John C wrote:
Here's the tale of my (John C) psychic experiences:
I never was a believer in psychics myself. I thought they were a joke. In fact, I really didn't think much of them at all. I thought it was just 1-900 nonsense like the Psychic Friends Network.
But, I went to see a psychic in 2003 and I was very impressed. The woman did a tarot card reading for me. She didn't know me from a doorknob, yet somehow described my life very accurately, even down to personal concerns between me and my fiancé'. Things that you couldn't guess about accurately. Like specific things my fiancé and I had discussed just the prior week and information about my finances that was very accurate.
So, I was intrigued and I went to see another local psychic. I just called her out of the blue and requested a reading. 15 minutes later I was sitting in front of her. She knew nothing at all about me. I didn't give her my name or anything. She proceeded to describe the events of my life very accurately. I went through a major depression as a teenager (22 years ago) and she described it to a tee, even the length of my hospital stay, which I found very impressive (how many people are even hospitalized for depression?). She also describe my family members very accurately and my concerns about the future. She did not perform a cold reading; she did not ask probing questions. I was very stand-offish, as I did not want to volunteer anything. But her reading was so accurate and specific to my life experiences that it really astonished me.
I had another encounter in 2003 with a psychic medium at a psychic fair. Again, this person had never met me and knew nothing about me and again did not ask a lot of questions (a cold reading). He picked up on the fact that my father had passed away recently and proceeded to pass along information about my father and messages from him. The information about my father was very accurate. My father was not an easy person to guess about, because he didn't have a lot of hobbies or personality traits. But, this medium described my father perfectly, the fact that he loved to read and always sat in his favorite chair. The messages he passed on from my father sounded very much like what my dad would say. My father described heaven as a place where you are reunited with deceased family members and friends and your knowledge and resources are limitless.
Try psychics out before passing judgment based upon some closed-minded skeptic or some cable TV show. I've read skeptics accounts of John Edward's show and they aren't an accurate portrayal of how he conducts his show. Be skeptical of skeptics, and do your own research into psychic phenomena, you might be surprised at what you find.
June 14th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Thanks for sharing John C. Your story was quite interested. I do, however, take issue with your characterization of skeptics as closed-minded. While I have no doubt that some skeptics are, indeed, close-minded, a true skeptic is not (did I just write that like Yoda would?). A true skeptic, like myself, is critical. We look at all possible explanations and evidence before reaching a conclusion and evaluate the quality of said explanations and evidence. And if the evidence stands up to scrutiny and is opposition with our beliefs, we must relinquish or revise our beliefs to fit the new data. This is a very open-minded way to view the world.
I have had only one psychic reading, a tarot reading to be accurate. Unfortunately, it was not a cold reading since the reader was a regular acquaintance of mine, so the details he knew about me where not surprising. He did, however, describe the state of my spiritual life in impressive detail. I, of course, have assumed that he was simply an astute observer of people and their behavior. Thus my personal experience has been non-conclusive. Also, I’ve seen no objective evidence for or against psychic abilities, so remain agnostic (so to speak) towards the subject.
This brings me back to questions I began to make in a previous post. What is psychic ability exactly? Is it the ability to know details about a person’s life without being told, or even knowing the person? Does the psychic need to meet this person (via a conversation over the phone or face to face). If so, does that suggest that they somehow intuit the details of a person’s life through non-verbal communication (tone of voice, inflection, body language, facial expressions, etc.)? If not, what medium does the information use to travel? Is the accuracy of psychic significantly better (statistically speaking) than a non-psychic predictor? These and more questions would have to be satisfactorily answered in order to convince a skeptic of the existence of such phenomenon.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I used to know a group of women who claimed to be psychic, and would clear houses of bad spirits. They did this for a friend of mine, they took lots of pictures and claimed that the red spots in them were evil fairie. On closer inspection I worked out it was dust on the lense as the spots were all in the same place in all the pictures. Their display of the clearance was very funny to be honest, no emmy awards that day. I have to say though, others I have met have been so correct in the information they volunteer themselves, for instance, one lady had a message for my mum about ‘a tuppa tea’. My mums father always called a cup of tea ‘a tuppa tea’ (dont ask me why its rather bizarre) he died nearly 20 years ago, and Ive never heard anybody use that phrase before! That was how we knew it must be my grandad, and the message she gave used similar unique language he used when alive. The point is, its the dishonest that ruin it for everyone, its worth giving people a chance, those that are true will probably not be into the glamour of it and will volunteer the information themselves without asking you the probing questions, and will normally give you strikingly accurate info only you would know. You will know these when you find them, and when we do it is truly very special.