The Fortean/paranormal/conspiracy thread

[WyattSheepMask]

2 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Funnily enough, my girlfriend is a holistic therapist, but she makes it explicitly clear that it's complimentary medicine and is there to help with what your GP has recommended.  A vegan diet won't cure cancer, despite what that Avocado Wolfe wanker says.

Well there’s the difference between the two. My sister in law is the polar opposite and basically tries to convince people not to see a doctor, and that these little bottles of water she sells will cure all ailments because she’s complete a two week course. Her two year still can’t walk or talk because she does ‘attached parenting’, and if she leaves him alone for more than 5 seconds his Chakra might break or something

[Keith Houchen]

Fucking hell, I know the sort you mean, that's child abuse isn't it?

[Surf Digby]

Christ. My lad's not even two yet and he can read numbers*. Even "letting him develop naturally", surely she acknowledges how stunted he is?

*He also claims to be able to taste colours and will lick the bath toys before saying what colour it is, but I reckon he's just taking the piss out of me.

[drkopen]

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

I wonder how they are able to know so much information about a regular client?

I worked as a mentalist doing a fake psychic stick and honestly you can know loads about a client you've never seen before. If you combine a few different techniques you can have people convinced you have special powers.

I did a stage show where I revealed amazing details about a lady in the audience who I'd never met and all without her saying a word. Despite repeatedly telling people it was BS people left convinced that I was a legit psychic.

[Cod Eye]

Completely agree about "psychics" and "mediums". They can be very dangerous, especially to the more gullible(is that the right term?) people. My mates marriage was ruined by one actually. His wife went to a reading with one who told her "your partner has done something he isn't proud of"(exact words). She believed what the fraud said and become convinced he was shagging around, and the divorce soon followed. Apparently, there was even something about the reading in the divorce papers. 

[WyattSheepMask]

Gullible might be a bit harsh, although I get what you’re saying. Susceptible? Impressionable maybe

[Keith Houchen]

2 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Gullible might be a bit harsh, although I get what you’re saying. Susceptible? Impressionable maybe

Also it's people who have lost something and want to make sense of their loss.  @drkopen Ha, that's fantastic!

[Cod Eye]

55 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Gullible might be a bit harsh, although I get what you’re saying. Susceptible? Impressionable maybe

 

51 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Also it's people who have lost something and want to make sense of their loss.  @drkopen Ha, that's fantastic!

Your right, I knew it didn't sound right as I typed it...

[Rey_Piste]

I have a friend who after her father passed ended up going to a psychic. There was a big part of me  who was so tempted to just to get her to stop going and the psychic really couldn't speak to her dad. I  know the psychic was fleecing her, but it was helping her to grieve.

This is a great video of how they do cold calling, just come out with vague open ended answers and questions.

 

[Astro Hollywood]

If anyone's interested, I wrote about the time a monster-hunting oil tycoon got Hollywood's Jimmy Stewart to smuggle a yeti's finger.

[Carbomb]

On ‎6‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 5:31 PM, Cod Eye said:

Completely agree about "psychics" and "mediums". They can be very dangerous, especially to the more gullible(is that the right term?) people. My mates marriage was ruined by one actually. His wife went to a reading with one who told her "your partner has done something he isn't proud of"(exact words). She believed what the fraud said and become convinced he was shagging around, and the divorce soon followed. Apparently, there was even something about the reading in the divorce papers. 

I remember a documentary about that case; think it started in some grotty nightclub in Lancashire somewhere.

 

"Professional" psychics and mediums are a contemptible bunch. You can always tell who's a charlatan and who legitimately believes in it, because the latter are always offering to give people readings for free, so you know their hearts are in the right place, even if their heads aren't. Almost as bad are the "magicians" - anyone get them in their area? We often get business cards through our door from a "Mr. Kabir" or a "Mr. Malik", or something similar, offering to banish evil spirits and influences on your life. They're usually either Pakistanis or Indian Muslims utilising village superstitions, but have realised they can milk the suburban white middle class for more money than impoverished villagers, or they're Hausa Nigerian, fusing the old West African animist beliefs with Islamic mythos, with just a sprinkle of the ol' 419/General Babatunde Olayewu Wants To Split His £50m With You And Only You, Random White Person Out Of Millions.

If it weren't so flabbergasting, it'd be the highest entertainment to dissect how, despite the diversity of the sheer myriad of human cultures globally, there are always present certain archetypes; in this case, the con-men offering salvation or healing through the paranormal. Modern witch doctors, psychics, Derek Acorah, mediums (media? Whoa, a glimpse through the looking glass), Filipino psychic surgeons, magicians, Derek Acorah, exorcists, diviners, dowsers, "classical" homeopaths, reiki practitioners, and Derek Acorah.

 

BTW for me, despite the host of arguments against homeopathy (which Ben Goldacre has done a great job of listing), there's one that does the job all by itself: if water really did mimic the properties of substances present in it, it would've been weaponised by now - uranium, plutonium, white phosphorus, C4, gelignite, etc. - and we'd have consequently developed better desalinisation systems, meaning no water shortages at all. 

As a corollary, given the Chinese dominance of the rare earth metals market (something like 87% of RE metals are mined in China), the West would've utilised homeopathy by now to challenge that dominance.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Carbomb

[BomberPat]

22 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Almost as bad are the "magicians" - anyone get them in their area? We often get business cards through our door from a "Mr. Kabir" or a "Mr. Malik", or something similar, offering to banish evil spirits and influences on your life. They're usually either Pakistanis or Indian Muslims utilising village superstitions, but have realised they can milk the suburban white middle class for more money than impoverished villagers, or they're Hausa Nigerian, fusing the old West African animist beliefs with Islamic mythos, with just a sprinkle of the ol' 419/General Babatunde Olayewu Wants To Split His £50m With You And Only You, Random White Person Out Of Millions.

Somewhere, I have a business card from Mr. Mamadu, which is one of my absolute favourite things, making the man something of a legend amongst one circle of friends. 

The card describes him as "from birth a gifted African spiritual healer and advisor". He advises that, "no matter how difficult your problem, there is a solution", and then lists, "Black magic, love, voodoo, sexual impotency, business transactions, exams & court cases", followed by, "I can help you with your loved ones, split unwanted relationships & gambling".

"Gambling" was always my favourite, as it's just thrown in there at the end, out of place and grammatically dubious. I like to think that he's not offering to help you with your gambling addiction or debts, just that Mr Mamadu has a dead cert for the National.

[Keith Houchen]

27 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

"Black magic, love, voodoo, sexual impotency, business transactions, exams & court cases"

Hey Siri, what are my events for today. 

[gmoney]

32 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Somewhere, I have a business card from Mr. Mamadu, which is one of my absolute favourite things, making the man something of a legend amongst one circle of friends. 

The card describes him as "from birth a gifted African spiritual healer and advisor". He advises that, "no matter how difficult your problem, there is a solution", and then lists, "Black magic, love, voodoo, sexual impotency, business transactions, exams & court cases", followed by, "I can help you with your loved ones, split unwanted relationships & gambling".

"Gambling" was always my favourite, as it's just thrown in there at the end, out of place and grammatically dubious. I like to think that he's not offering to help you with your gambling addiction or debts, just that Mr Mamadu has a dead cert for the National.

I've got two of these things handed to me in Croydon. Both almost identical in design and problems cured, but different names and contact details. One is called Mr Madiba. I'll upload them when I get home later, if I remember. 

[BomberPat]

22 hours ago, Carbomb said:

If it weren't so flabbergasting, it'd be the highest entertainment to dissect how, despite the diversity of the sheer myriad of human cultures globally, there are always present certain archetypes; in this case, the con-men offering salvation or healing through the paranormal. Modern witch doctors, psychics, Derek Acorah, mediums (media? Whoa, a glimpse through the looking glass), Filipino psychic surgeons, magicians, Derek Acorah, exorcists, diviners, dowsers, "classical" homeopaths, reiki practitioners, and Derek Acorah.

This is sort of where I am with a lot of this stuff, and other bits of conspiracy and Fortean minded ideas - I find them fascinating, and want to figure out everything I can about what makes them tick, and why people put faith in them, but I have so little patience when there are real life consequences. It's probably why I lean more into cryptozoology than any of the rest of it - because while a lot of it is bollocks, and wrong-headed, and all the rest of it, it's really not hurting anyone. 

There's obviously on some level a need for a "shaman" type figure in society - I'm reminded of Alan Moore saying how his biggest problem with organised religion is that it introduced middle management into the religious impulse - and psychics, mediums and faith healers are filling that role in a relatively secular society. Jason Colavito writes a lot about how the "Ancient Aliens" lot have moved way beyond the initial Chariots Of The Gods? premise, and into treating the Ancient Astronaut theory as an ersatz religion, and I think that's probably where a lot of belief in the paranormal - where otherwise rational people still believe, or can be convinced to believe, in ghosts, psychics, the afterlife, spirit energy, or whatever - comes from; whatever part of our brain, whatever quirk of evolution drives the religious impulse is still there even when conventional religion isn't, so we're still grasping for connections to make sense of the world, for one big answer to all the big questions.