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Montague Keen

Originally Posted by neofight :
I do seem to remember that happening, but I forget some of the details

Originally Posted by neofight :
and my memory is just fine.


Claus, for once in your life could you just try not to be such a dickhead? I should really cross-post this over on my "Appeal to Honest Skeptics" thread.

Obviously, there is a huge difference between how one remembers hearing or reading a brief post about a conflict involving strangers, in which you yourself were not involved, and a personal, meaningful experience, which you discussed immediately afterwards and then wrote about in great detail so as to have it burned forever in your memory. Cretin!

Besides, with regard to Jeff's JE story, I maintain that I got the gist of the story right. Someone got a convincing reading from JE, Jeff was asked to intervene, he did, either directly or indirectly, and the woman was influenced by what Jeff said. I don't really care who Jeff's friend was, what anyone's relationship was to one another, or if he spoke directly to the woman or not. It simply isn't relevant.
 
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Claus, for once in your life could you just try not to be such a dickhead? I should really cross-post this over on my "Appeal to Honest Skeptics" thread.

Please do. I hope you have the decency to actually participate in a discussion, instead of merely posting and running away.

Obviously, there is a huge difference between how one remembers hearing or reading a brief post about a conflict involving strangers, in which you yourself were not involved, and a personal, meaningful experience, which you discussed immediately afterwards and then wrote about in great detail so as to have it burned forever in your memory. Cretin!

If you really want people to see for themselves how a full-blown believer such as yourself are, do go ahead.
 
And it's very nice to see you again, Mark. :) Hope you were not too badly affected by Katrina?

Hiya Neo! Good to see you again too.

We were inconvenienced by Katrina, but nothing to the degree of so many others. My wife, myself and our cat are now living happily in Las Cruces, NM. This was a decision made prior to Katrina, but the full transition was significantly delayed because of it (long story).

It's a real pleasure to see you and RC, Jeff Corey, Luke and Claus all together in one thread again. Hope you and yours are well.

mark
 
As I've explained, I was there early, and Bill called me on my cell and asked if I could save him two seats, which I was glad to do. Then JE picked him out of the audience and gave him his reading, the second half of which definitely applied to me, not to him.

What is the exact process you went through to get tickets for the show?

I've been to a few tv shows and always had to call ahead of time and reserve tickets and give my name and address. IIRC, the procedure is similar for the JE show. A person reserves tickets ahead of time for themselves and up to 3 or 4 friends. So, therefore, the names and addresses of at least 20 percent of the audience are known to the staff ahead of time.

ETA: This came up on tvtalkshows before and I spent a few bucks out of my pocket to show just how much info you can get on someone on Lexis-Nexis just knowing their name and town.
 
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Hey, Luke! Well, since even every believer acknowledges that there are plenty of fakes out there who scam the public, you could very well have been right about the person your mom went to.

<snip>

No doubt, some are. I notice you didn't use the word "some" to qualify your comment the way I did. Very "black and white" of you. ;)

I combined these two comments together because I have formed a black and white opinion of psychics. When it comes to psychics, I am no longer a skeptic. I am a hardcore non-believer. I am of the opinion there are only two kinds of psychics, those who are eyes wide open frauds, and those who are self-deluded. They are all fakes, some of them know they are fake, the rest don't realize it.

Yeah, it's a coldblooded opinion, I know. But it wasn't one I reached without a lot of examination.

As for those who believe in psychics, you have to want to believe it is real to even go to a psychic. And that is what psychics exploit.

I've met and known a number of self-professed prophets and every last one of them struck me as below average in intelligence. Dumb as a bag of hammers. The last one was a shop owner who announced her prophetic gifts to the whole town. She rented a space in the same building where I work. She was always coming over asking questions like, "What is the minimum wage?" and, "What's the address of this building?" I kid you not. And yet people still believed she was a prophet. She had people fooled who were much smarter than her. And the only way that is possible is that the victim has to want it to be real, as every con man knows.

Sorry. I know this is harsh. But I just spent a lot of time in KellyJ's topic about psychics and how they prey on the families and friends of missing children and did more research into the area than was healthy for me. My anger meter was pegged for weeks, and is still in the red.

God help any psychic who ever says in my presence she has assisted the police in a missing person case.
 
Hey, Luke! Well, since even every believer acknowledges that there are plenty of fakes out there who scam the public, you could very well have been right about the person your mom went to.

If I avoid Ponzi scheme salesmen, but still gamble on three card monte, that does not make me a smart shopper.
 
I've met and known a number of self-professed prophets and every last one of them struck me as below average in intelligence. Dumb as a bag of hammers. The last one was a shop owner who announced her prophetic gifts to the whole town. She rented a space in the same building where I work. She was always coming over asking questions like, "What is the minimum wage?" and, "What's the address of this building?" I kid you not. And yet people still believed she was a prophet. She had people fooled who were much smarter than her. And the only way that is possible is that the victim has to want it to be real, as every con man knows.

Sorry. I know this is harsh. But I just spent a lot of time in KellyJ's topic about psychics and how they prey on the families and friends of missing children and did more research into the area than was healthy for me. My anger meter was pegged for weeks, and is still in the red.

God help any psychic who ever says in my presence she has assisted the police in a missing person case.

Let's not forget that John Edward is one of those psychics.
 
It's a real pleasure to see you and RC, Jeff Corey, Luke and Claus all together in one thread again. Hope you and yours are well.

mark

Great to see you as well, Mark! I didn't know you were in NM.
 
OK, OK.

Now that the warm, fuzzy welcomes to all parties have been extended, can we get down to business?

Sorry for being such a spoilsport, but there are people in grief being exploited by these frauds...
 
Hiya Neo! Good to see you again too.

We were inconvenienced by Katrina, but nothing to the degree of so many others. My wife, myself and our cat are now living happily in Las Cruces, NM. This was a decision made prior to Katrina, but the full transition was significantly delayed because of it (long story).

It's a real pleasure to see you and RC, Jeff Corey, Luke and Claus all together in one thread again. Hope you and yours are well.

mark

Glad to hear all is well with you, Mark! I hear New Mexico is a beautiful state. Best of luck in your new home. As far as posting here again, I'm really just visiting for a bit. I think we're all pretty well entrenched in our respective beliefs by now, and we've debated this subject to death. Take care! Regards, Jackie
 
What is the exact process you went through to get tickets for the show?

I've been to a few tv shows and always had to call ahead of time and reserve tickets and give my name and address. IIRC, the procedure is similar for the JE show. A person reserves tickets ahead of time for themselves and up to 3 or 4 friends. So, therefore, the names and addresses of at least 20 percent of the audience are known to the staff ahead of time.

ETA: This came up on tvtalkshows before and I spent a few bucks out of my pocket to show just how much info you can get on someone on Lexis-Nexis just knowing their name and town.

I fully understand that, Luke. BTW, this was not a taping of a tv show that I went to. It was a JE seminar held in the Philadelphia Marriott Hotel, and was attended by over 2,000 people, random seating. We paid for our tickets with a credit card, through Telecharge or something. So even if somehow John Edward managed to learn the names of the people attending the seminar, he had no possible way to know in which seats these people ended up.

As it happened, atmytv's reading was the very last reading of the day. As John was walking back to center stage, he suddenly stopped, faced the audience again, and pointed directly to atmytv, who was sitting somewhere about the 15th row. He said that he believed he was with the man with the white shirt and the glasses, (Bill, aka atmytv) and proceeded to give him his reading.

As I've explained, Bill and his wife could only relate and respond to the first half of what JE said, after which Bill apologized and told JE that the reading no longer made any sense to him. That is, everything after John said, "I have a Tom coming through in relation to a nine pound baby", was not for Bill, but for my husband and I.

We were not sitting next to Bill, and we were not quick enough to respond and acknowledge that what JE was saying made perfect sense to us. Without a mic it was difficult to get JE's attention, and Bill didn't know me well enough to recognize that the specific names JE gave out were meant for me. At that point, since Bill couldn't validate any more of the reading, JE moved on, and since it was time for the Q & A part of the event, several people had their hands up besides myself.
 
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I combined these two comments together because I have formed a black and white opinion of psychics. When it comes to psychics, I am no longer a skeptic. I am a hardcore non-believer. I am of the opinion there are only two kinds of psychics, those who are eyes wide open frauds, and those who are self-deluded. They are all fakes, some of them know they are fake, the rest don't realize it.

Yeah, it's a coldblooded opinion, I know. But it wasn't one I reached without a lot of examination.

And at least you come right out and say it like it is, Luke. I appreciate your honesty.

As for those who believe in psychics, you have to want to believe it is real to even go to a psychic. And that is what psychics exploit.

Well, since I do believe that psychic mediumship is real, I would say that is what "fakes" exploit. We can agree to disagree on this one. I don't think you give people like myself enough credit though. At the time I began looking into mediumship, I was motivated not by grief or a need to believe anything, but simply curiosity for a subject that I found intriguing. This was not something in which I had any emotional investment whatsoever.

Sorry. I know this is harsh. But I just spent a lot of time in KellyJ's topic about psychics and how they prey on the families and friends of missing children and did more research into the area than was healthy for me. My anger meter was pegged for weeks, and is still in the red.

God help any psychic who ever says in my presence she has assisted the police in a missing person case.

I very much doubt that a real psychic (my characterization) who may have actually done just that would have any occasion whatsoever to bring it up to anyone in casual conversation. You skeptics don't have a corner on the "outrage" market when it comes to how a believer would look upon a heartless, ruthless con who would attempt to exploit someone who is dealing with something as heartbreaking as a missing child or other family member.

If I had the ability to get psychic impressions, and I was able to assist the police in finding a missing person, or God forbid, recover the body for the family, I would quietly develop a relationship with someone on the police force and pass on to them any impressions I may get that might lead to closure for the family. I would never try to contact the family directly, or appear uninvited at their home looking for them to "hire" me. And you don't have to believe this, but I do believe there are such people who do work with law enforcement in this way.

Edited to insert the words "but I do believe". ;)
 
neofight said:
As I've explained, Bill and his wife could only relate and respond to the first half of what JE said, after which Bill apologized and told JE that the reading no long made any sense to him. That is, everything after John said, "I have a Tom coming through in relation to a nine pound baby", was not for Bill, but for my husband and I.

John Edward would certainly seem to have it easy if any particular reading is allowed to be accurate for any one of the 2000 people at the seminar, even though he's adressing someone else entirely at the time.
 

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