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Are All Psychics & Fortune Tellers Fakes?

There are so many subjects which can be suggested as either happening in the future, or happened in the past and open to interpretation. To the extent that, if we go back to our Psycic Medium for one last time, even these mundane examples would be sufficient:

PM=Psychic Medium
AM=Audience Member

PM: She's showing me the image of a bridge and says you will understand.

AM: A bridge... Oh yes! We had to cross a motorway bridge every time we went to see my brother.

PM: Do you still visit him?

AM: Yes (so, he's alive)

PM: Well you can tell him mum passes on her love and... are there grandchildren?

AM: Yes, two boys...

PM: She's smiling and you are being told mum is always watching over them.

AM: I have a son and two daughters.

PM: I was just coming to that! Mum can only get messages through one at a time.

She's with them. She's wants you to know that. You will see little signs, maybe things going missing for no reason and them turn up unexpectedly.

AM: Yes, Yes, it happens all the time!

PM: That's her way of letting you know and it will keep occurring, so don't worry.

There's an image of something small and round, she's trying to show me.

AM: I can't think what that could be.

She's holding it in her open hands...

AM: An onion?

PM: She's smiling.

AM: Oh my goodness, yes, we would sometimes cook together.

PM: And a fruit, she's now holding a fruit.

AM: Is it a banana?

PM: Yes, yes it is.

AM: That was mum's favourite and she would make a banana cake.

PM: Mum's leaving us now, so she wants to say goodbye and you have to keep looking out for signs of her presence.

She says... one last thing... and I'm just trying to get the message through...

Have you had any recent incidents where something suddenly happened, like a house appliances failure, or...

AM: Yes!! The hall lightbulb blew last week!

PM: That's mum, she says.

Mum's left us now and to my right there's someone who has only recently lost a loved one...

When I say recently, it might be within the last year...

Or couple of years...

AM: Auntie Doris died 4 years ago and I wondered if she might come through tonight...

PM: So, you were thinking about her recently, I see, now it's clear, that's what she's trying to tell me.

She's showing me pain in the chest area, does that make sense...

AM: She fell and banged her head.

I understand now, that's why she's touching her head. Doris says she was pointing to a broken heart, because she passed too early.

Tell me about the river... and there's something about a holiday...

Cold readers cleverly ask a question that sounds like a statement. John Edward is good at this.

So here -
AM: A bridge... Oh yes! We had to cross a motorway bridge every time we went to see my brother.

PM: Do you still visit him?

AM: Yes (so, he's alive)


It would go:

AM: A bridge... Oh yes! We had to cross a motorway bridge every time we went to see my brother.

PM: You still visit your brother.

AM: Yes (so, he's alive)


So if the brother were now dead, AM would say so and PM could talk about a visit to his grave.
As he is alive, AM will believe PM just KNEW that about her family.

Here again -

PM: Well you can tell him mum passes on her love and... are there grandchildren?

AM: Yes, two boys...

PM: She's smiling and you are being told mum is always watching over them.

AM: I have a son and two daughters.


PM can ask about grandchildren thusly -

PM: Well you can tell him mum passes on her love and... she is talking about children

AM: Yes, two boys...

PM: She's smiling and you are being told mum is always watching over them.

AM: I have a son and two daughters.


AM will tell the PM who the children are.
 
A fortune-teller* whom I knew well was approached by a comparatively recent widow. Having done her duty towards Late Hubby, she now fancied a bit of fun and perhaps a relationship or two.

She was told of a vision of a lovely scene with beautiful music and flowers, and beams of bright sunlight through stained glass lighting the faces of a large gathering of people, all thinking lovingly of her...

Wow, she said, sounds like I'm getting married again! and went off full of hope.

er...

*Yup, that's what she called herself, 'an old-fashioned fortune teller'.
Don't suppose there's much harm in sending someone off full of hope, or indeed passing "messages" on that their deceased loved is OK and happy. Probably worth the tenner or so, or whatever the going rate is. Not much different from paying attention to stuff on tinterweb. The danger comes when the criminally minded "psychic" rob people of huge amounts of dosh.
 
Oooh, how interesting! Is there any way to share that?
Or at least, give an idea of how the conversation went?
Given this dates back to September, just to clarify it was in response to my posting:

"I have on video tape an interview with the late Doris Stokes, in which, if correctly recalled, she admits effectively being fraudulent, before realising it was unnecessary".

As the video tape will no longer play, I have eventually tracked this down to a documentary available on YouTube.

Although my recollection may not have been exact, you can get the gist of it, starting around 13:00 into the video.

 
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Just had a feeling this one might load and it didn't take long.
 
... I have eventually tracked this down to a documentary available on YouTube.
Early in the video, Doris comments, 'It's like a telephone exchange, sometimes I get the wires crossed and that's when you hear me say, 'I made a right pig's ear out of that one'..'.

Seems she must have experienced this, or there's another explanation, during the first live reading shown (I have only seen this one in full, so far):

Doris begins,' 'Somewhere in the auditorium... middle of the back... have I got someone who knows the surname of Rodgers...'?

A young woman comes forward.

Doris enquires, 'spirit side'?

This confirmed, she says, 'I've got a man here with me who went over with a heart attack'.

The young woman replies, 'not a heart attack, cancer'.

Doris responds, 'He did have a heart attack at the end he tells me..' my chest hurt'.

'Don't worry about it love..'.

'Who's Bill'?

No acknowledgement from the young woman.

'Who's Joan'?

Again, no acknowledgement.

'It isn't darling, it's John'...

That doesn't receive an affirmative either.

'Who's Tony'?


From the other live readings I have watched portions of, it's much the same throughout.
 
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I really don't understand why these celebrity mediums used to expose themselves like this. Or were people more innocent back then?
An intriguing question with regards to the absence of social media at that time.

I have watched all of the aforementioned Doris Stokes video and surprised how easy it is to demonstrate her relentless reliance on, 'cold reading'.

She also frequently uses a technique of blaming failures on the audience member participating, claiming it's they who don't understand a meaningless message from, 'the spirit world'.
 
Wait! Not so fast Escargot, I haven't read the whole thread yet but have we covered people who get genuine messages from entities who could well be 100% frauds and attention seeking fakes? Even limiting ourselves to dead humans I can think of several people off the top of my head who'd be more than happy to mess with anyone who could perceive them. And assuming we're surrounded by parallel dimensions, or whatever term we favour for populated realms we're barely aware of, who's to say that the genuine medium telling you that Aunty Betty says she hid the diamond ring she promised you in the brown teapot - which turns out to be true - isn't actually being deceived by some entity that knew this because it watched Aunty Betty do that, and now has your full attention, belief and cooperation to play with?
 
hot damn. Over on the Fortean Times Appreciation group on Facebook, there was a discussion as to why, this time last year, none of the usual suspects whatever, anywhere, saw Covid19 coming. The general consensus was something that significantly world-changing and otherwise hard to miss should heve been notified to a suitably qualified psychic from the other side, but as it wasn't... what does that say about psychics?

The challenge was then put out - as it's the 2nd or 3rd January 2021, and this conversation thread will be time-stamped in a verifiable way for access later, why don't we post our predictions now for the coming year, and come December, we can review them. (Might be worth doing something like that here?)

Anyway. something bubbling over in my mind - and this is more an intelligent guess based on intuitive common sense, I claim nothing psychic about it - was my feeling that with the rise in organised armed militias and "patriot groups" in the USA, who at the moment are seething with fury at the fall of Trump and what they see as a rigged election, that there was almost certainly going to be some sort of challenge to federal authority in the USA, something that would involve lots of people making a confrontation to the Biden administration, and that it would be one step short of insurrection and rebellion.

I suspected this was most likely to happen in a state on the other side of the Rocky Mountains - Oregon, perhaps - and would put the new Biden administration into a quandary as to what to do about it. And that what would emerge is just how many people in law enforcement and the military would covertly or openly support the alt-right, maybe by not resisting too much before they let themselves be overwhelmed by superior numbers, or something.

And... bugger me, didn't expect this to happen so quickly, and in the heart of government in Washington DC! (Still think this is only the beginning, though - wish it wasn't).

So my prediction for 2021 starts to be proven true, even though I claim no psychic inspiration for this whatsoever.
 
Anyway. something bubbling over in my mind - and this is more an intelligent guess based on intuitive common sense, I claim nothing psychic about it - was my feeling that with the rise in organised armed militias and "patriot groups" in the USA, who at the moment are seething with fury at the fall of Trump and what they see as a rigged election, that there was almost certainly going to be some sort of challenge to federal authority in the USA, something that would involve lots of people making a confrontation to the Biden administration, and that it would be one step short of insurrection and rebellion.

I suspected this was most likely to happen in a state on the other side of the Rocky Mountains
Oh, that's has been happening since the beginning: Bundy's Worldview, Protests at Oregon Capitol, Oklahoma City Bombing, Revolt of the Masses, not to mention groups like the KKK and the Weather Underground, and anyone with survivalist tendencies and survivalist buddies. And that's not even going into the religious folk who have believed Armageddon is around the corner, but for some reason think they have to arm themselves to the teeth to prepare for God's embrace when He comes to fetch them. All of them standing up for pure ideals.
Geez, this probably belongs in Chat or something . . . :oops: sorry.
 
Just throwing it out there - again the problem with finding exactly the right page to make a posting on! (the necessarily nebulous nature of fortean material and the difficulty of classifying and keywording it, it so as to make a search engine work). Making a point, I guess, about how an intelligently intuitive reading of a situation based on past and current events, the odd insight into human nature, and four years of watching how things are moving in the USA, can be a sort of "cold reading" technique in itself and perhaps offer an analogy into how fake psychics operate; as you say, it doesn't take genius to suspect some groups in the USA might well behave in a way that challenges established and legitimate authority.
 
hot damn. Over on the Fortean Times Appreciation group on Facebook, there was a discussion as to why, this time last year, none of the usual suspects whatever, anywhere, saw Covid19 coming. The general consensus was something that significantly world-changing and otherwise hard to miss should heve been notified to a suitably qualified psychic from the other side, but as it wasn't... what does that say about psychics?

The challenge was then put out - as it's the 2nd or 3rd January 2021, and this conversation thread will be time-stamped in a verifiable way for access later, why don't we post our predictions now for the coming year, and come December, we can review them. (Might be worth doing something like that here?)

Anyway. something bubbling over in my mind - and this is more an intelligent guess based on intuitive common sense, I claim nothing psychic about it - was my feeling that with the rise in organised armed militias and "patriot groups" in the USA, who at the moment are seething with fury at the fall of Trump and what they see as a rigged election, that there was almost certainly going to be some sort of challenge to federal authority in the USA, something that would involve lots of people making a confrontation to the Biden administration, and that it would be one step short of insurrection and rebellion.

I suspected this was most likely to happen in a state on the other side of the Rocky Mountains - Oregon, perhaps - and would put the new Biden administration into a quandary as to what to do about it. And that what would emerge is just how many people in law enforcement and the military would covertly or openly support the alt-right, maybe by not resisting too much before they let themselves be overwhelmed by superior numbers, or something.

And... bugger me, didn't expect this to happen so quickly, and in the heart of government in Washington DC! (Still think this is only the beginning, though - wish it wasn't).

So my prediction for 2021 starts to be proven true, even though I claim no psychic inspiration for this whatsoever.

Not a prediction as such, but I'll tell it as it was. c1990 I was "told", amongst other things, about a type of flu that was coming some time in the future that I wasn't supposed to catch. To not let anyone inject me. That "it" brought with it something (very bad) that wasn't immediately apparent but would do terrible harm. I was unable to ascertain whether this was in reference to the flu type illness or the vaccination. If I was in fact being told about Covid 19 this bit hasn't happened yet - I was shown vehicles with loudspeakers, I suspect nation wide, slowly patrolling the streets and repeatedly announcing "Stay in your homes." I've heard the term stay at home many times this year but not the specific announcement to "Stay in your homes." This would indicate that electricity and methods of communication were out. I won't be having the vaccination.
 
Oh, that's has been happening since the beginning: Bundy's Worldview, Protests at Oregon Capitol, Oklahoma City Bombing, Revolt of the Masses, not to mention groups like the KKK and the Weather Underground, and anyone with survivalist tendencies and survivalist buddies. And that's not even going into the religious folk who have believed Armageddon is around the corner, but for some reason think they have to arm themselves to the teeth to prepare for God's embrace when He comes to fetch them. All of them standing up for pure ideals.
Geez, this probably belongs in Chat or something . . . :oops: sorry.
Also Waco.
 
hot damn. Over on the Fortean Times Appreciation group on Facebook, there was a discussion as to why, this time last year, none of the usual suspects whatever, anywhere, saw Covid19 coming. The general consensus was something that significantly world-changing and otherwise hard to miss should heve been notified to a suitably qualified psychic from the other side, but as it wasn't... what does that say about psychics?

The challenge was then put out - as it's the 2nd or 3rd January 2021, and this conversation thread will be time-stamped in a verifiable way for access later, why don't we post our predictions now for the coming year, and come December, we can review them. (Might be worth doing something like that here?)

Anyway. something bubbling over in my mind - and this is more an intelligent guess based on intuitive common sense, I claim nothing psychic about it - was my feeling that with the rise in organised armed militias and "patriot groups" in the USA, who at the moment are seething with fury at the fall of Trump and what they see as a rigged election, that there was almost certainly going to be some sort of challenge to federal authority in the USA, something that would involve lots of people making a confrontation to the Biden administration, and that it would be one step short of insurrection and rebellion.

I suspected this was most likely to happen in a state on the other side of the Rocky Mountains - Oregon, perhaps - and would put the new Biden administration into a quandary as to what to do about it. And that what would emerge is just how many people in law enforcement and the military would covertly or openly support the alt-right, maybe by not resisting too much before they let themselves be overwhelmed by superior numbers, or something.

And... bugger me, didn't expect this to happen so quickly, and in the heart of government in Washington DC! (Still think this is only the beginning, though - wish it wasn't).

So my prediction for 2021 starts to be proven true, even though I claim no psychic inspiration for this whatsoever.
We've got a predictions thread. Been running a while (without noteable success)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/predictions-for-2021.67887/page-2#post-2023415
 
One does not have to use fortune tellers or astrology or psychics. One can use "pin in a book", a method beloved of young Victorian ladies. One can use signs and portents. And, of course, oracle or tarot cards.

Whatever means of "divination" is used, it all depends on the interpretation and, most importantly, the context. For example, when any of these methods refer, say, to ones "friends", then that should not necessarily be taken literally. "Friends" more usually refers to a person's interests e.g. reading, and a new friendship is likely to refer to a new interest that the person has taken up. A "new love affair" is something similar to a new friend. Any reference to water is generally to do with emotions etc, etc. Well, unless one is using signs and portents to weather forecast.

Certain birds mean certain things with respect to the weather. (I live on the edge of a small town surrounded by fields and near a river. There are lots of birds about.) For example, when I hear an owl hooting, the weather will usually turn mild and drizzly with low cloud. I do not take every hooting or sight of an owl as a forecast. One gradually learns when the sighting/hearing is significant and when it is to be ignored. Crows often mean windy, cloudy weather. Water bird sightings generally mean rain. Each person can develop their own "language" for signs and portents re weather.

As to context, when one is using divination methods, the results usually refer to that person's immediate life. What that person did or thought the day before, perhaps, or the reading may refer to what they did the day before, or any issue that is on that person's mind.
 
hot damn. Over on the Fortean Times Appreciation group on Facebook, there was a discussion as to why, this time last year, none of the usual suspects whatever, anywhere, saw Covid19 coming. The general consensus was something that significantly world-changing and otherwise hard to miss should heve been notified to a suitably qualified psychic from the other side, but as it wasn't... what does that say about psychics?
Well, purely in the interests of fairness we do need to mention that the late Sylvia Browne - in a book called `The End of Days(2008) did predict that a respiratory virus would hit the world `around 2020`.

https://autogists.com/2020/03/17/sylvia-browne-woman-who-predicted-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

Lucky guess or not, I have always regarded this one as quite uncanny and a lot of the sceptical criticisms of it are merely ill-tempered nit pickings. (For example she called it a pneumonia like illness when apparently, in strict medical terms, it is not. And yet in layman's langugage it seems to me that that's how many of us would describe it if pressed to make a comparison). She did however claim that it would be resistant to treatment and would eventually disappear of its own accord - nether of which seems to be being borne out.

Nevertheless, you don't have to be a misty-eyed victim of `whoo` to find this one a bit interesting - regardless of what onw might think of Browne;s career as a whole.
 
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Early in the video, Doris comments, 'It's like a telephone exchange, sometimes I get the wires crossed and that's when you hear me say, 'I made a right pig's ear out of that one'..'.

Seems she must have experienced this, or there's another explanation, during the first live reading shown (I have only seen this one in full, so far):

Doris begins,' 'Somewhere in the auditorium... middle of the back... have I got someone who knows the surname of Rodgers...'?

A young woman comes forward.

Doris enquires, 'spirit side'?

This confirmed, she says, 'I've got a man here with me who went over with a heart attack'.

The young woman replies, 'not a heart attack, cancer'.

Doris responds, 'He did have a heart attack at the end he tells me..' my chest hurt'.

'Don't worry about it love..'.

'Who's Bill'?

No acknowledgement from the young woman.

'Who's Joan'?

Again, no acknowledgement.

'It isn't darling, it's John'...

That doesn't receive an affirmative either.

'Who's Tony'?


From the other live readings I have watched portions of, it's much the same throughout.

Ted Rodgers the famous comedian died of complications during heart surgery if this helps.
 
Following the recent tragic events in the US, we can conclude that psychics/fortune tellers are just plain rip offs and only in it for the money. With the numerous alleged psychics in the world, how come not a single one could foretell these events coming and warn the relevant authorities? Maybe I am just wishful thinking here that somehow innocent lives could have been saved.

What I wonder is where the information/advice in whatever divination method is used (fortune telling here) comes from. For example, is there some supernatural entity that is speaking to us through the teller or the cards?

I had my fortune told many years ago. The fortune teller asked me to bring an object like a watch with me for her to hold during the reading. The watch I gave her was, and only ever had been, mine, but it had inherited my brother's watchstrap. The reading told me I would have 5 children. I have no children. However, my brother has four.

So, was my brother's watchstrap interfering with my reading, in some way? On the other hand, if you take the meaning of "children" very broadly e.g. one of my "children" was an interest in photography, which I, as it were, gave birth to and nurtured and developed (no pun intended) over many years until it flew the nest i.e. until I gave it up, then I have had many such children. From that perspective I would say the telling was also accurate about me.

Another prediction she made was that I would have trouble with my feet. Well, that is true. I often used to "put my foot in it", or, as someone else described it, I was often "opening my mouth to change feet". My brother, on the other hand, has this thing about shoes. he always has to have the correct shoes for whatever activity he is undertaking. Golfing shoes for golf. Squash shoes, not tennis shoes, for squash. That sort of thing. So he, too, had trouble with his feet.

Strange. Surely only something that "knew" me or my brother, knew how we would behave later in life, could make those predictions, and perhaps through the teller.
 
I suppose there is a danger of trying to fit events or circumstances into psychic predictions. I know I did. A classic example of this was a prediction given to me that I would become a house father. Now I absolutely knew that I would never do that, it was rubbish etc. A friend who stayed with me for a few years became a live in carer for two young special needs kids (in effect a house father) and it suddenly occurred to me that the psychic had mistaken him for me. Pah got that wrong didn't he? Except a few years ago what happened? I became a house father and it was only fairly recently when I came across some notes I made of that particular meeting with the psychic that everything clicked. Was a bit of a shock, and shows that sometimes these things can be totally misinterpreted. As I have mentioned before it's a touch annoying that messages can't be clearer if there are spirits out there trying to help (notwithstanding other posters stance that there could be malevolent spirits at work).
 
A friend of my older daughter made a passing comment that occasionally she consults a fortune teller.

That took me by surprised, but I guess there are people who believe in fortune tellers.

I wonder how many people get taken ?

Maybe a few fortune tellers could have the gift ?
 
Another scam artist who should have seen his arrest coming.

An arrest probably was not in the cards for a self-proclaimed fortune teller who authorities allege scammed a California woman out of $50,000 by claiming to cure her of parasites and her family of a curse.

Andres Pena Meneses, 31, of Riverside, was arrested on suspicion of grand theft and theft by false pretences but was freed after posting bail, according to police.

A police statement said Meneses – a Colombian national who had a 2019 conviction in Chicago for posing as a phony “faith healer” – advertised his Riverside fortune-telling business under the name “Carlos”. According to police, a woman who went to Meneses to have her fortune read this summer was told she had parasites that “Carlos” removed for a fee of several hundred dollars. Meneses later contacted the woman and told her that her family was cursed and her children were in danger, police alleged.

“Through his false pretences, the victim ended up paying ‘Carlos’ over 50,000 dollars,” according to the statement.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40733040.html
 
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Fake Psychic

Just started on this - podcast about Lamar Keene [already mentioned on other threads] who made a good living from it for years before denouncing it & writing a book owning up & detailing his cons. Contributions from various people who knew him.

I’ve only listened to a couple of episodes but interesting so far.
 
It's not a gift if you're charging for it.
I think I read somewhere that people are more likely to 'want' to value something if they've paid for it. So you'd presumably be more likely to twist facts to fit and make yourself believe a reading that you'd paid for than a free one.
 
Fake Psychic

Just started on this - podcast about Lamar Keene [already mentioned on other threads] who made a good living from it for years before denouncing it & writing a book owning up & detailing his cons. Contributions from various people who knew him.

I’ve only listened to a couple of episodes but interesting so far.
Aha! I've been listening to that too, a fascinating tale. Never heard of the fellow before.
 
Having had my own psychic experiences, I have visited different 'mediums' out of curiosity.
One 'Tarot Card Reader' (which I also do) told me to shuffle the deck before she read it, but only gave me 12 Tarot Cards - the deck is actually 78 Cards, which includes death, tragedies, happiness, etc. So in effect, she was cutting out the dark side of life and only going to read the happy cards. I refused and walked out.
Another reader I went to was an elderly woman with white hair, who actually appeared to go into a 'trance' like state, her eyes rolled back in her head, I was very young, she read my palm, and everything I remember came true. This was on the NJ Shore boardwalk, and I have the feeling that she was genuine, and very strange.
Went to a NJ carnival with side-shows, a woman read my palm and, astonishingly, saw a man I was going to meet with black hair, with the initial 'T', who I would shortly marry. Everything she told me came true, I was stunned.
Before that, I was recommended to visit a major psychic, who I had never heard of. I was determined to prove her fake, and pictured a brick wall in my mind, so as to not to allow her to see inside of me.
This woman was furious with me, she told me not to come back, that she knew what I was doing, and that she felt my 'powers' the instant I walked into the room. Once she calmed down, she said she realized I was a 'medium' myself, and wanted to know who in my family had the sixth sense, and I told her my British Grandmother passed it along to me. She told me future happenings that were absolutely on the money, and warned me about a few things, it was obvious that she did not like me.
I don't mean to say that these people are all genuine, in my experience the majority are not, just looking to make a bit of money. But there are a few who know their stuff, you just have to find them.
There is a young woman in my area who is very well-known for being able to 'speak' with dead family members and such, she is extremely popular and very hard to book an appointment with, I have been tempted to see her, but at the same time don't want to open a door that I may not be able to close, not fond of the dead coming to me.
 
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