Contact with the Great Beyond--Psychics like Praagh

Great Debates
801

I agree with Musicat. When somebody sees a psychic on TV, the act can be very convincing, but, when you read through the transcript, and look at each statement, it becomes clear that there’s a lot of guessing going on, and a lot of the info is actually supplied by the person being read, rather than the psychic. There are also a lot of vague, unchallengable statements like “he want’s you to know he’s happy.” How can that be challenged, since the person supposedly being quoted is dead?

I’ve been trying to find an article that was on Penn and Teller’s old website, in which a woman described how she learned to do cold readings and did some, then afterwards told the people she’d read that it was an act. They were amazed, because they didn’t realize just how much they had, in fact, been manipulated.

802

JVP’s line" I want to ask about the anniversary, which either is coming up or just past. You understand about the anniversary coming up?..I don’t know if it’s the death anniversary, but there’s a wedding…"
is great. Coming up or just past narrows things down to six months away max. Then to throw in the possibility of another thing that he could be talking about means that unless the wedding and death dates are identical that the mystery anniversary is necessarily somewhere less than six months prior or to come.

“I don’t know if they left a son behind also?” Is a classic.

803

Can I make a suggestion Susanann?

What needs to be done is for someone to go through the transcript of the show that you saw, and analyse just what “hits” Van Praagh got.

Myself and others have done this several times with various transcripts of “psychics” on Larry King and elsewhere, and I don’t know about the others participating in this thread but I’m getting to the point of burnout.

So can I suggest that instead, you go through the transcript, line by line, and pick out what hits you think Van Praagh got, and quote them here, and see how you go.

While you’re doing it, consider the following broad suggestions:

  1. Predicting things that have extremely high probability (eg that people have died of something related to the chest, or that someone who died young will have died in an accident, rather than of an illness) is very unimpressive, and easily explained by chance

  2. That asking questions, then taking the answer given and pretending that you had predicted it is unimpressive and only indicative of confidence and “front”, not psychic ability

  3. That making a prediction which the caller cannot identify with, but then going on to say that it is a hit, but that the caller just needs to ask around amongst their family, is a miss until such time as the caller comes back (having asked their family) and confirms the hit. Which of course never happens.

Good luck, and come back to us when you’ve performed this exercise and found more hits than can be explained than educated guesses and blind chance.

We won’t be holding our breath.

804

That reminds me of a story told by Ray Hyman, a Psych Prof @ Eugene, Oregon. He said when he learned the art of reading palms as a college passtime, a friend said he should experiment with his clients/victims. Tell them exactly the OPPOSITE of what the palm line is supposed to mean.

He tried it. And his clients reported he was even more accurate than before.

Sorry, no cite for this one (rare for me, I know). Just chalk it up to a personally-transmitted anecdote.

And, in a slight hijack, years ago I wrote a simple computer program to print out biorhythm charts for friends. I gave anyone who asked a copy of the program, but unbeknownst to them, I compiled each program with a different, randomly-chosen “fudge-factor.” That is, when they entered a birthday, it (invisibly) added the fudge factor number to the date, then printed the chart.

Of course, if any two of my friends had compared charts from the same birthdate, they would have noticed the dissimilarity. But they never did, and all reported to me that the charts were unbelieveably accurate.

What does all this teach us? We need to be more critical in our thinking and acceptance of things that seem to be right. Does Van Praagh really know psychic stuff, or is he merely good at fooling the unwary?

805

Photopat said:

I have personally witnessed this in action – except the people who had it explained to them still went away probably believing. The skeptics group of which I am chairman had our vice chairman doing tarot readings (he used to do them at bars in college to get free beer). We advertised the meeting and were honest about who was putting it on and who the reader was, but many people came expecting to get “real” readings. He did two readings that were so good, we were actually uncomfortable. Then he let the other shoe drop. But even after he explained it, there were still people who believed in the power of the tarot. Sigh.

Musicat, as far as the Ray Hyman story, I’ll vouch for it. I’d have to dig it up as well, but that is exactly how he has told it.

And for others interested in cold reading, I refer you to "The Cold Truth About Psychics, an article written by a friend of mine about two cold reading books that explain how to pretend to be a psychic.

806

Good article Dave. It’d be interesting to find those books at a used bookstore. I ain’t shellin’ out $40 bucks apiece.

807

Thought you might like a second opinion. The people on this board (skeptics) would have you believe psychics do “cold readings.” Their leader Randi said on TV that you could take a cold reading a psychic had done and give it to 10 other people with the same result. I think the illogical nature of this statement is apparent. It total ignores the uniqueness of all people, and if true, then psychics would only need to memorize one reading and give it to everyone. Also anyone could take that same reading and instantly become a TV star. This theory is totally beyond the belief of most normal people.

Suggest you stick with what you witnessed and make up your own mind.

808

I do not have a leader. I have a boss (my wife) but no leader.

As to the “give it to 10 other people” comment, we tried this earlier in the thread, well, with two people anyway. You, Lekatt, simply called myself and Pheonix Dragon liars when we applied a reading to ourselves with extremely telling positive results. You had no basis whatever for doing so, and have, despite intensive prodding from myself, refused ever to even attempt to justify your insults.

When you applied a reading to yourself you even went to the extent of contradicting yourself when you tried desperately to find a way to avoid admitting that parts of the reading did or might apply to you.

**

People are unique, but your comment is very telling, and points towards a clear flaw in “psychic” readings, which is inexplicable if they are in fact “psychic” but exactly what you would expect if they are just cold reading.

If people are so unique, why can “psychics” never predict those funny little quirks that make us unique, like having a mole above a left eyebrow, or exactly what we do for a living or our fucking names for goodness sake?

Why always the broad generalities, why do the types of things that do not make us unique (that an old person died of a chest complaint, or that an old woman had a son) appear so very frequently in “readings”?

And as for psychics needing only to memorise one reading and give it to everyone, well, if you actually made any attempt to learn from this thread, and if you actually read the transcripts of the “readings” by psychics, or if you even just read the last cite by David B, you might learn something. But as has become clear during the course of this sorry saga, you will not.

But if you did, what you would see is the same sad tired boring generalities coming up time after time after time, and if you read textbooks on cold readings, you would see that they are exactly the types of generalities that those textbooks say that you should say, if you want to cold read and make suckers (if the cap fits, wear it) believe you are psychic.

**

There’s only so much room on TV for people doing the same old shit. We have Van Praagh, we have Edward, we have Brown. I don’t think there’s room for many more, but I don’t think there’s any shortage of people waiting in the wings.

Further, cold reading is a skill, in just the same way as pickpocketing, fraud etc are skills. It takes front, self confidence, the gift of the gab, a pleasant manner and above all a good grasp of carny psychology.

No one here is suggesting that cold reading is a piece of cake. We’re just saying that it doesn’t involve the supernatural.

**

If I put a TV in front of a hundred people from the 17th century and told them it was magic, they’d believe me. If you then came along and started droning on about electrons and cathode ray tubes they’d fail to understand, and prefer my explanation every time.

**

I agree, Susanann, but I suggest that you witness not just the TV show but the transcript (at the link provided above), consider it in the cold hard light of day and then get back to us. I’d be genuinely interested in whether your impression (when you have had an opportunity to analyses the “reading” line by line) is any different from that which you had on seeing the TV version.

809

#1 James Randi is NOT our leader. We are the loyal followers of Uncle Cecil!

#2 I and several other posters took one of Altea’s reading and applied it to ourselves. As I said in that post, it fit me with roughly 90% accuracy. It has been repeatedly proven(though you will deny it) that one reading will fit nearly everyone. IIRC another Doper already posted one of the studies proving this (personality description given. subjects rate accuracy on scale of 1-5)

810

What’s a leader? I don’t remember getting any orders.

Please do. Look at what you witnessed. JVP asked an awful lot of questions and made very vagues statements:
"I don’t know if they left a son behind also?"
“I don’t know if you some old school books of hers or old coloring books of hers.”
“There’s something about having old books of hers and their in a box”
“And I don’t know if you recently went looking at these in that box. Do you understand?”
"I don’t know if you had to redo the roof on that."

I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know

Susanann,
Could any of this apply to you?
Someone you know OR are related to died. I don’t know if they left a son behind ? OK, I just want to ask you something about like a chest condition. I don’t know if it’s a breast condition or a cancer condition in the chest area? And this person who died I’ll tell you, there’s a father figure over there also. I don’t know if you have some old books of this person. There’s something about having old books and they’re in a box. And is there a poem or a phrase on his or her headstone? And I want tell about, is there a birthday, wedding anniversary or death anniversary that either just past or is coming up? I don’t know if you took pictures or looked at them.
etc

I’m not saying that JVP doesn’t have psychic “skills”. I’m just saying that his “skills” are indistinguishable from a cold reading.

Befors JVP mentions the young girl having an accident he asks first if the passing was sudden. Then he doesn’t say actually that she has an accident he says "I don’t know if it was a car thing with her. An accident of some sort. "

The more vague the more true. “Someone you know has died. I don’t know if it is a someone you are related to or someone you know. I don’t know if it had something to do with the chest area.” is more likely to come from a psychic’s or cold reader’s repetoire than " Your uncle Jerry died the morning of December 17th 2001 of an accidental self inflicted gunshot wound to the leg while out trophy elk hunting in Wyoming."

Check the link on cold reading again. It is a process of getting the querant/ mark to provide info. Not a set memorized script.

The allegation is that people have.

Cite please.

Excellent advice. Susanann ask yourself how can a fake psychic be distinguished from the genuine article. How can a real psychic reading be distinguished from a cold reading?
JVP may have psychic “skills”. How can I know? I can’t distinguish what he does from a cold-reading

811

So being skeptical is bad? I should just believe whatever the car salesman tells me, is that what you are saying?

As for cold readings, are you still dening that it’s even possible to do a cold reading?

Our “leader”? What sort of rhetoric is that? How is Randi’s statement illogical?

All people are unique, check. Most psychics give vague predictions, check. Vague descriptions that could apply to any number of people. You are begging the question, by implying that the “psychic’s” predictions are unique.

In The Demon Haunted World Sagan pretty much says that anyone could become a TV star-because apparantly Randi fooled a majority of the Australian media by putting forth a “psychic”. He later revealed it was a hoax. I don’t have the book on me but it’s somewhere around page 250 or so.

I think this mentality is fundamentally flawed. If I witness a big smurf selling me some acorns, due to my ingesting a large quantity of acid, am I supposed to believe it’s real?

812

Dude- that smurf always shorts me on the acorns. If you see him, punch him in the nose for me.

813

If people should believe what they see, then I need to get some penis enlargement pills ASAP, because they obviously work, or they wouldn’t be advertised, and I see in my e-mail every day how much more my girlfriend will love me if I use them. :smiley:

If on the other hand, I think for a minute, I’ll start to question whether or not there’s anything to those pills, and if it would matter anyway, and so I delete the mail.

There’s nothing wrong with my eyes, but I like to use my brain too.

814

The bottom line here is, should we believe our own personal experiences, or let someone else tell us what we experienced.

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me the right to make up my own mind.

Love
Leroy

815

The bottom line here is, should we believe in our own personal experiences, or should we let someone else dictate to us what we experienced.

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me the liberty to make up my own mind, or give me death.

Love
Leroy

816

I believe in God. I feel His presence and love in my life each day. What I feel, and what I ave experienced are all the proof I need of His existence.

HOWEVER-
I would never expect some one else to accept my experiences as proof. I could be lying, deluded, mistaken etc.
I am an EtherPsychologist

I am also a manic depressive.

One of the many things I’ve seen over and over is that people are NOT able to judge their own experiences. The human mind can dream, halucinate, forget, and be tricked.

Berkowitz thought he was perfectly sane, it was that damn talking dog that was crazy

817

Actually I could have sworn he came out later and said that he made it up. He said his dead relative told him to do it.

Alright, I apologize, that was in terrible taste…

818

Well, I personally do not believe in any god, but I’m okay with other people believing it. I’ve seen magic tricks that looked very impressive, and I couldn’t personally explain how they were done, but I knew there was an explanation, and others could show how the tricks were done.

I too would never expect anybody to accept my experiences as proof of anything, other than proof that I’d had an experience, even if I couldn’t explain it.

Given the choice between an explanation that is simple and doesn’t violate the laws of physics and one which appears simple on the surface, but requires those laws to be overturned, I’ll always go with the former.

819

Don’t know about Susanann, but I get a complete 100% hit off that.

820

Um,…maybe this is a false dichotomy? Maybe it’s a little bit of a straw-man. I’ve read through nearly every one of these posts twice. Not once do I recall anyone, anywhere trying to dictate what “we” experience instead of believing in our own personal experience.
The bottom line appears to be whether or not psychics, certain ones in particular, are using genuine “psychic skills” or paranormal powers or whatever-the-hell you want to call them.
However the real bottom line is what criteria does one use to make this judgement. IOW, where does you threshold of proof lie? Some folk are happy and satisfied making their judgements based on the words used, the attitude,[ of the psychic?], the feelings gotten from them,[ the psychic?], and sometimes being able to “see what they see.” Other folks think that claims of psychic skill should be subject to the same standards of proof as other hypotheses- to at least be repeatable and objectively testable.

There was never any bruhaha about believing personal experience. If you heard, (or read), JVP, (or another who claims paranormal abilities), say “I don’t know if they left a son behind also?”, then you heard JVP say “I don’t know if they left a son behind also?” Nobody is making the case that what was heard, (or read), wasn’t heard, (or read). The debate comes in when the signifigance of such a line is being determined. Some folk count this sort of thing as a “hit”. To others this is indistinguishable from a probing, guessing sort of question.
What is the right way to interpret the experience? That depends on what level of proof you need. For some, if the person claimng to have paranormal psychic skills has used the right words, had the right attitude and “given” the right feeling then that sort of a statement constitutes a hit. For others who need the other standard of proof I mentioned, it isn’t a hit at all.
Nobody wants to dictate what someone else experienced. I don’t even think that’s possible.

Good thing no ones wants to take away your liberty to make up your own mind. Wait a minute, I think this might be another rhetorical device.