Nay_Sayer
I say nay!
No prob, Any other proofs besides sideshow johnny?
Proof of Life After Death!!
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No prob, Any other proofs besides sideshow johnny?
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
I see Robin still hasn't acknowledged that if she had gone to see Garrette do his act rather than John Edward it would be Garrette she would be touting as genuine.
She also still hasn't grasped that if you go to see enough psychics you'll eventually see one who makes a particularly lucky guess that resonates with you. That's why they put the occasional more specific statement in amongst the general fishing - occasionally it will be a hit, which they can then exploit, and they know they can rely on their audience to forget all about it if it's actually a miss for all of them (or, of course, assume that it will make sense to someone later). The fact that Edward expressed such surprise at his lucky guess is a huge giveaway - if he was genuine he would be getting such hits all the time, so that was a very amateurish mistake on his behalf.
She also still hasn't grasped that if you go to see enough psychics you'll eventually see one who makes a particularly lucky guess that resonates with you. That's why they put the occasional more specific statement in amongst the general fishing - occasionally it will be a hit, which they can then exploit, and they know they can rely on their audience to forget all about it if it's actually a miss for all of them (or, of course, assume that it will make sense to someone later). The fact that Edward expressed such surprise at his lucky guess is a huge giveaway - if he was genuine he would be getting such hits all the time, so that was a very amateurish mistake on his behalf.
Squeegee Beckenheim
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People keep saying that Robin is a shill for John Edward, but I think there's virtually zero possibility that that's the case. Psychics don't criticise other psychics or say that they're fake. In order for people to buy into your psychic patter, you need there to be a system of belief around that patter, and that system of belief is engendered by all the other psychics that people also take seriously. So a shill wouldn't be saying that other psychics are frauds.
I think she's just someone who was very hurt by loss and who has latched on to something which she thinks helps to mitigate that loss.
I think she's just someone who was very hurt by loss and who has latched on to something which she thinks helps to mitigate that loss.
Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
I concur on the NOT SHILL part. Not because I necessarily agree with the "psychics first commandment - thou shalt not speak ill of other psychics", because we have our friend Callahan's performance on these forums as proof that they do go around bad-mouthing the other guys. It's also a commercial ploy by shills for Amway. Not naming names, but there's a regular poster here who's been called a shill for Amway both here and on several other sites. And he disses ALL the competition. (Not comparing MLM to psychics, but business is business.)
Notwithstanding that disagreement, Robin's just not slick enough at it and is not doing a good enough job at "getting the message out" on a board full of hirsute disbelievers. There are much more fertile fields to plow than the JREF Forums. (YouTube Comments are like shooting fish in a barrel for shills. Religious forums, New Age forums, etc....)
No, I believe that Robin genuinely is, as I've described, a "True Believer". She's not looking for anything other than confirmation and trying to get her to look at any evidence while holding her own confirmation bias in check, is going to be like banging your heads against a wall. As I mentioned long ago, she was not studying up on psychics like we do because we're really aghast at the scamming the miscreants do. She was studying them one at a time because she was seeking "The One". Having decided that JE is it, she's not going to change for any amount critical thinking or scientific-method based investigation. You might as well try to convert DOC to atheism.
Recovering Agnostic
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Robin, do you actually have any reason to believe JE is genuinely getting messages from the dead, apart from argument from incredulity? Because I can't recall you offering anything more than a few good hits as evidence, even if we discount the way you appear to have changed your story on some of them.
Garrette's pointed out very clearly that it's possible to perform tricks that are far more impressive than JE's schtick without having any "special gift" at all beyond some magical knowledge and practice. I mentioned magic tricks that even had Penn and Teller stumped on how they were done. Do you accept that these effects can be achieved by ordinary magicians with no supernatural input?
If you accept this, and I can see no reason not to, the next question is obvious: what basis do you have for concluding that JE is genuine, and not a jumped up carny performer? It's possible to do this by simple trickery, so how would you know if that was what he was doing? What's the difference in your mind between Edward's schtick and Garrette's tricks, except that Garrette's are far more impressive?
John Loftus has done a lot of good with his "Outsider Test" for faith, and I think it might be useful to adapt it to our current discussion. Your explanations may seem thoroughly convincing to you, but they're all post hoc rationalisations. They don't show that your beliefs are right, they just give possible explanations for why things might be the way they are if you're right.
Can you try to forget all your assumptions, beliefs and ideas about JE, and put yourself in our shoes as someone who doesn't hold the same opinions and assumptions that you do? Can you explain what would convince you, as someone with no set opinions either way, that he's the real deal? Because that's what I'm looking for - some reason to believe this, given that I don't currently believe it. And I'm just not seeing anything.
Come on, give me your best shot.
Garrette's pointed out very clearly that it's possible to perform tricks that are far more impressive than JE's schtick without having any "special gift" at all beyond some magical knowledge and practice. I mentioned magic tricks that even had Penn and Teller stumped on how they were done. Do you accept that these effects can be achieved by ordinary magicians with no supernatural input?
If you accept this, and I can see no reason not to, the next question is obvious: what basis do you have for concluding that JE is genuine, and not a jumped up carny performer? It's possible to do this by simple trickery, so how would you know if that was what he was doing? What's the difference in your mind between Edward's schtick and Garrette's tricks, except that Garrette's are far more impressive?
John Loftus has done a lot of good with his "Outsider Test" for faith, and I think it might be useful to adapt it to our current discussion. Your explanations may seem thoroughly convincing to you, but they're all post hoc rationalisations. They don't show that your beliefs are right, they just give possible explanations for why things might be the way they are if you're right.
Can you try to forget all your assumptions, beliefs and ideas about JE, and put yourself in our shoes as someone who doesn't hold the same opinions and assumptions that you do? Can you explain what would convince you, as someone with no set opinions either way, that he's the real deal? Because that's what I'm looking for - some reason to believe this, given that I don't currently believe it. And I'm just not seeing anything.
Come on, give me your best shot.
Actually, JE's few AMAZING hits are the EVIDENCE he is real. I think that is enough. You don't. I get it.
But I stand by what I said earlier regarding all of you <SNIP>
As for Garrette, the word guesses do give me pause. Garrette, just so this is clear...it all happened exactly as you said? You left nothing out? Was there a trick somehow involved in any way? Or did you really just guess correctly those 3x?
<SNIP>
Edited by LashL:
Edited for civility.
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Recovering Agnostic
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You evidently don't get it, despite me spelling it out in letters a mile high. Anyone can have a few hits. People who are good at it can have much more impressive hits, with no supernatural element. This fact has been repeated ad nauseam on this thread, but are you ever going to take it in?
For any apparently successful reading, there are two possibilities - either JE was getting messages from dead people, or he was performing a trick of some kind. I'm asking you what your basis is for concluding that this was a genuine post mortem message, even while being quite happy to dismiss all other psychics as frauds. There must be some reason why you think "JE good, others bad", but I still can't make it out. Is it really nothing more than argument from incredulity?
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Why do you find well-performed mentalism supernatural?
You absolutely understand <SNIP> the methodology behind the act (and act it is) yet you allow one smarmy con-man to take advantage of you. I well understand the personal connection --it's the thing that allows these individuals to monetize their charade-- but I don't understand why this particular huxter beguiles you.
Is it just because he's a big name? Do you find him attractive? Is it his delivery? Was his price-point too dear and you had to justify it somehow?
John Edward is shamming you.
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The reason I know JE is real and all the other psychics and mediums I've been to are fakes is because I know all the tricks. And I most certainly can spot cold reading. I can spot it with my eyes closed. I can spot it standing on my head. I can spot it a mile away. I can spot it till the cows come home. I can spot it in a train. I can spot it on a plane. I can spot it in a boat. I can spot it on a float. I can spot it when alone. I can spot it on the phone. I can spot it in a group. I can spot it with some soup. I can spot it here. And I can spot it there. I can spot it anywhere.
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Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
What rot. A good mentalist would have you fooled. You wouldn't think it was supernatural only because they were up front about what they were doing. As was said earlier, it's your over confidence that gets you sucked in to the lies of charlatans like Edward.
You certainly don't and can't because Edward conned you.
What's your agenda Robin? Be straight about it as I've been with you.
dafydd
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No, you can't.
torifrog
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I'm just finding this whole thing sad now. I know only too well the want for a "message from beyond", and the ways in which our brains can reinforce what we want to be true (even if the data doesn't support it).
I'm just really hopeful Robin doesn't spend too much more money in these psychological money traps.
I'm just really hopeful Robin doesn't spend too much more money in these psychological money traps.
torifrog
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Recovering Agnostic
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You know every single trick. You've exhausted every other possibility. I see. This looks very much like argument from incredulity (or possibly ignorance, as in "I don't know of any way this could be faked"), but maybe you really do know all the tricks.
So how did Garrette do his tricks then?
And just to make it interesting, given that you know all the tricks, how do you know that the psychics you dismiss as fakes and frauds don't have genuine gifts that just happen to provide the sort of information that could be faked? The existence of CGI doesn't mean that all film stunts are faked, although they undoubtedly could be, so how do you tell?
No. You do not. This is an absolute fact, indisputable, irrefutable, and undeniable. You do not know all the tricks. There may be a hundred people on the planet who know all the tricks, and you and I are not among them, and even those hundred people do not know all the variations of all the tricks. This ridiculous claim on your part is the clearest proof there is that you are blind to your own limitations.
Tell me how I did the word guesses and you still won't know all the tricks. Tell me how Osterlind wrote President Ford's story on the card and you still won't know all the tricks. Tell me how Kellar told that actor in Hong Kong all those details and you still won't know all the tricks.
You can't even tell me those things and yet you claim to know all the tricks. I know hubris, Robin, and you exude it.
Define "exactly as you said." I left out nothing of import, but then again I left out everything of import. Do you need to know exactly how long I knew each person? The exact topic of conversation before the trick? Exactly who made the challenge to me and in what form? Exactly how I worded my instructions to think of a word? There is always something left out, just as you have left things out of the John Edward incident even if you haven't done so intentionally.
But let me set your mind at ease. I left nothing out of my description which, if added back in, would help you figure out how I did it.
Still, I will philosophize a bit, with a couple of details added for your benefit.
The first time I did it (the word was "Radio") was for my daughter in my home. Family is the hardest to fool and to do this kind of thing for because they know you and they know you're not really magical so they do everything they can to trip you up. Plus, since you've tried a million things on them in the past they know what to look for. One son of mine is not a magician at all (though he has done some simple mentalist feat himself based on what he learned watching me; and even with the simple tricks he has people swearing he's legit). This son is now a sharp-eyed skeptic who can spot cold readings and cons a mile off, far better than you, I wager, and he would never claim to know every trick.
After that first time, the people I did it with were people I had just met, though not just met that very instant. Rather, I had met them that evening in a social setting. I felt confident in my method for two reasons: (1) Doing the effect for my daughter had worked, and (2) I won't tell you this reason except as it is included in the next paragraph:
When you talk to professional magicians, and even more so to professional mentalists, a phrase that will occasionally come up is "The Real Work." By this they mean the secret to actual success both for a specific effect and for the show and field in general. Master card magicians, even when they are already at the top of their field, will spend hours a day practicing with cards. When they watch television they will have a deck of cards in their hands idly running through a hundred different sleights or a dozen false shuffles or two dozen card controls. Have you seen Penn & Teller do their Plastic Cups & Balls? It is a thing of beauty. I guarantee that Teller ran through the technical aspects of that trick for a thousand hours before he dared present it the first time to an audience. Mentalists who use props will spend the same thousand hours working with their equipment before daring to put it in front of some one.
Yet none of those thousands of hours of necessary practice represent the real work. The Real Work is in the set-up and the control. Not something physical, not something quantifiable, but simply the performer's ability to manage the situation and the spectator, to build the audience's desire for him to succeed and not to fail, to know that this person and not that person is more suited for this type of effect, to know that saying "and" instead of "but" in an apparently off-hand sentence will double the odds that the volunteer will pick this card and not that card.
You didn't go to John Edward's performance wanting him to fail; you went wanting him to succeed. You did half his work for him. You may have retained some doubt at first, but as soon as he threw a line in the form of "an ST sound" into your group, you were hooked and made sure you were first to grab the rope. By that time it didn't matter if you had answered no to his question about the refrigerator because you wrapped that rope around both wrists and were begging him to reel you in. If you had said "no" he would have tried something else (actually, about one different something per second if I recall correctly) until you latched on to it or someone else in your group latched on to it. The fact that you answered "yes" is meaningless in regard to the method; he was prepared for "no," as well.
Talk to a hundred professional magicians (or even amateurs like me) and 95 of them will tell you about the miracles they have performed, unplanned. I've got the same one that at least three others I know have: I was doing a card trick that was planned as basically a simple pick-a-card-and-I'll-find-it effect, but after the person shuffled I dealt off the first four cards from the top of the deck: all four Aces. Ta Da! A Miracle! An Impossible Miracle! Of course I played it as if that were the effect all along although in reality I was more surprised than he was.
You got taken, Robin, not because you're not as smart as we are, but because you wanted to be taken and because John Edward is good enough to do it. The fact you think you are unfoolable makes it all the more easy for him.
ETA: As an example of what I mean by "variations on all the tricks," I will point out the principle behind Bryn Reynolds' method of discerning which hand holds a small object is exactly the same principle as I use in predicting which state quarter someone will choose. In practice, they do not look remotely alike, and even I did not realize they are the same principle until a long time after reading Bryn's method, but they are.
There are actually very few new methods that ever arise, but there are thousands of variations on the same old ones.
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tsig
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Robin earlier you said the the reason for life was to advance spiritually that would mean that this whole universe and everything in it including this forum and your dad was created for the purpose of teaching you spiritual truths. IOW we're all just bit players in your classroom.
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ExMinister
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Sylvia Browne criticized other psychics all the time.
Can you PLEASE, then, explain how Garrette et al worked all of those tricks in his post from yesterday?
Because I am dying to know and the magicians and mentalists are under a code of honor not to tell.
If you can't, then you don't know all the tricks, and neither do I, and for the sake of not being duped by mediums who know these tricks, it's safer to admit it than not.
ExMinister
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Thanks, Garrette, for another interesting post.
As I read it, it strikes me that JE and others who have made it as far as he has HAVE been practicing countless hours, just like Penn & Teller.
As I read it, it strikes me that JE and others who have made it as far as he has HAVE been practicing countless hours, just like Penn & Teller.
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
Great post, Garrette.