The VFF Test is On!

[desertgal]

Personally, I'm still on the fence about her. I can't decide if she knows she's a fraud or she's truly convinced herself. (Although I'm leaning towards fraud...)

Well, to that, I have to think it is both.

When you are 'inside' a delusional disorder, you DO know the truth. You just don't acknowledge it. You do everything you can to keep from acknowledging it, in order to sustain your delusional reality.

Is Anita scamming? Yes. Is it intentional? Yes. But not for the purpose of hoodwinking other people, rather for the purpose of hoodwinking herself.

Look at it this way: inside her delusional reality, Anita gets to be extraordinary. The most extraordinary being, really, in the history of mankind. An elite 'star person', a 'being of light' or whatever-ultra intelligent, compassionate, empathetic, etc, etc, etc. It's a perspective that requires constant 'adjustment' - but the alternative is to acknowledge that she isn't extraordinary. She's just a regular person. When it comes down to the choice of being either the Great and Powerful Oz, or the dreary little woman behind the curtain, after a lifetime of convincing herself that she deserves to be known as the Great and Powerful Oz-then she's going to stick with the delusional reality. Why be dreary when she can be Oz?

Most of us can differentiate reality from fantasy, and choose the former. Anita not only won't, I believe she no longer can. Not without help. The line has become way too blurred.

Money may be a future side benefit of her scam, but, really, I think she is after self aggrandizement and attention. That's the fix she craves. It reaffirms, to her, her delusional reality as an 'extraordinary' person.

I think the crux of the frustration towards VfF is as bookitty has said: her life largely centers around something that has no positive benefit for her, or anyone else. And most of us know that life can be too short to be wasted that way. But, she isn't going to change without help. She's just too far gone.

 

[Maia]

I think that Anita really would not be repeating the "synesthesia" claim if she understood more about what that condition actually tends to indicate. Such as...

ACQUIRED SYNESTHESIA...
is classically seen in temporal lobe epilepsy, head trauma, and mass lesions affecting the medial temporal lobe. From this page.

Or...

In 1980, measurements of cerebral blood flow linked synesthesia to a brain abnormality. A person who tasted in geometric shapes inhaled a harmless radioactive chemical, xenon-133, which her tissues absorbed. The rate at which the chemical left certain parts of her brain indicated how metabolically active that part was. When brain activity was so assessed during a synesthetic experience, it was found that blood flow in her left hemisphere, particularly in the temporal lobe, plummeted 18% -- a decrease seen only when tissue dies as a result of a stroke. But the woman was perfectly healthy. The left hemisphere is the site of the language center. Another clue is that people with temporal lobe epilepsy are often synesthetic... Found here.

Anyway, I still say that she needs to get to a neurologist's office first.

 

[GeeMack]

Well, I'm neither magician nor as good at busting Anita...but I have to join GeeMack in the "hated by Anita" corner.

You've been plenty good at spotting her transparent lies, too. Revel in the irony that with all her claims about having x-ray vision, ultimately it's Anita that everyone can so easily see through!

 

[Empress]

Well, to that, I have to think it is both.

When you are 'inside' a delusional disorder, you DO know the truth. You just don't acknowledge it. You do everything you can to keep from acknowledging it, in order to sustain your delusional reality.

Is Anita scamming? Yes. Is it intentional? Yes. But not for the purpose of hoodwinking other people, rather for the purpose of hoodwinking herself.

Look at it this way: inside her delusional reality, Anita gets to be extraordinary. The most extraordinary being, really, in the history of mankind. An elite 'star person', a 'being of light' or whatever-ultra intelligent, compassionate, empathetic, etc, etc, etc. It's a perspective that requires constant 'adjustment' - but the alternative is to acknowledge that she isn't extraordinary. She's just a regular person. When it comes down to the choice of being either the Great and Powerful Oz, or the dreary little woman behind the curtain, after a lifetime of convincing herself that she deserves to be known as the Great and Powerful Oz-then she's going to stick with the delusional reality. Why be dreary when she can be Oz?

Most of us can differentiate reality from fantasy, and choose the former. Anita not only won't, I believe she no longer can. Not without help. The line has become way too blurred.

Money may be a future side benefit of her scam, but, really, I think she is after self aggrandizement and attention. That's the fix she craves. It reaffirms, to her, her delusional reality as an 'extraordinary' person.

I think the crux of the frustration towards VfF is as bookitty has said: her life largely centers around something that has no positive benefit for her, or anyone else. And most of us know that life can be too short to be wasted that way. But, she isn't going to change without help. She's just too far gone.

Quoted in entirety b/c it's such a great post. Thanks for the explanation; I think you have an excellent insight into her delusions. I appreciate it.

 

[Audible Click]

What is sad is that Anita will take every chance she can get to try and tear down Desert Gal who was faced her own problems,entered treatment, and went on to have a sucessful life. As DG said, Anita can't give up her delusions or even apologize to those people that tried to help her.

 

[bookitty]

Wasn't that the boyfriend? I thought he sounded like he had COPD which would fit with a man his age, or on the verge of tears, which would fit if he genuinely cares about her, and was hurt to see her fail so miserably.

That is what I thought at the time but he was not. Just a friend of one of the IIG members. He was weirdly adamant. From the look on his face I thought he was going to demand a rematch there and then.

 

[fromdownunder]

It seemed she was enjoying being on stage. Maybe a little uncomfortable because it was new to her, but like a kid in a dance recital, she was eating up the attention.

D'ja think - attention junkie!

Or has that been suggested here before? I think it may have been.

Norm

 

[Empress]

That is what I thought at the time but he was not. Just a friend of one of the IIG members. He was weirdly adamant. From the look on his face I thought he was going to demand a rematch there and then.

Wow. Just wow. I was just sure that was Mr VisionfromFeeling!

 

[bookitty]

Wow. Just wow. I was just sure that was Mr VisionfromFeeling!

Nope. He had some sort of health problem that made his voice sound even more emotional than it was.

I didn't see anyone there who seemed to be with Anita. I don't know if she came alone or if that person stayed away from the interview. Seems like it would be the former, if she had any true friends they would not have let her wear that dress.

Which is a horrible thing to say. Anita brings out my inner spinster-aunt. "Now, what's this? Vision from Feeling? Nonsense! and get your hair out of your face, you are not a pony!"

 

[GeeMack]

D'ja think - attention junkie!

Or has that been suggested here beofre?

Norm

Attention... uh... something, yes. Although "junkie" wasn't the term most often used, the concept has been discussed. And there seems to be a consensus agreement that it plays a great deal into the desperate need to do repeated studies, tests, demonstrations, etc.

 

[Akhenaten]

Wow. Just wow. I was just sure that was Mr VisionfromFeeling!

I keep telling you bad sceptics that it was the Arcturan Ambassador but will you listen? Noooooo.

Well you'll see! I'm planning a Study™ which won't falsify my claim, and that proves everything. So there.

Really, really, really, really.


PS desertgal is a poopyhead.

PPS And GeeMack too.

So there.


ETA: Really, really, really.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Thats right Jeff, a pivotal point in the whole saga if I remember correctly.
That was the beginning of the Meanies.

That was merely investigating whether a publicly verifiable claim was true. Since it wasn't, and the silly justifications were immediately forthcoming, it was clear that this person was unreliable.
That said, I fear that we are reinforcing this person with attention to her behavior, whether it is delusional or not. Extinction might be the best technique to get it to go away. Pay no attention to it, as you would to a brat having a temper tantrum. As with the brat, the behavior will probably get worse before it finally extinguishes, People who occasionally reinforce the brat will worsen the situation by putting it on an intermittant reinforcement schedule, like a slot machine which hooks people with the occasional hit.
I'm out of here.

 

[Farencue]

I'm out of here.

Could you turn the lights off please? Thanks....

 

[fromdownunder]

Attention... uh... something, yes. Although "junkie" wasn't the term most often used, the concept has been discussed. And there seems to be a consensus agreement that it plays a great deal into the desperate need to do repeated studies, tests, demonstrations, etc.

So perhaps we need to discuss the difference between an "attention junkie" and an "attention whore".

I suspect that there is a difference, but to me the junkie bit for Anita is closer to home. She seems to be completely addicted to being the centre of attantion, and adores it so much, that extra tests are pumping her adrenilin so much that she is becoming so addicted to it, that she needs her daily "fix"

Witness her several recent "last post" claims, and her inabillity to remove herself from the Board despite her claim that she would do so.

Anita, you have an addiction. Seek help - I mean it.

Norm

 

[Uncayimmy]

But the positions of the potential kidneys was 36. She made 36 separate judgments of whether a kidney was in a place or not. Each judgment can be considered a trial.

I disagree. Can you show us on the tape where she gave us 36 judgments? No, because she didn't. She gave us 3 answers, one in each of three trials with a 0.0833 probability.

You cannot assume she made 36 judgments. For all you *know* the very first slot she looked at in each trial was missing a kidney, so she stopped looking anywhere else.

 

[Uncayimmy]

I see colors when I read numbers, letters, and chemical elements. It is among the most common forms of synesthesia.

So you claim. For those who may not be familiar with this claim, Anita took an on-line synesthesia screening test. It's designed not as a diagnosis, but to see if you might have something worth looking into. There are a number of forms of synesthesia, so you take just the tests that apply to you.

Anita did that. She failed all but one. With the one she "passed" she didn't score particularly high. For the other ones, she couldn't even get by a loose screening test.

I, yer UncaYimy, also took a test at the same site. I passed with an extremely high score. Am I a synesthete? Nah. I cheated. It was just a screening test designed to capture all of the synesthetes it possibly could, so no serious controls were built in.

BTW, in typical Anita Ikonen style, she tried to make excuses for failing. She said that the musical tones were not consistent (wavered), and that threw her off. I'm a musician, and my ear detected nothing. Despite that, I captured the sounds and analyzed them. They were perfectly normal piano notes with the ordinary attack and decay in volume.

She also tried to claim that with some stimuli she sees multiple colors and the program only wanted you to pick one. Yeh, so? Pick the same one each time. That's the whole idea of that test - being consistent with the colors.

Beyond that, Anita has been babbling about synesthesia as if it has any relation to her perceptions. It doesn't. "I see blueish-gray when I see the letter Q" is not anything like, "When I look at a really fat guy to sense his kidney, I have to instead start at his bladder and then follow his ureter."

It's all nonsense, but at least it's finally over. All we're hearing from Anita now is the same babbling Batman hears as he hands the bad guys over to Commissioner Gordon.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I disagree. Can you show us on the tape where she gave us 36 judgments? No, because she didn't. She gave us 3 answers, one in each of three trials with a 0.0833 probability.

You cannot assume she made 36 judgments. For all you *know* the very first slot she looked at in each trial was missing a kidney, so she stopped looking anywhere else.

Oh, when I watched it, she had all these papers with places to put her guesses on each of the 36 possible locations of kidneys, and she handed them to Jim. How many trials is that?

 

[derekcbart]

Anita's Boyfriend

Hello.

As Bookitty mentioned (and I just realized who you are), the older man that spoke during the Q&A was not Anita's boyfriend. He was the guest of an invited guest. The IIG had no prior information on who this person was and, in retrospect, it was inappropriate for him to have been there since no one knew who he was.

However, Anita's boyfriend did email the IIG after the event and mentioned that he had been watching the live feed of the event.

-Derek

 

[Uncayimmy]

But Anita never ever really truly diagnoses anybody except her friends.

I went around and around with her on this. She was fond of saying that she only does this for "close friends and family." In typical Anita fashion, she finally came out and said that she considers people she met "just that day" to be close friends.

You must also remember she did readings for FACT members. She did readings for people on the street of Charlotte, and planned to do another "study" by advertising for people to read. At one point she had a form on her website soliciting people to "book" her for a "psychic demonstration." She was also offering to sketch fetuses for pregnant women.

And, of course, let's not forget she contacted a Meetup group for migraine sufferers and offered to come to their meeting and treat them even though they clearly stated that did not any practitioners to attend. Fortunately, I heard about this, contacted the organizer, and referred her to my website. She thanked me and ended up taking the Meetup group private.

Let's also consider the real possibility that subjects from the demonstration might visit this thread out of curiosity. They might be wondering if Anita did a reading for them, but they can't know. If they are woo-susceptible, that could be a frightening experience.

Anita is without ethics.

 

[wardenclyffe]

OK, so she diagnoses this IIG member with a heart----thing. But then she says the IIG member knows about it. How does she know that? Did they have a conversation about it, or can she also read minds?

Ward