not being a psychic, this is being observant.

Maybe it is possible to accurately predict the future, maybe it is possible to read people's minds, but for now, I'm only able to guarantee physical result and even that isn't well controlled unless my mind is perfectly clear. My rule of thumb is that if someone that uses these abilities for money or for fame is not actually a "psychic" but rather pretends to have these abilities. Although if I were to be really good at it, even while drunk, I think I would make a wager or two to get free alcohol at a bar one day. It's good to have fun with it once in a while

Originally posted by caladonea
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

Not all psychic people are frauds...there really are some very real psychic's in the world...what I find interesting is that most of them (the real ones) are not famous and don't make a living from it.

How very true, your real to life psychics do not seek attention or money. Most of them eek through life like the rest of us without much notice. The Dion Warwick's disease is rampant where people feel the need to feed off of the fears and hopes of others is just insulting to those who are really talented.

Think about it, if you were a true to form psychic, would you want to be in a room full of people? Go to a bar? Go to the state fair? Some people with the gift find that doing so causes great turmoil to them physically. For some, they cannot shut it off, while others merely control the info coming in at all angles.

If fact there are so many variations of this gift and different ways it manifests information some may actually call it a curse.

Some real deals have had drug addiction problems, social interaction problems, marriage problems...you name it.
The burden of carring other peoples secrets can be a heavy one so most of them are reclusive. Not on TV, or avertising a 1-900 number.

reply to post by Em2013


What your speaking of is more of a physical manifestation through telekinesis so i can understand your disbelief in other realms of perception...yet do understand they do exist....just as sure as you can move a ping pong ball in your prime.

Originally posted by milkyway12
I dont know. I believe they have demonic influences, however , there are several cold cases aided by psychics that have been solved.

There is a TV show here called Sensing Murder. The psychics on that are awesome.

One episode, they even blew a NZ detective away with what they said.

Not all psychics are frauds. Some people like to believe they are so they can continue to deny the spirit world actually exists.

Originally posted by caladonea
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

Not all psychic people are frauds...there really are some very real psychic's in the world...what I find interesting is that most of them (the real ones) are not famous and don't make a living from it.

Ever wonder why? Think about it the answer is bleedin obvious if you are not blinded by faith in psychics.

"Verifiable proof" would be nice of course but it's not possible even though psi is real.

As soon as a "skeptic" tries to verify a parapsychology experiment, the unconscious psi of the "skeptic" kicks in and sabotages the experiment in order to bring the results into accord with the materialistic, reductionistic belief system of the "skeptic".

Everyone is psychic. Even the "skeptics" who repress their psi with disbelief. It continues to operate beneath the threshold of conscious awareness...

Pioneering Parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler Has Died
Dr. Charles T. Tart on May 5th, 2009

I just found out that a parapsychologist colleague of mine, Gertrude Schmeidler, died last month (1912-2009). I say colleague rather than friend, for while we were friendly there was a great age range difference so we never got to know each other well.

Gertrude made one of the most important discoveries ever in parapsychology, one with strong spiritual implications and one which I think none of the spiritual traditions knows about, for while it’s something that can happen in everyday life, it’s pretty much unobservable except under laboratory conditions. She gave many classes of students ESP tests, guessing at concealed cards, but, before giving or scoring the tests, she had students fill out questionnaires that asked, among other things, whether they believed in ESP.

When she analyzed the results separately for the believers – the “sheep” – and the non-believers – the “goats” – she found a small, but significant difference. The sheep got more right than you would expect by chance guessing, they were occasionally using ESP. The goats, on the other hand, got significantly fewer right than you would expect by chance.

Think of it this way. If you were asked to guess red or black with ordinary playing cards, no feedback until you’d done the whole deck, you would average about 50% correct by chance. If you got 100% correct, you don’t need statistics to know that would be astounding. But if you got 0%? Just as astounding!

The sheep thought they could do it, they got “good” scores, they were happy. The goats knew there was no ESP, nothing to get, they got poor scores, they were happy, that “proved” their belief. These were not people who were sophisticated enough about statistics to know that scoring below chance could be significant….

Many other experimenters replicated this effect over the years.

The only way I’ve ever been able to understand it is to think that the goats occasionally used ESP, but on an unconscious level, to know what the next card was and then their unconscious, acting in the service of their conscious belief system, influenced them to call anything but the correct one. The goats used a “miracle” to support their belief that there were no such things as miracles….

Talk about living in samsara, in a state of illusion!

Our human knowledge is richer for Gertrude’s work. She had been retired for some years and died peacefully in her sleep on March 9th.

Originally posted by 1littlewolf
Upong what verifiable evidence? Have you conducted any scientific studies into ‘psychic’ phenomena’? Could you post the results please? Failing that, please post the studies which show is no such thing as a psychic person, and then explain how this applies to every single person in the entire world.

Oh boy! Face palm, negative proof syndrome. With that logic ice crystals do not have six sides and the only way to prove it is to examine every single ice crystal in the universe.

we could list "proofs" like this for an eternity by the way. I just picked a blindingly obvious one to highlight your nonsensical logic.

Not one person has yet been identified as being a psychic by passing a rigourous scientific test. Therefore, based on all the evidence to date psychic abilities do not exist.

Now, seems to me that it refers the human mind affecting things or passing information beyond the confines of the brain

Double Slit Experiment

There you go, case closed. Psychic phenomenon does exist and it has been scientifically verified….

You heve merely shown your inability to grasp the concepts of quantum mechanics. Which is nothing to be ashamed about, some physicists grapple with the concepts as well. It does make it easier to understand if you approach the subject without the arrogant assumption that it must be possible to predict everything from an initial beginning. If you do that suddenly Schroedingers cat is either dead OR alive but never both at once In other words if I have a million cats I have no idea which is dead or alive (the mistaken arrogant thought experiment thus makes them all dead and alive) wheres I know when all the boxes are open we will have halve a million dead cats......that were dead before the box was opened (ie observed). Too much reliance of, Einstein stating God does not play dice with the universe, instead of accepting a godless universe plays dice with perfect predictable binomial distribution.

reply to post by yorkshirelad

Originally posted by yorkshirelad

Originally posted by 1littlewolf
Upong what verifiable evidence? Have you conducted any scientific studies into ‘psychic’ phenomena’? Could you post the results please? Failing that, please post the studies which show is no such thing as a psychic person, and then explain how this applies to every single person in the entire world.

Oh boy! Face palm, negative proof syndrome. With that logic ice crystals do not have six sides and the only way to prove it is to examine every single ice crystal in the universe.

we could list "proofs" like this for an eternity by the way. I just picked a blindingly obvious one to highlight your nonsensical logic.

And yet if we found just one snowflake that was not six sided, then it would prove your theory wrong now wouldn’t it…? Please see my next set of responses.

Not one person has yet been identified as being a psychic by passing a rigourous scientific test. Therefore, based on all the evidence to date psychic abilities do not exist.

False.

For starters the Double Slit Experiment, shows that the human mind collapsing waves into particles outside the confines of the brain. By the very definition I posted above this is psychic phenomenom.

Through the Quantum Erazer Experiment this psychic phenomena was shown not to have anything to do with the equipment used but could only be the observer and it was also shown to work backwards in time.

So this is your first and second non-six sided snow flake….

But obviously this is a little too far removed from your traditional view of the psychic world for you to be happy, so lets move on hey.

Predicting the future proven by Cornell experiments

New studies show people can anticipate future events

A new study involving hundreds of Cornell undergrads has provided a dramatic demonstration of numerous ‘retroactive’ psi effects – that is, phenomena that are inexplicable according to current scientific knowledge

………………..

Take priming – the effect whereby a subliminal (i.e. too fast for conscious detection) presentation of a word or concept speeds subsequent reaction times for recognition of a related stimulus. Bem turned this around by having participants categorise pictures as negative or positive and then presenting them subliminally with a negative or positive word. That is, the primes came afterwards. Students were quicker, by an average of 16.5ms, to categorise negative pictures as negative when they were followed by a negative subliminal word (e.g. ‘threatening’), almost as if that word were acting as a prime working backwards in time.

This is your third non-six sided snowflake….

In another experiment participants looked at successive pairs of neutral mirror images and chose their favourite – the left or right. After each pair, an unpleasant picture was flashed subliminally on one side or the other. You guessed it, participants tended to favour the mirror image on the side of the screen opposite to where an unpleasant picture was about to appear.

Fourth…

These Experiments were conducted at Cornell University and were all peer reviewed

So here are four examples that the premise of both you and the OP that psychic phenomena does not exist proven wrong. Positive proof. Neither yourself nor the OP have offered anything except the memoirs of a con artist.

Not very scientific and certainly not ‘proof’ of anything except your own ill informed opinions

Now, seems to me that it refers the human mind affecting things or passing information beyond the confines of the brain

Double Slit Experiment

There you go, case closed. Psychic phenomenon does exist and it has been scientifically verified….

You heve merely shown your inability to grasp the concepts of quantum mechanics. Which is nothing to be ashamed about, some physicists grapple with the concepts as well.

Please point out anywhere in my two posts on this thread where I have shown any lack of understanding of quantum physics. Or is this simply another one of your ill informed opinions

It does make it easier to understand if you approach the subject without the arrogant assumption that it must be possible to predict everything from an initial beginning.

This sentence does not even make sense and only goes to show your inability to read the English language as I never stated anything along those lines in either this or my last post.

If you do that suddenly Schroedingers cat is either dead OR alive but never both at once

In other words if I have a million cats I have no idea which is dead or alive (the mistaken arrogant thought experiment thus makes them all dead and alive) wheres I know when all the boxes are open we will have halve a million dead cats......that were dead before the box was opened (ie observed).

For starters it’s Schrödinger, and secondly his thought experiment is flawed because he applies a macroscopic example to quantum phenomena and he fails to account for the fact that the cat itself is an observer.

Also it was conceived well before the Double Slit Experiment and does not directly apply to its results. At any rate even if none of what I've just stated was true (which it is) taken another way it could actually support psychic phenomena if you really look at its implications.

Too much reliance of, Einstein stating God does not play dice with the universe, instead of accepting a godless universe plays dice with perfect predictable binomial distribution.

I don’t know quite where you make the leap from psychic phenomena to God, but its beginning to show a very flawed thought process.

This really is one of the most inane posts I’ve ever had the displeasure of responding to. I'm sorry but your junior high level science understandings really won't cut it here. Please give us something that proves that you and the OP’s assertions are anything more than opinion.

Otherwise I guess I’ll just take my scientifically verified examples that psychic phenomena does in fact exist and leave it at that.

For one very good reason. They claim light to be a duality. It's a trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Father is Light itself (Godhead). Son is wave (Word). Holy Spirit is (Consciousness). The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is saying it's not there. We easily equate this to spiritual blindness and no scientist can see the truth in physics if they leave out God.

If you include God, it's rather simple in a divinely complex way. I outline my concept of this in my signature link. Check the first article on Existence.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
AFAIK every investigation of psychics has always turned up either outright fraud or, at best, clever cold reading, but it is refreshing that one of them is willing to own up to it.

although one wonders why his conscience took 25 years to work well enough to tell the truth!

To be a good psychic you have to prefer the company of strangers. It's much easier to convince absolute strangers than it is those who know you. Then, you only have to be able to fake the truth, or your particular version of the truth, with a mystical spin.

the extracts are from Mark Edward's new book, "Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium."

www.alternet.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 6-8-2012 by Aloysius the Gaul because: (no reason given)

Real psychics for the most part dont work like people think. This will lead to dissapointment. im not the kind of psychic that can tell the future exactly, but if i tell someone about my gifts, they do say "you mean youre a freakij psychic?". But if i tell someone im a psychic they ask me for tomorrows lotto numbers. uhmmmm.....lol...

But i do believe its possible to see into the future such as what nostradamous did (even if what he wrote was useless). Ive never tried it out of pure fear of what i may learn.....

Anyway...consider free will. If a psychic told you that you were going to die in a horrible car crash on the way to work in the morning, and you decided to call in that day because of the prediction. You altered the future. Not just for yourself, but for others. The future is alterable. Also, is it really possible to tell someone what a random selection of lottery balls will be?

Anyway, i mostly use my abilities for my personal relationships. I can feel what other people feel and i usually know when im being lied to. I do not get to pick and choose who i read. It just happens. Infact, i can understand other peoples emotions more than they do on occasion. People often lie when i tell them what theyre intentions are with whatever, but i later find out i was right. People really hate it when i read them.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


It took 25 years to tell the truth so he had the time to accumulate wealth,money for retirement........

I've had/and seen- very psychic things happen.

But it doesn't work on demand, and it doesn't always work period.

You shouldn't pressure anyone to be psychic. It won't work - you'll end up with fraud, IMO.
But it does pay in my experience to listen to those psychic hunches you might get.

It might not even be ALL psychic, sometimes it might be your brain picking up on little things you don't even know your brain picked up on.

Same with dreams - you can have dreams that nail it, and then have 10 more that never occur. It's quite elusive and tricky. At least for me.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by caladonea
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

Not all psychic people are frauds...there really are some very real psychic's in the world...

no - I'm quite sure you are completely wrong about both of those statements, but feel free to offer some verifiable evidence to support them - my belief is based upong the available verifiable evidence - if you've got some that shows me I'm wrong then I'll change my mind.

what I find interesting is that most of them (the real ones) are not famous and don't make a living from it.

One has to wonder why not.

Come live with me for a month and I'll prove that what she says is true. Although I can't read peoples mind or see the future at will, it happens far too regularily throughout my life to be just coincidence. But, as she mentioned, I believe the true "psychics" are not making money off of their gift because they cannot control when it happens, like me. It's hard to prove something to someone when you can't do it like flicking a light switch on.

Originally posted by phroziac
Anyway...consider free will. If a psychic told you that you were going to die in a horrible car crash on the way to work in the morning, and you decided to call in that day because of the prediction. You altered the future. Not just for yourself, but for others. The future is alterable. Also, is it really possible to tell someone what a random selection of lottery balls will be?

And the million dollar question is: Who altered that future? The person being read, or the psychic? If it was the person being read then the psychic would be in that future already, giving that warning. Or was the future actually changed? Perhaps the person being read was always meant to receive that warning. OR....the psychic was wrong. So many variables to say for sure.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
There's no proof that gravity exists either,[/url] but there sure are a lot of "idiots" who buy that one. There are several aspects of gravity that don't make any sense at all, but that doesn't stop people from believing in its existence.

I think what your trying to say here is "We dont understand how gravity works". Because something does hold us to our planet, isnt that right? That "force", whether understood or holographic or not, effects us.

How you can call someone an "idiot" for believing in something that affects us every second of everyday is a bit rich. Im sure you are trying to point out that if someone can be an idiot for believing in psychics, the same must be true for gravity, but psychics do not effect 99.9999% of the people everyday, at least not to our common knowledge.

And really, if true psychics did exist, we would know about it. Information travels much too fast in this day an age for the coincidence of someone winning two back to back powerball lotteries to escape notice. Maybe not that, but you get the drift. Im not saying it isnt possible, but that we simply have no reason to believe in psychic phenomenon. At age 41 now and having been interested in such subjects for years, and i have never seen anything close to verifiable proof. Nor has the good professor who has offered money to any psychic willing to pass a few simple tests.

These people are frauds.

Originally posted by _Phoenix_

Originally posted by foodstamp

Originally posted by caladonea
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

Not all psychic people are frauds...there really are some very real psychic's in the world...what I find interesting is that most of them (the real ones) are not famous and don't make a living from it.

There are absolutely no real pyschic's in the world. Every one is a fake. And you cannot prove me wrong.

There's a guy, a professor in England I think it is. For some major university, that has offered the first psychic to go through his program to prove their pyscic $500,000. And not one has passed in like 25 years. In fact, many MANY MANY psychics won't even do it because inside THEY know their quacks.

If I was Psychic or had any superpower, the last thing I would want is to be in the worlds spotlight. Forget that money, do you know how annoying your life would become with the whole world/goverment's eyes on you. (especially from crazy fanatics who fear/hate you etc)

Just offering another perspective.

EXACTLY. Considering that at least the Sovjets and the US investigated psy qualities, any real gifted person would stay low key.

Originally posted by BlueMule
"Verifiable proof" would be nice of course but it's not possible even though psi is real.

As soon as a "skeptic" tries to verify a parapsychology experiment, the unconscious psi of the "skeptic" kicks in and sabotages the experiment in order to bring the results into accord with the materialistic, reductionistic belief system of the "skeptic".

Very convienient answer that you can use as a trump card to deny any real, scientific test. "Of course they exist, but it can never be tested". What a crock.

Originally posted by BlueMule
Gertrude made one of the most important discoveries ever in parapsychology, one with strong spiritual implications and one which I think none of the spiritual traditions knows about, for while it’s something that can happen in everyday life, it’s pretty much unobservable except under laboratory conditions. She gave many classes of students ESP tests, guessing at concealed cards, but, before giving or scoring the tests, she had students fill out questionnaires that asked, among other things, whether they believed in ESP.

When she analyzed the results separately for the believers – the “sheep” – and the non-believers – the “goats” – she found a small, but significant difference. The sheep got more right than you would expect by chance guessing, they were occasionally using ESP. The goats, on the other hand, got significantly fewer right than you would expect by chance.

If this is true, then this invalidates your first assertation. If this is true, ESP and the such CAN be verified by having scientists who are 'sheep' doing the testing and verification, isnt that right? Once they verify the results, and therefore they are "written in stone' and not changable by a skeptic, then you let the "goats" verify. Im sure the goats will always suspect the sheep in being complicit, but does this not make sense?

I don't know what the point of this thread is, it seems like a veiled attack on the legitimacy of anything new age.

However, logically it fails as we don't see thread titles like this:

"I was one of America's top Bankers - and like all of them a complete fraud"

"I was one of America's top Doctors - and like all of them a complete fraud"

"I was one of America's top Politicians - and like all of them a complete fraud"

Just because one person in a profession admits to being a fraud, it does not logically follow the rest are. It only makes a statement about that person's character - and nothing else.

I think if psychics do exist out there somewhere, they are probably tracked down and captured by TPTB. I once saw a movie called Hearts in Atlantis about a psychic who was hunted by the other psychics working for the government. In the end he was finally captured and never seen again. Do you really think people with such powers of foresight would just be allowed to live peacefully? They are a great threat to the balance of power, the real psychics I mean. The frauds are allowed to start their own franchises, books and movies. They only further the misconception that all psychics are nothing but tricksters and magicians.