Psychic...

Running nekkid through graveyards, listening to psychics, doubting Santa - I think you need to trade avatars with Carlson.

I think "psychics" are really good at putting together readings that sound specific but could actually apply to anyone.

All of the things she told you could just as easily apply to me.

Has your father reached 90 yet? "Jindon" (Phonetically speaking Italian)--may he live for a hundred years.

Who, even the most boring CPA, will not think that he's creative?

Who doesn't think that there is at LEAST one dichotomy in all his endeavors?

But did she buy your book afterwards? That's what really matters. If she was really psychic she would have known how good it was.

They're nothing if not trained in reading people. They can tell if you're someone who chases money/love/creativity, blah blah. Even I can do that. That's easy. Harder is the real stuff. I'm not a believer either, but I'm open to being convinced.

I have two stories for you, both from India.

1. I was in Mumbai, and I wanted to interview this astrologer-on-the-street dude, but he wouldn't let me interview him, so I paid him the Rs 50, stuck out my hand and asked for my future.

a) You're very independent.
b) You've had some tough times lately, which is why you've lost a lot of weight.
c) You'll go abroad.
d) You will get married. Not an arranged marriage.
e) Don't have too many expectations. You'll have money and love, but it comes and goes.

Seems okay, until my mother reports getting exactly the same reading thirty years ago!

--

2. Psychic in Mcleod Ganj. She has crystals and all that. Fancy!

a) You've had a few lifetimes in Tibet, which is why you keep getting drawn to this place.
b) You were a political prisoner in at least three of those lives. (In Tibet? Yes, in Tibet. Oh wait... I'm not sure that's possible. Uh... maybe not in Tibet then. Uh... I dunno.. so let's see what else.)
c) You were feisty in your previous lives, you're feisty now. That's why you keep getting into trouble. (Pure genius!)
d) You have no unresolved issues. She says the same to the guy I'm with. That's why, apparently, we connect and will remain together. The guy and I later laugh about that because we're sure we have more issues than her entire family put together. And we never see each other again once we leave Mcleod.

Yeah, I'm a tad skeptical.

Salem Ollivander said:

I think "psychics" are really good at putting together readings that sound specific but could actually apply to anyone.

All of the things she told you could just as easily apply to me.

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I knew you were going to say that. Now that will be Fifty dollars please.

I'm not totally closed to the possibility of something 'supernatural' existing but at the same time I'm highly skeptical of most psychics. I've found knowing how to read tarot and do a lot of the divination techniques myself really kills my belief in some of those who charge money for it, since so many of them don't even bother to learn the supposed meanings of the cards let alone actually predict the future in any way. Not saying all psychics are like that, but I've met enough who were to make me jaded. (On a side note, am I spelling 'psychic' right as it looks weird?).

One weird experience I do know of happened to a really close friend of mine rather than myself. She was a really big fan of a famous TV medium who has done several ghost-hunting type shows on UK TV, and won a charity auction to get a private reading with him. So she came all the way over from the US and met him in England, and then called me straight after to tell me what had been said. She certainly was very impressed. Obviously I can't vouch for how much information she gave him, consciously or unconsciously, but he had said to her something about 'You're planning a trip to New York', just out of the blue. My friend lives in the US but is English and hasn't lost her accent, and claims she never mentioned America at all. Thing was, at the time I was planning to go to NYC to see Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett in a play there, and I had been working up the courage to ask her to come with me for a long while. I'd only just asked her the day before she went to this reading.

He also said something about 'planning a trip to Australia' and came up with the name Lyn. Again, this had only been discussed very recently but my friend had been thinking of going to Australia the following year to see our online pal Lyn who lives in New South Wales.

There was something about her family history as well, though I don't recall the specifics, but she had known nothing about it and only found out it was accurate when she was telling her mum about it afterwards.

I've seen one of this guy's shows myself in order to get an autograph for my friend, and I really wasn't impressed, personally, but she certainly was convinced after this session she had.

I've seen a few psychics at similar events, and yeah, IMO they were all just good at reading body language and drawing out info without seeming to. (well, not all of them - one of them really sucked at it.)

On the other hand, I believe one of my first bosses - the most practical, no-nonsense woman I've ever met - was the genuine article. And, cool as I've always though seeing a real psychic/clairvoyant/whatever would be, it sure freaked me the hell out. Guess I'm not a very good Wiccan.

So I don't think it's outright impossible. I do tend to think, however, that most people truly capable of such things wouldn't necessarily want to make a business out of it.

Wow, that's, like, totally weird! My wife's name is Lynn, and I used to know someone in Australia, too! Coincidence? I think not! What's even weirder is, like, most of the screen names in this thread have 'e's in them, and the one that's, like, not III contains none of the same letters my screen name does!

Man, I think I need to sit down! This is all just too heady for me!

all fooling aside, i was at a bar once (well, not 'once,' i've probably been to too many) and was told i have a green aura. maybe it was blue, hell, i don't remember, but the guy was drunker than a skunk and looked as if he'd been dragged over forty miles of rough road. amazing? hardly. i'm sure most of the constellations in his universe were call 'bud major' and 'ursa coors.'

when i worked at delphi, we had these workshops about teamwork or some such crap, with these two guys who were experts at reading people's personalities. now *that* was amazing to me, and i'm not easily distracted.

oo, a shiny penny....

who wants me to give them a fortune reading?

Ray, when hubby, policeman, hits a brick wall, occasionally he will call in a psychic...I don't know... :shrug:

reasons why fortune cookies are better than fortune-tellers:

1~ cookies are dessert that comes after stuffing yourself til you feel like puking

2~ cookies don't smell like stale perfume and sauerkraut

3~ cookie fortunes give you 'lucky numbers' and teach you a new word in chinese

4~ cookie fortunes are about as truly accurate as fortune-teller's 'predictions'

5~ fortune cookies don't charge forty bucks an hour or tries to sell you magick candles that smells like death's crotch

6~ if you don't like your fortune cookie, you can crack open a new one until you find one you like

7~ fortune cookies provides writers with a barely working knowledge of english jobs

8~ you never have to be embarrassed eating a fortune cookie

9~ people are less likely to make life-altering decisions based on a small piece of paper than they are interpretations of gaseous celestial bodies and/or random shuffles of cards

10~ fortune cookies aren't interested in your credit rating

11~ the 'bunco squad' never arrested a fortune cookie manufacturer

12~ fortune cookies never preyed on anyone with gaping holes in their life. if anything, the only thing a fortune cookie ever preyed on was a fat person

13~ no one would eat a 'voodoo cookie' because that sounds terrible. people will, however, believe you can stick pins in a doll and it actually have an affect on someone

14~ the fortune cookie hotline (aka 'poison control') doesn't charge $3.99 a minute, mon

15~ fortune cookies are a lot easier to swallow

So..i'm really not looking to be labeled the weird one here. But oh well.
I read tarot cards for close family and friends, and have for a number of years. I have a little speech that I give before every single reading I do. You can take it or leave it, but it is how I view the whole thing.
The easiest explanation for life paths in many parables and myths is the concept of a tapestry. Everyone is a thread in a giant tapestry, and everyone also has their own tapestry made of many threads. If we hugely over simplify that tapestry and say you have 26 threads running from left to right, marked A-Z, and upwards of 100 threads running from bottom to top, than it is a little easier to understand. If we move thread 18 OVER thread G, rather than under it, the entire picture will be different. Every decision and action we make, from changing careers to stopping for a donut is a thread. Our brain fully comprehends our past and our present, even if it is not all conscious thought. We know, even if we choose to ignore, not think about, or pretend we are ignorant, that moving thread 9 UNDER thread X, will change other threads. It means we can't move thread 10 UNDER thread X, but that we now have to move it over. We know that if we change jobs, that there will be many changes in our lives. So...even if we choose to not dwell in deep thought about those changes, our subconscious mind understands them innately.
Each card in a tarot deck has a specific set of meanings. Each position in the reading has a specific connotation, that will change/limit which meanings of that card are relevant. When someone reads your cards, in reality your subconscious is reading and reacting to those meanings. They say creative which you automatically equate with writing. You apply each set of meaning to your situation, and then draw parallels between your situation (both the conscious and subconscious forms), and suddenly consequences seem clearer...just like when that Beta reader points out your rookie tense change, even though you read that MS 879 times. It is a new perspective and allows you to see new aspects that you would have normally (subconsciously) ignored. Some people use this as a technique to analyze their decisions in depth, before or after.
People who do it for entertainment...well. That's a whole other story. lol. It is an act. I can insist that someone has 30 kids, and one way or another they will eventually go, "You know, I really was attached to all those chickens on the farm, and there was about 30 of them. Yep, I guess they sort of were like kids, crapping and squawking all the time."
And that's your deep thought for the day, folk.

There have been studies done where a "psychic" reading is done and recorded and then the person who had the reading is interviewed afterwards reguarding how well they felt the reader did. Even when the people were shown evidence of how poorly the reader did (something like 75 percent of the time the reader was flat-out wrong - figures might be off, but generally it's something like that) they STILL wanted to believe that the psychic was real and showed a clear leaning towards ONLY remembering the things the reader got right.

Many years ago my sister used to listen to a radio psychic doing a late-night, local channel call in show. She thought this guy was awesome. I listened one night and could pick out every time he fished, every leap of faith and every time the reader pulled something from something the caller said.

Without knowing the specifics, I would have guessed that the party was thrown by someone who chatted about what kind of party it was going to be and mentioned a couple of the friends that were coming. Fake psychics are very good at getting people chatting and when you start, you tend to just ramble. And frankly, given a chance, who doesn't like to talk about themself? Alternatively, the "psychic" worked out the most of the guests were creative types and took a less than massive leap. Though it is possible that as a previous poster said, eveyone thinks they are creative in some way. It's like me saying, "You feel that sometimes people just don't get you." Who doesn't? Once you revealed the writer part, everything is turned towards that. The other specifics aren't THAT specific.

'Course, your psychic might have been real.

I also do tarot readings, but I don't like it. Things that are too accurate sometimes will pop out and make either me or the other person uncomfortable. Yes, the cards' meanings are very broad and unspecific, but it's the way they are arranged and the relations between them that really give the specific meanings to the reading. Even with cards with broad meanings you can get totally incoherent readings.

It fascinates me how many people aren't willing to admit to the possibility that we might not know even as much as we think we know about the limits of human abilities.

The most learned men of their day used to believe the world was flat.

They were wrong.

Obviously I am a believer, but not in all psychics or readers for that matter. A reader doesn't have to also be psychic or the other way around. They are two separate things and true psychics are rare, indeed. Almost anyone can teach themselves to read if they work at it.

I'll tell you about a reading Mr. Vagabond had once, probably 5 or 6 years before we even met. Among other things, she told him that he would meet his "soulmate" long before he laid eyes on her and that she would be older than him. She told him that a couple of years of communicating through typing or writing would come before they met in person. She also told him that he would immediately have 2 sons when he finally met her face to face and that they would someday live in the mountains. He's from Florida.

We met online several years later. We spent 2 years chatting online and emailing. I have 2 sons from a previous marriage, I am 4 1/2 years older than him and we live in Tennessee.

That reading would definitely not fit just anyone, but it fits us perfectly. I seriously doubt he was out there looking for someone like me to fit the bill. In fact, he didn't even know I had kids when we first met.

The thing about a reading is to go into it with your eyes open. If they are obviously reaching, then they are probably not very good. If they ask too many leading questions, again - not good.

I've done readings where everything flowed right down to the letter. I read one guy who was a total skeptic when he walked in and he wasn't intending to pay me a dime. I wasn't asking for $$ either. (actually, that's not true. I always ask for a penny, but that's another story about responsibility for information and all that) When he got up, he gave me $20 and said that he was convinced. Thing is, I didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. It wasn't like I gave him some shocking news. It was convincing for him, but honestly it was pointless except for showing him that I knew what I was doing.

Sometimes readings are easy and sometimes they are like pulling your hair out. For many psychics, it's not work. It just happens. I'm a reader who is also somewhat empathic. Nothing like a true psychic at all.

DamaNegra said:

I also do tarot readings, but I don't like it. Things that are too accurate sometimes will pop out and make either me or the other person uncomfortable. Yes, the cards' meanings are very broad and unspecific, but it's the way they are arranged and the relations between them that really give the specific meanings to the reading. Even with cards with broad meanings you can get totally incoherent readings.

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It is scary when it starts coming out accurate, especially if it's something unpleasant. I remember when I was at college the first time, the other students found out I did tarot - don't remember how they found out actually. But they all decided they wanted their cards done and I think I did about eight or nine readings that day. (We can't have been doing a hell of a lot of work, now I think about it). It was interesting seeing the reaction of the skeptical ones as well as those who wholeheartedly believed, but I said from the beginning, I can't say for certain that this is all true, I can just say what I see, take it or leave it. When I came to do this one girl, it was really clear on it that she would hear about a death really soon, and I debated for ages whether or not to say anything. I ended up just saying to her that it looked like the college administrator wanted to see her fairly soon, and that it was bad news, so she might want to get herself prepared just in case.

Within two hours the administrator arrived to tell her her grandmother had died, and that freaked me out completely. It could well have been coincidence, or maybe I heard someone talking about it but it didn't register consciously, there could be whole loads of explanations. One thing though, the girl actually thanked me because she said she had geared herself towards facing something bad and so it didn't hit her so hard. It was a really strange position to be in, maybe because I'm not 100% convinced of its reliability. Perhaps if I really believed I wouldn't have been so torn.

Then on the other hand, my uncle, who claims the gift runs in the family (my great grandmother was actually famous for her readings across Scotland and people came from all over to consult her), told me that I would be married twice, have twins, and there was something about owning a yacht as well.

Believe in psychics? Not so much.
As for tarot cards, however, their real function (that some "psychics" deny) is not to "tell your fortune," but to make you think about your life situation and your prospects in a metaphoric way. Yes, the cards are random chance, but your reaction to their metaphoric meanings can be revealing if you approach it from that perspective. It can help you think about issues in your life more constructively.

When I was in Spain, a fortune teller grabbed my hand and told me (for free) that I would have three children, I was the youngest of two children, and I was my mother's favorite. "My mother's soul," she said. She also said I needed to call my mom.

So I did.

And yeah, I'm the youngest of two children, and yeah, I'm definitely my mother's favorite.

CheshireCat said:

It fascinates me how many people aren't willing to admit to the possibility that we might not know even as much as we think we know about the limits of human abilities.

The most learned men of their day used to believe the world was flat.

They were wrong.

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I whole heartedly agree with this. I would like to point out that i was specifically talking about MY readings, and psychics at parties. Sorry, should have made that more clear before.

I sing the body electric
I celebrate the me yet to come
I toast to my own reunion
When I become one with the sun

And I'll look back on Venus
I'll look back on Mars
And I'll burn with the fire of ten million stars
And in time
And in time
We will all be stars

I sing the body electric
I glory in the glow of rebirth
Creating my own tomorrow
When I shall embody the earth

And I'll serenade Venus
I'll serenade Mars
And I'll burn with the fire of ten million stars
And in time
And in time
We will all be stars

We are the emperors now
And we are the czars
And in time
And in time
We will all be stars

-- Wade Lassister