Long Island Medium fake or real?

[Syco21]

A long time ago, I used to pretend I was psychic. And a lot of people actually believed me. Many of my 'predictions' or whatever were extremely accurate and what have you. Was fun, but easy to convince people you were the real deal.

[scottym23]

The fact that the last 200 years or so has seen a rather large incline of con-men and other frauds making a name for themselves by doing "supernatural" feats kinda makes it impossible to really know with certainty.

 

 

The other side of things is that really... Anyone who can do anything special (talk to the dead, heal with touch, sense things beyond normal senses, ect) wouldn't exactly benefit from telling anyone about it. In a best case scenario that person would be considered a fraud or lunatic and possibly medicated to the point of being a vegetable.

 

Well, let's start here..I can tell that you REALLY want to believe that it's possible, so you are over rationalizing and simplifying something that shouldn't have that done. Anyone who could do that wouldn't have anything to benefit from telling anyone? Really? Have you seen the great lengths people have gone to in order to get noticed, even have their 15 minutes of fame? WAY stupider things than actually having psychic or "supernatural" abilities..If someone truly does have that gift, then that means there are multiple people with it as well. So out of all of the people that have some supernatural phenomena surrounding them, you think every single one is going to have such a clear head and leveled personality that they'd restrain themselves from getting massive attention, and being forever known as the person who proved supernatural abilities actually exist? Come on now, let's be logical here..

 

Afterall, if someone really could talk to the dead, they would be literally surrounded by thousands of voices, everywhere and it would be indistinguishable from a psychological condition.

 

You make it sound as if you know this to be a fact. How can you be certain a person with this ability couldn't decide which voices to hear, or tune them out if she desired?

 

 

Arguably, the persecution that has happened worldwide for anyone doing anything outside the normal may have removed the concept of possibility from most of the Western world, so naturally anyone who might have some ability would be quick to dispute it on their own and forget about it. In other places it may not have the same level of disbelief, but would instead be impacted by small community reactions of either sheltering such a person as special, or shunning them as cursed.

 

There's only so much a small communitie's reactions could shelter a "special" person or shun them. If they can truly perform supernatural acts, they're getting noticed eventually by the right people who would show them off.

 

The reality is that supernatural powers simply do not agree with the reality of the world, and if you buy the notion of a sort of paradigm shift, it doesn't exist (or rather cannot be seen) because the common human psyche as it currently stands cannot accept it existing. But I'll leave it at that since digging deeper can be a mix of combing through nonesense, wading through tin-hat land, and the sort of stuff that can make you stay awake at night in a cold sweat and generally damaging to how you see the world.

 

I honestly don't mean any disrespect, but that sounds a lot like the explanation a person who wants to believe in the paranormal to justify his existence and cope with the inevitability of death would give if he didn't have any real reasons.

 

"Hey Phil, you believe in the "supernatural" and ghosts and stuff, right?.."

"Yeah Tom, I do. And there's a lot of evidence out there."

"Oh yeah, show me a fraction of it then."

"Well uhh...it exists I swear, but....you see...because of the paradigm shift...you can never see it and it doesn't exist to us, because your brain couldn't handle it. So yeah."

Edited September 19, 2012 by scottym23

[Vagrant0]

Do I think that this person is any less a fraud than John Edward? Nope. They're both conartists who are playing on the grief of others to gain fame and fortune. That is pretty evident. But I think you are trying to claim proof of something not existing simply because there is no evidence for it, and that is essentially an unwinnable battle (see religion).

 

My point is simply that you cannot close the book and assume everything is fake or impossible just because the majority of evidence is either clear fraud, admitted fraud, or unexplained. No, I don't expect that everyone who might have some ability to have a clear head and think things through, but that just means that they would be even more likely to wind locked up in an institution somewhere, tricked by someone wanting to disprove their ability, or just too scared of what anything means to ever use it intentionally. Doing something which everything you know tells you is impossible, but being presented with repeatable (but not necessarily controllable) evidence to the contrary is probably a very terrifying and confusing experience.

 

You really didn't understand what I meant by a paradigm shift, but are a good example of the basic premise. A paradigm basically relates to how you view something in only one way, and will state with absolute conviction that that thing can only exist in that way that you have seen it as. A shift occurs when you start being able to look at the very same thing and realize that there is something more to it, or can see it in other ways than the way initially assumed and can apply to almost anything. This sort of thing is easier to demonstrate with trick images that are drawn so that they can appear different depending on how you look at them (rabbit/duck or old/young woman are common ones). The particular shift (or series of shifts)I was referring to was one that happened just after WWI when there was a rather significant departure away from a spiritual and religious basis for the world towards a scientific basis. But is really the sort of topic that you'd have to dive into and swim through on your own volition to probably understand.

 

 

 

Regarding the whole fame and proof thing, let's put it another way... Let's say that it just got confirmed that over the past 200 years an alien species has been randomly abducting people for genetic testing (and not really bothering to keep records of where/when). How would you, an agency or group which was just tasked with negotiating some sort of reparations for those abductions (or just trying to find out) be able to figure out what cases are genuine (by manually having to check their genetic record against that provided by the aliens) from those who were just crazies, or from the millions of new people stepping forward claiming that they were abducted either by psychosis or by wanting some of those reparations (attention). Simply put, you wouldn't, couldn't, and be creating an even larger problem just by public confirmation of the very act. Now try that with a similar situation involving someone who possessed some sort of ESP, and trying to now figure out who is genuine and who is not. You run into the same problem of logistic impossibility. Even if you know exactly what you are looking for, you still have so much data to comb through to where even if it was a reasonably common occurrence, you'd likely be looking at less than 1% being genuine just by nature of people suddenly coming out of the woodwork.

[Vagrant0]

Hate to revive a dead thread... But psychic.

 

And that's random people in Belgium. Care to guess how easy it would be in the states when you have their credit card information on file, and they have some tragic history?

[Ghogiel]

And what people say to me when I voice my concern about every little piece of software, website, etc etc wanting my life story? Unplug your PC and go live in a cave.

[bben46]

Th Great Randi was (and may still be) keeping record of the predictions of various well known psychics. He actually wrote down what they predicted and checked back periodically. Several psychics claim to have predicted things like the 9-11 planes crashing into the twin towers. His records show that NOT ONE actually predicted any of these with anything like accuracy - the ones that claimed they did said vague things like - "There will be a great catastrophe with massive loss of life sometime during the year." - Note:There is some kind of 'great catastrophe' every year with great loss of life so that is meaningless as a prediction.

 

What kind of things have the psychics been predicting?

 

A volcanic eruption - these happen several times a year. So 100% Throw in loss of life and you have about a 1 in 3 chance.

Terrorist attack - near 100% probability

Increase in terrorist activity -The activity will either increase or decrease, it's not likely to stay the same. And more terrorist activity is being reported that was not reported previously making this a given.

Tsunami - these happen more often than most people realize.

A big fire in California - Duh!

Well known person assassinated, murdered or dying under suspicious circumstances - :rolleyes:.

Building collapse with death - about 2 a year.

Earthquake - when was the last year when you didn't hear about an earthquake somewhere killing people?

Obama being re elected - follow the polls.

 

If I could predict these kind of things with just a bit more than 50% of them being right, I would move to Las Vegas and get rich.

[scottym23]

Hate to revive a dead thread... But psychic.

 

And that's random people in Belgium. Care to guess how easy it would be in the states when you have their credit card information on file, and they have some tragic history?

 

Haha that's awesome! It's truly scary how most people don't even realize how much personal information they are letting the world know.

[Carah]

There are a lot of people out there that claim to be sensitive who are not and are in it to make a buck. Unfortunately, they give the legit and talented sensitives a bad name.

I believe that everyone has the ability to see, feel, and sense things that can not be logically explained to some degree... some are tapped into it better.

Myself, I couldn't sense a spirit energy even if it bit me on the arse but I am sensitive to other things... past life regression and stuff but that's going off topic.

 

I my not agree with the Long Island Medium's practices... for example claiming she is helping people but charging them money.

I do believe her abilities.

[rondetta58]

There are those who can feel something and need to get it of their chest to move on. I have, in fact, first hand experience to this. Sitting with family and conveying anger about a friend who committed suicide, 14 years ago, in the town where she was buried, to only receive an email from my sister two days later that a cousin of mine (who lives in the town my friend hung herself and was not present when I was visiting from TN) got in touch with my sister to tell her that a Denise keeps entering her mind with all this information to relay to me. My cousin said things that not even my sister would have known about this friend that died 45 years ago. I read the e-mail and wondered, until I got to the end and two names were thrown out to validate. I burst into tears, NO ONE would have known the connection. Something else was conveyed that would happen in the future, and sure enough--I lived 800 miles away at the time, the two words that I was also told (at the time, we couldn't understand them) came out. No way were they associated with each other and they came together as one. It was such a comforting feeling and I was not angry any more. The energy that I exuded that night was felt by the spirit of my deceased friend and she could not let me go through the anger and pain I was feeling with her loss. I am perfectly content with her passing now and know she is still with me in spirit.

[scottym23]

There are those who can feel something and need to get it of their chest to move on. I have, in fact, first hand experience to this. Sitting with family and conveying anger about a friend who committed suicide, 14 years ago, in the town where she was buried, to only receive an email from my sister two days later that a cousin of mine (who lives in the town my friend hung herself and was not present when I was visiting from TN) got in touch with my sister to tell her that a Denise keeps entering her mind with all this information to relay to me. My cousin said things that not even my sister would have known about this friend that died 45 years ago. I read the e-mail and wondered, until I got to the end and two names were thrown out to validate. I burst into tears, NO ONE would have known the connection. Something else was conveyed that would happen in the future, and sure enough--I lived 800 miles away at the time, the two words that I was also told (at the time, we couldn't understand them) came out. No way were they associated with each other and they came together as one. It was such a comforting feeling and I was not angry any more. The energy that I exuded that night was felt by the spirit of my deceased friend and she could not let me go through the anger and pain I was feeling with her loss. I am perfectly content with her passing now and know she is still with me in spirit.

 

That is a very touching story and understand why that would make you believe in an afterlife to some extent. For me it would take a lot more than that to make me believe. I'm not so close minded that nothing will change my mind, but it would have to be indisputable evidence that a supernatural force is the only explanation. In this instance supernatural phenomena is not the only explanation as much as you might think. You have to admit that it's at least possible that your cousin could have found a diary or remembered information he had previously forgotten and emailed your sister about it. As for your sudden anger you were conveying to your family, it's at the very least a startling coincidence i'll give you that, but certainly not proof enough (for me at least) that something supernatural is occurring. Again I am not saying at all that what happened to your cousin and you weren't supernatural, i'm just trying to get the point across that it's also possible it wasn't, therefore it doesn't make me believe necessarily. Some people might think i'm being close minded or stubborn on this issue, but really i'm just applying what I consider basic life skills to a situation. If you are skeptical about something then find proof one way or the other. If you can't find proof, then don't believe one way or the other until you can. That's why i'm open to the possibility of supernatural phenomena, but not convinced one way or the other. Kind of leaning towards there being none though. This is the same reason i'm agnostic too, but I think there's a forum rule saying we can't talk about religion in the debates section so I'll leave it at that haha.