| Subject: Re: What is a "soul?" |
Author:
Astrid
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Date Posted: 10:32:23 07/19/02 Fri
In reply to:
Michelle
's message, "Re: What is a "soul?"" on 05:51:49 07/19/02 Fri
>How do we all explain the "psychics" that can bring
>messages from the "afterlife?" I know there are a lot
>of quacks out there, but are they all?
Yes.
>I, personally, had a reading with a very well known
>male medium. This man knew things about me that even
>my best friends and family don't know. Everything he
>told me was *right on.* Names, numbers, events-- he
>was never wrong about a thing.
You don't have a transcript of exactly what happened, do you? ;-) At any rate, if he's the genuine article, make sure he gets in touch with James Randi, who has been for years offering a million dollars to anyone who can prove their psychic abilities (he sets up scientific conditions, however). So far there have been no winners (and the famous psychics that make lots of money have, for some strange reason, not taken him up on it).
http://www.randi.org/sylvia/index.shtml
>
>Was it a hoax? Was it luck? Hmmmm.......
It was a bit of both of those, and primarily it was a cold reading.
http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/coldread.htm
I would also be willing to bet that you ignored the things that weren't accurate, or gave extra meaning to things that were more neutral.
For example, horoscopes work that way--the things they say are true of every person. But when we read OUR horoscope, we see it as being an amazing description of things going on in OUR lives. For example, a vague description: "Your concerns about money will be lifted temporarily this week."
Now, 99% of the population has money concerns of ONE shape or form. Even relatively well off people could say, "oh yeah, I was thinking about how I was going to pay for a new car" or a vacation or a bigger mortgage. Everyone feels like they need more money.
And you're going to wrack your brain, thinking of some way your money troubles were "lifted". You might think, oh, I made some money on the stock market this week, or you might have found out about a bonus or raise at work, or you might simply have found out that a vacation wasn't possible next month anyway, freeing yourself from that worry.
And if nothing fits, you just discard it without too much concern. You find something else in the horoscope that fits better--after all, one in twelve people have your horoscope, so they're only ROUGHLY accurate, right?
We do all kinds of thing, mentally, to make these things "work". I have seen it on Crossing Over tons of times. He says, "I'm getting a T, T, T... Maybe a Tony?" Then the largely Italian audience produces a woman who gasps, "that was my step-grandfather's name!" (ok, it's often a closer relation than that, but often it isn't, or it's the name of a character that her ex-boyfriend played in an off-Broadway play or some other dubious connection).
He fishes. He gets pissed off when people don't give him enthusiastic feedback--because he needs this to make his thing work. People who sit stone-faced are useless to him.
Anyway, in short, skeptics and scientists have been attempted to confirm the existance of ESP for many years. It has never happened in properly controlled conditions.
Astrid
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