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If I was to go on one of these courses that teach you ow to become a medium what would I be thought? Cold reading? How to channel spirits? I'm curious that's all.

From what I've read, the courses are shut-eye. You'd be taught techniques about breathing and visualisation, but all in the context of getting in touch with spirit. What I assume actually goes on is that you just become a better guesser - getting in touch with your subconscious and gaining your hits, and for that matter the kind of techniques talked about in Rowland, through practice.

Oh, and a word of caution if you're considering actually attending one of these courses. According to The Psychic Tourist, Derren Brown did some filming at one of these schools and the results were so poor, the hits so laughably vague, that the footage was never used.

Be very careful about taking that route Lee. I firmly distance myself from these 'mediums'. I know some people who did a course and they were not happy at all.

I've no interest in going on one of these courses, I've just been reading a lot of occult/dark magic type stuff recently.

What is shut eye then?

Shut eye is someone who believes that it is all real, that you can speak to the dead, that they have psychic powers etc. Some mediums will be shut eyes.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, take a trip to a Spiritualist Church and watch how the shut eye mediums do things. It can be very interesting if you're thinking about performing mediumistic magic and mentalism just to sit and watch how these people go about doing what they do.

It will vary greatly from course to course and instructor to instructor. Some of these course can be very good and quite informative. It might give you lots of ideas for routines, presentations, back stories etc. You would probably find yourself having a bit of fun and usually the other people on the course will be very nice.

Sometimes however you may find the course to be badly organised and badly run, with an instructor who is more interested in getting your money and signing you up for further courses.

I go and see mediums work a lot and usually thoroughly enjoy the "show". I have also been on several "development" courses just for the sheer heck of it. I have gained a lot of inspiration and ideas for my mentalist work via this route. I don't for one moment believe that anyone can genuinely speak to the spirits of the deceased, but if you keep that point straight in your mind you can find yourself having a fun few days - just try not to laugh out loud at some of the things that people say!

HOWEVER if you feel that the instructor is being manipulative and you don't feel happy don't be afraid to stand up, voice your opinions and walk out. Don't hand out personal details before the course and be a little bit guarded until you feel happy with how things are developing.

Just promise me you won't come out the other side of the course believing you're the new Colin Fry!

To add: No, you won't be taught "cold reading". Or at least the instructor won't be aware it's cold reading. It will be more akin to the ideas in my Midnight Side of the Mind book but with more dead people involved!

If you come back thinking you are Fry then we will set the spirits on you

Did you know that Colin Fry has a company called crack fillers that sells sex toys to gay men. Paul Zenon put links on his Facebook page showing him as the company director.

Mancunian Lee wrote:Did you know that Colin Fry has a company called crack fillers that sells sex toys to gay men. Paul Zenon put links on his Facebook page showing him as the company director.

He just found a niche and he filled it....

I have a real downer on shut eye courses because I've talked to people who have actually been on them. The method is fairly obvious - in fact it's outlined in the online previews to Naked Mentalism (especially book 3).

The idea is to encourage your subconscious to deliver answers based on its heuristic knowledge. Some people have more of the relevant heuristics to call upon than others and are are naturally better at this. Shut eye course leaders will tell them that's because they're "psychic". It's quite an ugly trade and the hit rates are quite low. Mean chance expectation predicts that you'll be right 20% of the time by making wild guesses. By focussing on that 20% they can get away with a lot because the people on the courses self-select as true believers who want to have something confirmed about themselves. What are the course leaders going to tell them? That they're wrong and don't have a shred of psychic ability? They don't do that for the same reason that if you invite a medium to tell you whether your house is haunted, they always confirm it and never say they can't feel a damned thing so you must be mistaken

There used to be someone on one of the hypnosis board years ago who taught a course in psychic lottery number divination. It turned out that this individual simply hypnotized the delegates, gave them the numbers they were to divine on an unseen tape, fannied about doing mental exercises with them all day, got them to write down the numbers that apparently popped into their minds, and then played the tape. The problems began when people couldn't replicate the result after the course.

Mancunian Lee wrote:Did you know that Colin Fry has a company called crack fillers that sells sex toys to gay men. Paul Zenon put links on his Facebook page showing him as the company director.

Your point being?

I'd set up an online sex shop given half the chance. There's a lot of money in it!

No point, just bringing up some useless trivia when his name was mentioned.

Where there's muck there's brass, so they say (sorry).

Actually, CRACKSTUFFERS LIMITED is not trading, so maybe there's less gold in them thar hills, so to speak...

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