Two Nights, Two Mediums

[gattino]

So this week, by (near) chance rather than deliberate planning, i attended two separate and unrelated public displays of purported mediumship. This is what happened.


Wednesday night. The spiritualist church.
A friend, Danny, had mentioned a few nights earlier that he would like to see a psychic. I suggested he can see one for free at the Spiritualist church any Wednesday. (I had attended on three occasions over a couple of years, several years ago and reported the details of each on here). So we agreed to go and later another friend Jim decided to join us.

It started with some promise as many on here will be aware of the continuing and recently reawakened saga of the recurring balloon motif seemingly being nudges from a deceased friend. And earlier in the day of the church attendance i found myself while fantasising about the medium potentially mentioning this balloon sign, passing a young man with an unusual and brightly colored print on his sweatshirt...a painting of a sad faced clown holding a bunch of balloons! Could this mean the deceased was going to come through tonight?!

I'll keep it brief. Of course he didn't. In general terms the evening was precisely the same as my previous experiences there...a lot of uninformative general stuff, primarily character reading of both the deceased and the person addressed, a lot of slow awkward agreement from the recipients, not wishing to say no but clearly struggling to give a sincere yes, and yet...and yet...as always..a standout moment where the precise nature of the accurate statement invited only one of two options. Actual foreknowledge of the person in the audience...or some kind of anomalous perception. On this occasion it was towards the end, when she accurately told a particular woman both her name and year of birth.

We three were sitting in the middle of the seating , and as most people gravitated to the sides or the front, we stood out and sure enough got the medium's attention. Of interest for analysis that she gave something to all three of us... interesting because it would suggest, if taken at face value, she was "calling up" information about whoever she was addressing rather than being directed to people by the disembodied who happened to be around. Anyway short version...To Jim she immediately said the name Robert, and no other. Until that afternoon i had no idea that was the name of his recently deceased father. I saw his previously cynical face change. From there of course he wished to believe...but i could equally see he was struggling to match her description of the man's personality with the reality. To Danny, the youngest and least expecting to hear from anyone, a father figure...his dad is still alive...became potentially his grandfather who sees him like a son. He was still struggling as he explained later his grandfather died when he was two so never knew the man. HIS snippet of "maybe" came with the deceased offering a symbolic gift as evidence...a pineapple. Again you could see instantly from his reaction this meant something to him. Turns out Danny has a very random tattoo of a pineapple on his ankle. Then she came to me.

For me she had a female figure... but not my mother as you might expect but a grandmother or aunt figure. My nan? Not from the description. The timid little bird she described as reminiscent of Mavis Riley from Coronation Street did not resemble any one i know/knew. But she spent as much time describing my alleged personality as the dead's. It was all in terms of being all about words, an intellectual, into science, more comfortable with books than people etc...hmmm...it didn't escape my thoughts that i was, unusually for me outside of the house, wearing my glasses for once...what she was describing i suspect owed a lot to what she imagined me to be from my bespectacled appearance rather than insights from the other side.
Possibly riffing on the nerdy bookworm theme she talked of papers representing an exam or test, if not me then someone around me worried about a test and the dead lady whispering encouragement in their ear. It then hit me that the following morning my brother would be getting the results of a medical tests after several months which would indicate the seriousness or otherwise of certain symptoms. Was this just me twisting things to make meaning? Possibly. Probably. The belated left me with "a box of Milk Tray". As with the others this made me laugh. My chocoholism is an almost daily topic of conversation. Hmm.

The lady herself seemed sincere, and there's no money to be made from these church readings so fraud isn't even worth considering really. Its a choice between well meaning self delusion, or some vague ability but nothing to provide much useful insight or confirmation of survival. Perhaps more a flash or two of living agent psi. Who knows.

The following night, I went with the aforementioned brother to see someone at the opposite end of the mediumistic firmament. "Britain's favourite psychic!" (as she advertises herself) , "Psychic Sally" Morgan, at a theatre.

Summary to follow.

 

[gattino]

Part two: Psychic Sally

Months ago, my brother said he wanted to go and see her - she was playing in a nearby theatre - and bought tickets for us both even though he accepted she was a probably bad/a fraud/awful...he thought it would be an interesting thing to watch.

For me she occupies the same space as Derek Acorah for being self evidently a purveyor of nonsense and Uri Gellar for being inexplicably amazed everytime she gets something right, as if she's not used to it.

I'll put it this way.. We left after the interval.

95% of the audience were mature women. It was a more lavish production than the church obviously as there was a huge tv screen behind her on stage and a cameraman who would direct the camera at whoever in the audience she was talking to so we could all see and hear their interactions. Rather than give you any single verbatim example I'll describe the repeated outline of a typical sequence of interactions.

"Oh, who's Barbara? Shes just walked on behind me."

Silence.

"And she's connected to Ken. "

Audience: complete silence

"Someone knows her, she's says she's not going anywhere. Barbara. Or Deborah."

After half a dozen more names, someone in the balcony would shout something. Camera is directed to them.

"What made you stand up my love?"

Audience member: "My mum's sister was Barbara, and her next door neighbour was called Ken" "Well she's here my love. And she loves you very much. She's mentioning Eric. Do you know who that is?"

"No"

"Well she's very insistant, ive got to mention Eric."

Someone from another part of the audience calls out. She addresses the new person while the first person still has the camera on them, now looking confused and abandoned. "Stay standing my love, i'll come back to you. Now you - new person - what are you saying? "

New person: "I've got an Eric in spirit and a Barbara who's still alive."

"oh yeah, well that's what he's saying. He's here see. "

Returning to first person, who looks a little relieved not to have been forgotten, she'd say

"Wasn't that a lovely message for you. And they really do love you. Thank you darling.".

Me and every sane person, to ourselves "What lovely message? You didn't frigging say any message. She just knew someone with one of the many names you mentioned. "

And basically that went on in an endless daisy chain around the room. Always telling them how happy they must be for the lovely non existent message.

On the screen before the show it invited people to send pics of their loved ones to her whatsapp number (with small print about receiving offers and emails and to send a stop text if you didn't want them). I sent a pic of our deceased brothers. But after an hour of this the prospect of his face coming up on screen and me having to stand up and pretend clear "no"s were "im not sure's" was too cringeworthy to contemplate. So we made an exit before she got to that section. It would be interesting to know if his pic did indeed come up and she was left addressing our empty seats.

Before the show and during the interval the screen not only displayed links to her websites etc, but advertised her new self-named fragrance.

But who on earth wants to smell like Sally Morgan?

 

[Eyespy]

this brings back memories . My mother used to go to a spiritualist church at a time in her life when she was a bit vulnerable. I tagged along a couple of times against her wishes- I was learning to drive , partly so I could get a decent job and this would be good driving practice , Mum reckoned I was keeping tabs on her and this was an excuse.

As background, I had only 1 grandparent in UK. A grouchy lady whose one pleasure in life was finding fault in family and friends and setting us at odds. So I sat at the back of the spiritualist church quietly thinking about the highway code, I was somewhat taken aback to be the focus of attention as there was a message for the "dark youngster slouching at the back" apparently a strict but loving old lady was looking after me and wanted me to know I was loved and things would work out. The medium then went on to describe this dark skinned, grey haired little woman, who lived in a small coastal town somewhere warm who was quite concerned about me..

This came as quite a surprise, as my grandmother was a Very large, white woman living in Salisbury who had a pretty low opinion of me (regularly expressed). My mother was quite excited by this message and on the way home explained that she was bought up by her grandmother a small, rather fierce but upright woman. " Granmamma" had gradually come around to the idea that Mum who ran away from home to England had married and had children in the UK,.She was aware of us and mum had sent her the odd photo and letter. The old lady had died a couple of years earlier. I had never met her and she had not as far as I knew ever been to England.
What little communication between her and Mum would have been by mail- which took several weeks in those days. and would have been limited due to cost and package weight limits for the mail boat.

All in all I was bit taken aback by the mediums picking on me with such an unlikely message which meant nothing to me, but meant an awful lot to my mother.

As Gattino mention there is no obvious financial benefit to the spiritualist church fo holding these services, most pf the people at this one were fairly poor ( early 80'S) and not leaving big wads in the collection plate.

And yes, my life did suddenly improve a couple of weeks after this I got a good job, failed my car driving test but with helpful pointers and met a really nice partner.

 

[catseye]

I have a theory (because I've experienced something like it myself) that a lot of people can have 'flashes' of knowing something about a place or a person. Like a very low-grade telepathy. When you say something aloud, that makes everyone go 'how did you know THAT?' and then they turn to you for more information but from there on you aren't sure if what you are coming up with is more 'flashes' or whether it's pure invention on the part of your imagination.

I've done this a few times with people - had the 'flash of knowing' I mean, not the having to come up with more information. I mean, @gattino, what would be the connection between Danny's grandfather and the tattoo of the pineapple? Unless the grandfather paid for the tattoo (unlikely, if he died when Danny was two), then it's just her showing that she knows about the tattoo - presumably because of the grandfather? I'd guess that she had a 'flash' about something to do with pineapples and tried to hang it on extemporisation about a deceased member of the family.

 

[Recycled1]

I'm still the regular 'tea lady' at our Bournemouth Spiritualist church Friday healing session. (Tea /coffee and biscuit 50p, we're not there to make a profit!).
My bus times have changed, and I also went to the Sunday morning church service, and , to my surprise, got a 'message' from someone who sounded like my ex father in law.
I'm pretty sure it was real, some of it I didn't understand, some of it I did (and that bit cheered me up).
I put a fiver in the collection, but I didn't have to. I could have put 50p in -as I say, we're not there to make money, but the church premises cost money to run. No-one makes you attend these places!

 

[JahaRa]

Part two: Psychic Sally

Months ago, my brother said he wanted to go and see her - she was playing in a nearby theatre - and bought tickets for us both even though he accepted she was a probably bad/a fraud/awful...he thought it would be an interesting thing to watch.

For me she occupies the same space as Derek Acorah for being self evidently a purveyor of nonsense and Uri Gellar for being inexplicably amazed everytime she gets something right, as if she's not used to it.

I'll put it this way.. We left after the interval.

95% of the audience were mature women. It was a more lavish production than the church obviously as there was a huge tv screen behind her on stage and a cameraman who would direct the camera at whoever in the audience she was talking to so we could all see and hear their interactions. Rather than give you any single verbatim example I'll describe the repeated outline of a typical sequence of interactions.

"Oh, who's Barbara? Shes just walked on behind me."

Silence.

"And she's connected to Ken. "

Audience: complete silence

"Someone knows her, she's says she's not going anywhere. Barbara. Or Deborah."

After half a dozen more names, someone in the balcony would shout something. Camera is directed to them.

"What made you stand up my love?"

Audience member: "My mum's sister was Barbara, and her next door neighbour was called Ken" "Well she's here my love. And she loves you very much. She's mentioning Eric. Do you know who that is?"

"No"

"Well she's very insistant, ive got to mention Eric."

Someone from another part of the audience calls out. She addresses the new person while the first person still has the camera on them, now looking confused and abandoned. "Stay standing my love, i'll come back to you. Now you - new person - what are you saying? "

New person: "I've got an Eric in spirit and a Barbara who's still alive."

"oh yeah, well that's what he's saying. He's here see. "

Returning to first person, who looks a little relieved not to have been forgotten, she'd say

"Wasn't that a lovely message for you. And they really do love you. Thank you darling.".

Me and every sane person, to ourselves "What lovely message? You didn't frigging say any message. She just knew someone with one of the many names you mentioned. "

And basically that went on in an endless daisy chain around the room. Always telling them how happy they must be for the lovely non existent message.

On the screen before the show it invited people to send pics of their loved ones to her whatsapp number (with small print about receiving offers and emails and to send a stop text if you didn't want them). I sent a pic of our deceased brothers. But after an hour of this the prospect of his face coming up on screen and me having to stand up and pretend clear "no"s were "im not sure's" was too cringeworthy to contemplate. So we made an exit before she got to that section. It would be interesting to know if his pic did indeed come up and she was left addressing our empty seats.

Before the show and during the interval the screen not only displayed links to her websites etc, but advertised her new self-named fragrance.

But who on earth wants to smell like Sally Morgan?

That reminds me of the guy in the U.S. called John Edwards. He had a television show for a long time. I used to go to a seance occassionally run by a guy named John Capella when I lived in Dallas, TX. That guy never stuttered about a name and if no one claimed a name he would move on. And the 4 times I went there was never a name he called that no one claimed. Sometimes 2 or 3 people would answer if he said something like "Does anyone have a John that has passed." and he would point to the section of the room for the person the message was from. No lights in the room, blackout curtains on the window and doors. He would make us say our name as we went around the circle and did a good job of remembering the names so that if he got multiple people answering he knew what to call the person he was talking to. I tend towards skepticism but he did tell me things that resonated, and for me there was always a yes, like my grandpa asking "Do you remember when you rode on my tractor with me?" I did sit next to a woman who felt that he got everything wrong, so he isn't perfect. I have no idea why or how it works but I have experienced that it does work. It was cheap too, I think everyone put 10.00 in the basket at the beginning.

 

[JahaRa]

I have a theory (because I've experienced something like it myself) that a lot of people can have 'flashes' of knowing something about a place or a person. Like a very low-grade telepathy. When you say something aloud, that makes everyone go 'how did you know THAT?' and then they turn to you for more information but from there on you aren't sure if what you are coming up with is more 'flashes' or whether it's pure invention on the part of your imagination.

I've done this a few times with people - had the 'flash of knowing' I mean, not the having to come up with more information. I mean, @gattino, what would be the connection between Danny's grandfather and the tattoo of the pineapple? Unless the grandfather paid for the tattoo (unlikely, if he died when Danny was two), then it's just her showing that she knows about the tattoo - presumably because of the grandfather? I'd guess that she had a 'flash' about something to do with pineapples and tried to hang it on extemporisation about a deceased member of the family.

I hung out with a woman who wanted to be a "psychic medium". From what I saw when she did her "readings" I believe she was a bit telepathic and always told people what they expected to hear. Lots of people want confirmation of their beliefs. She made enough money to support herself doing parties and had a gig at a family restaraunt in the bar upstairs. I would not have paid her for a reading but lots of people who don't hang out with "psychics" paid her a lot, and gave her good tips.

 

[Cloudbusting]

I have a theory (because I've experienced something like it myself) that a lot of people can have 'flashes' of knowing something about a place or a person. Like a very low-grade telepathy. When you say something aloud, that makes everyone go 'how did you know THAT?' and then they turn to you for more information but from there on you aren't sure if what you are coming up with is more 'flashes' or whether it's pure invention on the part of your imagination.

I've done this a few times with people - had the 'flash of knowing' I mean, not the having to come up with more information. I mean, @gattino, what would be the connection between Danny's grandfather and the tattoo of the pineapple? Unless the grandfather paid for the tattoo (unlikely, if he died when Danny was two), then it's just her showing that she knows about the tattoo - presumably because of the grandfather? I'd guess that she had a 'flash' about something to do with pineapples and tried to hang it on extemporisation about a deceased member of the family.

A friend once told me that one of her friends was pregnant with her second child. I simply replied 'I know'. She retorted something like 'how could you know, when she's only just told me?!' And I just said 'But I've known that for a few months, I assume I heard it from you'. Turns out I hadn't. She was only a few months pregnant, and somehow I 'knew' this months prior to the conversation with my friend... perhaps before the pregnant friend in question was aware of this herself!

 

[AmStramGram]

I have a theory (because I've experienced something like it myself) that a lot of people can have 'flashes' of knowing something about a place or a person. Like a very low-grade telepathy. When you say something aloud, that makes everyone go 'how did you know THAT?' and then they turn to you for more information but from there on you aren't sure if what you are coming up with is more 'flashes' or whether it's pure invention on the part of your imagination.

I've done this a few times with people - had the 'flash of knowing' I mean, not the having to come up with more information. I mean, @gattino, what would be the connection between Danny's grandfather and the tattoo of the pineapple? Unless the grandfather paid for the tattoo (unlikely, if he died when Danny was two), then it's just her showing that she knows about the tattoo - presumably because of the grandfather? I'd guess that she had a 'flash' about something to do with pineapples and tried to hang it on extemporisation about a deceased member of the family.

Yep ! Clairvoyance happens. We can all experience that. It may even be something natural, as, as human beings we tend to unconsciously search for meaning. Our brains constantly make hypotheses about almost everything, even about insignificant things, and they happen to come true, sometimes (or if they don't, we are simply considered paranoid ...). I admit I occasionally astonished some co-workers by correctly guessing their computer passwords in just a single try, for instance. They asked me how I managed to do that. And I "played on" my success, giving a mysterious smile as my only answer, while it was simply a good guess : my co-worker had once told me that he had a great grand-father named "Fulgence", which is a very rare name. Remembering that, I thought "if I was him, I would use this as a password". And I was right. Although this was a conscious thought, I am certain we make thousand of similar guesses a day inconsciously.

But clairvoyance may have other, stranger sources.

Once, an old man told me that when he was younger, he used to practice Zen meditation under a famous Japanese master of the Soto sect. One day, he arrived early at his dojo (the place where they meditated), and the master was already there, facing the wall, in what was apparently a deep meditative state. The room was dark and quiet, so my old friend quietly sat on a cushion, taking care not to disturb the master. But suddenly the Zen monk, who had neither moved nor opened his eyes told him : "Ah, Chris ! You came early today". My friend was surprised to have been recognized, so while saying "hello", he thought "The little b#stard ! How come he recognized me without even opening his eyes ? By what means could he do this ?". That thought was a silent thought. He didn't voice this astonishment. But then the master immediately answered his untold question, saying : "You know Chris. Sometimes, when you find a flower allong your path, you take it, even though it wasn't your primary goal". In Japanese Zen culture, this is an explicit reference to the "powers" developped through meditation (what the Indian called "siddhis"), and clairvoyance is one of them.

We may think that the monk just told a random sentence, and that it was interpreted as an "answer" by my friend, but to this day the principal hero of this story remains adamant that this was indeed a direct answer to his silent reaction of surprise.

Meditation develops "mindfulness". Mindfulness makes us more sensitive to our environment. So, even in a rational interpretation of this story, we could assume that great meditators are better "cold readers" than standard people.

 

[catseye]

the master was already there, facing the wall, in what was apparently a deep meditative state. The room was dark and quiet, so my old friend quietly sat on a cushion, taking care not to disturb the master. But suddenly the Zen monk, who had neither moved nor opened his eyes told him : "Ah, Chris ! You came early today". My friend was surprised to have been recognized, so while saying "hello", he thought "The little b#stard ! How come he recognized me without even opening his eyes ? By what means could he do this ?". That thought was a silent thought. He didn't voice this astonishment. But then the master immediately answered his untold question, saying : "You know Chris. Sometimes, when you find a flower allong your path, you take it, even though it wasn't your primary goal". In Japanese Zen culture, this is an explicit reference to the "powers" developped through meditation (what the Indian called "siddhis"), and clairvoyance is one of them.

Or, the monk peeked.

 

[Seasidepagan]

A friend once told me that one of her friends was pregnant with her second child. I simply replied 'I know'. She retorted something like 'how could you know, when she's only just told me?!' And I just said 'But I've known that for a few months, I assume I heard it from you'. Turns out I hadn't. She was only a few months pregnant, and somehow I 'knew' this months prior to the conversation with my friend... perhaps before the pregnant friend in question was aware of this herself!

I’ve done this twice with acquaintances; people I worked with. I did have the audacity to tell them and both were absolutely adamant that they were not pregnant. One of them was menopausal (she thought) and one was on a reliable method of contraception and still having periods. I told them emphatically that they were definitely pregnant (I hadn’t seen them be sick or even be off their food they were not that close to me) and lo and behold both came to me after a dr visit and a test and to their surprise (not mine) they were both around 4 months pregnant.
My Nan used to dream of cracked eggs in a bowl if people were pregnant and when my cousin was preganant with twins she dreamed of two cracked eggs.

 

[Seasidepagan]

So this week, by (near) chance rather than deliberate planning, i attended two separate and unrelated public displays of purported mediumship. This is what happened.


Wednesday night. The spiritualist church.
A friend, Danny, had mentioned a few nights earlier that he would like to see a psychic. I suggested he can see one for free at the Spiritualist church any Wednesday. (I had attended on three occasions over a couple of years, several years ago and reported the details of each on here). So we agreed to go and later another friend Jim decided to join us.

It started with some promise as many on here will be aware of the continuing and recently reawakened saga of the recurring balloon motif seemingly being nudges from a deceased friend. And earlier in the day of the church attendance i found myself while fantasising about the medium potentially mentioning this balloon sign, passing a young man with an unusual and brightly colored print on his sweatshirt...a painting of a sad faced clown holding a bunch of balloons! Could this mean the deceased was going to come through tonight?!

I'll keep it brief. Of course he didn't. In general terms the evening was precisely the same as my previous experiences there...a lot of uninformative general stuff, primarily character reading of both the deceased and the person addressed, a lot of slow awkward agreement from the recipients, not wishing to say no but clearly struggling to give a sincere yes, and yet...and yet...as always..a standout moment where the precise nature of the accurate statement invited only one of two options. Actual foreknowledge of the person in the audience...or some kind of anomalous perception. On this occasion it was towards the end, when she accurately told a particular woman both her name and year of birth.

We three were sitting in the middle of the seating , and as most people gravitated to the sides or the front, we stood out and sure enough got the medium's attention. Of interest for analysis that she gave something to all three of us... interesting because it would suggest, if taken at face value, she was "calling up" information about whoever she was addressing rather than being directed to people by the disembodied who happened to be around. Anyway short version...To Jim she immediately said the name Robert, and no other. Until that afternoon i had no idea that was the name of his recently deceased father. I saw his previously cynical face change. From there of course he wished to believe...but i could equally see he was struggling to match her description of the man's personality with the reality. To Danny, the youngest and least expecting to hear from anyone, a father figure...his dad is still alive...became potentially his grandfather who sees him like a son. He was still struggling as he explained later his grandfather died when he was two so never knew the man. HIS snippet of "maybe" came with the deceased offering a symbolic gift as evidence...a pineapple. Again you could see instantly from his reaction this meant something to him. Turns out Danny has a very random tattoo of a pineapple on his ankle. Then she came to me.

For me she had a female figure... but not my mother as you might expect but a grandmother or aunt figure. My nan? Not from the description. The timid little bird she described as reminiscent of Mavis Riley from Coronation Street did not resemble any one i know/knew. But she spent as much time describing my alleged personality as the dead's. It was all in terms of being all about words, an intellectual, into science, more comfortable with books than people etc...hmmm...it didn't escape my thoughts that i was, unusually for me outside of the house, wearing my glasses for once...what she was describing i suspect owed a lot to what she imagined me to be from my bespectacled appearance rather than insights from the other side.
Possibly riffing on the nerdy bookworm theme she talked of papers representing an exam or test, if not me then someone around me worried about a test and the dead lady whispering encouragement in their ear. It then hit me that the following morning my brother would be getting the results of a medical tests after several months which would indicate the seriousness or otherwise of certain symptoms. Was this just me twisting things to make meaning? Possibly. Probably. The belated left me with "a box of Milk Tray". As with the others this made me laugh. My chocoholism is an almost daily topic of conversation. Hmm.

The lady herself seemed sincere, and there's no money to be made from these church readings so fraud isn't even worth considering really. Its a choice between well meaning self delusion, or some vague ability but nothing to provide much useful insight or confirmation of survival. Perhaps more a flash or two of living agent psi. Who knows.

The following night, I went with the aforementioned brother to see someone at the opposite end of the mediumistic firmament. "Britain's favourite psychic!" (as she advertises herself) , "Psychic Sally" Morgan, at a theatre.

Summary to follow.

I went to a spiritualist church back in early 1996 with my late mum. At the time I was mum to a one year old and used the old terry cloth nappies. As the service began the clairvoyant at the front pointed to me at the back and said ‘before we start I want to say to you that you’ll be getting those terry nappies out again soon won’t you’. I blushed so hard and denied knowing what she was talking about. That very morning I had done a pregnancy test and found out I was unexpectedly pregnant, even my
Mum didn’t know!

 

[Seasidepagan]

I have been to many clairvoyants over the years some absolutely guessing and some spot on. As my story above shows. However I went last week to see a clairvoyant who was doing her thing for 5 pound per ticket and there was only 9 of us there due to the jubilee weekend. As she had travelled over an hour to get there by car by the time she had paid her petrol home she would have broken even so she wasn’t there for profit or gain.
I was extremely sceptical at the back and thought well this will be interesting as there’s only 9 of us and two hours so she HAS to come to is all. Well two and a half hours later after seemingly being spot on with the other 8 attendees she still hasn’t come to me.
Eventually she does and says ‘ can I come closer into your energy as I can sense you are being sceptical.’ She then had a mother come through who died of cancer in the chest was thankful that I had put my life on hold to travel back and forth to be with her when she was dying and at the end. (All spot on mum died of lung cancer following breast cancer. I had for 6 months travelled up and down on the train for 300 miles each way, every weekend to make sure she was ok and be at there at the end). I was still sceptical she could have guessed some of that from my age and the fact I was there on my own.
Then suddenly she said oh my god I have a man here who fell to his knees, fell onto the carpet and died. He had a significant date in March. She then described the events of one of my close friends who died nearly a year ago to the day and who had fallen to his knees then the carpet and then had died. His widow is my best friend and the clairvoyant gave me some messages for me to pass on that were the answers to the very questions that my friend has been saying she needs to know the answers to before she can move on.
His birthday was March 29th.
Inexplicably she knew all this which a lot of my friends don’t even know.

 

[Robbrent]

I have been to a few, I have never been that impressed here we are confronted by the greatest mystery there is what happens when we die" and the messages all seemed rather banal and none specific

My late father however told me (he was also a seeker ) that he went to see a medium in the 60's who literally transfigured into his late father (voice and all) he stopped seeking after that he had the evidence he needed

 

[Robbrent]

I have been to many clairvoyants over the years some absolutely guessing and some spot on. As my story above shows. However I went last week to see a clairvoyant who was doing her thing for 5 pound per ticket and there was only 9 of us there due to the jubilee weekend. As she had travelled over an hour to get there by car by the time she had paid her petrol home she would have broken even so she wasn’t there for profit or gain.
I was extremely sceptical at the back and thought well this will be interesting as there’s only 9 of us and two hours so she HAS to come to is all. Well two and a half hours later after seemingly being spot on with the other 8 attendees she still hasn’t come to me.
Eventually she does and says ‘ can I come closer into your energy as I can sense you are being sceptical.’ She then had a mother come through who died of cancer in the chest was thankful that I had put my life on hold to travel back and forth to be with her when she was dying and at the end. (All spot on mum died of lung cancer following breast cancer. I had for 6 months travelled up and down on the train for 300 miles each way, every weekend to make sure she was ok and be at there at the end). I was still sceptical she could have guessed some of that from my age and the fact I was there on my own.
Then suddenly she said oh my god I have a man here who fell to his knees, fell onto the carpet and died. He had a significant date in March. She then described the events of one of my close friends who died nearly a year ago to the day and who had fallen to his knees then the carpet and then had died. His widow is my best friend and the clairvoyant gave me some messages for me to pass on that were the answers to the very questions that my friend has been saying she needs to know the answers to before she can move on.
His birthday was March 29th.
Inexplicably she knew all this which a lot of my friends don’t even know.

I have no doubt there are some genuine mediums

 

[Timble2]

At the request of Escargot, in the “Have You Got a Double?” thread.

Our local Spiritualist Church has an “Evening of Clairvoyance” every two or three weeks on a Saturday at 7:30. These are described as demonstration of mediumship, and are separate from the actual Church services on a Sunday. As an interested observer, I wouldn’t go to the latter, as it feels a bit disrespectful.

Admission is £5:00 and a £1 for the raffle, so with about 20 – 30 in the audience no-one’s making big money.

This was my fourth visit, the audience was predominantly female, and the men with one exception were there with a partner.

The medium this time was a middle-aged woman, in a loose floaty black top with a silver trim and silver accessories. She introduced herself as the “singing medium” – as the session went on it emerged that this was because she sometimes used snatches of popular songs to convey messages. Slight midlands accent.

She started off each reading by describing someone physically and asking if this meant anything, to someone in a specific part of the room, and if anyone said yes, she’d elaborate, mainly by yes and no responses from the target. One of these readings stood out, where she described a youngish, ginger-haired man, who’d died from a blow to the back from a pole (these were the details she put up front) and this was recognized by a woman with a family friend had who’d died falling off scaffolding, other details the medium elicited by yes and no from the woman. Generally, though it was messages from elderly relatives, with various illnesses, which started very loose and then tightened up based on their recipient’s responses. The older man on his own I mentioned earlier, the medium, had encountered before and she evoked some happy memories of his late wife and a message that she was still watching him. Generally, the messages were of the keep on striving you’ll succeed, and the your relative is still watching and caring for you variety. All positive and reassuring. She had some misses on details, but said put those to one side, it might mean something when you think about it later.

What do I think she was doing? Well some of it was cold reading, and reading the appearance and body language of the person responding. Then she was constructing an interactive narrative with the respondent. The ginger-haired scaffolder – I don’t know where that came from. She seemed quite sincere, so I don’t think she knows that she’s effectively cold reading and probably believes that the messages are indeed external from the spirit realm and not from her imagination.

The other sessions I’ve been to followed a similar pattern, all had one or two readings, where it’s hard to see where the information came from.

I think this medium and the others in these sessions are quite sincere and not exploiting anyone’s grief. On the other I saw Derek Acorah (before he dropped off his twig, obviously) a while ago and he had the air of a dodgy used-car salesman.

 

[eziofan]

Always amazed me how people forget their surnames after they have died. Its always 'John', 'David', 'Edith', etc. Be a lot easy to recognise them, don't you think?

 

[gattino]

"To be fair" ( whether one should be or not) as I understand it what is *usually* claimed/explained by mediums as their experience is not someone invisible audibly whispering in their ear, but rather mental impressions placed within their mind...thoughts or notions that have to be interpreted and given name to by the medium. And that when it comes to names, the sound or grasp of a name or an association in their own mental library is what bubbles up. It's easier for them to think the name they're being given is Dave if their own Uncle Dave seems to be loitering in their thoughts. Harder to interpret and verbalize the impression "Cadwalader"

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

"To be fair" ( whether one should be or not) as I understand it what is *usually* claimed/explained by mediums as their experience is not someone invisible audibly whispering in their ear, but rather mental impressions placed within their mind...thoughts or notions that have to be interpreted and given name to by the medium. And that when it comes to names, the sound or grasp of a name or an association in their own mental library is what bubbles up. It's easier for them to think the name they're being given is Dave if their own Uncle Dave seems to be loitering in their thoughts. Harder to interpret and verbalize the impression "Cadwalader"

I experience what you said - 'mental impressions placed within my mind', I only know what I am shown.
I can see, for instance, a deceased woman standing behind someone, and am 'told' that it is the person's aunt coming to say something to them.
Often when meeting a stranger, I can see their husband or wife, and their children, also children waiting to be born to them. Also many details of their life, which they often don't want to hear.
I bumped into a pregnant woman a few days ago and knew she was having a girl and told her so. She replied, 'How did you know?'

 

[Robbrent]

Always amazed me how people forget their surnames after they have died. Its always 'John', 'David', 'Edith', etc. Be a lot easy to recognise them, don't you think?

That's a very good and valid point, it would make verification a whole lot easier, I do suspect that a lot of those that come through are not who they say they are and enjoy playing elaborate games, in cases where a surname has been given it's been proven the person did not exist, I don't think there is any particular malice involved, just something that craves attention

To me the giving of a surname should be one of the gold standards

 

[Timble2]

Two more mediums. Went along last Saturday as they had two mediums in. Two ladies of a certain age, one very glam in a shining fitted dress and killer heels, the other in a summer dress and dark cardie - both with chunky pendants and silver jewellery.

As before the audience - about 35 people, predominantly female, four men were there on their own, and a few more were with their wives or girlfriends.

The two mediums did some readings individually, mostly aged relatives, then performed some readings together. At one point they had two spirits for different people, and a particularly complicated case where they had two spirits for one man - a rather smart man, I'd say in his late 70s. This got quite confused initially, as both spirits were his wives, he'd been widowed twice, and had married again to wife number three (who wasn't there). The two mediums drew out his memories of them, reading him and his reactions mainly, with deductions about an man of his age and type, though occasionally they'd pull up a detail - where he's spent his holiday's with one wife for example, that could could see where it came from. I thought that we were in a ''Blithe Spirit" scenario, but the two wives had met in the spirit world and get on really well and are both concerned that he's taking care of himself, and are glad he'd found someone else. The two mediums, worked almost as a tag team, glam medium seemed to be hearing the spirits, and summer frock also felt signs and symptoms, blurred eye sight, various ache and pains that the spirits had experienced in life.

In all cases they assured the person that they were talking to that the person in the spirit was safe and happy and was keeping a watch on them.

The session particularly when they were both working together, sometimes reminded me of an improv performance. Of the mediums I've seen at these sessions, I think they're quite sincere and believe that their insight come from an external source, i.e. the person who has passed over and is in the spirit, rather than from their own imagination and reading of the subject.

As for actual spirits, or telepathy as an explanation - I've not seen any compelling evidence.

 

[eziofan]

 

[Stormkhan]

In the Agatha Christie novel "Dumb Witness", Hercule Poirot questions someone who claims to have had contact with the victim's spirit. After a lot of vague nonsense, he asks how the departed would know who killed them.
"Ah, but once you've passed over, everything becomes clear and visible."
"Such a shame then that the departed are unable to supply the name of the killer. They seem only to give subtle hints."

I feel that some of the mediums have some psychic powers (clairvoyant etc.) but ascribe these to the Other Side contact. This is how they might come up with minor personal information about the sitter, such as being pregnant etc. A spirit need not be involved.
It all depends on how the medium wishes to explain their psychic abilities.

Sure, there's a lot of vague cold reading involved but this is down to either an intentional con, the medium wishing to connect their knowledge with a spirit, or the sitter themselves - consciously or unconsciously - desperate for contact to the spirit world. In the latter case, they really want to believe.

 

[escargot]

In the Agatha Christie novel "Dumb Witness", Hercule Poirot questions someone who claims to have had contact with the victim's spirit. After a lot of vague nonsense, he asks how the departed would know who killed them.
"Ah, but once you've passed over, everything becomes clear and visible."
"Such a shame then that the departed are unable to supply the name of the killer. They seem only to give subtle hints."

I feel that some of the mediums have some psychic powers (clairvoyant etc.) but ascribe these to the Other Side contact. This is how they might come up with minor personal information about the sitter, such as being pregnant etc. A spirit need not be involved.
It all depends on how the medium wishes to explain their psychic abilities.

Sure, there's a lot of vague cold reading involved but this is down to either an intentional con, the medium wishing to connect their knowledge with a spirit, or the sitter themselves - consciously or unconsciously - desperate for contact to the spirit world. In the latter case, they really want to believe.

Spiritualists would say that their information comes from Spirit, i.e. those who have passed over into the Realm of Spirit.
They don't claim any individual powers of precognition. That would make them prophets or summat.

 

[Robbrent]

In the Agatha Christie novel "Dumb Witness", Hercule Poirot questions someone who claims to have had contact with the victim's spirit. After a lot of vague nonsense, he asks how the departed would know who killed them.
"Ah, but once you've passed over, everything becomes clear and visible."
"Such a shame then that the departed are unable to supply the name of the killer. They seem only to give subtle hints."

I feel that some of the mediums have some psychic powers (clairvoyant etc.) but ascribe these to the Other Side contact. This is how they might come up with minor personal information about the sitter, such as being pregnant etc. A spirit need not be involved.
It all depends on how the medium wishes to explain their psychic abilities.

Sure, there's a lot of vague cold reading involved but this is down to either an intentional con, the medium wishing to connect their knowledge with a spirit, or the sitter themselves - consciously or unconsciously - desperate for contact to the spirit world. In the latter case, they really want to believe.

It's a very good point though, there are lots of unsolved murders where the victims would have known who the killer was but they never come through

The most charitable thing to say is that there are 1000's of souls desperate to communicate and not enough channels for them to come through

 

[escargot]

It's a very good point though, there are lots of unsolved murders where the victims would have known who the killer was but they never come through

There was a court case in Britain where the jury played a ouija board to ascertain the identity of the murderer. Someone later blabbed and there was trouble.

 

[Stormkhan]

I should expect so.
Juries are meant to make a decision based on the evidence presented in court. Not on information they find using a parlour game.

 

[gattino]

There is one very famous case of a murder victim purportedly identifying her killer through a psychic. The Jacqui Poole case. The full story is worth seeking out online, but the reference to it in the Psi Encyclopedia gives this summary:

"Jacqueline Poole was murdered in her West London flat in 1983.

Psychic Christine Holohan lived three miles away and on the night of the murder claimed to have seen the apparition of a woman, who gave her name as ‘Jacqui Hunt’ (Poole’s maiden name) and details about the murder. Holohan contacted the police and gave 131 separate statements, including descriptions of the murder scene whose accuracy impressed the first detective who arrived there, Tony Batters. Holohan also gave a detailed description of the murderer’s appearance and used automatic writing to give his nickname, identifying him.

The detectives were unable to obtain sufficient evidence and the case remained unsolved until eighteen years later, when the development of DNA technology allowed the case to be reopened. A pullover belonging to the man Holohan had identified as the murderer had been kept, and upon examination produced conclusive forensic evidence. He was convicted and jailed for life. Batters avowed that without the information given by Holohan, the detectives would not have retrieved and preserved the pullover or ascertained the murderer’s movements around the time of the murder.

Parapsychologists Guy Lyon Playfair and Montague Keen conducted interviews with Batters, Holohan and others, and examined their notes. They concluded that no normal explanation could account for the accuracy of Holohan’s statements, which were all relevant to the case and correct with a single exception."

 

[Robbrent]

There is one very famous case of a murder victim purportedly identifying her killer through a psychic. The Jacqui Poole case. The full story is worth seeking out online, but the reference to it in the Psi Encyclopedia gives this summary:

"Jacqueline Poole was murdered in her West London flat in 1983.

Psychic Christine Holohan lived three miles away and on the night of the murder claimed to have seen the apparition of a woman, who gave her name as ‘Jacqui Hunt’ (Poole’s maiden name) and details about the murder. Holohan contacted the police and gave 131 separate statements, including descriptions of the murder scene whose accuracy impressed the first detective who arrived there, Tony Batters. Holohan also gave a detailed description of the murderer’s appearance and used automatic writing to give his nickname, identifying him.

The detectives were unable to obtain sufficient evidence and the case remained unsolved until eighteen years later, when the development of DNA technology allowed the case to be reopened. A pullover belonging to the man Holohan had identified as the murderer had been kept, and upon examination produced conclusive forensic evidence. He was convicted and jailed for life. Batters avowed that without the information given by Holohan, the detectives would not have retrieved and preserved the pullover or ascertained the murderer’s movements around the time of the murder.

Parapsychologists Guy Lyon Playfair and Montague Keen conducted interviews with Batters, Holohan and others, and examined their notes. They concluded that no normal explanation could account for the accuracy of Holohan’s statements, which were all relevant to the case and correct with a single exception."

thanks I have never heard of that case I will do some research

 

[catseye]

A pullover belonging to the man Holohan had identified as the murderer had been kept, and upon examination produced conclusive forensic evidence. He was convicted and jailed for life. Batters avowed that without the information given by Holohan, the detectives would not have retrieved and preserved the pullover or ascertained the murderer’s movements around the time of the murder.

Hmm. I would question this. I've been watching a lot of Cold Case detective documentaries lately and they seemed to keep a LOT of evidence from the 80's. So I wouldn't necessarily put too much credence on them 'only keeping evidence because a psychic said so'.