Originally Posted by Ryder02

Finally I would recomend "Attack of the unsinkable yellow rubber ducks" by Christopher Brookmyre. Not only a great (and very funny) read, but very illuminating.

Indeed it is. Thanks for posting that as it saved me going to the bookcase to look which title covered the psychic.

Or i could have closed my eyes, fingers to forehead and hummed till the answer came to me!

Originally Posted by Onetap

It exists, but is as rare as diamonds in sewage. The sewage is the many charlatans who prey on gullible people and tell them what they want to be told and pay for the service. People want to know that their departed loved ones are inhabiting some ethereal rose garden with Granny, Uncle Albert, etc and they will pay anyone who can convince them that the dead are looking down on them.

.

My Dad knew a very elderly lady who had what he called "the true gift."

At one point in the 1960's she had been introduced to the very dubious "Spiritualist" movement in South London but they became sh1t scared of her because she started telling both the cynical scammers and the delusional w@nkers who stood up on stage for money some things they found very worrying.

Never took money, performed, advertised, held "meetings", write books, did not take it upon herself to tell complete strangers, friends or relatives about their uncle whose name started with A who passed away in B having been flattened out by a red car whose number plate began with C and wanted them to know where he had left the shed key. Why would that matter across the great divide anyway?

What she did do over the years was have some helpful little chats with a limited number of long serving Police officers, none of whom would never admit to even believing in such things, about bits and pieces they would bring to her. Odd that

I know it's a bit late in the day but I was reading 'The Biography of Water' by Philip Ball & he mentioned homeopathy & the infamous testing of the memory of water claimed by Benveniste & published in Nature Magazine. There's a whole Horizon Documentary about the subject here:

YouTube - BBC Horizon Homeopathy The Test Part 1

~D.C.

Several years ago when I was on school holidays, my old man who worked for the Sunday Telegraph took me under his wing for the day. We had lunch in a pub where a total stranger at the same table told us both our birth signs, which was impressive, as he also got to within a couple of days of our birthdays as well. So far so good.
Fast forward several years and I am reading a book smoking a pipe in a pub when two girls ask if they can share the table. But of course.
We get chatting and I say to one of them;'You're Pisces, aren't you?' she says 'Yes, what about my friend?' I thought about it and worked out she wasn't Pisces, because she hadn't reacted, took a wild guess of Libra and was right.
We then had a conversation about my psychic abilities, which I played down, no I didn't study, yes I had always had a feeling for these things. They sucked it up, I couldn't believe it, but I didn't get laid, which I had predicted.

On an aside everybody seems to know their birth sign, how many know their blood group, and which one may be more useful?

Originally Posted by Stanlaurel

Oh my God, what's happening here ?

Disgusting!

they are all charlatans, theyve always always looked the mark up on the interwebs, and spoken to friends or relatives. add to that proper phrasing and ambiguous 'facts' that are true of most people, and you can take in a gullible, vulnerable person who wants to believe. awful profession.

apologies with this being a late entry

i know which way you is coming from ravers

back in 2004 i got with my now whench, first night together at her house we are sat there nagging. her brothers playing the ps2.
now i had never spoke to him before in my life and never told her any family stuff before

he was sitting away from us looking at the tv screen when he blurts out 'yer grans here', well that stops me dead in my tracks so i say 'which one?'
he says both of em, now the hairs are up and dancing then he describes both my dead grans down to the last detail then pipes up that my grandads there too

then go's onto say he is sorry but it was something that happened in the war (he was captured/escaped at monte cassino)

now that freaked me out big time, had a weird experience a few moths later when he was stood at top of the stairs at home and i saw something walk past him
now i'm open minded but that was some weird sheet

I can make all of that fit my life and family, very easily, including the picture falling, the feather, the blue vauxhall, P & C, California, the ill feelings.

Liars and thieves, the lot of them. Skilled, but liars, none the less.

Had an Aunt (sneaked off well before my time) who could do this sort of stuff old Irish blood and all that.

Used to have wifeys coming around for their tea leaves, family legend says that she would really scare people, my uncle used to give her right good hiding if he found out she had been doing readings.

I think some people take comfort in it and their seems no real harm

Load of old shite if you ask me. Which you didn't but I stand by the statement anyway.

One name: DEREK ACORAH.... Once upon a time I loved all this stuff. The old girl was a devout freak, seances, "spiritualists" at the house, faith healing,ghosts at home. She must have gone through the whole freaky list . "Leave" at home was a nightmare, creaky floorboards and ghost stories. A few reads of Derren Brown, a few of his shows, and I was cured, going on to lay the whole world of ghosts and spooky shite to rest . At least DB has the decency to own up to his tricks and reveals much of the skulkduggery behind so many "mediums". It's all tosh and horlicks, I tell you.......







what the fcuk was that noise just then???