So could a meteor hitting me in the head right now. But if I said it would, and it did, I would be guessing. If I said it would and it didn't, my guess would have been proven wrong. The default should be skepticism, because otherwise, everyone and their mother would be considered psychic because every single one of us has, at one point or another, made a prediction about the future that cannot possibly be validified.

And if we're going with the 'why the hell not?' line of logic, why do you not believe the people who say it will end in 2012? Or those who say it will never end? Since, according to you, one must have proof someone is wrong before dismissing them.

They list their sources. If you have a problem with those sources, name it. Otherwise, do not be expected to get away with dismissing it simply because it's Wikipedia.

Also, the woman in question was a rather popular author, so it wasn't just some nobody making things up, or an unnamed person who no one would be able to prove even existed.

You have not explained why this is, nor why people who are bullshitting it entirely are as accurate as those who claim to have some sort of gift. I've had my cards read before. And yeah, they were accurate. But someone who had only just met me and knew nothing about me other than what was available at face value would have done just as well. Everyone is confused about something. Everyone has something that they wish would end, and wants something new to begin. Everyone has some part of them they have trouble accepting. Everyone has at least one unhealthy relationship. Tarot reading takes these basic facts and combines them with another, that everyone wants to feel special, validated, and that there is some reason, some order, behind what happens to them, and uses it to fool people into taking vague statements and adding their own bits to form something that surely could have only come from a higher source.

Correctly according to the same New Agers who sell chunks of rock as "spirit crystals" and think sage smoke cures all ills, not according to the creators of the tarot.

Well, that's even better! It's not even a third party interpreting things the way you want to hear them, it's you.

And I never suggested anyone was swapping out cards or anything. I know how it works. Like I said, I've done it. Really, you could do it with blank pieces of paper.

And if it's not about the cards, why are you not fawning over runes? Or bones? Or any of the other innumerable methods of fortune-telling?

That does not in any way answer my question. If it is not mere educated guessing, like what we all do every day of our lives, why is it not more accurate? What, do their third eyes get something in them occasionally? Does the message carried on the aether hit turbulence? If they are foreseeing the future, they should be right a majority of the time. Since they're not, they're either lying, or really getting some sort of "message" and mindlessly spitting it out, hoping it's right. And sometimes, yeah, it is. But like they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day -- make enough out-there predictions, and one of them is bound to be true. And their records are generally not any better than if they had done exactly that.

You know what else has supposedly cured cancer? Prayer. Pilgrimages. Donating time and money to the less fortunate. Herbal concoctions. Miracle performers. Religious visions. Yoga. Meditation. Dancing. Fulfilling lifelong dreams. Self-flagellation. Bloodletting. A change of diet that, while healthy, has no obvious connection to cancer.

The key is not the method. The key is mind over matter. Again, Browne did not think this up herself, it's an idea that has been around nearly as long as humans have. Buddhism and Hinduism beat her to the punch by a few thousand years. There does seem to be something to it, it's true, but it seems to be entirely natural and non-psychic.

And then, of course, you must realize that correlation does not equal causation. People survive cancer. It's happening more and more these days. When someone becomes ill or injured, her body does not simply give up and leave it to fate, it actively tries to repair itself, often succeeding. It's entirely possible that she would have recovered had she simply sat around wishing for death, or sought conventional treatments. And indeed, there's not really anything to say that's not exactly what happened. People who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses generally want to get better and, you know, not die. But no one talks about the 99.9% of cases where they die anyway, or all the cases where they don't do anything extraordinary and survive, and instead focuses on the .01% where they happened to be doing something they thought would save them and happened to survive.

Also, I am a witch. Willing things to happen is the basis for the entirety of my work. I hardly think I need you or Mrs. Browne lecturing me on it.

If you wern't looking for a lecture, then why come to this thread? I'm sure there are alot of people who do not believe in being a 'Witch', myself included. I am in no way trying to convince you of what I believe in nor am I trying to insult your work. So, I am going to leave it as you will believe what you want to believe and that is that. I have stated what I believe to be true, and you have aswell. There is no harm in that and you are not wrong for you belief as I am not for mine. I think we took it a little to far and are challenging eachother. I simply made this thread for people who have experienced being psychic or have had an encounter with a psychic and want to tell their story or state what they believe in. Sylvia may or may not be the 'All Powerful' psychic that knows all. Who are we to know for sure though that she is wrong about the world ending in 95 years? Hell, we don't know when it will end. Again, it all come down to what we believe in. I don't think there are any more facts to support it. Especially not from a well known author on Wikepedia. I'm not saying she is a liar, but she is human and I'm sure she makes a good load of money for posting about a person. Just like tabloids do.

I believe in psychics capabilities because of various experiences and encounters in my life. I worked in a new age healing centre in my gap year and worked alongside mediums, rekei masters, crystal healers, tarot card readers, druids ect. Some of them in my opinion were genuine while others were bad and some were just plain old charlatans. You could tell how good a person was by the detail of their reading. Fakers would shot gun and use ambiguous statements while the bad would just get it wrong but the good ones would give out very specific details, names, dates, incidents ect. Although spirituality is a mega mooing cash cow, some of the best people I worked with did not charge for their services. They believed that healing and readings shouldn’t be mutually exclusive to the rich.
I read the tarot cards- I started reading them when I was eleven after watching Escaflowne- an anime with a girl who reads tarot cards- I was very deep eleven year old lol. When I was at uni I used to read them at parties and for people for money- I was a very poor student. But that was the only time I ever charged. I enjoy reading them and I do believe in them.
Other than divination when I was a nurse there was one unit I worked on where a medium and an exorcist were called out because of the strange things that were going on in the ward. Which was weird because it was brand new but loads of odd things happened like old coins falling out of thin air. Really scary shit.
Any whoo psychics and paranormal is a controversial subject so I'm sure this will be an interesting thread that will bring on the drama- and i heart drama....

Yes. This thread will bring on the drama. LOL. But that's ok (: As long as it itsn't hurtful or challenging another's belief. I read tarot cards to. I find them very effective and intruiging. Alot of people look at them as a party game, yet others look at them as a peek into the future. Either way they seem to work well. I do tarot card readings aswell. I have done most of them on myself. The people I have done tarot card readings on claim them to be very true when I talk to them later in life. I never charge because I work for my dad and I make pretty good money with him. LOL. My grandmother (who does tarot cards and motivational meetings) doesn't charge either ^.^ OOO! Coins! It has been known that when a loved one or a spirit wants to leave a little something for someone, they will place coins in different places. It might be a myth, but hey. All the fun is in believing (:

Because this is a discussions forum, not a lecture forum. I assumed you wanted a discussion, not a bunch of people stroking your ego.

Then why did you create a thread entitled "Psychics, Real or Fake?", stick it in the Debates forum originally, and then spend every post trying to prove it's legit?

Also, if someone does not believe in "being a witch", they do not know what they're talking about. Someone claiming to be a witch means that they practice witchcraft. It does not mean they're anything special, it does not mean that what they do works. I respect skepticism, especially of things I am involved in. I do not respect willful ignorance and non-thinking.

Which we should be doing. Refusing to challenge other people on obvious falsehoods is why people like Browne have been able to scam so much money out of so many people, and why halfway legitimate psychics are completely ignored in favour of the more outrageous ones.

Then it's not a discussion, it's a circle jerk.

Considering her track record, yeah, I think we can safely bet on it not ending in 95 years. Actually, if we really look at her track record, it may end in 2012 just because she said it wouldn't.

*facepalm* You didn't actually read it, did you? The author in question was the woman who died. Not just someone who wrote about it. Her loved ones shared her experience to out Browne as a fraud, since $700 is a lot of money to pay to have someone lie to you, especially when the truth is so morbidly ironic.

My ego? What we are doing here is not a discussion. This is a debate. I purposely put in my introduction to this thread "I guess it all comes down to what you believe in" leaving it open for opinion. I am on neither side of a debate, I am simply asking people for their opinions on being psychic which obviously is not debate material which is why the mod moved me.


I never tried to prove it to be true. I stuck it in the debate forum because I knew that there would be people on here that would want to debate about this sort of thing. I just wanted to sit back and watch what people had to say and their opinions on it. It is a sensitive subject, yes. But it is no longer in the debate forum. So I will debate no longer.

So if you do not believe in tarot cards and psychics and Sylvia Browne's readings then I have enough proof to say about you that you do not know what you are talking about? I know very well what witchcraft is. I never said you were anything special (not that you are not, you are very special in your own way, as is everyone else.) I never said that what you do works either. I am absoulutely not ignorant. Never once did I put you down about practicing witchcraft and not once did I say you or your practices were any better or worse then a psychic. Calling me ignorant is going a bit to far.


I am not challenging you because I do not want to hurt you and what you believe in. When it comes to a topic like this one, facts and opinions go hand in hand. It's hard to state a fact about something when it is unknown to everyone, including the someone stating the fact and it is the facts that make another believe what they believe.



Track record, shmack shrecord. As I said a million times, Sylvia could be psychic... or she could not be. It doesn't mean that there are not psychics out there that could predict the end of the world. Heck, maybe their arn't. I didn't make this forum to discuss Sylvia Browne. She was merely an example of a well known psychic. I didn't make this thread about her, I made it about the psychic ability in general.


I skimmed it, yes. If Sylvia Browne did do this, then shame on her. Cancer in unpredictable and Sylvia might not have seen it coming. Especially with something like cancer. It's hard to predict anyone's future. I'm not sticking up for Sylvia because I am not in her brain so I do not know what she saw (if she saw anything) for that women that day, but I do think it is wrong for people to call her a fraud when they are not in her head either.

Yes, and you only want opinions that coincide with your own. That is not a discussion. Also, there is very little that separates a discussion from a debate. Had I wanted to actually debate with you, I would have called you on your argument from ignorance -- that because we don't know for sure something isn't true, it's perfectly okay to believe it is true with no supporting evidence whatsoever -- and dismissed your entire argument as anecdotal.

Really? So all that about your grandmother and the woman surviving cancer weren't trying to prove anything?

Not when you aren't reading a thing I'm saying. I did not claim you "put me down". I said you did not know what you're talking about. As I said before, 'witch' does not in any way have anything to do with whether or not the person in question is successful in what they're doing. A priest is a priest because he fits the definition of a priest. Me not believing his god exists does not make him not a priest. A teacher is called a teacher because she teaches. Whether or not she is successful does not factor into whether or not she is a teacher. As such, you saying you don't believe in "being a witch" is as silly as saying you don't believe in cars. Witches exist as much as chefs do, the only question is whether or not what they do actually works.

The term "psychic", on the other hand, suggests that what they're doing works, and what they're claiming is real. If they are proven to be phony, that's exactly what everyone, including other supposed psychics, will call them. If I say psychics don't exist, then I'm not saying people who call themselves psychics don't exist, I'm saying people who have psychic powers do not exist.

I...have no idea what you're talking about here. No, facts and opinions do not go hand in hand. You can have the opinion that Browne's legitimate all you want, but if the fact is a majority of her predictions turn out to be way off base, your opinion does not hold much water.

Then you shouldn't have brought up someone who is a known fraud as your example of a prominent psychic.

Which, in and of itself, makes her track record very relevant to this discussion. Nowadays, she is the most famous and most trusted "psychic" alive. She is wrong. A LOT. Yet she has the guts to continue making predictions. Why, if she's a fake, should anyone believe all these other "psychics" who apparently have even less faith in their supposed predictions?

Yes, cancer is unpredictable, but so is EVERYTHING PSYCHICS CLAIM TO FORESEE. Earthquakes, natural disasters, the outcomes of contentious trials, terrorist attacks, the perpetrators of unsolved crimes, they're all subjects in which a random guess can be as good as any, and they're all subjects that Browne has made predictions on. I'm not saying she doesn't make educated guesses, and indeed, if that were the case, your argument that cancer is wholly unpredictable would be a very good point to bring up. But supposedly, she (and psychics in general) are not making educated guesses, they are seeing into the future. For someone who can do that, neither cancer nor anything else is unpredictable. That something is unpredictable means that the person in question is not psychic.

I gave you evidence. Provided in my introduction that Sylvia Browne's predictions can be right. I also supported evidence that positve thinking can cure cancer. I never said it could work for everyone. I don't understand why you said I posted no supporting evidence of what I believe.


I gave you evidence of what I believe in. I'm not trying to prove anything to you other then what I believe in IS possible, just as what your stating is possible aswell. I provided the story about my grandmother just to give an example of an experience that happened to me.



I am not saying witches do not exist, I just have my doubts, just as you have your doubts about psychics. That was the point I was trying to get across to you.

Psychics are proven to be wrong, but they are also proven to be right. Again, it all comes down to what you want to beleive in. When you say people who have psychic powers do not exist, it is like me saying that witchcraft does not exist. Psychics practice being psychic. Other times they are born with it. If I were to believe in Witches (which I am open minded enough to consider) I would think that a Witch would have to either practice witchcraft or maybe they are born with it. I do not know alot about Witches like you might, but that is my assumption.


Allow me to explain, what I mean is that the facts is what draws people to have opinions about a person. For example, if it is posted in a magazine about how 'Sylvia Browne is a fraud' people are going to make opinions about her. Remember, though, that it is a fact by experience that Sylvia has gotten a person's fortune right a number of times. Look at the video in my introduction if you havn't already. She had gotten alot of things right there.


I brought her up because she has also been known to be correct about a number of things. She is a good debate discussion. I never said she was a 100% 'correct all the time' psychic, I have said it a number of times an I will say it again if I need to. I posted a video of things she said that were right but also have some details in it that are questionable. Again, a good debate.

She has the guts to continue because she is right A LOT. You are forgetting to add that. Yes, I know she is wrong A LOT. She herself has admited to it. That is why she is the most trusted psychic alive, because she is honest about her abilities. You keep saying she is a fake, how are you so sure with all the things she had gotten right? To your last question: I will say it again, it all comes down to what the individual recieving the reading believes in. There are people out there that claim to be psychic. Usually those kind of psychics do a little thing called 'fishing'. What this is, is when the 'psychic' asks a person obvious questions about their life, such as "You have a great love for someone" then the person answers "Yes, I love my husband Todd" that is when the psychic continues and says "Ah, yes.. I see a name by Todd. He loves you alot to, yes?" the person responds, "Yes, but he has been kind of distant lately." The psychic then takes a guess (lets say the economy is bad) and throws out a "It is because of money troubles." Which is when the person replies "YES!" and they are hooked. Hook, line and sucker. Sylvia Browne MIGHT have done this before, but of all the appearances that I have seen her, she has just come right out with her reading and led it straight to the point without asking little, if any questions at all.


Cancer is very tricky, and you are right, so are natural disasters. Looking at a specific person though, rather then a whole state or country, you would think she would have a better reading if it were a world changing disaster other then cancer for one human being. I'm not saying that specific being is not important, but (if you believe in what Sylvia says, which I am guessing you don't, heh) everyone has a life path. You are put on this earth to learn and to die a certain way. If a human being is supposed to die of cancer, I don't think Sylvia is going to say "Hey, guess what lady.. Your dying in a couple weeks!" Maybe, if you want to throw options out in the field, the women heard wrong and Sylvia said "You have lived a long and happy life." Who knows? Again, I am not sticking up for Sylvia, I am just throwing options out there.

Sylvia did infact predict the Swine Flu, the major hurricane that hit Florida. She did not, however, predict 9/11. Which is where one's opinion about her is left to the maker. She has been wrong, and she has been right. AGAIN, IT IS WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO BELIEVE.

----------

I feel I must correct you on this. Sylvia Browne wouldn't say this because she has said MULTIPLE times (if you have watched her like you said you do, you would know) that Animals are animals and humans are humans. We can not be reincarnated into animals.

Because that's not supporting evidence. Furthermore, I was referring specifically to your statement that because I could not prove the world would not end in 2103, you have every right to accept it as an accurate prediction. That is an argument from ignorance.

That is what giving evidence is. You give evidence to support a point because you are attempting to prove that point. Just as I have been trying to prove a point.

Okay, stop and read my posts, please. You are completely missing the point. As I said before, I am not doubting that people who call themselves psychics exist. I am doubting their power, which is central to their title as "psychics". Witches are simply people who practice witchcraft. It does not matter at all whether or not witchcraft works, they are witches. Unless you are saying that no one really practices witchcraft, you cannot say that witches do not exist.

No, no they aren't. They're proven to have guessed correctly. That says absolutely nothing about whether or not they're really psychic.

No, when you say that witchcraft does not exist, it is like me saying chiropracty does not exist because I don't think it works (not that I don't).

And it is an assumption from ignorance. Psychics are called psychics because they are able to do psychic things. If they cannot, they are not psychics. Witch refers to anyone who practices witchcraft. Witchcraft is separate from any results it may yield. It is, well, a craft. Even if you prove, conclusively, that witchcraft does nothing, the rituals and teachings that make up witchcraft still exist and thus, witchcraft exists.


And that doesn't mean she can actually foretell the future, it means she's gotten lucky. And that's the thing, she makes a ton of predictions. So she would actually have to try in order to not get at least a few things right. If you claim to be able to do something and cannot, yet occasionally manage it out of sheer luck, you are still a fraud. Especially when you make people pay as much for your services as she does.

And I have questioned you on why that is and you have not answered me. Why, if she has any power at all, can she see completely clearly sometimes (so clearly that you refuse to accept the possibility that she was just lucky) and not at all other times? Anyone, absolutely ANYONE could do what she does, whether they thought they were psychic or not. They've even got a computer program that can do what she does, and has thus far had a much higher success rate. If she is off at all, unless you will go further and say that she's either lying when she gets things wrong or is the victim of some sort of psychic sabotage that messes with her abilities. We're (supposedly) not talking about guessing randomly, or taking an educated guess, we're talking about looking into the future, seeing what's going to happen, and then repeating it. There should be no percentage of error.


Except when she lies about it, as she did in the first of my sources when she was caught red-handed saying that she had foreseen that, in the mine disaster, 12 miners would survive and one would die, and then tried to bluff her way out of it when it was reported that the numbers reported by the media had gotten mixed up. She may put a disclaimer before her predictions, but she rarely apologizes for them being wrong. Usually, she doesn't even address them. And that is assuming that she actually is psychic or even thinks she's psychic. Again, she's made a LOT of money off this, so there's a lot of incentive to not admit it if she's pulling everyone's leg.

Which is exactly what I was talking about -- cold-reading. It does not require you to ask questions (though the times I saw her on Montel, she still did the "I'm picking up a [insert letter here], does that mean anything to anyone?" and then running with it), and seems entirely legitimate. But it is based on what I talked about earlier, a few things that are true for most people and them filling in the blanks and making up for inconsistencies in their mind.

But you're kindly ignoring the big issue -- this wasn't a free reading she did as a stunt, this was a reading over the phone, Miss Cleo-style, that was offered to everyone willing to waste the money on it. If she didn't intend to tell the truth, and wasn't certain she knew the truth, she shouldn't have charged so much money or any at all. She charged an ungodly amount of money for a service that she did not end up providing. That is the very definition of a scam artist.

And if you have every right to defend her, I have every right to oppose her. Especially when she's been so cruel to those who are already emotionally vulnerable. She needs to be sued by every person who has ever gotten a false reading from her, both for the money they lost and the emotional damage she did. I would include the people who have altered their plans based on her readings, but they're such sheep that they probably accepted whatever excuse she gave for getting it wrong.

As for the last section you added in, I assure you, I'm not mistaken. It was a bichon frise`, if I remember correctly. I have attempted to find a clip of it, but sadly the only one that even possibly referenced it (a usually pro-Browne Christian site upset at her for suggesting such heresy) had been removed. Granted, the woman somewhat asked for it, as she started out asking her specifically if the dog was her grandfather and Browne may have felt pressured to say yes, but I remember it quite clearly. It was the same episode as when she identified the moth as a ghost, if that helps at all.

Also, for anyone who's interested in actually looking at my sources, here is another:
http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/index.shtml

First of all, let me clear something up for you that I have failed to in my past replies. If you have paid any attention to what Sylvia has said, you would know that she has not predicted the end of the world on 2103, but the end of the human race by a uncurable virus. This seems more possible then the end of the world. Now, does my argument seem ignorant? No. If you look at the viruses that have infected the human race, be it aids, cancer, or the more recent swine flu (that was proven deadly, like any other flu) we have not come out with a cure yet. Hell, we hardly made it for a cure for the swine flu in time. Please don't post things that Sylvia has "said" when you don't know exactly what it was she has said.


Again, I have nothing to prove. If you have paid attention to any of my last posts, I have said over and over that I am only speaking from experience and providing you with evidence that has led me to believe what I believe. I have nothing to prove to you, nor do I expect you to believe what I am saying. I don't see how I am trying to prove a point, when I am not trying to make said point.


How can you possibly say that Psychics do not exist when people have had various problems solved by them. I'm going to use Sylvia Browne as another example here. She worked with the Police for 30 years. Helping them solve cases. I highly doubt that she gave 'lucky guesses' every single case. No effence, but if you believe that all being 'psychic' is, is making educated guesses, then you are very close minded. I'm not trying to be mean at all, so please do not take offence to that.


Guess, guess, guess. Do you have any actual PROOF that it is, infact, a guess? You can't tell me you have never had weird things happen to you. Dejavu? A dream that just so happen to be so vivid it came true the next day, the next week, the next year even? Open your mind. Not everything is just a guess.


I never once said witchcraft does not exist. You read my post wrong. I said that I will be open minded enough to accept that it does exist. Why not? Anything is possible.


Psychics exist because they have been proven to do something, yes. How can you say their ability does not exist? Because you feel they are guessing? That seems like an assumption from ignorance. Are you psychic? Do you know from psychic experience? How are you so sure that they ARE guessing if you have not the experience of the ability? Answer me that.



I don't know how to reply to this other then repeating what I have said multiple times. It seems like your only argument that someone cannot have psychic abilities is because they are making educated guesses and doing research. Yet, you are not psychic so you would not know this for sure. You are simply making guesses yourself. Explain me having a dream that my friend, my sister, and I are hanging out on my back porch. My dad comes out and asks us if we want Pizza or KFC for dinner. My friend says "I vote for pizza." The next day, I am hanging out with my friend and my sister on my back porch when, you guessed it, my dad comes out and asks us if we want KFC or pizza. Instead of my friend saying what she wanted, I said it for her. "Brooke wants Pizza." I said. She looked at me, suprised and asked me how the hell I knew. I told her that I had a dream that she would say that. Psychic. I promise you, on my family and my beloved boyfriend that I DEFFINETELY DID NOT make an educated guess. If that doesn't convince you enough, I had just met the girl. That's right. I had befriended her that day.


I have answered you. SHE IS HUMAN! She has even said herself that she is nothing special. That she makes mistakes. A computer program? Do you have any proof that she uses one?



Have you ever thought that because she does not apologize is because she already has in advance? She has said before on live t.v that she is not 100% correct. Even while I read that I was confused. Again, I adress the psychis 'haters' The person in the middle of all that? Making fun of her? Whoever that was made her seem so much worse.


So your saying that just because there are frauds out there that 'cold read' means that every question a person that claims to have psychic abilities may ask is a fraud themselves? Again, I ask... do you have any proof of this?


How are you so sure she did not provide this service? Are you positive that these people didn't just wanted to post something bad about Sylvia?


Again, it is all what these people want to believe. If they happen to catch her when she is wrong, then to bad for them. They spent their money to go to her. She makes a living by helping people. That is her job. Obviously she has done enough good to win over the hearts of a ton of adoring fans. She has warned people to that she is wrong sometimes, but she leaves it up to them to believe. I personally wouldn't go to her with my money just to get a reading. I think she is a pretty good psychic, but I know she can be wrong and I don't want to take that chance.



As for the last section you added in, I assure you, I'm not mistaken. It was a bichon frise`, if I remember correctly. I have attempted to find a clip of it, but sadly the only one that even possibly referenced it (a usually pro-Browne Christian site upset at her for suggesting such heresy) had been removed. Granted, the woman somewhat asked for it, as she started out asking her specifically if the dog was her grandfather and Browne may have felt pressured to say yes, but I remember it quite clearly. It was the same episode as when she identified the moth as a ghost, if that helps at all.

I find that very strange because she has said numerous times that we cannot reincarnate into animals and animals can't reincarnate into us. Until you supply a video of her saying so, then I cannot believe you.

I have read off this site before. This is why I prefer video proof of her doing such a thing. Anybody can make this stuff up. I'm not saying that she didn't do things like this, but a video is far more believable because ANYONE can type scum up on the internet and call it a fact.

I read into PsiPog.net a couple years back, and found it pretty interesting. I believe some people may be psychic, but I've yet to see proof that actually baffles me.

Slyvia Browne and any other celebrity psychic will be scrutinized by the sceptic community- which isn't a bad thing, James Randi exposed Peter Popoff as being a fraud. Slyvia Browne has made disastrous mistakes one being that of Shawn Hornbeck a young boy who was kidnapped and later found alive after Slyvia told his parents on Montel that Shawn was dead. Which is a really big fuck up. But there have been circumstances when she has been right. So is she lying, guessing, has psychic talents?? Meh? I don't know. There isn't any clear cut way to find out. Randi has constructed the million dollar challenge to test psychic ability but even if you passed it you could still be faking/lucky/psychic. Randi has asked Browne to perform his million dollar challenge and she has always refused. How you interpret that depends on your views of mediums and sceptics. Some folks will say Randi is an evil beardy weirdy that only uses his experiments to disprove real psychic talent. While on the other side of the coin you'll get folks saying Randi is a cool dood debunking frauds and tricksters like Richard Dawkin who is the no.1 original Randi fan boy- which is uber cute >.< Which makes determining psychic ability or non existence of psychic ability a bitch to establish.

Before I begin my response I wish to clarify a few details. I do this as misunderstandings seem to be quite concentrated around exchanges I have with other members here. First and foremost on the question of whether or not psychic abilities are real. Typically this is a question which I tend to avoid myself, as I would consider myself to be a social constructionist. A nice quote which I quite enjoy from Wade Davis reflects my view quite nicely here.

From this position it becomes less relevant to me whether or not psychics are real. But drawing from other schools of thought (such as structural-functionalism) I am interested in the role and function that they serve in society. Now right off the bat my understanding of psychics is very limited. I have simply done read a *tiny* amount of field research into the roles they have served in various cultures. This reading has lead me to the conclusion that in some cultures, much like religion, they can serve a role which is central social cohesion and the well being of the community. However I used the religious example on purpose. As much like religion, they can serve both positive and negative roles in society.
Now on this point I do not begin to pretend I am capable of speaking for God (Philomel), indeed she is more than capable of doing it for herself. This is kind of given as naturally she will know her mind better than I do, haha. But I will take the time to address this and a few other points which have been made. When one refers to the world ending or the end of the world, this does not necessarily mean it in its literal sense. As such it is entirely within the realms of possibility that when God mentioned the prediction of the world ending, she was referring to it in the sense that it describes humanity. Indeed I would hope that you realize that the quote I provided by Wade Davis uses world in the sense that it relates to the human social world.

Here you are misrepresenting the view which God has been presenting. If we look back at her posts, we find that she has not dismissed the validity or legitimacy of psychic abilities. But rather has expressed the view that in many instances it is quite possible that they are not real. It is also worth noting that this part of the debate came from your asserting that some people believe witches are not real. God has simply been trying to demonstrate that there is a difference between whether or not people practicing witchcraft exist, and whether or not their witchcraft 'works'. So in a nutshell, regardless of whether or not one believes that witchcraft 'works', there is plenty of evidence that demonstrates that certain people practice witchcraft (and have practiced it). As such while you can question whether witchcraft 'works', it is quite unusual to question whether or not witches exist.

The confusion here came from your assertion that there are some people who do not believe it is possible to be a witch. If it is not possible to be a witch then it follows that it is not possible for witches and consequently witchcraft to exist. As I mentioned there is field research and anecdotal evidence which points to the contrary. Even our good friend God, by virtue of being a witch herself proves that it is possible to be a witch.
On this point I should reveal my stance on identity, to avoid potential complications. To a large degree I apply Fredrick Barth's thoughts on ethnicity to identity in general. Whereby identities are the results of the socially constructed boundaries which separate one identity from another. In recognizing that it is based on socially constructed boundaries I identify that it is an active process. By this I mean God is able to be a witch for instance through the process whereby she self identifies and is identified by others as being a witch.

To finish off on a more positive note, I would like to stress my position on this discussion in general. As I initially asserted whether or not psychic abilities are real or not, does not attract my attention or interest. Rather I want to know about the role and function they serve in society. I also mentioned that I see them as potentially serving a positive or negative role. I would further highlight that this does not mean that being 'fraud' makes them serve any less of a positive role and function in itself. Field research into the role that Shaman play in society for instance has asserted instances where the Shaman in question can be identified as a 'fraud'. However it was also observed that despite this, they still served an extremely important role in maintaining the psychological, social and through this physical well being of the community.

You are intentionally getting away from the point. She has said that the world (our world, anyway, our species, our existence) will end in 2103. Now answer: why 2103 and not 2012 or never?

You have not provided nor even acknowledged evidence for the other side of the argument. That means you are attempting to prove a point.

Scorecard: Sylvia Browne's Missing Person & Homicide Readings
That. That is her count as far as missing persons and murder cases are concerned. She has never, EVER gotten any case mostly or even sort of right. She occasionally gets a few (usually obvious or likely) parts correct. As Una mentioned, she worked on the Hornbeck case. She claimed that he was dead (he was found alive), had been abducted by an Hispanic man (Devlin is white) with black dreadlocks (Devlin has short, straight brown hair) driving a blue Impala (Devlin drove a white truck) and was going to be found in a wooded area between two boulders (he was found in an apartment building) within 20 miles of the Akers' home (he was over 50 miles away) and southwest of their home (the apartment was northeast of their home). She did guess the abductor's first name, Michael, but Michael has been the most popular name for males for many years and when it wasn't, it was near the top of the list (though I imagine Hispanic men with dreadlocks named Michael are a fair bit rarer).

There's also the Opal Jo Jennings case, which is much more horrific. Browne claimed that the Texan girl had been abducted and sold into "white slavery" (it is assumed she meant sex slavery) in Japan and was still alive. In reality, Jennings had been grabbed by a local sex offender and when she screamed, he hit her over the head and she died of her injuries not long afterward, and certainly long before Browne did her reading. She was found 13 miles away from where she'd been abducted. She got the attacker's race right this time -- white -- but that was something that had been confirmed by several witnesses before she did the reading.

These are just the ones that are horrible enough that I felt the need to type them out. The link I provided lists many more.

No, not everything is a guess. But when someone's accuracy is around 5%, yeah, it's a guess. I could probably do much better literally guessing at random.

And yeah, I've had things "happen to me". But I had the sense to realize that it was chance, or me subconsciously fooling myself into believing I'd predicted something. I actually used to do that last one a lot -- I'd have a very vague thought or dream, and then when something related happened, I'd find myself misremembering details or adding details that weren't there originally, trying to find a way to say that I'd predicted it. All it takes is being self-aware and honest.

You said you didn't believe in "being a witch", then switched to saying witchcraft did not exist. So yes, you did say that witchcraft did not exist.

First off, it is not my responsibility to prove they are fakes, it is their responsibility to prove they are not. And so far, they have not done such. Even the best "psychics" in history (and Browne is not among them) still had a huge percentage of error.

Like I said, people can make educated guesses. More intelligent people can make better educated guesses. They can also leave those guesses so vague that no matter what really happens, the guess fits. Browne and most "psychics" do this. Browne just happens to be extremely talented at specifying her predictions *just* enough so that they can (and usually are) proven wrong.

Um, because most people like pizza? And quite honestly, were I in Brooke's shoes, if someone jumped in and answered for me, I'd go with it unless it was something I absolutely hated just to keep the peace. That's a rather overbearing thing to do. Even if you ignore all that, you had only two possible choices, so a 50/50 chance of getting it right. You could have just flipped a coin and would have been as likely to choose correctly.

Now, had you said what, specifically, she wanted on her pizza or what she wanted to drink with her pizza or that she'd randomly stand up in the middle of dinner and throw a slice at someone and it turned out to be correct, THEN you might have something.

No, that's not answering me. She supposedly gets visions and her "spirit guide" tells her things. If she really is getting these messages, why is she getting things wrong so much of the time? Either Francine's lying to her, or she sucks at repeating messages. Or, you know, she's guessing. Her track record still wouldn't be exceptionally impressive if that were the case, but it would be slightly less pathetic.

And yeah, she admits she makes mistakes -- before she makes them, and claims an 87% accuracy rate. After she makes them, she will either ignore that she's done so (she hid from the media for weeks after the Hornbeck case broke) or argue with the person in question until she gets them to go away (such as an incident on Larry King, in which she argued with a caller that her mother was dead). Furthermore, if she's so ready to admit that she may be wrong, why doesn't she say so during readings? Why, in the Jennings case, if she thought there was even a 1% chance that she was wrong, did she not just shut the hell up instead of painting a picture of a life WORSE than death in a country on the other side of the world with no hope of rescue or escape? Why does she argue with people about personal information? An honest person would accept that, even with the claimed 87% accuracy rate, the person involved has a pretty much 100% accuracy rate when it comes to personal details, and would not argue with them.

As for the computer program, I never said she uses it. Quite the opposite, in fact; I said that its accuracy rate is higher than hers, so she can't possibly be using it. I was referring to that one spiderbot program, which predicts the future based on popular searches (and works on the idea that if enough people are interested in finding out about a subject, they will subconsciously make that something more likely to happen through their actions and concerns).

I'm not sure what you're referring to. The interviewer actually attempted to defend her, saying that maybe she meant to say they would just be "found", like their bodies, and basically stuttered all over himself trying to keep people from judging her. He was hardly making fun of her.

No, I'm saying it is a distinct possibility. A possibility you refuse to even accept.

Although, I will say that at least two incidences -- the Larry King thing (the woman used the past tense when referring to her mother, which is when Sylvia started going on about her being dead) and her reading for a 9/11 widow (Sylvia wrongly assumed that because the husband was a firefighter and had died in NYC on Sept. 11th that he had died in the towers, when in reality he'd been hit by a car while crossing the street) -- strongly suggest that she is a cold reader. Both of these exhibit tactics common to cold-reading. In the first case, if you are doing a cold-reading and the person starts referring to someone in the past tense, that usually means they're dead, while if they refer to them in the present, that usually means they're alive. This is even more often the case when the person is a close relative, such as a parent. In this case, however, the strategy didn't work. Unfortunately for Sylvia, she only realized this after not just saying the mother was dead, but that she "saw her on the other side". As for the second case, again, it's a common tactic, and to the logical (as opposed to psychic) mind, it makes sense. For instance, if someone starts talking about their deceased loved one and mentions that they were a police officer, there's likely a good reason why they are mentioning it -- namely, that she probably died in the line of duty, most likely having been shot. Boom, you've not only got the cause of death but the circumstances. You must be psychic to know such a thing! Unfortunately, the common assumption proved wrong in this case, and Browne reacted by claiming she was lying and trying to mess her up.

...BECAUSE THE WOMAN DIED. If you are paid to not just lie to someone, but make an actual prediction of the future, and tell someone they will live a "long and happy life", and they die four years later of a disease that usually causes a fair bit of suffering on its own, nevermind the treatments for it, you have not provided the service they paid for. Period.

So you've resorted to blaming the victim in order to justify her actions. Well, it's a damned good thing the Justice system hasn't taken your stance. Like I said, she's been indicted multiple times on fraud charges.

She's also said that people who commit suicide cannot enter this "other side", yet has told survivors of suicides that she saw their loved ones there, and when called on it, justified it by claiming that they had a mental disorder and mental disorders don't count. So she seems quite ready to go back on her teachings when she gets caught.


What, specifically, do you have a problem with? Tell me and I can probably find a video of it. My internet is extremely slow, so I'm not going to spend all day looking at videos to back up everything I say.

I do find it hilarious that you're so skeptical of her opponents, yet have absolutely no skepticism of her, even though she has been proven a liar before and they have not, to my knowledge. That site in particular even asks for her supporters or anyone else really to correct anything they've gotten wrong about her, and puts disclaimers after most articles admitting that she may be entirely for real, that individual, anecdotal accounts do not count as absolute proof of anything, that even the most obvious examples of cold-reading may not be. So I'm quite curious as to what your problem with it is.

Oi. I HAVE SAID A MILLTION -maybe even more- TIMES THAT I KNOW THAT SYVLIA HAS BEEN PROVEN TO GET THINGS WRONG! I have said that she MAY guess, that she MAY do all the things you have stated. I have said, shame on her if she has! But I do not know the women personally, nor have I seen video proof of what she has done. I have accepted that she might have done this and I have accepted that she could have done something wrong. Therefore, I do have skeptisism of her. I have seen videos of her getting readings wrong. I have. I know. I have no problem. The problem I do have here is that there is no proof that you have that the PSYCHIC ABILITY does not exist. That is the only proof from you I am looking for. Until you provide me with proof that the ability does not exist, the I will not accept it only because I have had experiences myself.

Hmm, seems the quote system has gone and gotten messed up. Bear with me.

You do not seem to understand how this 'proof' thing works. No one can prove anything does not exist. Just as you can't prove Nessie or Bigfoot does not exist, you cannot prove psychics do not exist. This does not mean you should believe they exist. The burden of proof is on the positive claim -- namely, that psychics exist. You have not proved that. The "psychics" have not proved this, and when they've tried, they've more often than not provided more evidence against their case.

Yes, I asked myself those questions. But unlike you, I applied some skepticism to my thoughts. I found other, more reasonable explanations for it. I did not simply accept the first thing that came to mind because, as I said, we humans have an innate desire to believe we're special whether we are or not, and so if your first thought is "OMG I'm psychic!!", you cannot trust it. It's the same drive that causes people to become convinced they're not really humans (vampires, therians, etc.), or that they're possessed by some spirit, or that the world revolves around them and everyone is out to get them. I don't see you supporting those groups, and they're just as likely to be correct as psychics.

You're missing the point, but I'm honestly sick of repeating myself. Go on believing people who practice witchcraft don't exist. I'm sure the first non-Christian New Age store you find or public ritual working you hear about will be quite a culture shock.

I'm not. Claiming such would be as silly as those claiming psychics absolutely do exist. There is a chance they do, just as there is a chance fairies exist, there is a chance everything we know about the Universe is incorrect, there is even a chance we don't exist. However, there is also no reason to believe they do exist. Oh yes, self-proclaimed psychics have gotten things correct before. But so have people who later were revealed as frauds. And you have to look at their tactics, too -- the vast majority of predictions are very vague. There are rarely specific dates, or specific details about specific events in specific locations. Leaving things vague means that people can (and will; again, look at Nostradamus) fill in blanks and basically apply it to anything. When they do get specific, they are almost always wrong. Cayce, for instance, has long been hailed as one of the most accurate psychics in history, even by skeptics. But when he got into specifics (like his prediction about Atlantis), he was always proved wrong. This may not say anything about their powers, but at the very least, it renders them useless. Their unwillingness to accept this, that the nature of their predictions means that they cannot help avert disasters or save lives or improve the world at all, places serious doubt on their honesty.

I'm not saying you guessed, I'm saying you had a dream and assumed it was right, and psychic or no, it had a very good chance of either being correct or not being proved incorrect. And I'm not sure how you can say for certain that she wouldn't hush in order to keep the peace. Many people would, that's just their personality. I know I would. Either way, had you kept quiet and allowed her to answer for herself, your case would be a lot stronger.

See, this is why it pays to have a skeptical mind. You are assuming that, because there is a POSSIBILITY it was a premonition, that it absolutely was. There are other explanations, whether you want to admit it or not. I have to be honest, that you won't admit it makes me very skeptical of your account. Even professional "psychics", even the really shady ones, will generally admit that there's a chance they aren't really having legitimate visions or premonitions, however halfhearted this admission may be.

Exactly. You refuse to entertain the possibility, so you are blindly following a single idea to the absolute exclusion of all others. That is exactly the mentality that serious paranormal researchers try to steer clear of, because it renders all their research, all their findings, completely worthless to anyone but the most obsessed and closeminded.

And no, you wouldn't be calling yourself a liar, you'd be admitting that humans are affected by certain subconscious forces that we cannot completely control and aren't even aware of without making the effort to be, something we know for a fact is true.

I thought you said you wouldn't mention the B-word again? You edited all of my further messages addressing her out, so why not this one? Well, no matter, I'll address it regardless. You are, quite frankly, obsessed with the idea of being psychic. It would be impossible to provide proof that what you believe is incorrect, and that is what you are counting on. You have a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to the human psyche, and because you refuse to admit this ignorance, you will never know any better. You're not unique, not by any means -- there are people like you in ghost hunting, astrology, ufology, cryptozoology, even religion. And I have to say, these people are generally ostracized by the rest of their community, because they make the whole movement look bad. Don't expect to find a whole lot of support among psychic researchers.

[QUOTE=Philomel;1767181276]Hmm, seems the quote system has gone and gotten messed up. Bear with me.


You have yet to prove to me that psychics do not exist, only by saying that they guess and how they have tried and failed. Yet when they do get a reading right, it is them guessing. How do you explain the people that are not trying? The people that just so happen to experience being psychic out of their control? The people that do not get on t.v, like myself and many others? Yet you are not 100% sure that they do guess. I have every right to believe that psychics exist because of my experience with my psychic ability, therefore I have proven it to be true. Just because some psychics have tried and failed at proving that they are psychics, doesn't mean that the psychic ability does not exist.


Did I ever say I didn't apply any skeptisism? No. You are saying that being psychic is special when it is not. It is a natural human ability that everyone can posess. My first though was not 'OMG I'm psychic!!" my frist thought was "Gosh, that was a weird dream." Then when it happened I thought "Wow, that was pretty cool. Maybe I am becoming in tune with my psychic ability." Not once did I think I was special. I am not supporting those groups as of now because this thread is about psychics, not about vampires or therians. If there were, I would read into to it. Sure, why not? Again, I am an open minded person.


Why arn't you understanding what I am saying? I am correcting you simply by saying that I DO BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE WHO PRACTICE WITCHCRAFT EXIST! I never once said I didn't. I don't see why that is to hard to understand. I am also getting very tired of repeating myself. I stated that, at first, I had known nothing about witchcraft and thought that it was just a fairytale thing. Until you mentioned it to me. NOW I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BELIEVE WITCHCRAFT AND PEOPLE WHO PRACTICE IT TO BE TRUE. Again, open minded.


So because these big shot psychics have been proven to be wrong a number a times, means that the psychic power does not exist? That is my question to you.



But my dream WAS right and she did say to me, with utter shock on her face, "How did you know I would say that?" I don't think a shock like that in a person is an act to keep the peace. Brooke and I are friends still. We talk about that experience all the time. Even now she asks me, "Have you had any psychic dreams recently?" Infact, I will see her tomorrow at my bus stop. If you would like, I will ask her if she just said what she said to keep the peace.


The reason I believe in that incident so well is because it is the ONLY incident I had where there was no explination as to why it occured and why I had that dream just out of nowhere. Here is another one, for example that I had some skeptisism with: One night I had a dream that my aunt's old friend Angela took my grandmother, my sister and I to a hotel. I didn't know her well, but I always remember her buying my sister and I little gifts when she would go on a vacation. In this dream, she bought my sister and I a little gift and said "Be good you guys, I have to go away for a while now." The next day, I had found out she had died in a car crash. I dismissed this though as just a coincidence, because there was the fact that 'maybe I just had a random dream about her, doesn't mean I knew she would be dead.' There is me admiting that I have been skeptical about a vision. If it was a vision and not just a coincidence. For the pizza dream. That was far to real and to correct to be pushed aside.


How am I refusing to entertain the possibility when I just said that it is possible that psychics may guess. That is not enough proof for me to dismiss the fact that there is the psychic ability out there. Who is closeminded? The people that are open to the possibility that there are psychic abilities out there? Or people who say that it is all guessing and will not entertain the idea that there may actually be that ability available to us? Either or, niether are closeminded.


I don't quite understand what you mean by this. Sorry. Remember that I am still but 16 and and english 2 student. I know that is no excuse 'en all. But I still have trouble understanding what you are saying here. Would you mind putting in a little lighter for me? (: Thank you. Sorry if it's any trouble.

And where is my ignorance exactly? I have spoken to you by personal experience, not by sientific fact or articles found on the internet. I am actually counting on you to prove me incorrect. That is why I made this thread, after all. I am interested in if it could, infact, be proven incorrect. Talking about the human psyche, again, where is my ignorance? It is very possible that anyone can be psychic. I have stated in my post that I do feel that some 'psychic experiences' can be coincidences. I still don't see how this is enough for me to dismiss the psychic ability. I never said I was unique, nor is any psychic unique. All you seem to focus on is how a psychic can be proven fraud. Yet there is no proof that the psychic ability does not exist.

Read what I said again.
You are asking me to do the impossible. I cannot prove they do not exist. But that is not a reason to believe they do. Otherwise you'd believe in the Easter Bunny, Cthulhu, and werewolves.

I've already addressed this multiple times. I'm not just talking about the people who get on TV, I'm talking about people in general who for some reason believe they are psychic. There are other explanations for it, and you're not accepting that these explanations exist.

You can believe whatever you want, I honestly don't care. But you shouldn't expect others to agree with you. The burden of proof is on you. You must prove, conclusively, that they exist. You have not done this, you cannot do this. You really have no idea how much money has been spent attempting to prove that it exists. The US military even attempted to put it to use. The most they got out of all this money and all this effort? A method for inducing vivid hallucinations that you can do at home (and is quite fun and very much safe). That's it.

Prove it. Prove that it's something natural to all humans. Ah, but that's right, you can't. You've just made up a theory and run with it and expect me to believe it. You've done no testing. And yes, it still is pretending to be special -- you may believe that all humans have this ability, but you do not believe everyone uses it or can use it. You're still saying, I'm special, I'm outside the norm.

And no, you did not apply any skepticism. You've shown a great dislike of skepticism. You seem to think skepticism is just dismissing everything that does not fit into one's worldview. It's not. It's asking (even actively seeking) for something to be proven before believing it. If it is proven, then the skeptic accepts it and moves on. You have not done that, and seem quite upset at me for doing so. So I sincerely doubt you applied any skepticism whatsoever.

And besides, this is the internet. People claim some insane stuff. While I'm not calling you a liar, I really don't have any reason to believe you. You can provide no proof that what you said took place, that this Brooke person even exists, or that your account of this event is accurate. If we blindly accepted anecdotal accounts as absolute proof, every religion is 100% correct (to the exclusion of most others), everyone on the internet is successful, beautiful, and brilliant, and most aren't human.

It means that I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe it exists, and unlike you, my default is not belief.

Look, here's the thing. I played these same games when I was younger. Someone would finish a sentence for me, I'd pretend they'd read my mind. I'd say, oh my gosh I dreamed such-and-such would happen!, and they'd pretend they believed me. People play along.

And I think you need to realize that coincidences do happen. The Poseidon Adventure was playing onboard the Titanic when it sank. Does that mean that the person who chose the film was psychic? No. Poe's novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, gives a nigh-perfect account of an event that would happen 46 years later. Does that mean Poe was psychic? No. Someone wins the lottery just about every week. Does that mean they're all psychic? No. You should look into reading some of Isaac Asimov's work. He repeatedly addresses this problem we seem to have with accepting coincidences as that and nothing more, and even demonstrates how readily we forfeit logic and sense in one book where he basically proves (if you accept coincidence as proof) that Einstein was the reincarnation of Zeus. It's hilarious, until you realize that, were it not so ridiculous-sounding, people might honestly believe and accept it.

Only if you believe in psychic visions to begin with. It might have been a "huh, how funny" moment, but it would not make you convinced you're psychic.

No, you've said SOME psychics may guess SOME of the time. You seem to think that guesses are automatically wrong, and as such if someone claims to be psychic and gets something right, they obviously didn't guess. The possibility that all of them are just guessing (and not at random, remember; there are ways of making educated guesses that have a very good chance of being correct) is not something you will entertain.

Also, kindly stop referring to psychic ability as "fact". It has been tested, it has failed. Many, many times. This does not mean that it does not exist, it's true, but your belief is not based on fact, it is based on belief alone.

My apologies.

Admitting that your mind may have been playing tricks on you, that our subconscious really likes to screw with us and may have been doing such in your case, by perhaps causing you to misremember something or add details, would not be calling yourself a liar. This is something we know people do. It is why eye witness accounts are not completely trusted; they may have the absolute best of intentions, and truly believe that everything they're saying is absolutely true, absolutely the way it happened, but oftentimes they are mistaken. I can't tell you how many times I've thought I put something someplace and went to get it and it wasn't there, but I could swear I put it there, could even see myself in my mind putting it there and remember details that seem to support me having put it there. There's certainly a possibility that gremlins or ghosts are moving my stuff around when I leave the room, but more likely than not, I am simply putting it in the wrong place and when I attempt to recall where I actually stuck it, my mind is adding details that simply didn't happen in an effort to make up for the gap in my memory.

Because you seem to believe that it is impossible that we can fool ourselves into believing things so completely that we forget the truth altogether. We know this is not true. We can demonstrate that this is not true, and have many times before. We can even convince ourselves that something we know isn't true is, if there's enough social pressure, as shown in the Asch Conformity Experiment. It's actually a subject I'm deeply interested in.

As I've said many times now, you cannot prove that anything does not exist. If that is how you determine what you do and do not believe in, you must literally believe in everything, because nothing can ever be proven not to exist. We can, however, look for evidence that it does exist and alternate explanations for it. So far, we've not gotten any evidence to support its existence that isn't based entirely on subjective interpretation, and it certainly hasn't been for lack of trying. And we have multiple, entirely reasonable and entirely plausible, alternate explanations for it. If you want to believe in it, that's your prerogative. But you should admit that your belief is based on more belief, is not provable, and as such those who do not believe in it are not in denial or uninformed, but rather are going with the logical approach.

[QUOTE=Philomel;1767185282]I did. When you say this does not mean you should believe they exist, that seems a little off to me since people have proven and have experiences that the psychic ability does it exist. Therefore, have every right to believe.

If you cannot prove that they do not exist, then why argue that they don't? I was actually talking to a very smart friend of mind and she made a very good point. I have heard this before, but I thought I should mention it. We only use a portion of our brains. Imagine what we could do if we used all of it. That is proof in itself that there is a possibility that the psychic ability exists. Especially when one has a psychic experience.


Please, list me some of those explinations. I never did not accept that these explinations exist. I said that there is a possiblity they could. That still does not dismiss the fact that there could be psychic ability.


I do not expect you to agree with me. You are stating your opinion of the psychic ability and I am stating mine. It is a friendly argument. No amount of money needs to be spent in order to prove that the ability exists. There have been numerous accounts in which people have had a bizzar experience and that is enough to prove that there is psychic ability out there and that we all have it and can achieve it. I bet that if you took the liberty to actually try and get in touch with your third eye, you will be very suprised.


How about we try this. Explain mental telepathy. Allow me to take a shot at it. Everything is made of energy. Everything you touch. Every object, alive or not holds energy. I have seen with my own 2 eyes somebody move a pencil from one end of a desk to another. Energy. The human mind is so very powerfull and this is no theory. I am not trying to make you believe anything. Besides, you would have to experience it yourself.

I have not once said that I do not believe everyone can use it. Actually, I never said anything like that. I said everyone has this ability and ANYONE can harness it. The people that don't choose to, fine. I even stated in my introduction that some people don't because they are so busy with everyday life. Which is normal. the people that do happen to have the psychic ability sometimes happens by birth. Some people are able to find the time of day to meditate and get in touch with their third eye. This does not mean they are special and it does not mean they are outside the norm or looked up to. This just means that they have gotten in touch with their third eye and have the time to. Sometimes people have other opinions like you do and choose not to. That doesn't mean you are wrong and it doesn't mean that people who have the ability are higher then you. I don't know why you think I am saying this.


I am not upset at you whatsoever. I just don't understand how you say I did not apply any skeptisism when I have taken your responses into consideration and thought about it. Especially what you said about the 50/50 dream I had. I took everything you said and compared it to what happened. It just so happens that it did not make any sense to me.



Your right. You do not have to believe me if you don't want to. But just as I had accepted what you have said to me, I would think you would atleast give the thought a chance. I have been VERY open minded with you. I have challenged my own belief to be fair with you. I have no reason to lie to you or to anybody on this thread. I thank you very much for not calling me a liar. You have been very mature and this has been a great argument. I promise you that ever since I started talking to you about this, I have taken everything you have said into consideration. I am deffinetely not beautiful, brilliant. I am human though xD and I only speak from experience.


You don't have to. I'm not trying to make you.


Just because you say people play along, doesn't mean Brooke did. I asked my sister and her today about it while at my bus stop. They both agreed that they remembered. Brooke even said "Oh yeah, that was freaky." I asked her again if she was just saying that to make me feel good or to play along. She even said herself 'No. Why would I do that? If I wanted something other then pizza I would have said so.'




Who is to say this is all a coincidence? Nobody. For anything, (and I'm not saying I believe this to be true) but Einstien very well could have been the reincarnation of Zues. How is he to know for sure? He doesn't. Which is why it is called the unknown. Unfortunately, just as I will not admit that the psychic ability is not real, people refuse to believe it is.


It didn't make me convinced that I was psychic. Yes, I did believe in psychic visions before hand. As you said though, I used skeptisism and convinced myself as it being a coincidence. Though it very well could not have been, and could have been a psychic experience. I left both options open. Unknown.

Ah, but I don't think guesses are automatically wrong. Again, I have entertained that idea and many others. I know that there are people that are very good at taking educated guesses, still, this does not convince me that the psychic ability doesn not exist.


I only reffer to it as a fact because of my experiences. My experiences are not a belief. They happened, and only I will know for sure. I can tell you a million times that I am not a liar. I know I can never make you believe me. Just know, that what I have told you about my experiences are true.


Thats alright (:

I have thought about this. Yes. I have been over it a million times in my mind. Let me add to, that I was young. It has been known that the youngsters have a more open mind (which brings me back to the everyday stuff that people go through, etc.) which is why it tends to happen more and more in todlers and little kids. You know how a baby may wake up in the middle of the night and start talking to someone? Then when you ask who it is, they answer "papa" or someone who was once living? Though it is dealing with the spiritual world first hand, it is still a form of being psychic. I know this may be a bit off topic, but I thougth I should mention that.



Oh, I deffinetely believe that one can fool themselves. Again, though.. this does not convince me that the psychic ability does not exist.


My belief is proveable though. Well.. if someone were to invent some sort of psychic mind machine. Then I guess it is not proveable. Niether side of our argument is, actually. It has not been recorded for the psychic ability to be there, yet it has not been proven not exist. Either way though, niether side of the argument is a simpleton.

No, they haven't. Your experiences were entirely subjective, and thus they prove absolutely nothing. You could be lying, you could be mistaken about what happened. The experiments that have been conducted, such as the "remote viewing" experiments the CIA was once involved in, have provided no evidence that psychics do anything more than guess. So no, it hasn't been proven.

*facepalm* Keyori addressed that lie earlier, something you kindly ignored. She even posted a source addressing it. We use all of our brains, period. This is why brain injuries are such a huge deal. If we only used 10%, we could take half our brain away and still be perfectly fine. We don't use all of our brains for every task, it's true, but we use every part of our brains for something. We know what every part does, and there's no part that sees into the future.

I already have. Repeatedly. I will not do it again when you can just scroll up the page and read them.

"Bizarre experiences" do not prove ANYTHING, let alone that they happened, were unexplainable by normal means, and were due to psychic ability. That takes a HUGE leap in logic that you would not be making if you were not desperately seeking to prove that psychics exist.

As for the money bit, I wasn't suggesting that we spend money on it. It's a waste. We could be using it to clean up the disasters psychics fail to predict instead. But money has been spent. Millions, if not billions. By people who WANTED it to work, wanted to be able to use it. And they didn't use random people who didn't have any psychic ability, or big name psychics with something to prove, but "amateur" psychics, so to speak, and ones considered very good by those in the psychic community. And they found exactly what I've been saying this whole time -- they're very good guessers, but when you limit "successes" to specific facts about specific instances, they have pretty much no rate of success.

I will not address the third eye comment. Quite frankly, I find it exceptionally rude.


You're not trying to make me believe anything, but you're expecting me to believe in not only telepathy, but your explanation of telepathy?

And yes, the human mind being powerful is not a theory...depending on how you define "powerful". Solving problems "powerful"? Nope, not a theory; we're pretty much the best in the world at that. Making awesome playthings "powerful"? Definitely not a theory. But "defying the laws of physics" powerful? There's nothing to support that. It's merely conjecture.

I didn't say you were saying this. You are saying they're different though; some use it, some obviously do not. That is setting them up into two groups, the haves and have-nots. It is still saying some are special and some are not. If you did not believe this, you would not be so interested in discussing it, since you've already got yourself convinced its true and thus need no more "proof".

That's not skepticism. That's doubt. There is a huge difference -- doubt makes allowances like what you want to believe and why and the consequences of whatever it is being true or false. It can be applied heavily, to the point of absurdity, to one subject while being completely lacking in another. Skepticism is absolute, uncompromising, indiscriminate. It doesn't matter what you want to believe, it doesn't matter what your emotional connection to the subject is, it doesn't matter if it being false crushes everyone's dreams or it being true turns the entire world on its head. It demands proof before belief and belief when proof is found, period. And subjective accounts are not proof. Most skeptics will be nice about it and not outright accuse anyone of lying or being insane, but the fact is they realize both of those are definite possibilities. They even admit that they may themselves be insane or subconsciously tricking themselves, and have no way of testing if that's the case or proving it to anyone else, and as such, do not even include their own experiences in it.

I have considered this. I used to be very interested in all of this stuff, ghosts, psychics, mediums, aliens, "X-creatures", and so on. And I believed quite strongly in it. But when I actually did this self-examination that you keep suggesting I've never done, I found that I believed for some pretty silly reasons, largely that I wanted it to be true. Any experiences I'd had could easily be explained through non-paranormal means, or even paranormal ones other than the one I'd become obsessed with. I actually wish I hadn't realized this, because for awhile there, I acted like a jerk, quite frankly, experimenting with how easily I could get others to believe in whatever the subject was. Once, when I was in Girl Scouts, I had the whole troop convinced that our campsite was haunted. I was the only one who slept that night. That's when I started getting interested in cold-reading. Luckily for everyone around me, I've matured a fair bit, but it made me realize how easy people are to freak out when it comes to forces they can't see or touch. Oh, they won't accept evolution or the Big Bang, but they'll believe in talking to the dead or seeing into the future or moving things with their minds the instant you make it palatable to them, without doubt or resistance.

...Except that no one had any reason to believe that. Asimov was using it as an example. The point is, coincidences happen all the time. It is nothing paranormal. It is simply chance.

I was speaking of the pizza incident. Had you not believed in being psychic, you would not have thought you were psychic. Had you never heard of the idea of being psychic, you wouldn't have even considered it. That is why your account is, quite frankly, worthless. It is tainted with your personal opinion. You wanted it to be true, so you thought it was.

No, because NOTHING could convince you it wasn't true. Had Brooke told you she really was attempting to keep the peace, you would still believe it was true. If every psychic in the world came forward and publically admitted that they had been guessing, you would still believe it was true. That you believe in the absolute absence of evidence that is not based solely on personal interpretation and in the face of evidence for it not being true shows that no matter what, you will never stop believing in it.

And this is why you should not have even brought up personal experience as proof. You could have imagined it, you could have remembered details wrong, you could be lying. And if it's none of those, it could still very easily be coincidence and not you being psychic. It cannot be verified.

And just so you know, that I'm suggesting you imagined it isn't meant to be an insult. For some perspective, my religion demands direct contact with the gods we worship, meaning personal experiences and personal visions, things you can't mistake for anything else. But I still consider myself agnostic because, while I have never had any serious mental health issues to my knowledge, I cannot rule out the possibility that I was hallucinating and as such, I cannot say with 100% certainty that what I experienced was real.

See, but that's why, even when I was into the whole psychic thing, I largely discounted the experiences of younger children. Their brains have not completely developed yet, and they have an exceptionally difficult time separating fantasy from reality. This is not limited to concepts; they can have a dream and there is nothing you can say to them to convince them the dream wasn't reality. They can see something in a movie and not only think it's possible, but that it happened and they witnessed it firsthand. And it's not that they're stupid, they just lack the ability to separate inside of their mind from the outside. If you really want to look into the age vs psychic ability concept, I suggest you look into the theory that ability skyrockets at puberty. This is past the point where they should have (much) trouble separating fantasy from reality, and the theory's been used to explain a lot of famous cases of paranormal activity, such as the Bell Witch incident, in which activity happened to be limited to the years surrounding the eldest daughter reaching puberty.

Then it's not provable :P And even if they did invent such a machine, you could still say that, if they didn't find psychic ability in any of the people they checked, they could have chosen all the wrong people, or that the machine didn't really work, or that psychic ability hid itself from it. Like I said, it's impossible to prove anything does not exist. Since believing in absolutely everything would likely make one go insane, you can either choose to be inconsistent, believing in some things without proof and not believing in others, or you can choose not to believe in anything without proof. I personally would be inconsistent, but I still completely accept the possibility that I'm entirely wrong, I just don't live my life based on that possibility.

No, but one side is assuming a whole hell of a lot, and basing their entire case on those assumptions.

I think they are real! IDK

No matter. I know what happened to me and that is all I need proven to myself.


On another note, I hate that "facepalm" thing. It makes me feel stupid. In my defense, I didn't even read Keyori's post. I was to focused on replying to yours. (No effence if your reading this Keyori, but I have school and its kind of hard getting online with the little "me" time I have when I come home.)




Again, I am not trying to prove anything. Golly, this thread wasn't even ment to be a debate. I simply wanted an opinion. I'm getting tired of this arguing.


Why do you find it rude? Sorry if I offended you.



Again, I speak from personal experience. I never asked you to believe me. Only to trust that I am not a liar. I know that is hard to believe though, so I'll stop speaking from personal experience. Unless ofcourse you'll like to hear about them ^.^

And with that other part of our brain that we don't use? Sure, like you said, we might be fine without it. But with it, nobody has used that side of the brain. Who knows what we can accomplish! What do you think?


I hate that "special and special not" thing. There is no have and have-nots when we all possibly could have. If the psychic ability is somehow proven not to exist, then we all would be have-nots. Again, there is no "special" person or people. Err, I hope that makes sense.




I have never suggested that you have never done it. I was more or less asking if you did or not and if you didn't then to give it a shot. What if what you are wanting to be true is true?


But the experiences that could not be coincidences. And what if they are not?




And everything that I played in my mind that could not have been paranormal, didn't add up and didn't make sense.


I propably wouldn't. I honestly don't think I would. If she had told me she had been trying to keep the peace, I would have changed my mind completely about what happened and dismissed it as a coincidence. Even if that did happen though, I would still believe in the ability.


I'm nto so sure about that one. I guess I would wait until the possibility that the ability is there to be alive again.

Who better to trust then yourself? I know me better then I know anyone. I have known the experiences I have had, what I have felt during, what family members of mine had experienced. If it wern't for the personal experiences that I have had, I possibly would not believe in the psychic ability.



I am not, I did not, and I surely AM not. As I said, I know what happened that night and day. You don't have to believe me and I am not asking you to, but it is very true.


If none of the possibilites that you have listed occured, and it cannot not be verified as coincidence, then there is only one more thing left to believe, and that is that it is true, that it happened. For me to believe, not for you if you choose not to.

I know. I did not take it as one. Thank you (:
I understand and that is fine. Please, understand that when I say that I want you to believe what you want, that is what I want. I don't want to convince you, I just wanted to share my personal experiences with you. I don't know about you, but I think we make a pretty good team when it comes to an argument like this. Well, maybe not a team... but you know what I mean.



I understand what you are saying, and this could be true. I really have nothing left to say other then we should just believe what we want to believe. I have no written fact to support my argument other then personal experience. I know you are not calling me a liar for what I have experienced, I just know where you stand with your belief and I with mine. That's perfectly fine.


Yeah, I know what you mean. That would be pretty cool if they built a machine like that though xD. Wow. This argument really made me see how much is unknown to us. I wonder what will happen over the years. Maybe one day all the things that we don't know for sure of will finally be known. Then again, that could be dangerous, huh?


Yeah, I know I am. I guess I should stop doing that. You are right. I can't find any facts about the psychic ability being there at all and you can't find any facts about it not being there. LOL. I guess this argument is kind of up in the air, dontcha' think? (: Atleast until they record what they know for sure.

I would apologize, but I've gone through this before. People are just stuck on that being the case, and when it's proven to them that it's not, they ignore it. It happened to me in the debates thread -- I posted the exact same source Keyori did, it was ignored for about five pages, and then someone repeated the myth. It's completely obnoxious.

Because you're acting as though me doubting I'm psychic is because I've never considered the possibility, nor looked into this "third eye" idea (which, by the way, is a concept that originally had nothing to do with psychic ability). Like I said, this was a subject that I was once deeply interested in. I still am, my beliefs about it are just different from yours.


No, there is no part of the brain we don't use. What I said was, we don't use every part of the brain for each individual task. For instance, if we're trying to remember something, we don't use every part of our brains. If we're trying to solve a problem, we're not using every part of our brain. It's not a matter of "brainpower", it's just that certain sections of our brains are used for certain things and using unrelated parts for a task would be useless. But we do use all parts of our brains for something. If we don't, something has gone wrong.

It makes sense, but it's missing the point. I don't mean you're consciously doing it, just as those who become convinced that they're, say, the reincarnation of some important person, don't consciously realize that they're setting themselves (and usually, others; we want to be different, but absolute uniqueness is lonely) apart from everyone else. You are saying that some people can use it and some cannot. Not that they can never possibly use it, but it is still saying, I can, you can't. You're further saying that some are born with it, yourself included. When this concept is applied to other fields (including the one I'm most familiar with, witchcraft), those who are born with it are usually seen by the ones doing the segregating as innately better or, at the very least, more mysterious than those who have to develop it later in life.

Yes, you did. You've repeatedly told me to try it. If you believed there was a possibility I had already tried it, you would not have phrased it this way.

What if we don't really exist and are simply the characters in a dream? Or, what if you exist, but you're just a brain in a jar and all of us, everything you know, is not real?

It's really not worth dwelling on the "what ifs", and it's certainly not worth living as though a specific "what if" is true.

That's what they always say. Someone hears a creak, there's no possible explanation for it other than ghosts. Someone sees a light in the sky that they cannot immediately identify, there's no possible explanation besides aliens. People do not see explanations as being possible if they don't want them to be.

Exactly, that's what I was saying. You want to believe, so the lack of personal experience wouldn't hamper your belief any.

I am quite sure about it. You've shown that your belief is not based on whether or not those who claim to be psychic really are, so if they said they weren't, what would keep you from continuing to believe?

Pretty much anyone, really. It's sort of like the problem of reality, that we can only examine the Universe from within the Universe, and as such are affected by it and our observations are limited by it. Likewise, when we try to examine ourselves, we are limited by our own minds. If we're imagining things, it's very difficult to tell that's the case. If we forget, we can only look at clues to get an idea of whether or not what we're remembering is what really happened. If we think something is true, it is difficult if not impossible to tell whether or not we believe because of the evidence presented to us, or because we want to, or because it's what we've been taught to believe.

So you believe it's B because A cannot be proven conclusively, even though B cannot be proven either. That's your choice, but I really hope you don't use this logic with everything.

Something tells me they will eventually be able to fairly replicate psychic ability through technology. Probably not the whole "talking to the dead" thing, though depending on who you believe, they've already got one machine that does that, but almost certainly telepathic and telekinetic abilities and possibly even precognition.

As you wish.