talkmagic.co.uk

Actually gypsy psychics are banned from most reputable psychic fairs. But I already mentioned that they are not necessarily gypsies. In Blackpool all the gypsy readers were actually Italian pretending to be gypsies. But I do have acquaintance with Irish Tinkers who are actually the Irish version of gypsies. I can assure you that they ALL say "there is a curse on you which is holding you back" and ask for money to remove the curse. And the Roma readers do this as well.There is no point denying what is fact. Gypsy readers see the rest of humanity in a different way than settled people do. There are many decent Roma people. However, their tradition of reading is highly unethical and would give poor Mr Rawlings palpitations.

Now I am not talking about funfair psychics who aren't real psychics anyway but amateurs who do it as a bit of fun or entertainers who dress up as psychics. I know clowns who do this in Toronto. No. I am talking about seaside fortune tellers that use crystal balls. Very few serious psychics use crystal balls. This is the province of the seaside fortune tellers who, if they think they can get away with it, will use unethical methods. I would be wary of most crystal ball readers although of course not all of them.

Young Rawlings indeed has a lot to learn about this business and is out of his depth here where he is talking to experts.

Here is a story about a gypsy market trader (not a psychic) who worked on Yarmouth Market. Another stallholder (or perhaps it was a customer) annoyed him so he got upset and put a curse on her saying, "you will never have any luck".

Soon after the woman's husband died. And after that the house burned down. And after that her daughter got terribly ill. And after that there was more misery although I can't remember what the hell it was. The poor woman figured that the gypsy market trader was responsible for it and called the police to complain. The police told her they couldn't do anything about it but she begged and pleaded for them to visit the guy and ask him to remove the curse. They agreed and went down to the market and asked him to remove it for the woman's piece of mind. The b***** refused and took great joy in the fact that his curse had come true. Of course I know perfectly well that his "curse" had absolutely nothing to do with the woman's misfortune but she put two and two together to make five.

Quite frankly I don't believe in curses but I do know a method of removing them if someone really believes in this stuff. You take the three of diamonds or the Sun card in the Tarot and meditate on it thinking, "heat, heat, heat". That gets rid of the curse.

There is a great lack of ethics in this business but not everyone is like that. There are some very responsible and ethical readers out there.

I've seen many posts around this topic and would like to spend my word on it.

First of all a necessary disclaimer: I have not read completely and carefully the thread, so I could be completely wrong, please forgive me if this is the case, but I think that the opinion I'm going to express is quite "soft" so I someway feel I can express an "uninformed" opinion anyway.

It seems to me that the two sides of the discussion are actually not as distant as it could appear at the beginning; apparently the biggest problem is a matter of definitions (i.e. what's a "psychic"), but it seems to me that both sides agree that all the phenomena at the centre of the talk here are basically the effect of some SKILL that can be potentially be learned by anyone.
It goes without saying that since it is something very difficult, some people are better than other at this, to the point that some people actually would never be able to actually do it (as I will probably never be able to properly learn parkour or to play the harp).

In MY opinion, this is sufficient to say that there is nothing supernatural with it and I believe (as I believe it for any skill) that any average human *with sufficient effort* could learn to be a decent reader. Notice the word "decent".

Am I wrong?

I don't believe in the supernatural and in fact I mentioned in my posts that there is nothing "supernatural" in my readings. There cannot be. There can only be the "natural". If something is happening it must be within the laws of nature. Perhaps undiscovered laws of nature but nature nevertheless. I am not sure anyone can just learn it since heightened intuition is something within you rather than something you study. We all have potential for certain things and none for others. For example I couldn't be a lumberjack in a thousand years. But on the other hand I don't know of too many lumberjacks who do psychic readings either.

People have big issues with the word 'psychic' but it has many connotations and many magicians aren't sharp enough to differentiate it from the word 'medium'.
When you are promoting yourself and getting work, if you advertised yourself as an 'intuitive cold-reader', 20% of people would be put off and the rest wouldn't have a clue what you were. When promoting yourself you have to be direct and easy to understand. If you want work, that is.
A magician is not a magician in the true sense of the word. It generally means someone who is a master of the esotoric arts, an alchemist, not someone who faffs around with cards, coins and a dippy duck. If you put "sleight of hand artist" on your promotional material you would get far less work then if you called yourself a "magician". (Though I don't believe Aleister Crowley landed many kids parties)
If someone called themself a 'mentalist' they would get far less work than if they called themself a "mind reader". The people that get hung up on these definitions the most are, as proven on this thread, the bedroom speculators who never perform (mum and dad don't count).

I want people to book me. I don't want to sit at home feeling pleased with myself. And for that purpose I am (proud) Psychic entertainer.

mark lewis wrote: We all have potential for certain things and none for others. For example I couldn't be a lumberjack in a thousand years. But on the other hand I don't know of too many lumberjacks who do psychic readings either.

I completely agree, but you still would probably be able to cut a tree without killing yourself. That of course doesn't make you a lumberjack, but that's what I meant with "any average person could probably learn to do a decent reading" and that's why I stressed the decent part. Probably you wouldn't call it decent as a lumberjack wouldn't call decent your tree cutting, but I hope that I have been able to explain what I mean.

Lord Freddie wrote:People have big issues with the word 'psychic' but it has many connotations and many magicians aren't sharp enough to differentiate it from the word 'medium'.
When you are promoting yourself and getting work, if you advertised yourself as an 'intuitive cold-reader', 20% of people would be put off and the rest wouldn't have a clue what you were. When promoting yourself you have to be direct and easy to understand. If you want work, that is.
A magician is not a magician in the true sense of the word. It generally means someone who is a master of the esotoric arts, an alchemist, not someone who faffs around with cards, coins and a dippy duck. If you put "sleight of hand artist" on your promotional material you would get far less work then if you called yourself a "magician". (Though I don't believe Aleister Crowley landed many kids parties)
If someone called themself a 'mentalist' they would get far less work than if they called themself a "mind reader". The people that get hung up on these definitions the most are, as proven on this thread, the bedroom speculators who never perform (mum and dad don't count).

I want people to book me. I don't want to sit at home feeling pleased with myself. And for that purpose I am (proud) Psychic entertainer.

I am perfectly fine with that (of course) and it all stands in the meaning one gives to the word "psychic"; of course that is also the reason for which you use (if you do it) tarots instead of, say, random pictures of white noise. I am pretty sure you could do a good reading with those as well, but I guess that your customers would be much less satisfied.
And btw, I particularly appreciate you for calling yourself a psychic entertainer, which is to me perfectly fair term, equivalent to "magician".
The only problem, to me, is that the word "psychic", compared to "magician", is a little more prone to misunderstanding: my gut feeling is that a lot more people easily attach supernatural abilities to the word "psychic" compared to those who believe that magician have actual magic powers; my opinion is that exploiting THIS fact would be a bit unethical, as I would find unethical a magician who sells his skills as actual magic power to someone who really believe it.
Again, I hope to have expressed my point clearly enough so that nobody here feels attacked...

And just to be clearer: Lord Freddie, I really think that your website oozes "entertainment" from every word, I believe you couldn't be more clear in it about what you mean by "Psychic", what you are, and what you are not. Unfortunately I am pretty sure that there are lot of other psychics who abuse the word and are not as clear as you are.

Let me preface by saying I am a sceptic. I believe in nothing that Newton and the boys have not proved and expressed in neat mathematical formulae. However I have read Mark's definition of a psychic here and elsewhere, and I find that I have to agree with it completely.

The Tarot is just a tool to focus my intuition, but it focuses it remarkably well. Using palm and tarot I can give readings that clients perceive to be remarkably accurate and helpful, and I am happy with that. I do it for entertainment purposes (which means someone pays me, and I make their day better - I do not talk to the dead). Some readers (particularly the mediums) have questionable ethical standards, but the majority of mentalists doing readings seem to agonise over ethics, and impose high standards on themselves.

Cold Reading (or whatever you want to call it) is not supernatural, and not an accurate science. But it is not a scam, and it definitely works, and on a consistent basis.

MiKo wrote:And just to be clearer: Lord Freddie, I really think that your website oozes "entertainment" from every word, I believe you couldn't be more clear in it about what you mean by "Psychic", what you are, and what you are not. Unfortunately I am pretty sure that there are lot of other psychics who abuse the word and are not as clear as you are.

Thanks. I think the best approach is to leave the audience to makes their own minds up as to what they have experienced. I don't claim to have 'powers' and I don't claim that anything is 'NLP...blah..blah...blah", it is what the individual chooses to take away from it. I don't patronise and I don't dictate.

Hi Laura!
I am a mentalist. I do not call myself a psychic nor a medium. Then again, I am not a fraud. I do consider what I do as an art and I really do read people. I am just a super-sensitive type of guy with all that it entails. I am absolutely against using people's problems, losses or stress for self gain as in "contacting the dead", "fortune telling", or any of the related subjects. I am a performer and that is where it ends.
Laura! I will be glad to take part in your thesis.
Have a great week
Ronny