I have a gift myself. But I do not have the gift of psychic prediction. I cannot tell what is going to happen in the future. Instead I have the the gift of counter-prediction. I can tell which predictions by people claiming to be psychics are NOT going to come true.
I can pick up an article in a supermarket tabloid titled something like “Top Psychics Make Predictions for the New Year!” and scan through the predictions and say “Nope. No, that’s not going to happen”, That one is totally bogus. That’s not going to happen either…" and so on.
So far my success rate in counter-prediction is 100%
I don’t think psychics or magicians could make up a “candy box” in your garage if you don’t even know yourself.
There is a difference though–with a magician you are aware there is a “trick” and a “psychic” is purporting to have certain abilities (that if they don’t) amounts to fraud.
Too funny, Scipio. I’ve learned that if I am completely and utterly convinced a pregnant woman is having a boy or a girl, I am always wrong and it will be the other. And on that, I’ve been right.
Well, having lived with someone who was afraid to attend a class (long before cell phones and internet) because she said the professor had just died–but told her he was okay and let people know that…
Yeah, right.
She shook it off because it was way too weird—and then arrived in class to find that the prof had just been killed 20 min earlier in a car crash on the way to class.
The psychic experiences she had were very far and few between,
She certainly could never have built a career on any of it… But enough to make me believe that an ability to “connect” does exist.
Yes, the “candy box” I’d never realized was from candy, it is wooden, and has a mirror on the inside of the lid, so always (ALWAYS!) thought it was a jewelry box (why IS there a mirror in a candy box??). There’s a really Victorian looking drawing of flowers on the outside lid, a mirror on the inside of the lid (full size of the lid), the wood is decorative and painted gold. Pretty gaudy really. It was actually my friend who noticed the writing in the upper left corner reads “chocolate drops” (the rest is covered by a flimsy paper mat which is badly deteriorated) - there’s not a chance in the world that John Edward could have assumed this thing was in my garage (in a Tupperware container at that), with a keepsake from the child he was (presumably) talking about. All “I” know is what my experience was, and it was very interesting, to say the least. (And no, I never told him there was a “jewelry box” in the garage)
My parents got married right after my mom turned 21. My maternal grandparents thought my dad wasn’t good enough (they were probably right) so the day my mom hit 21, they got engaged, At the wedding a month later, everyone thought my mom was pregnant. Her brother even slapped her across the face. Anyway, 8 YEARS go by and no baby. My mom finally found she was pregnant. Before they could tell anyone, my paternal grandma called my dad and said that she’d had a dream and her dead brother came to her and said please name the baby after me! That is the story of how I got my name and I have been ever grateful because the other choice was a dead aunt with a truly horrific name. I love my name.
I never really thought about hereditary intuitiveness until my D was about 3. I was putting her to bed and she said - "Bopbop (my dad) won’t die today. My other grandpa (who died before she was born) told me I need a grandpa in heaven and one on earth. " I smiled at her and kissed her good night. Ten minutes later, my mom called. My dad had a massive coronary and coded 4 times, but he was going to live. He died 14 years after that. The other thing is that I am Jewish and had never taught D about heaven and she wasn’t in Hebrew school yet. My late FIL, however, was Catholic and did believe in Heaven. Also, in Heaven and here on Earth is a Catholic type expression, not something I would ever have said and neither would my H, a long time lapsed Catholic, though he said that his dad would say something like that.
I don’t know how much I really believe in it. I certainly wouldn’t pay anyone to bless me or remove a curse.
This is a little funny…just last night I had a dream about a psychic I knew many years ago. She was a woman that lived a few towns away from where I grew up that people went to see ( without appointment ) If you knocked on her door and she was home, you could come in and she would " read your cards " she used a deck of ordinary playing cards , not tarot cards.
My friend and I went to see her when we 18 and she was honestly remarkably accurate with the information she gave, She combined a mixture of things that had happened or would happen , very specific and often times uncommon names would come up.
I saw her a few times over the years and even took a group of friends from NJ to MA to see her ( this time, she had a working phone and we had appointments ), but she didn’t know the names of the people ahead of time.
She really nailed it with all of them, some of the things predicted literally happen within a couple of days after visiting her.
I have been to psychic parties and had a friend who was obsessed with a local woman who I felt was taking advantage of her by continuing to take her money way too often.
I think most psychics are phony and feed off of the questions that they ask their patrons…who doesn’t have a grandparent they miss, a failed relationship or about to embark on a new career amongst the average person who they service.
I also think that some people really * do * have a gift / talent but don’t necessarily earn a living from that gift
I have a very close relative who can “sense” and know things. She would come home from preschool and could tell us how each child in class felt and when and was VERY accurate. She always gets a sense of people she meets and “reads” them very well. She doesn’t sell her skills and can’t predict the future.
I have a friend who gets her reading done from time to time. Last time I saw her, she told me about her recent reading.
Her mother had passed away very suddenly when she was in her 20s. Her then stepfather told her that she was a bad daughter and her mother didn’t leave anything behind for her. It was something that always bothered her. This psychic told her that her mother loved her very much, there are boxes of things from her mother to her, but she had to get them before it is too late. My friend thought if anyone had anything from her mother it would be her mother’s husband. The problem was my friend lost contact with him and didn’t have his address. The only thing she knew was the town he lived in. My friend asked 2 male friends to go with her to the town, hoping they could find out where this guy lived by asking some local people. Long story short, they did find the guy. He was re-married and with terminal cancer. He told my friend there were few boxes of her mother’s belongings. He had to store them at a friend’s house because his wife didn’t want anything of his deceased wife in their apartment. He was going to throw them out soon because of his condition.
My friend found few pieces of her mother’s favorite jewelry, pictures, letters. My friend always wondered if her mother’s husband was right - her mother didn’t love her and was disappointed in her. She felt the fact her mother came back through the psychic reader was to let her know she was loved. It was a nice closure for my friend.
I often find it interesting that simply because something didn’t happen to someone directly they are 100% naysayers - there are many (MANY) things that have never happened to me (or that I haven’t seen) but I’m open-minded enough to hear the information, do some research and maybe learn something.
After talking with my (adult) D about this topic she reminded me of 2 separate instances, both in Hawaii - the first, was when I was newly single after a 5-year marriage, I gave up everything and joined a dear friend on the Big Island, where she has a home. About 4 months into being there I met a very lovely man, and we quickly became romantic. About a month into our relationship we went to a picnic where there were well over 100 people. As we walked around saying hello and meeting his friends an elderly woman said, "oh, you need to eat, you’re “hapai” - everyone around laughed, and I asked what that was, and they said, she’s got a “gift” and she says you’re pregnant. Oh how funny, and wrong she was (I was using 2 forms of BC)! Except about a month later I learned I was pregnant! No one could have been more surprised than me!
The second, also on the Big Island…While living there for a year, I had found a tiny beach cove, which was through an overgrown kaiwe (mesquite) field, as well as a Hawaiian canoe “club” where canoes were carved from fallen trees. “My” cove was about 1/2 a mile from the road, and I would take my towel and beach umbrella, a book and a radio (remember those?) and plant myself each morning for a swim and down time before heading to work. When my D was about 2 1/2 I took her to the Big Island to visit my dear friend, and of course the three of us headed to “my” cove. My friend and I hadn’t talked about the cove, other than to say “let’s go to the cove” - as we walked through the trees and the 1/2 carved canoes my D piped up “I’ve been here before” and I said “You have? When?” her response “when I was inside you, I remember these boats” -
So yeah, maybe something like these stories have never happened to you, but they DO happen, and they happen a lot, to a lot of people. Mt D says there are many more instances she can recall.
Sometimes I just know things. It’s this weird sort of feeling. Once I was listening to a band at a restaurant and just knew when they called the raffle ticket number to win their CDs it would be mine. That sense was more acute when I was a teen. I remember my dad wanted to stop and talk to some random guy he saw who was getting his roof redone since we were going to do ours, but I told my dad the guy was going to go to the hospital and not to bother him. It turned out his relative had just had a heart attack and he was leaving for the hospital. But it’s pretty rare in recent years that sort of thing has happened to me.
So I think there’s something to it, but probably 99 percent of “psychics” are frauds.
Medium was one of my all-time favorite TV shows. I really liked the way the house looked - messy and chaotic in the morning. Most realistic looking TV family despite the psychic powers.
I worked on a book project with John Edward. I don’t have a problem believing in his abilities. He didn’t read me but he’s a very sensitive, perceptive person. He told me he has spirit guides and we had a few things happen when we worked together that were “woo-woo funny” like one day we were brainstorming ideas on the phone and after a particularly good idea a bell went off in my house and he said “That’s my guys.” I think a lot of us have voices in our heads but we learn quickly NOT to listen to them…he’s open and attuned to them. I don’t believe every psychic is genuine, though. I did had my tarot cards read professionally once. I own my own deck and I use them periodically-sometimes the cards will help change your perspective. For a period, I kept pulling the same cards no matter how I shuffled. It was creeping me out. I went to the tarot card reader in town and used their deck, and sure enough-pulled the same cards. His interpretation really helped me leave some things behind that I had been worried about. I’ve never pulled those cards since. I also had some episodes with my daughter-when she was about 3 she told me Grandma loved her, came to her room. I asked which Grandma and she said Grandma Bastedo and I almost fell over-that is my dead grandma’s married name from her second marriage, to her husband that she married in the last few years of her life. She was very proud to be married to him and my dad had been very upset that she remarried and changed her name. It wasn’t something we ever talked about in front of my daughter, as my grandma was long gone before she was born.
Tarot cards are interesting, I am not sure how they work, whether they are as Carl Jung thought, archetypes that trigger things inside people that through their own subconscious processes “see” things (if I understand his writings correctly), or whether it really is touching on something different. I do think that a lot of so called psychic activity is bogus, parlor tricks and outright chicanery, but I also reserve the right to keep an open mind, have seen enough that makes me think there can be something to it…especially the guy I mentioned. The problem with James Randi (who I do respect) is that his offer is he will give a million dollars if someone can do something psychically that he cannot reproduce using trickery. The problem with that is in assuming that if it can be faked, then it always is, that would be like saying since you can fake photographs, no photograph is genuine (and yes, I am aware that these days photo analysis is such that it is almost impossible to fake a photo and not see that it was faked), it assumes because there is a way to simulate something or do it via trickery that the real thing doesn’t exist, and that is not proof of anything.
That said psychics have something in common with religion in the sense that there really is no scientific way to prove things like the ability to talk to the deceased , unless they can find some center of the brain that they figure out channels some sort of energy they prove exists, for example), it likely will remain outside the science sphere of things. On the other hand science has found things plenty of times that were once thought impossible, so who knows?
I have one experience. I used to low-key date a card-carrying psychic – I know, I know; don’t judge – and he told me about a psychic fair his professional organization was having. I took my cousin with me. They had different levels – the more experienced ones got more money – so I asked for his recommendation of a mid-level person. I purposely asked for several names, because I didn’t want him to tip them off as to anything about me. Anyway, it was huge so I don’t think he could have pulled it off.
I was absolutely skeptical. Yes, the person got some things right, but nothing Earth-shattering. She was insistent that I had crossed state lines recently, and I said that I was sure that I hadn’t, that I think I knew whether I had crossed state lines! Harrumph. I met up with my cousin eventually, and we compared notes. She reminded me that I HAD crossed state lines just the weekend before! I went to a lakehouse for Labor Day, driving to the Texas side of Lake Texoma and then boating to the Oklahoma side! lol Man, I wish I had remembered that in front of the psychic and not shut her down. There actually was a kind of traumatic event that happened there, and I would have been curious if she could have come up with that.
@gouf78 I didn’t ask. I don’t have anyone that’s “passed over” that I really need to connect with, even Grandma Bastedo. And I was being professional, too-it was a work project. Some of my relatives suggested that I should ask for free tickets to his show and I didn’t do that either! I will say, he was really nice to work with-very polite and enthusiastic.
