How do psychic mediums know stuff about you

[AmyW]

Yes, an oft neglected aspect of Scorpion's position. As far as Scorpion is concerned, all suffering in this world is caused by Karma. And we cannot rightfully interfere with Karma because reasons.

Therefore we should make no attempt to alleviate the suffering of others because that would simply mess with their Karma which has required them to learn....something.

Now, personally, I have various charities on direct debit. Worthy causes all. In Scorpion's worldview, I should stop all such contributions because I am directly interfering with their Karma, and those victims not only could and should be suffering, but my interference guarantees that they will simply have to do it again.

At base, Scorpion is attempting to not give a rat's patootie about anyone else but the self. That is flat out narcissism. I suspect that Scorpion has not thought through where his claims inevitably end.

Let me give a concrete example. I have often stopped by the roadside to help out some stranger with a flat tire or such like. That is simple humanity to me. In Scorpion's world it would be wrong for me to do so because that flat tire is a result of that strangers Karma and to assist would obviate the pain that person must feel to expiate whatever bad Karma they had accumulated.

Now, I am certain that the perspicacious will glom onto where Scorpions inevitable conclusion will be. It is not a pretty place.

Exactly, what a loud of nonsense. No disrespect Scorpion but it's a dangerous way to think, very dangerous! Spirituality is delusional, it's new age bs!

 

[AmyW]

Just because the advice is general, and applies to most people, doesn't mean it can't be good advice for you. If it made an impact on you, think about why. If you like to help other people through their pain and problems, and are good at it, good for you and keep at it! If you need to love yourself more and put more joy into your own life in order to be even better at helping others, then look into ways you might try to do that. (Of course that's far from simple advice to follow!)

The ideas aren't contaminated somehow, just because a psychic practitioner uttered them.

Thank you, it just frightened me that she seemed to know me and my core values. I do honour helping others but neglect myself somewhat. I am a very good mother but not the best at loving myself. It just is odd how she knew that. It causes anxiety because Religion has always been a negative for me, if somehow psychics are real, then maybe god is real (that's my train of thought)

 

[arthwollipot]

Is this what the bible says?

The church I went to would have said that psychics aren't talking to spirits, they're talking to demons. Literally servants of Satan.

 

[Butter!]

This was a reading given some time ago. I most certainly am not speaking to any now and won't ever again. For some reason spirituality and religion does cause me anxiety.
I suffer from low self esteem and this medium claiming she can channel god spooked me. It amazes me that she really believes she can channel god, some even claim that there are bad spirits, it's insane that they believe these things. Claiming she can 'hear' god. Religion is dangerous in my opinion. I've been there and it caused a lot of anxiety. I remember being in a church service some years ago, there they were spouting about satan and how he impacts the things around us. Totally scared me !

I totally understand! It always gave me anxiety too. I half-blame my OCD on religion, in fact. My earliest exhibitions of those kinds of looping thoughts and obsessions and rituals were all centered around religion and fears about going to hell. The Bible story about Abraham being told to kill his son Isaac, in particular, scared me ****-less, because it made me think, "Wow. God will go that far to test people, that is pretty hardcore. How can I ever relax?" I always worried that God was trying to test me in different ways and developed all these rituals to try and prevent failing. It's hard to explain, but I think I definitely know what you mean about deep anxiety from that kind of spiritual stuff. I felt SO much better once I'd moved away from it entirely.

Of course, as a skeptic D), I do feel compelled to note that I could be confusing correlation and causation with regard to religion "giving" me OCD. Perhaps I'd have developed OCD regardless, and religious anxieties were just what my original symptoms centered around since that's what I was surrounded by as a kid. After all, I still have the OCD symptoms (though they're much more under control these days) - they just concern different types of things now. Either way, though, religion and spirituality can be stressful stuff. I think they can **** kids up, especially if they're presented too intensely in childhood.

 

[LongFuzzy]

Thank you, it just frightened me that she seemed to know me and my core values. I do honour helping others but neglect myself somewhat. I am a very good mother but not the best at loving myself. It just is odd how she knew that. It causes anxiety because Religion has always been a negative for me, if somehow psychics are real, then maybe god is real (that's my train of thought)

This is the point so many have been trying to tell you.
She didn't know. It was just a general statement that you latched onto.

 

[Scorpion]

I have posted this many times before, but if you people think mediums don't give detailed information then explain this. A medium told me I had a brother that died in the war as a baby. She told me his name which was Lawrence, and the fact he died because there was no equipment in the hospital because of the war. I went home and asked my mother if it was true and she said it was. She lost the baby because there were no oxygen tents.

These were facts and I did not know about it until I asked my mother, and my mother was not a spiritualist and had never been to the church. The medium was a lady from out of town and I had never seen her before.

This was in the 1970's before the internet and I do not believe the medium could have searched my family records. She knew because my brothers spirit was standing next to her, telling her about it.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I have posted this many times before, but if you people think mediums don't give detailed information then explain this. A medium told me I had a brother that died in the war as a baby. She told me his name which was Lawrence, and the fact he died because there was no equipment in the hospital because of the war. I went home and asked my mother if it was true and she said it was. She lost the baby because there were no oxygen tents.

These were facts and I did not know about it until I asked my mother, and my mother was not a spiritualist and had never been to the church. The medium was a lady from out of town and I had never seen her before.

This was in the 1970's before the internet and I do not believe the medium could have searched my family records. She knew because my brothers spirit was standing next to her, telling her about it.

Yes, and we have answered this many times.
The key point -IMHO- is this: we only have your own account of what happened. Memory is, as I'm sure you're aware by now, very fallible. What you have here is your recollection of what happened, which may not be accurate. We've seen this in this very thread: AmyW said that the medium knew her mother was dead, but, when the actual words were examined, that isn't what the medium said at all. It is entirely plausible, given that this is exactly how mediums operate, that this is what happened to you.
It's a con trick, Scorpion. Sorry, but that's how it is. You need to start acknowledging this.

 

[Scorpion]

Yes, and we have answered this many times.
The key point -IMHO- is this: we only have your own account of what happened. Memory is, as I'm sure you're aware by now, very fallible. What you have here is your recollection of what happened, which may not be accurate. We've seen this in this very thread: AmyW said that the medium knew her mother was dead, but, when the actual words were examined, that isn't what the medium said at all. It is entirely plausible, given that this is exactly how mediums operate, that this is what happened to you.
It's a con trick, Scorpion. Sorry, but that's how it is. You need to start acknowledging this.

There is nothing wrong with my memory, because I asked my mother about it when I got home from church, and the fact she confirmed what was said reinforced my memory of the event. I was impressed that the medium told me facts like my brothers name.

 

[Pixel42]

explain this

Cold reading, warm reading, hot reading, selective/inaccurate memory, pure chance … it's impossible to know which. I'm still inclined to think your mother set it up (or at least helped to set it up), for reasons that seemed good to her at the time. The only thing we can be sure of is that the explanation is not "spirits".

 

[Scorpion]

Cold reading, warm reading, hot reading, selective/inaccurate memory, pure chance … it's impossible to know which. I'm still inclined to think your mother set it up (or at least helped to set it up), for reasons that seemed good to her at the time. The only thing we can be sure of is that the explanation is not "spirits".

You must be kidding, my mother never went to the church, and was not a believer, and did not like me going to the church. My stepfather even called me an idiot for going.

Also it could not have been any kind of cold or hot reading because I did not know I had a brother that died until the medium told me and when I got home my mother confirmed it. She seemed somewhat surprised but shrugged her shoulders and forgot about it.
But in later years my mother came round to my way of thinking and she said, the medium must have been the real thing.

 

[Pixel42]

Protest all you like, Scorpion, the fact remains that there is not a single good reason to think spirits exist. Your anecdote certainly does not qualify as a reason. Even if no mundane explanation could be imagined (and several have been), that would only mean that we do not have sufficient information to work out what happened. It still would not justify concluding that there can only be a supernatural explanation, let alone that it was "spirits".

 

[kayle]

a lady from out of town and I had never seen her before

Scorpion, how does this in any way proves that she did not know you and your family. I guess you have been asked this here before, but you repeated yourself, so

 

[Scorpion]

a lady from out of town and I had never seen her before

Scorpion, how does this in any way proves that she did not know you and your family. I guess you have been asked this here before, but you repeated yourself, so

There are around 400 Spiritualist churches in England and mediums circulate these churches. So a medium that gives a service is usually a stranger from out of town. You may see the same medium return after about a year. But this lady was new to me, and I had never seen her before.

So how exactly could some visiting medium from out of town know things about me and my family?

 

[Cosmic Yak]

You must be kidding, my mother never went to the church, and was not a believer, and did not like me going to the church. My stepfather even called me an idiot for going.

Also it could not have been any kind of cold or hot reading because I did not know I had a brother that died until the medium told me and when I got home my mother confirmed it. She seemed somewhat surprised but shrugged her shoulders and forgot about it.But in later years my mother came round to my way of thinking and she said, the medium must have been the real thing.

It is exactly this kind of detail that undermines the credibility of your story.

If I was told something that completely disproved everything I had previously believed about hugely important topics like life after death and the existence of spirits, there is no way I would just shrug my shoulders and forget about it.
As has been explained to you many, many times already, everyone's memory is fallible. This is not a personal failing on your part: it's just part of being human.
It makes much more sense to me that this story changed in the telling over the years, which is what caused your mother to have her change of heart.
However, as I said before, as we have no record of these events, we will never know.
What you need, as you well know, is some kind of evidence we can look at now, not untestable anecdotes.
Have you got anything?
Oh, and if your memory of these events is so good, can you tell us the name of the medium in question? It might be possible to follow this up.

 

[Pixel42]

So how exactly could some visiting medium from out of town know things about me and my family?

In literally thousands of ways. Mediums talk to each other. Members of spiritualist churches talk to each other. People talk to each other. And then talk to other people.

 

[Scorpion]

It is exactly this kind of detail that undermines the credibility of your story.

If I was told something that completely disproved everything I had previously believed about hugely important topics like life after death and the existence of spirits, there is no way I would just shrug my shoulders and forget about it.
As has been explained to you many, many times already, everyone's memory is fallible. This is not a personal failing on your part: it's just part of being human.
It makes much more sense to me that this story changed in the telling over the years, which is what caused your mother to have her change of heart.
However, as I said before, as we have no record of these events, we will never know.
What you need, as you well know, is some kind of evidence we can look at now, not untestable anecdotes.
Have you got anything?
Oh, and if your memory of these events is so good, can you tell us the name of the medium in question? It might be possible to follow this up.

My mother did not want me to get involved with spiritualists, and she shut her mind to it. She was probably a little shocked when I told her I got a message from her baby, who said he had grown up in the spirit world. I think she tried to put it out of her mind. But in later years she came to believe.

No I have no evidence, and I did not make any note of the mediums name because I only saw her once. I remember the names of other mediums, like 'Gay Muir' who told me how to close my aura, to protect myself from negative psychic energy. Trevor Williams, who's developing circle I sat in.

 

[Wudang]

Or the medium had friends in or from your town who knew the story. Mediums like to swap information with other mediums, build up their inventories. Or many other prosaic ways.

 

[Scorpion]

In literally thousands of ways. Mediums talk to each other. Members of spiritualist churches talk to each other. People talk to each other. And then talk to other people.

My mother and her brother were at a family gathering years later, and the subject of the message I received came up, My uncle said to my mother "you had a baby that died in the war, I didn't know that" My mother said, "I didn't go round telling everyone"

My mother had not even told her brother, let alone strangers.

 

[BStrong]

My mother did not want me to get involved with spiritualists, and she shut her mind to it. She was probably a little shocked when I told her I got a message from her baby, who said he had grown up in the spirit world. I think she tried to put it out of her mind. But in later years she came to believe.

No I have no evidence, and I did not make any note of the mediums name because I only saw her once. I remember the names of other mediums, like 'Gay Muir' who told me how to close my aura, to protect myself from negative psychic energy. Trevor Williams, who's developing circle I sat in.

A good piece of parental advice you should have followed.

 

[JoeMorgue]

My mother and her brother were at a family gathering years later, and the subject of the message I received came up, My uncle said to my mother "you had a baby that died in the war, I didn't know that" My mother said, "I didn't go round telling everyone"

My mother had not even told her brother, let alone strangers.

Then what the **** are you even asking if you've already got all the answers with your super mental powers we don't have?

Stop starting the same topic from a different direction over and over.

You think ghosts are real. Good on you. You're wrong.