Psychic Mediums

[George-ananda]

So do you think they were lying?

No. Other people I personally knew claimed she had knowledge of them that she could have no way of knowing normally. I can not independently judge that. But I do believe she believed she had psychic abilities.

What do you think the problem was in those cases?

Psychic reading is no mean feat. She read at my appointment time and like everyone, her mental, emotional and psychic states can vary from minute to minute affecting her abilities.

My only real interest was in learning if it is more than mental level phenomena in action. I would need a larger study than just me to judge.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

We do little demonstrations in a field some place out in NE Ohio to show how often a person can predict or recognize your location without using senses.

I've read some about this. Not the NE Ohio thing, just generally about application of senses in a more instinctive manner, particularly as it relates to combat settings. Hyper-vigilance, etc.

I'm wondering how you see it though. Is it paranormal, or is it the use of our senses, albeit in more instinctive and less controlled ways?
Or even, is it application of senses above and beyond the five basic senses in ways we can't completely explain/rationalise?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

No. Other people I personally knew claimed she had knowledge of them that she could have no way of knowing normally. I can not independently judge that. But I do believe she believed she had psychic abilities.



Psychic reading is no mean feat. She read at my appointment time and like everyone, her mental, emotional and psychic states can vary from minute to minute affecting her abilities.

My only real interest was in learning if it is more than mental level phenomena in action. I would need a larger study than just me to judge.

I could go see a psychic and report back. I'd even do it completely honestly, although I could understand some skepticism on your part. But how does testing psychics prove or disprove psychic medium exist?

The psychic in question might be real, and good, and having a good day, which just might be proof positive.
But if s/he's not all of those things, how does it disprove anything, other than that one psychic being a scammer?

 

[Badran]

Having never been to a medium personally, known someone who did, or researched the matter deeply, what i'll be stating amounts to little more than a guess, but it's not baseless.

First, solely, based on the point stated in the OP, that if such a thing were true, it seems to me that such a proposed ability should be demonstrated very easily to be so by repeated experiments showing that information is being gained that could not be gained in any other way, i'd call the claim highly questionable at best.

Second, based on there being different kinds of mediums here in my society, who usually claim a different but still somehow similar kind of ability (it amounts basically to communicating with demons), and there being other manifestations of such supposed abilities in different societies, none of which to my knowledge have been verified in anyway, makes the claim even more questionable, and generally deserving of little if any credibility.

To me personally, i believe such claims are false, but i still allow for the possibility. Like i said, i haven't particularly deeply researched the matter, but i can't help but not take it very seriously based on the above.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Is it peer reviewed?

On initial look, yes.
George raised the good Doc in another thread I was very loosely involved in at some point, and I checked it out at that time.

I have no idea what constitutes a 'peer' when looking at these areas of study, and I don't mean that as a loaded value-statement. I am honestly ignorant of it.

He does make mention of his later experiments being deemed 'too controversial' for mainstream journals, but maintains that the journals they were published in are peer-reviewed. (I checked his website)

 

[Jeremy Mason]

So what do you mean here?

Are you saying that you believe Edgar Cayce has psychic powers?

For starters, I heard that he cured illness via a trans-like state.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

What in your opinion does it mean to honestly open their self up? What would that entail?

You know, opening yourself up to it through exercises like meditation and focusing yourself to expand awareness. Stuff like that.

 

[Sees]

I've read some about this. Not the NE Ohio thing, just generally about application of senses in a more instinctive manner, particularly as it relates to combat settings. Hyper-vigilance, etc.

I'm wondering how you see it though. Is it paranormal, or is it the use of our senses, albeit in more instinctive and less controlled ways?
Or even, is it application of senses above and beyond the five basic senses in ways we can't completely explain/rationalise?

I tend to think of paranormal and supernatural stuffs as just our limited knowledge and understanding of nature. Sort of like the concept that a man transported back to 2,000 years ago with a lighter and battery-powered radio with cd/cassette player would be thought to supernaturally cause/generate fire in his hand or have musicians stuck in the box.

Being able to locate people without our normal five senses is something that to me speaks of mysterious senses.

The ironic part of it all is that belief and the ever so vague "faith" do seem to play a roll in the type, depth, and amount of unexplainable things.

When I was signing up to go into the military I was 34lbs. over the weight limit to begin basic training and out of pure will, belief, magic, whatever lost 20lbs. overnight. I didn't believe it and thought my ex-wife messed with the scale at home. I went to the recruiters office and it confirmed 20lbs. lost in less than 24 hours. Is that really possible? I'm sure it's still on file somewhere in Barberton, OH with the surname/last name Sees. When I was getting my Top Secret clearance in 2002 it was brought up.

Most things lead to more questions than answers....and most with any type of answer - better believe they are silent lol

I'm still skeptical about a lot of things my self but not to the point of a closed mind. I am overall strongly believing in things/abilities past the normal senses and bending/twisting laws of nature as we perceive. Specific circumstances/persons involving going public and/or making money raises the skepticism level in me.

 

[Sees]

Would you show it to research people so that you could earn a million dollars and give the money to charity, and show the world that the abilities are real and worth being looked into?

I had a discussion/debate with my wife for a little over an hour on this. Not just the money part, but the bigger meaning of it all and ways it could effect society if crazy, superstitious, unbelievable, etc. abilities and realities were publicized as true and present.

Would it do more good than bad if the mass public or majority were made aware of such info? If so, what are the specific "goods"? If it could be used to help people by increased research/studies, what is the chance that it gets perverted into a money maker for the top 1 or 2 percent? I believe you will just go bye bye if not the usual scam artist...within a relatively short time-period. Little good would come of it. Especially factoring in denial, perceived threats to religious establishments, zealots going after folks working with satan, etc.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

While I have had a couple inexplainable experiences with ghosts, I find ghosts to be flawed, illogical, and as a folklore. So mediums or communication of the undead I do not regard as legit.

Psychics as having mind powers I do think is possible however not in a supernatural sort of way and can be done on accident. People extremely skilled with understanding the mind (however I doubt anyone at least modernly is skilled enough) could know how to communicate through thoughts, make people think or do certain things, maybe even cause hallucinations or other things.

Mystics that claim to have direct contact with the spiritual, underlying truths of reality, or God strike me off as the closest to the medium you can get, but there's no telling how many of those are faked.

 

[Quintessence]

To be honest, I just don't concern myself with this particular manner of working in the otherworlds. And, I have a hard time understanding why there is such a fixation on working with dead humans (necromancy) instead of all the other ways you can work with or in the otherworlds. Well, I understand it - I understand it in the sense that humans get attached to other humans and want to maintain the connection - but the use of mediums to me suggests a very poor understanding of the nature of the otherworlds. The essence and legacy of your ancestors lives on in all who knew them. The connection is strongest there: if you want to speak with your ancestors, the best person to do it is you. A perfect stranger can do it, sure, but there are problems with that. Granted, there are problems with amateurs trying to work with the otherworlds too, but I'm of the mind that I'd rather show people how to do their own work and not have them pay me to do it for them (and I probably wouldn't anyway - I work with the otherworlds on a daily basis, but I don't do necromancy).