As you say, I have one example. What my one example tells me is that an otherwise scientifically minded person who believes in psychics may well not recognise that they are being cold read. I doubt that anyone who seeks out Praagh for a reading falls into the category of sceptic: they are all people who already believe in psychics, and it surprises me not at all (based on my experience) that such people do not recognise that they are being cold read.
Give me one cite of a sceptic who knew how to spot cold reading, did not believe in psychics, went to see Praag for a reading and came out convinced that he had not been cold read.
You do know that under James Randi’s challenge, the challenger gets to set the rules, don’t you? And you know also that Randi does not himself judge the results?
Fact is, psychics and their supporters have a lot of difficulty explaining away why they will not answer Randi’s challenge. They come up with all sorts of horseshit about the nature of the challenge, most of which shows that they have not even bothered to read what it consists of.
What do you say is unfair about Randi? I want details.
I can’t give you a name, but if you watch the program you will find many who say “I didn’t believe this stuff until now”
John Edwards told an elderly man that he saw an uncle figure with him. Edwards said the uncle was telling him that he passed during World War II submerged in the ocean. The man immediately said he had an uncle that was listed missing in action in WWII, he had gone out on patrol in a submarine and never returned. Edwards said the passed uncle wanted him to know that he was ok and well. The man had tears in his eyes.
Is the above a sample of cold reading you are talking about?
Just the type of “big lie” commonly perpetrated by frauds desperate to avoid having to take the challenge, without any basis in fact whatsoever that I am talking about.
If you actually read about the challenge on JREF’s site, you will note that JREF does not even involve itself in the testing procedure.
Find me a cite to say that Randi will not allow a disinterested observer to watch the test.
Again, sorry my post was in response to your previous post, not your last one.
An anecdotal recollection of a John Edwards show (which, if you carefully read the disclaimer at the end is pure entertainment and is not claimed to represent any actual psychic phenomenon) is no value at all. If you actually read about the show you will find info all over the net about how he gathers info beforehand, edits the show heavily to cut out his misses etc etc etc. This sort of stuff has been discussed on these boards over and over ad nauseum.
Furthermore, a few posts back we were talking about how Praag (or other psychics) would welcome a one on one, no background, no information from the subject, reading.
I challenged you to cite any sceptic who went to see Praag for such a reading and came away convinced.
The best you can come up with is a few TV audience members who fell for a cold reading at a TV studio, in a big audience with information from the subjects spewing forth in a torrent. So what?
Oh, yes, don’t forget the million dollars some skeptic can pick up by proving there is no life after death. Should be easy money, the way you post here.
Citing Zammit AGAIN? People have already been all over that cite, pointing out where it is wildly irrational and flat-out wrong. If YOU want to continue to make this argument, I suggest that YOU make it, rather than simply cite it. Citing someone’s opinion is not particularlly helpful to a debate.
—John Edwards told an elderly man…—
Because of the nature of cold reading, you’re going to have to be more specific about the exact example. I would guess that your summary is highly misleading, because Edward almost never just runs up to people and says “you have an uncle that died at sea in WWII.” Summarizing his performance leaves out the very thing we want to know: the process by which he got there.
John did do just as I say he did. But forget it, nothing can be offered that is sufficent. No matter what I offer it is wrong but when I am offered opinions in return I am supposed to accept them. Skeptics will always be skeptics until they actually experience the spiritual. Go back to bashing psychics and forget I said anything.
(that link, by the way, only works if you first follow the two separated links, and then paste the addresses together in one window: it’s a google cache site)
“Gold and silver are good long-term investments.” Wow: I am impressed.
Uh, except that most of his predictions could be gleaned from reading the newspapers predictions of future economic trends. Interestingly, it includes a list of wrong predictions: but how are we to know that this list is complete? Are these two pages a complete list of all the predictions the guy has ever made? Or are there way more false predictions out there that diminish any apparent amazement at the true predictions?
I guess I DO, especially given your history, still doubt that this is an entirely full account of what happened: you could always show me the transcript to prove me wrong. But even if it DID happen like that, then how then have you convinced yourself that he didn’t have information on this guy prior to taping?
That is, you assert that there are true psychics, and there are frauds. Being a fraud and doing what John does would be very easy. So how can you tell that he is true and not a fraud?
—No matter what I offer it is wrong but when I am offered opinions in return I am supposed to accept them.—
I think you misunderstand the entire enterpise of skeptical enquiry. You are CERTAIN that a particular phenomenon is such-and-such. Others have pointed out that it is NOT necessarily such-and-such, but could be any number of other things. You don’t have to accept that any one of those other things is THE thing, but pointing out that there are other possibilities, especially ones with more evidence going for them SHOULD call into question the original such-and-such, even if the other possibilities are just “opinions” as you call them.
[sub]Apos, you’re a great poster, I love your work, really. But would you mind, just to keep an insufferable pedant happy, please, pretty please, learning to use the quote tag instead of dashes? Just for me? Pleeeeze?[/sub]
What would it take for you to stop believing in psychics? Would you still believe if all but one practioner in, say Haiti, were debunked? Would you still point to that one fellow and say, “well, take Patois Lumumba, he still says he communicates with the undead and no one has been able to disproved it”?
Lekatt -I watched “crossing over” last night, in order to better understand. One thing that confuses me is this: You said that psychics see symbols, they don’t hear words/language.
At one point during the show John Edwards said to a woman that her grandfather (I think, their were a long serious of no’s and I got a little confused as to “who” was speaking through John) wanted to “tease” her about her seperation from her husband. John Edwards insisted several times that it was “tease”.
So if he can hear “tease”, why can’t he hear “my name is Travis Mulberry Puffnstuff”?
Jesus people are against dabbling in the psychic and/or the
afterlife realm. They think this type thing is “of the devil.”
c1000 BC King Saul outlawed mediumship but I don’t remember who ordered him to, whether it was Samuel or God, but I’m sure he was under their orders. When God, who is mad at him and won’t talk to him anymore through legitimate means (prophet, direct voice,
Urim and Thummim, or dream), Saul goes to get guidance from the medium of Endor. In disguise, he assures her that no harm will come to her for disobeying the king’s law, and she says who do you want.
He says Bring me up Samuel, and Samuel comes up, covered with a mantle. Either the Bible is showing us that the afterlife actually exists, though it is evidently a sleep (Samuel complains at being disturbed–check a concordance to see if the words there meant he was sound asleep but awakenable), or else without mentioning him the Bible is saying the devil is just tricking Saul, which is very preposter
ous. Anyway, the point is obviously not that the spirit world doesn’t exist (or that they didn’t believe it existed), but that you aren’t supposed to DABBLE in it. This would make sense because after all for the most part the spirits don’t know much more than we do. They don’t become immediate know it alls just because they’re dead. So the Bible wants people to rely on God, not on what may be faulty information from dead spirits, who seem to be sleepy anyway or possibly sound asleep and waiting for the ultimate resurrection of the body which some of the people believed in even then, I think…
Samuel tells Saul that he told him God won’t speak to him anymore because of his sin after his victory in the battle of the Amelekites of sparing the king, the cattle, and the people (God told him to kill them all). And Samuel adds, “As for you, you and your son will be with me tomorrow.”
And that’s what happens, Saul and Jonathan are killed.
Dabbling in the spirit world is generally not a good idea because whether it exists or not, anything a person gets to thinking about “happens” in some sense, so that unstable minds can harm themselves, and nearly everybody, except for a Zen practitioner maybe, is unstable. Anything a person dwells upon becomes actual for him even if only in the sense of going on continuing to preoccupy him at the expense of worthwhile mental activities, or more healthy or less single-minded ones.
Excuse me Leroy, Any cites or solid proof that the “psychic community” warned people “from the start” about Miss Cleo? I assume ‘from the start’ means, roughly, the start of her career. When would that be?. And not just the typical rivallry of psychic-sniping, like some psychic saying “I told them 10 years ago that Miss Cleo was a fraud, right before I predicted that John Kennedy would be assassinated, why Nostrodamus mentions her trickery in his writings” A real, dated, verifiable cite?
If psychic power worked they’d rule the world, not carnival side-shows.