Mediums/Psychics (1 Viewer)

[big ron]

What are your feelings about mediums and psychics?

Everytime they come up in conversation I end up getting on my high horse. I'm amazed they are not only allowed to exist legally, but that people just brush them off as harmless fun.

They prey on people, usually people in grief or dealing with trauma, spinning nothing but lies based on tells and body language, in an attempt to elicit money.

If I knock on the door of a pensioner and tell her I need £50 because her dead nephew spoke to me from beyond the grave, I'd be arrested. If I tell her the same lie for £50 in a dimly lit room across a velvet-draped table, it's fine.

HOW IS THIS PERMISSIBLE IN THE 21st CENTURY?

 

[ZenGiraffe]

The Real Housewives and The Traitors would be significantly worse shows without them, so I support their continued existence

 

[big ron]

The Real Housewives and The Traitors would be significantly worse shows without them, so I support their continued existence

I don’t know what any of that means

 

[ZenGiraffe]

@big ron will never emotionally fufill you. Ever. Know that.

 

[ZenGiraffe]

Though for a more serious answer to the thread, Derren Brown had an excellent show tearing down psychics and revealing how they work.

 

[Christian]

I find it all obviously complete rot, but my mother went to one a few times after my father died and seemed to find it a quite comforting experience. She's still got all the tapes which used to try to play to me, but I never wanted to listen to them. I don't really know if she thought it was real, but it seemed to get her through a tough patch.

I moaned about it initially, but came to see it in the same way as her going out for an amazing meal, a show or doing something else therapeutic. She stopped going back after a while, but If that's what she wanted to spend her money on and she enjoyed it, fair enough.

 

[Apoca]

Bin all of it along with ASTROLOGY.

Ok, maybe that's a tad harsh but I just don't find myself drawn to ANY of it.

 

[VoR]

I genuinely don’t know how they live with themselves.

 

[big ron]

I find it all obviously complete rot, but my mother went to one a few times after my father died and seemed to find it a quite comforting experience. She's still got all the tapes which used to try to play to me, but I never wanted to listen to them. I don't really know if she thought it was real, but it seemed to get her through a tough patch.

I moaned about it initially, but came to see it in the same way as her going out for an amazing meal, a show or doing something else therapeutic. She stopped going back after a while, but If that's what she wanted to spend her money on and she enjoyed it, fair enough.

But its obtaining money by deception - and while some people seem fine with the outcome like your mum there are countless stories of the harm they can enact by spinning bullshit.

 

[big ron]

I’m all for them existing but having to explain at the start that they are performers and not really connecting with any sort of spirit realm

 

[PercyPig]

I genuinely don’t know how they live with themselves.

Do they end up in a position (like tabloid hacks) that they start to believe they are providing a genuine service?

 

[Christian]

But its obtaining money by deception - and while some people seem fine with the outcome like your mum there are countless stories of the harm they can enact by spinning bullshit.

I totally agree. I was really uncomfortable with her doing it, but can't argue with the fact that she willingly went into it and seemed to get something out of it.

 

[Apoca]

We deal in FACTS, not f(r)iction.

 

[PercyPig]

Do they end up in a position (like tabloid hacks) that they start to believe they are providing a genuine service?

Based on this AMA it doesn’t sound like it

 

[Inner Smile]

My mother's into all this shite. Well not so much anymore but she was for a bit

 

[KindaCool]

I'm spiritual-ish, so I definitely believe that there is more to us and the universe than just the physical arrangement of particles and chemical reactions (for which there IS actual supporting empirical evidence for, and I'm happy to share). But I just assume 100% of so-called psychics and mediums are all frauds. For the simple fact that their 'procedures' are all man-made and many of which don't even have historically paranormal affiliation. Even the deluded ones who aren't 'intentionally' trying to deceive people, I have little sympathy for.

 

[Marina Salty]

Normally i don't mind con men and women much, their ability to sell lies can be fascinating. But there are red lines that shouldn't be crossed ie an aura reader life coach telling someone to stop seeing his therapist.

 

[untilted]

I’m quite spiritual, I don’t go too whacky with it but I think there’s an enormous sense of comfort that can come from it. The world is fairly stark so I see no harm in wondering what else is out there.

And so with psychics, they can bring comfort to people who have suffered a loss. Do I think they’re telling the truth? Of course not.

HOWEVER, and it’s a BIG however - if you have lost somebody and you are genuinely struggling to the point where you can’t cope, the person you want to be speaking to is not a psychic. It’s a therapist.

You’ll get far more closure and support with a highly trained therapist who has worked with grieving individuals for years than 20 minutes with a psychic who tells you that your dead relative is ok.

 

[Nancy]

I once saw a psychic laughing all the way to the bank. I said to my friend, "That's a happy medium."

 

[Indie]

I'm spiritual-ish, so I definitely believe that there is more to us and the universe than just the physical arrangement of particles and chemical reactions (for which there IS actual supporting empirical evidence for, and I'm happy to share)

Go on then

 

[KindaCool]

Go on then

The best peer-reviewed authority on this topic are medical doctors who study consciousness and its relationship with the brain. People like Bruce Greyson and Sam Parnia are psychiatrists and neuroscientists who have studied for decades the consciousness of patients who die and are then resuscitated (such as from cardiac arrest). They have been able to show that people can have real conscious experiences while their brain is not functioning. Traditional physicalist explanations like hallucinations or oxygen deficiency have all been long debunked because the data doesn't support them.

Many of these cases have been veridically confirmed by hospital staff too, which is fascinating.

Here is some content of them reviewing their work, but definitely look up their medical work on PubMed and Google Scholar.





Because of this kinda work, there has been a growing scientific consensus that the commonly (and often stubbornly) accepted assumption that the physical brain 'generates' consciousness is untrue, but instead the brain 'anchors' it or 'filters' consciousness. There has never been demonstrated any mechanism in the physical brain 'generating' consciousness. Doctors who explain this movement the best are computer scientists like Bernardo Kastrup and Frederico Faggin (literally the inventor of the first microprocessor) because they work with AI and quantum mechanics, and they study the inability of material arrangements to 'generate' subjectivity.

Here are some very recent talks with them about why consciousness does not emerge from particles or electrical signals, and why consciousness is more likely a fundamental property of the universe rather than anything material or 'local'.





This is a huge topic obviously, and there are many other names, but I like those four scientists because their academic work is so rigorous. And the implications are just monumental.