Saturday 14 September 2024

Is Anybody There? Nope

My old neighbour was a self declared Psychic and occasionally she would stop me by the lift to give me some message or other which supposedly came from my Grandfather and was generally along the lines of 'Watch out for a man wearing a black hat today or 'Park your car a little further away at work today' and i would normally just smile and nod and promptly ignore her.
I did ask her, as it was my Grandfather she was supposedly speaking to directly, as proof it's actually him could she ask him his middle name? It was a bit of an unusual name and not something anyone could guess and she never did although she did when she asked he refused as i should not be so sceptical, so back to nodding and smiling and ignoring her as a crank.
I have always assumed the only people who believe the words of psychics or mediums are the extremely gullible but according to a Gallup poll a quarter of people believe that humans have psychic abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance.
James Randi made a million dollars available to anyone who could prove their psychic abilities under laboratory conditions and as of today, 60 years later, after a thousand people applied, it is still unclaimed as is the $100,000 on offer in Australia for anyone who can prove they have psychic or paranormal powers and is able to demonstrate their ability under proper observing conditions.
Derren Brown, famously uses his 'Psychic Abilities' in order to debunk those who claim psychic ability through cold reading and high-probability guesses along with psychological tricks but i do wonder if those who claim to be psychic actually believe they are, such as my former neighbour and if they do, do they believe they are actually helping?
Those who demand payment for passing on messages from beyond are obviously charlatans and should be avoided hence the disclaimer that their services are 'for entertainment purposes only' but some do believe and even make changes due to what they have been told but Psychics, Clairvoyants and anyone who states they have some sort of 'power' should be generally dismissed because if they were as good as they say, the James Randi foundation would be $1m worse off by now but they still cling on to it so make of that what you will.

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