So are mediums real or fake?

[Mosherchik]

Originally posted by Rich

Hope you booked mine and Rtapper's as well

ARGH! thought you'd already booked yours!!!

[SusieP]

Originally posted by dollypeg

The medium actually gave me my late mothers name and also the name Anna Marie, which was the name of my daughter who died when she was two days old. He could not have possibly known either of these things.

 

 

I do not intend to be disrespecful here, but are you sure he gave you your mother's name? Did he in fact say something like, "I'm getting a Sue, a Susie or a Susan?", to which you replied "my mother's name was Susan"?

 

This is the way that every "medium" operates, guessing and relying on the audience to fill in the blanks and misremember.

 

Susie, not you mother

[dollypeg]

The medium actually picked me out of the audience by pointing at me and drawing attention to the coat I was wearing (bright yellow). He said he had with him a little girl Anna Marie who was bringing with her an older woman Dolly. He said that the little girl had problems with her head and back, my daughter had hydrochephalus and spina bifida. He also said that they had not met on this side. At no time did he ask me any questions or give any vieled information.

[SusieP]

Picking you out specifically, and giving VERY accurate information would probably indicated hot reading.

 

 

Susie

[oxbeast]

Dollypeg,

 

If it was really real, why has no medium ever been able to prove it scientifically? It should be fairly easy to set up a proper blind trial. Its just like scientific studies of astrology that have found there to be no correlation. If they are not willing to submit to being tested, how can I conclude anything other than that they are faking it?

[robh]

Humans seem to have some kind of inherent want or need to believe in forces outside their own lives and influence which act on them for the better or worse. Every culture has developed some kind of religious belief. Under Socialism in the USSR religion was suppressed but the state tried to make itself the focus of that belief. Many individuals who reject organised religion merely substitute it with a belief in fairies, aliens, UFOs, crop circles, ghosts, horoscopes.

A couple of writers here have described what they believe to be evidence to support the suggestion that mediums can either tell you things you already know or predict future events. So what? What use is that?

 

dollypeg says "He said that the little girl had problems with her head and back, my daughter had hydrochephalus and spina bifida." so what benefit accrued to anyone by him telling you, in very substantially less detail, what you already knew.

 

She also says "He told me that two men would come into my life and gave me the initials R and C. The first would cause me a lot of heartache but the second would be my soul mate. I had a very unhappy marriage to a Robert ..."

So what use was that information? Did dollypeg studiously avoid all contact with any man who had an initial R? No, she married one. And in any case they would be impossible to avoid. Bear in mind that your local tax inspector, Mr Robinson, could cause a lot of heartache by reassessing the last 6 years and demanding back taxes or a previously unknown Richard could crash his car into yours resulting in serious injury. Indeed Richard could cause you heartache by crashing into the car of one of your close friends or relatives so you'd better put them on alert too.

 

So my answer to the original question is: Mediums are fake but even were they real they can provide no USEFUL information. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, forget James Randi's million dollars but request next week's lottery numbers (I am prepared to provide the stake money. If you give me the numbers, I'll split the winnings 50/50).

[saxon51]

Next time one of them gives you some bad news and does it with a smile on his/her face, punch them in the nose.

 

It's what's called 'striking a happy medium.'

[Titian]

Doris Stokes was a very respected Medium. She unfortunatly had a brain tumor which eventually killed her. A symptom of a brain tumor can be that the person "hears voices".

 

I myself am very sceptical about such things and feel that there anything along these lines works on another persons wanting it to be real.

 

Mediums tend to throw quite a lot of random things at the recipient, quite quicky. The only things that will be remembered are the things that could vaguely be near the mark.

[oxbeast]

see this link for a description of how easy being a medium is to fake, and really convince people. And I fully take robh's point about none of the information actually being useful. The only thing people seem to have got out of it is a catharsis, adn maybe a bit of opening up and sharing grief. No-one seems to have been angry when it was revealed that they were tricked.

 

http://www.randi.org/swift/current/psychic.html

[dollypeg]

Originally posted by SusieP

Picking you out specifically, and giving VERY accurate information would probably indicated hot reading.

 

 

Susie

 

I don't see how this could have been a hot reading as you suggest for two reasons:

 

1. I had not discussed anything regarding my mother or my daughter either in the church or wit the person I had gone with.

 

2. I had only been in Sheffield a month and knew no-one in the church.