Have You Ever Been Tricked By Someone Claiming To Be Able To Contact The Dead?

[naomi24]

Driving home today I was listening to Jeremy Vine interviewing A J West about his new book, 'The Spirit Engineer', which examines, among other things, the reality or otherwise of the spirit world and the trickery used by charlatans to convince people that they are actually contacting the dearly departed. Mr West threw out a couple of 'cold' readings and asked listeners to phone in if they thought anything he said referred to them personally. I arrived home before anyone called so I've no idea of the outcome. Interesting nonetheless.

So … have you ever been tricked by a trickster - and when did you realise you had?

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-spirit-engineer/a-j-west/9780715654330

[jno]

TTT, if you could hold a total stranger's hand, would you be able to tell she'd been in a car accident 10 years earlier? If so, please explain how.

[Mamyalynne]

There are people with natural talents, you won't find them selling tickets at the Village Hall or trying to fill Concert Arenas - you are more likely to encounter them by chance during your life.

[ToraToraTora]

no, not like that but neither can they, usually it's prior research etc. if I could analyse the whole scenario with all available data without a human's natural tendency to include/omit what suits them, I'd tell you how it was done. It's like "magicians" they do things that we cannot explain and if you ever do find out it's usually so disappointingly simple. Same here, they are a combination of magicians and con men.

[ToraToraTora]

mamy: "here are people with natural talents, you won't find them selling tickets at the Village Hall or trying to fill Concert Arenas - you are more likely to encounter them by chance during your life. " - no there are not there are deluded souls who have convinced themselves they have "powers" but the majority are out and out charlatans.

[mibn2cweus]

You do that Mr White ;-)

[ToraToraTora]

why was the Sceptics society's $1m never claimed? Because none of it stands up to proper scrutiny.

[ToraToraTora]

TTT: "they are a combination of magicians and con men. " , I should have said they are a combination of private detective, magician and conmen.

[jno]

prior research!? You must be joking.

I was in a foreign town seeing people I'd cold-called but never met before. It was in the early 90s, long before you could just google my name (and even if you do it now you won't find any of my medical history). He asked me no questions whatever and I told him nothing (because he didn't ask). And he had absolutely nothing to gain, money or otherwise, by doing any of this.

Try again.

[Peter Pedant]

yeah .... TTT has skills you know....

but he clearly had some skills that ordinary mortals do not.
like being able to conjure some or all of your old age pension from your pocket.... into his !

[ToraToraTora]

We had a "psychic" at my club, what a charlatan, I didn't spoil it for the devotees but it was all pretty basic stuff. They are experts at finding out details prior to a show, sifting public records, births deaths and marriages etc, rich source of info to use on the weak of mind. I used to love a great show called "The Mentalist" and he was amazing but always said he had no secret "powers" just used it talents to make it look like that. That's what they do.

[Mamyalynne]

I'm not trying to change your mind Tora, I am replying on a thread - return the favour please.

I don't need to seek any spiritual guides out, I have all the contact I need.

[ToraToraTora]

I don't need to jno, we can't repeat the experience so it can't be tested. Clearly the trick worked well on you, great. A small percentage genuinely believe they have a "gift" but most are con artists, end of.

[roopower]

I went to a spiritualist meeting with my daughter and her friend out of curiosity. None of us had been before and it was a spur of the moment thing. The 'psychic' for want of a better word honed in on my daughter's friend and described her long dead grandparents, names, appearance, the fact they were chicken farmers, the van they used to transport the chickens. There is no way he could have known and there was none of the 'does anybody know someone whose name begins with a J' business. Some things can't be explained. The friend was not local and the chap came from a different part of the country.

[AuntPG]

TTT Please explain this : One afternoon (IN Alberta,Canada) I became uneasy and started to get an 'earworm' , The name Sydney over and over again, insistant, " Sydney! Sydney!'. My OH called me about an hour later to say he would be home early as his workmate had just got word his daughter, aged 20, had died in a car accident, about 5 miles from our home. It was dreadfully sad. I only found out a few days later she had an 11-month-old daughter called......Sydney.

[naomi24]

TTT, you talk about the $1m never being claimed but there were conditions imposed that possibly could not be met and the organisation refused to put several people to the test.

[ToraToraTora]

naomi: "TTT, you talk about the $1m never being claimed but there were conditions imposed that possibly could not be met and the organisation refused to put several people to the test. " - no, there were no conditions until someone came along and agreed them with the society. So a potential claimant would define what they could do then the society would devise a series of measurements that both parties would agree to.

[ToraToraTora]

APG, roo, others etc. I cannot explain those situations because I do not and cannot have all the data. It works like a conjuring trick, all those techniques described by Penn and Teller et al. The tricks work they are clever they fool people that's what they do. If any of them really had any powers they'd be gazillionaires rather than trying to con nobodies out of a few quid to go and see them.

[jno]

we can't repeat the experience so it can't be tested

on the contrary - you can't hold my hand* but you know more about me than he did, just from AB posts (though don't be too sure I've told you my gender), so you can very easily repeat it. I say it again: we didn't talk, so he knew nothing whatever about me except my name, which I'd given his osteopath friend. And there was, and is, nothing on record about my accident, anywhere in the world.

* For what it's worth - I think the hand-holding was what it was about. He wasn't putting me in touch with dead parents or pets, after all, but he was giving me a sort of physical examination. You'd have to be supersensitive to diagnose a long-past traffic accident from taking someone's pulse, but I think it's within the realms of the possible, not the supernatural. (He made no claims to be psychic.)