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Proof of Life After Death!!

jiggeryqua said:
Well, we're in a thread about a psychic who routinely claims she knows where the body is and who the murderer is. Of course, she's got a 100% track record of being utterly wrong, but that's beside the point. Not only do some psychics get lucky guesses on bodies and murderers, hardly anybody sees the gorilla. But it is still there.
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If I understand you correctly you seem to be saying that because people don’t and can’t pick up all information all the time that’s why “psychics” never pick up any useful and helpful information. Not everyone misses the Gorilla (I didn’t) but you think it’s possible all “psychics” miss all the useful and helpful information all the time?
 
ynot said:
If I understand you correctly you seem to be saying that because people don’t and can’t pick up all information all the time that’s why “psychics” never pick up any useful and helpful information. Not everyone misses the Gorilla (I didn’t) but you think it’s possible all “psychics” miss all the useful and helpful information all the time?
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<sigh>

To say that something is not a convincing argument against is not, as I thought I over-stressed, an argument for. If I fail your shibboleth, feel free to consign me to your skeptic version of hell.
 
Resume said:
As a fellow poet, I quite enjoy the Shakespeare. And as Hamlet proposes here, there is more than meets the eye in this rotten state of Denmark, where a rather odious collection of cold readers pose as communicators with the dead.
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I'm officially worried about you.
 
jiggeryqua said:
You've not convinced me, certainly (and it didn't help to see JE so blatently play tired old 'psychic' games in that clip). But I am still interested in his more remarkable 'hits' and I don't feel any need to establish my credentials here by reciting any kind of Skeptics' Creed.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...
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I think you have too much credence about the supposed "uuu" hits. Do we have a transcript for any of the readings in which they supposedly occurred? If not, My guess is that they're the result of the psychic arriving, with the mark's help, at something specific over a period of questioning, but the person who related them forgot about the questioning and just remembered "he knew about the nickname."

It would be impossible to come up with reasonable alternate explainations for all of them, but the Miss Piggy one, when I heard that a plausibe alternate explanation occurred to me immediately:

What if what happened was more like this: J E is talking to a woman with a Hispanic accent. He throws out something like "she had a nickname based on her weight" (it could have been as vague as "she used to be called something because of her weight" which would have included insults, too, actually... But let's go with what I've got.)
The woman gasps, and says, "Yes, we used to call her Miss Piggy!"

Sounds awesome, until you know that Gordita is a super common nickname for chubby little girls in Mexico, and possibly other Latin American cultures as well.

And that's not even using the even more vague remark, which could mean insults, or could refer to underweight instead of overweight.

It's impossible to do this for every example, of course, but I don't see why you'd give those examples any weight at all without a recorded instance of such a "uuu." Even then there are other possible explanations, like hot reading, but at least if it were recorded we would know it wasn't as simple as "altered by memory to be more awesome than it actually was."
 
elipse said:
I think you have too much credence about the supposed "uuu" hits. Do we have a transcript for any of the readings in which they supposedly occurred? If not, My guess is that they're the result of the psychic arriving, with the mark's help, at something specific over a period of questioning, but the person who related them forgot about the questioning and just remembered "he knew about the nickname."

It would be impossible to come up with reasonable alternate explainations for all of them, but the Miss Piggy one, when I heard that a plausibe alternate explanation occurred to me immediately:

What if what happened was more like this: J E is talking to a woman with a Hispanic accent. He throws out something like "she had a nickname based on her weight" (it could have been as vague as "she used to be called something because of her weight" which would have included insults, too, actually... But let's go with what I've got.)
The woman gasps, and says, "Yes, we used to call her Miss Piggy!"

Sounds awesome, until you know that Gordita is a super common nickname for chubby little girls in Mexico, and possibly other Latin American cultures as well.

And that's not even using the even more vague remark, which could mean insults, or could refer to underweight instead of overweight.

It's impossible to do this for every example, of course, but I don't see why you'd give those examples any weight at all without a recorded instance of such a "uuu." Even then there are other possible explanations, like hot reading, but at least if it were recorded we would know it wasn't as simple as "altered by memory to be more awesome than it actually was."
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Some readings were aired on TV. Maybe all, but I'm not sure offhand.

Your next response is that they were edited.

But, not many bards would drink milk straight from a cow.
 
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Robin1 said:
Some readings were aired on TV. Maybe all, but I'm not sure offhand.

Your next response is that they were edited.

But, not many bards would drink milk straight from a cow.
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What? Is this a joke carried over from another thread?

If they are edited, then, yeah, they are worthless in establishing whether the seeming "uuu" hits were, in fact, any different from regular old fishing around and/or restating the mark's answers.
 
pakeha said:
The essential Achilles' heel of the victims is precisely that-the desire to believe the scam is real.
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Seems they don’t mind being scammed for the “greater good” of their emotional rewards.
 
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Nay_Sayer said:
I can see the comparison, Both a gorilla and Sideshow johnny fling crap onto the walls hoping it sticks, Only Johnny is smart enough to charge people to watch it.
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Well, and in the gorilla's case, there isn't anyone gullible to believe it's anything but crap.
 
desertgal said:
Well, and in the gorilla's case, there isn't anyone gullible to believe it's anything but crap.
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Such a classy comment.

You and Nay Sayer are feeling pretty proud of yourselves right now, I'll bet.

I, however, am embarrassed for you.

Both of you.
 
Robin1 said:
Ynot?

I don't really mean that.

I just couldn't resist the joke.

Even when it's on me.
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I don’t see that conning desperate and vulnerable people with lies ad parlour tricks has anything to do with humour.

I’ve often thought however that humour is a very good way of getting messages across and that I might pursue a career as a comic psychic that exaggerates the antics of people that claim to be genuine psychics. I know a few tricks of the “trade” and am quite good at cold reading. I’ve done it few times with friends and they all said they would pay to see such an act. The other day I heard a guy that has done exactly that. He cleverly calls himself a “comedium”. I didn’t hear much of his routine but one line I particularly liked was – “If I was to profit from peoples grief I wouldn’t be any better than a florist”.

I’ve just Googled comedium and see there are quite a few of them out there.
 
ynot said:
I don’t see that conning desperate and vulnerable people with lies ad parlour tricks has anything to do with humour.

I’ve often thought however that humour is a very good way of getting messages across and that I might pursue a career as a comic psychic that exaggerates the antics of people that claim to be genuine psychics. I know a few tricks of the “trade” and am quite good at cold reading. I’ve done it few times with friends and they all said they would pay to see such an act. The other day I heard a guy that has done exactly that. He cleverly calls himself a “comedium”. I didn’t hear much of his routine but one line I particularly liked was – “If I was to profit from peoples grief I wouldn’t be any better than a florist”.

I’ve just Googled comedium and see there are quite a few of them out there.
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I like your idea...in terms of spreading awareness.

Knowledge is power.

But for you, or Randi, or anyone, to convince me you were talking to my deceased loved ones, it would take a heck of a lot more than cold reading.
 
Robin1 said:
I like your idea...in terms of spreading awareness.

Knowledge is power.

But for you, or Randi, or anyone, to convince me you were talking to my deceased loved ones, it would take a heck of a lot more than cold reading.
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It'd take a studio audience, some nice lighting and someone carrying a tooth.
 
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Robin1 said:
I like your idea...in terms of spreading awareness.

Knowledge is power.

But for you, or Randi, or anyone, to convince me you were talking to my deceased loved ones, it would take a heck of a lot more than cold reading.
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Apparently all JE has to do is a couple of basic parlour tricks and you buy the whole package. I’ve completely fooled many otherwise intelligent people many times with "readings" and tricks like spoon bending. Doesn’t work of course if they know I’m a fake to begin with. They’re just as open-mouth-amazed as any of JE’s or SB’s believers. When I reveal that I’m a fake some continue to believe I’m not. When I explain how a trick is done they exclaim – “Oh it’s just a trick” and the fact they had just been completely fooled and thought I was genuine is completely of no interest or relevance to them. I now tell them I’m a fake but never tell them how it’s done. It continually amazes me how easy it is to fool those that are predisposed to believing paranormal beliefs.
 
ynot said:
Seems they don’t mind being scammed for the “greater good” of their emotional rewards.
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I think you're quite right about the emotional rewards.
They render the victims capable of rationalising any flaw in their preferred conman's facade, sometimes til death itself.


ynot said:
... It continually amazes me how easy it is to fool those that are predisposed to believing paranormal beliefs.
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Yes, it is.
That vulnerability makes the cynicism of SB's treatment of Amanda Berry's mum all the more despicable.
 
Robin1 said:
I like your idea...in terms of spreading awareness.

Knowledge is power.

But for you, or Randi, or anyone, to convince me you were talking to my deceased loved ones, it would take a heck of a lot more than cold reading.
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Does a refrigerator qualify? That is pretty cold...
 
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