Interesting JE Hits....

[CFLarsen]

We believe that the frequency with which these hits are accurate, or meaningful to the sitter, would prove to be consistently higher than the frequency that a cold-reader might attain.

It makes absolutely no sense to talk about "frequency", when nobody - not even you - have any idea how often hits occur.

Establish that first, neo. Then, we can talk about what a cold-reader needs to be able to copy.

 

[neofight]

I am. Test me, neo. How do you suggest we approach this? You can open a new thread for this.

Really? Will you be in New York in September? After the book-signing, you can meet us all across the street for some adult beverages, and give it your best shot. ......neo

 

[renata]

It makes absolutely no sense to talk about "frequency", when nobody - not even you - have any idea how often hits occur.

Establish that first, neo. Then, we can talk about what a cold-reader needs to be able to copy.

Well, there is such a frequency- check the LKL transcripts I posted

It will be a lot of work, but I think it will be worthwhile to tally guesses, hits and misses and comment on the technique. To date, this is the only unedited sample of his performance.

 

[arcticpenguin]

I've seen JE do readings for hours straight, and pass on some really meaningful information to the sitters.

How sad that you don't have any unedited transcripts.

 

[GroundStrength]

I have been doing quite a bit of cold reading lately and I always open up with a bit of psychometry (take a ring or other item) then say

"I feel that there is an accident involving water in your past'"

The sitter always fits this prediction to themselves and then later stretches it to something like, "He must be psychic otherwise, How did he know I was in a boating accident"

These hits are "interesting" if by interesting you mean Wild guesses that the sitter stretches to fit themselves.

The chalice is a two way out symbol. (Claus, sorry about not getting you the paper yet, my wife has take very ill) . In my experience of late people get anrgy with me when I dispel their belief that I am psychic.

I'm going to have to try the "chalice" tonight.

 

[CFLarsen]

Really? Will you be in New York in September? After the book-signing, you can meet us all across the street for some adult beverages, and give it your best shot. ......neo

Please open a new thread, so we can discuss this.

 

[Lord Kenneth]

Oh my goodness! Asking an elderly woman if she has every cut down a tree! If she hadn't (said no), JE could have just asked if she had every had a tree cut down (didn't mean she did it herself).

Gee, it's a good thing the spirits are keeping track of who cuts down trees!

 

[Lord Kenneth]

This was the next part with these same two sitters.



What interested me about this was that a chalice and a kiddush cup are basically the same thing. JE was shown a Roman Catholic image to pass on to two Jewish sitters, with neither of them obviously being very familiar with the other's cultural frame of reference.

The kiddush cup with the engraved name of the deceased turned out to be a good validation for them.

Is that rare or highly unlikely for Jews to do?

 

[Starrman]

Yes. Just like the *mediumship* demonstration done by Ian Rowland on ABC's Primetime Halloween Special that impressed so many of you skeptics, except so much better than that measley 90 seconds of heavily edited tape.

You were referring to the 'Chalice' reading, which is from JE's taped and edited TV show. I brought up an example of another taped and edited TV show that showed a cold reader doing the same thing.

Why is the chalice reading "how John will get a certain symbol, the chalice, which is within his frame of reference, being a Catholic, and the sitter then can translate that into what it means for them." But Rowland's reading so easily and sarcastically dismissed?

 

[voidx]

Posted by Neo:

We believe that the frequency with which these hits are accurate, or meaningful to the sitter, would prove to be consistently higher than the frequency that a cold-reader might attain.

Ok let's clarify. In the thread regarding michael shermers cold reading adventure. I also posed the question of why on LKL and other talk shows, in which these mediums have less control of their environment, yet quite consistently show poor performances, should be a rather sizable dent in their credibility. I was given the same excuse of poor audio quality, hurried and frenzied pace, etc. etc. to account for JE's poor performance. So I assume from this that it is being said that JE must have certain conditions in order to perform well and use his talent. Unfortunately it can be put just as valid, that when he cannot control his environment, his performance suffers. I still find this extremely telling.

Now the other thing that needs clarifying. Neo, you say here that the consistency being high is very important, and that itself is still open to debate, but in the other thread Clancie also stated that her belief in JE came from the idea that his hits were not like cold-reading. So I see a contradiction here. The readings listed here as examples are very easily demonstrable as cold-reading, one should not be able to deny that. Consistency, plus a charateristic in his hits that differentiates them from cold-reading would have to seem to be you're criteria for JE validation. Agreed?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Lord Kenneth said:

Gee, it's a good thing the spirits are keeping track of who cuts down trees!

And you thought we have big databases.

By the way, while we're figuring out the probabilities for all these things, let's not forget the probability of a good hit by coincidence. That should be easy to calculate, no?

~~ Paul

 

[Thanz]

Claus -

Is it any wonder that Clancie finds you so annoying? She starts a thread that has the chance to be very interestign and informative, and you jump on her the first chance you get. I don't think that she was claiming that this reading proves anything about JE - just that it was the kind of hits that she finds interesting. Given that it is these hits that make her think there may be something to mediumship, I am very interested in what they are. Your list of reasons why we need to dismiss the reading is nothing more than bullying on your part.

Clancie,

We have to dismiss this reading, for the following reasons:

• This is not a reading: There is no spirit communication - we don't know if "grandpa" is dead or alive.
  According to you, with no spirit communication, it isn't a reading.
  (You used this excuse to dismiss Neill's reading, so why not this one?)

• 
  I think this is covered in the introduction. Besides, as you note in your second objection, it is not the whole transcript.
  
  Anyway, who is Neill?
  
  

  [*]This is not the whole reading.
  According to you, it has to be the whole reading.
  (You used this excuse with Ian Rowland's cold-reading example, so why not this one?)

  Apples and oranges. There is a difference between comparing readings and comparing hits.
  
  

  [*]There were no men among the sitters.
  According to you, there has to be men, otherwise this is a serious problem.
  (You used this excuse with Shermer's cold-reading example, so why not this one?)

  Again, apples and oranges. Shermer did five different readings with different props, all on women. One reading is not the same as five. Again, irrelevant to a discussion of hits.
  
  

  [*]This is a transcript.
  According to you, we cannot trust transcripts.
  (You used this excuse to deny us a transcript of your own reading with Brian Hurst, so why not this one?)

Give me a break. She doesn't want to post her reading with Hurst - big deal. It has personal information in it. If she altered it, it wouldn't be a transcript, would it?

These are all your reasons for not accepting a reading. Would you care to comment on why we should view this reading any different?

Way to eliminate all context, Claus. Also, she is not asking you to accept the reading for anything. She is merely explaining the sort of hits that impress her.

Also:

• We don't know when the tree-felling happened. It could have happened in her early years, when she was stronger.
• Cutting down a tree is hardly "unique", even for a woman.
• We have to question the validity of the "chalice/kiddush cup w/engraving", because the elderly woman clearly remembers she has a cup, but not that it was engraved.
• We also have to ask if either of the sitters wore any Jewish jewelry, e.g. a David's star. This would make the whole "hit" highly questionable.

Finally, something worthwhile - an analysis of the "hits" themselves with some possible mundane explanations. However, the third point is incorrect - it was validated in the post reading interview.

Now, why couldn't you have just posted this without the attack in the first half? You know, discuss the actual substance?

 

[CFLarsen]

Thanz,

I don't see analyzing a transcript as "annoying", "jumping" on someone, "bullying" or as an "attack". I see it as a skeptical approach to a paranormal claim. As do many others, so it seems.

If you find a skeptical approach "bullying", then so be it. This is a skeptical board, and claims are dealt with in a skeptical manner. Curiously enough, I don't see you complaining about other skeptics on this thread. Do you have a personal problem with me? If so, please take it to another thread.

Neil (it should have been "Neil", not "Neill", my bad) is a cold-reader who once posted a cold-reading transcript on TVTalkshows. I challenged Clancie to see if she could point out what was different from a cold-reading transcript and a JE-transcript. She could not. All her points were invalid.

Although I appreciate your feedback, I nonetheless find it most appropriate to let Clancie have a chance to reply first. It is a transcript of her choice, and there have been many good posts about it.

 

[arcticpenguin]

Claus -

Is it any wonder that Clancie finds you so annoying? She starts a thread that has the chance to be very interestign and informative, and you jump on her the first chance you get. I don't think that she was claiming that this reading proves anything about JE - just that it was the kind of hits that she finds interesting. Given that it is these hits that make her think there may be something to mediumship, I am very interested in what they are. Your list of reasons why we need to dismiss the reading is nothing more than bullying on your part.

As Claus points out, both Clancie and Neo discount cold readings for a variety of reasons, but do not discount "medium" readings for the very same reasons. If you finish this entire thread you will notice several occasions of this. If Clancie has been doing this in the past (I haven't been followoing all the related threads), then it is relevant. If it is unpleasant for Clancie, I see that as her own fault for being inconsistent.

 

[dingler44]

We believe that the frequency with which these hits are accurate, or meaningful to the sitter, would prove to be consistently higher than the frequency that a cold-reader might attain.

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any cold-readers who are interested in putting this theory to the test. ......neo

edited to remove everything - someone else had an almost identical post already! doh!

Starrman said

Why can't this be explaied as JE being the BEST cold reader out there? Michael Jordan's lifetime statistics are much better than most basketball players, but they are all STILL playing basketball.

I even used the Michael Jordan analogy too! This is quite a coincidence Starrman... are you sure you didn't communicate this idea to the spirit world and then somehow it was relayed to a spirit in my office who then mischievously planted the idea in my brain?

 

[Thanz]

Claus (and AP) -
Your analysis of the actual reading I liked. The various reasons why we should ignore it I didn't. I don't think that it was posted as proof that JE is a medium - rather, it was posted as an example of the hits that make Clancie think he may be a medium. See the difference?

Clancie is asked frequently why she thinks JE may be a medium. Her normal answer has to do with hits and special hits, and usually incorporates something to the effect that cold readers don't get the same frequency/quality of hits as JE.

I saw this thread as an opportunity to get at the first part of Clancie's thinking - what is so special about the hits that JE gets? I thought it would be good to analyze the hits themselves, to see if they really are special or mundane. The points in the first part of your post aren't really relevant to this. They are only relevant when we get to part 2 - comparing to cold reading transcripts.

I'd like to be able to focus on the first part. And no, you weren't the only one, but I did see you as the worst offender.

 

[arcticpenguin]

About the hits: I think taking them out of context has almost no value. It may tell us something about Clancie's thought processes, but it tells us nothing about JE's 'mediumship'. It is cherry-picking. It is counting the hits and forgetting the misses. Since the conditions were uncontrolled and the results edited, they should be assigned no value whatsoever.

 

[Pyrrho]

About the hits: I think taking them out of context has almost no value. It may tell us something about Clancie's thought processes, but it tells us nothing about JE's 'mediumship'. It is cherry-picking. It is counting the hits and forgetting the misses. Since the conditions were uncontrolled and the results edited, they should be assigned no value whatsoever.

That, and they're completely within the possibilities of cold reading.

 

[eli54]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JE: Did someone work with tools?
(I'm obviously thinking, "Nothing special there.")

Elderly woman: Yes, he did.

JE (to elderly woman): And did you...(puzzled look on his face)....cut down a tree?

The daughter turns to her mother with a bemused smile, like, "What a silly thing for him to say!"

Elderly woman: Yes.

Daughter looks at her, totally surprised.

JE: I mean, did you cut down a tree. That you did it yourself. Not that you hired someone to cut it down. Because that's what I'm getting, that you did it yourself.

Elderly woman: (getting a little impatient). Yes. I couldn't afford to hire someone so I just went out and cut it down myself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did Grandpa's passing have anything to do with a tree falling on him?

 

[thaiboxerken]

The only interesting hits I would find in any medium would be ones that win the JREF or CSICOP tests.