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i quite like the carlyle line "I cannot read minds, but i can read the occasional thought..." paraphrasing obviously..

abraxus wrote:I quite like the carlyle line "I cannot read minds, but I can read the occasional thought..." paraphrasing obviously..

This raises an interesting question: are you reading minds or thoughts?

and told me that he got the name Peter, that my Dad should look after himself and that I can do what he (the medium) can do. Creepy stuff when one considers that my Dad, whose name was Peter, was dying in hospital from a stroke at the time and was not co-operating with anyone regarding his habilitation.

That to me seems like typical cold reading. Why cant mediums ever give surnames? And I would say that is a common line about parents of a certain age.

I would say that love is an abstract concept. Testing that a medium really is speaking to a known dead relative is surely something that can be tested? For example by asking questions where the answers are only known to the deceased and the relative hearing the reading and I don't mean questions like 'have you been looking at photographs of your recently deceased relative recently?". Although I am a sceptic I am NOT closed minded but the 'proof' that I seen offered up by believers does not convince me at all. As has already been mentioned, why do mediums never offer surnames?

VoodooMick wrote:I think the sceptics are as much "shut-eyes" as the psychics that they accuse.. I went to an evening of "genuine" mediumship a few years ago expecting to witness nothing special, until he picked on me sitting in the audience.. and told me that he got the name Peter, that my Dad should look after himself and that I can do what he (the medium) can do. Creepy stuff when one considers that my Dad, whose name was Peter, was dying in hospital from a stroke at the time and was not co-operating with anyone regarding his habilitation.

If this person really could do as they claimed then it's not that special. Real or not the same can be effected by non-psychic means: is Peter not a common name? By your report this psychic did not link the name with a specific relation - you did. Judging by your age it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that your father was in his late sixties/early seventies, a time when health commonly becomes a bigger issue.

I don't personally think this is as clear cut as "prove it if it's real". "Prove that there is life after death". I'm groping at the edge of something here but we can't scientifically "prove that love exists" either, but we all believe in it (don't we?).

To take it to the extreme we cannot ever know that the world and indeed other minds exist beyond our own (but, for sanity's sake, let's assume they do) and science can never prove anything either. What it can do is show correlations between one event and another - such as particular neuronal activity and a feeling of love towards a particular person.

In much the same way a psychic can be sat down and, provided everything is properly controlled, information can be gathered about the likelihood that particular psychic phenomenon does exist.

Finally, on the matter of science and psychics, I have two words: quantum nonlocality.

and if the medium was in the company of a large audience and they say "I'm getting the name Peter" its highly likely that someone in the audience will know someone called Peter so they will relate that to them, the medium has done nothing psychic but the spectator connects it to them, nothing really specific cause that would be narrowing their chances.

cragglecat wrote:I would say that love is an abstract concept. Testing that a medium really is speaking to a known dead relative is surely something that can be tested? For example by asking questions where the answers are only known to the deceased and the relative hearing the reading and I don't mean questions like 'have you been looking at photographs of your recently deceased relative recently?". Although I am a sceptic I am NOT closed minded but the 'proof' that I seen offered up by believers does not convince me at all. As has already been mentioned, why do mediums never offer surnames?

Houdini and his wife Bess agreed on a 'key' or a set of words that they memorized while alive. They figured that if one of them died before the other, (it was Houdini who died first) they could use their 'key' words to test psychics. Teller wrote an excellent essay about it in his book "Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends".

I vaguely remember reading something about this. Did his wife actually try to make contact?

I heard that Houdini and his wife decided on the word "believe" so if someone came forward and contacted him after he died and used that word she would know that they had contacted with him but nobody did

nope, never got through the veil...

neither has any famous psychic...certainly never hear from doris stokes saying "ooh it's a bit nippy in summerland luvvie..."

kinda makes ya think don't it?

I saw a programme on mentalism in which James Randi said these psychics never have anything interesting to say its always "I'm at peace now I love you goodbye"

On minds versus thoughts...Millard Longman has a nice view in his psychic skills workshop...he comes down on the thoughts side, as minds are far too complex and messy to read.

One medium claimed to have contacted Houdini's mother and spoke in English. He challenged her and said that his mother only spoke Hebrew and she responded by saying, everyone speaks English in heaven...ha!

For the benefit of some who may not appreciate the difference, I would just like to re-iterate that a psychic is a mind-reader while a medium talks to the dead. A world of difference.

In my performance I use the good old fashioned psychic line - old school guy that I am. Plus I like to think it p*sses off the NLP crowd.

Just one interesting point: If Corinda were to contact us from the other side of the veil I think he would be disturbed to find that mentalists by and large do not claim to be psychic anymore. He certainly did.

Not arguing with you as I know very little about mentalism but is the psychic/medium distinction a terminology within mentalism? The Oxford English Dictionary has the two words as synonymous. Pointing this out not to be disrespectful but just because I'm curious.