The Fortean/paranormal/conspiracy thread

[Scratch]

There’s an easy way to know if someone can speak to the dead or not: they can’t.

I became interested in physics and telekinesis in my early twenties and have read quite a bit over the years. You can’t of course discuss the topic without mentioning the late James Randi and the work he did with Project Alpha.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha_(hoax)

I really couldn’t recommend An Honest Lier enough, it was broadcast on BBC4 some years ago under their Storyville series. You can watch it for free actually on Amazon Freevee.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2246565/

The documentary covers Randi’s exposure of James Hydrick, Uri Geller, Peter Poppoff and his involvement in Project Alpha.

It is of course completely one-sided, from the perspective of a man who’s spent a lifetime debunking. But he makes a point of being able to replicate every “psychic” effect using basic magic tricks.

And I think that’s often why - to answer the question above - someone who claims to be psychic is keen to tell strangers about their gift, even when removing money and obvious motive from the equation. It’s no different to meeting someone in the pub who’ll keenly ask “do you want to see a trick?!’ before taking a deck of cards from their pocket and wowing you with something seemingly impossible. Fooling people is satisfying to some people.

As Randi said, a magician is the most honest person you’ll meet; they’ll tell you that they’re going to fool you and then they will. The only difference, really, with a psychic, is that they’ll tell you it’s real. That’s a con, regardless of whether or not money changes hands.

 

 

Edited February 27 by Scratch

[MungoChutney]

I know a little bit about mentalism and a touch more about magic tricks. Out of curiosity I went to a 'psychic night' in a pub about a decade ago. I was interested to see how they worked and was massively disappointed when they rolled out a series of low rent tricks that I had sussed as soon as they started talking. There was around 150 people there, all completely enthralled in it. Very lucrative because it was a fiver a ticket but 20 quid extra for a private reading, which 50 or so people paid for. 

[King Coconut]

1 hour ago, MungoChutney said:

There was around 150 people there

Think of the potential Marys!

Incidentally, my nan was called Mary and my mother Cath. That tells you all you need to know about that trick.

[LaGoosh]

8 hours ago, waters44 said:

This then sent a shiver down my spine because my Grandma, who’s name was Victoria Mary had died a year earlier, which was maybe five years after her daughter, my Auntie Cath died. 

My nan was also called Mary and I also have an Aunt called Kathleen. Everyone from that fucking generation was called Mary and Cath.

Thing is this woman may genuinely believe that she can talk to the dead. She can't though.

If someone from beyond the grave ever passes a message to me I hope it's not as boring as the "so and so wants to let you know they are ok!" message it always seems to be. I want them to tell me something that's either completely mental or something incredibly useful - like where I can find some buried money or something.

Edited February 27 by LaGoosh

[waters44]

40 minutes ago, King Coconut said:

Think of the potential Marys!

Incidentally, my nan was called Mary and my mother Cath. That tells you all you need to know about that trick.

I changed the names in my post just to limit amount of personal info out there but yeah their real names are common so you’re absolutely right. Still, the hit rate on the names is pretty incredible

@ScratchI’ve seen quite a bit of James Randi, love that guy. Unbelievable that grifters would go on his show and think they could pull one over on him

Perhaps this lady just enjoyed fooling people like you mention, which is really cruel. Just seems bizarre to me, she was a quiet lady in her 50s. 

[hallicks]

I’m going to tell my kids that the only message I’ll send them from beyond the grave is that “Dad still thinks reggae is shit”, so if it’s not that then they know it’s a con. 

[BomberPat]

44 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Thing is this woman may genuinely believe that she can talk to the dead. She can't though.

A bloke I used to work with, Chris French, was just interviewed about his new book on Parapsychology in the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer, and he commented on this sort of thing, and his growth from an earlier James Randi-influenced position that all psychics were grifters and con artists to his current stance, which is that actually the majority of people who believe themselves to be psychic aren't making any money off of it and are genuine in their belief.

That obviously doesn't mean they are psychic, it just means that they're unwittingly reproducing some of the simpler techniques used by "psychics" and mentalists - asking leading questions, knowing that you'll remember the hits more than the misses, safe guesses and weasel-words, but they think they're doing it earnestly. 

I've read a lot of James Randi and Martin Gardner books on this sort of thing, and I recently picked up the book that accompanied James Randi's ITV series "Psychic Investigator" in a charity shop. In there, he lays out some of the tests he put supposed psychics and telepaths through, and what he found is people would massively overestimate the number of things a psychic got correct and either forget or downplay what they got wrong - all the "I'm getting Mary...no, Joan...maybe it's Dorothy?" guesswork - and would forget how many things they credit the psychic for when, in reality, it was the subject who basically gave them the information in the first place. 

There's a really fun book called "The Psychic Mafia" by M. Lamar Keene, and a decent podcast about him called "Fake Psychic" from a few years ago. A lot of the more lurid stuff is almost certainly bollocks, but he was a phony medium at an American spiritualist camp. As well as a lot of cold reading stuff, he wrote at length about how much background work would be done to find out as much information about clients, especially wealthier ones, to completely win them over - up to and including stealing jewellery from them so he could make it magically reappear at their next meeting, and keeping coded index cards about everyone who visited the camp, similar to how Peter Popoff made his audience fill in "prayer cards" so that they already had all the information they needed. But Keene, in his book and in his conversations with James Randi, talked about "True Believer Syndrome" - how most people who go to visit psychics and spiritualists will keep on believing in them no matter how much you expose them, or how much they recant. When Keene confessed that it had all been a hoax, many of his followers went on believing that he had psychic powers even if he didn't think he did, because it was too important to them that they go on believing.
Similarly, when Randi and other magicians used to debunk psychics and the likes of Uri Gellar, it often worked in the psychics' favour. Because they would bullshit something about the aura or the energy not being right, or the spirits not cooperating today, and the true believers would argue that this just proved it was real, because if it were just a trick they would be able to do it every time!

My favourite story about mediums and messages from beyond the grave was Harry Houdini. He spent a lot of time and energy debunking psychics and spiritualists, and it's quite well known that he and his wife had a codeword, so whoever outlived the other would attend seances once a year, and if anybody claimed to have contacted the other, they'd know if it was fake if they didn't relay this word. Prior to that, Houdini had attended a number of seances attempting to reach his mother, who he adored and I think honestly held out hope that there would be some way of contacting. He gave up when a medium relayed a message to him, purporting to be from his mother, who seemed to know so many details of their life together, but it was all in perfect English, which she couldn't speak, and she was making the sign of the cross, when Houdini's mother was Jewish. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I may have told this story before but I have seen one of the premier charlatans in the field of psychics Derek Acorah. It was quite a few years ago at the height of his Most Haunted fame. My mum is into that sort of thing and I had to drive her to the Embassy Theatre at Skegness. Derek started with the usual gubbins these hucksters come out with, it wasn't quite "Is there a John in the room" but it was close. He'd talked to about half a dozen of the audience and it was going well. Everyone who goes to these sort of things usually has someone they want to hear from on "The Other Side" so they are easy to cold read, even easier if they are holding a picture of their deceased relative as some were. 

Then things took an odd turn. Derek "Brought through" a spirit that no one would lay claim too. A police sergeant as I remember. He then had a massive strop because no one would say they knew this spirit and told the audience that if anyone came to him afterwards and said they knew the spirit he wouldn't bring them back and he would relay no messages. 

So after his strop he said that spirit was going back now and a new one was coming through. He said that as the police sergeant went back he said to the new spirit "I hope you have more luck than I did" which drew sad gasps from a section of the audience but stifled laughter from both me and my mum. 

I know I've met a few people who post here, but if we haven't met a key thing you need to know about me is that I am very loudly spoken. A whisper is beyond my vocal ability. So when I tell you the next bit keep that in mind. 

Derek on stage "I'm bringing through a young girl"

Me whispering to my mum "I bet she is 18 or 19"

Derek "She was only 18 when she passed"

Me "killed herself"

Derek "it's very sad, her passing was not easy"

Me "She took a drug overdose"

Derek "She had a terrible addiction to drugs and they cruelly took her life"

Me "She was pregnant"

Derek "And I'm heartbroken to say she was with child when she passed"

By this point everyone around us is sniggering except the woman sat just in front who says it's her that the spirit is there for. Derek does his spiel to the woman who contradicts a lot of what Derek said but he ignores that, but she is wearing a ring that is clearly too big for her that Derek latches on to like the professional charlatan he is. 

After that Derek got a man out of the audience to do some psychic healing on his back which involved lifting his shirt and bending him over while Derek stood behind him. By that point we were laughing so much we were about to get chucked out so we left with at least half the show still to go. 

Of course I needn't make it clear to you but I will, neither Derek or myself are psychic. 

[Scratch]

53 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

neither Derek or myself are psychic. 

When he died himself, he must’ve been truly gutted to find out it was all a load of bollocks.

[SuperBacon]

The best. 

It's like anything to do with that really isn't it? It's a crux, and makes people feel that when we die we don't just disappear (we do)

My ex is into psychics and readings and all that kind of thing and its bought her some comfort in certain things over the years so I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

Personally I think it's a load of bollocks, but I don't think I'd tell her that, as that seems a bit cruel when like I say, it's provided comfort. 

I don't believe in any after life but we've had fun on loads of ghost hunts to be honest, but maybe that's more down to the interesting places we went.

Before each hunt they'd ask who was a "skeptic" and I'd always say I was, but open minded and my opinion was respected and I respected theirs.

Charlatans that prey on people can clearly do one though.

Having said that, even now when I think of the atmosphere and how I felt in a particular room at Hampton Court Palace, I feel absolutely sick to my stomach.

Something was in there and it wasn't normal. Gross.

[TibBo]

15 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Having said that, even now when I think of the atmosphere and how I felt in a particular room at Hampton Court Palace, I feel absolutely sick to my stomach.

Something was in there and it wasn't normal. Gross.

Was it prince andrew?

[HarmonicGenerator]

9 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Having said that, even now when I think of the atmosphere and how I felt in a particular room at Hampton Court Palace, I feel absolutely sick to my stomach.

Something was in there and it wasn't normal. Gross.

Do you remember which room? I was there recently and was told a few stories, be interesting to know if your experience happened in the same place as these ones were meant to.

[SuperBacon]

3 hours ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

Do you remember which room? I was there recently and was told a few stories, be interesting to know if your experience happened in the same place as these ones were meant to.

I can't quite remember exactly what it was called, but it was described as being a walk in wardrobe room/clothes room where the women (Queens?) would be dressed in the morning.

As soon as I walked in, I can't really describe it well, but it felt incredibly heavy, and very oppressive, as if I wasn't supposed to be there or wasn't wanted there.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I couldn't see. Not because it was dark as this was light evening before the actual "hunt" took place, but it was almost as if all the light in my eyes had disappeared rather than the light in the room, if that makes sense.

And it felt like a heavy cloak around you. Honestly it was rank, and like I say, I don't believe in any of that. 

Of course you could say historical buildings are full history and you can "feel" the past in the walls and that's because you know its historical and important so your mind makes it this way.

I've had that loads of times in my life, where you relive the history as you stand there, but this was different. 

I refused to go back in there.

[BomberPat]

I have a subscription to Fortean Times, and tend to gloss over all the ghost and UFO stuff, as I find it all the most tedious, and they all come down to, "well, it didn't happen, did it? They're not real, someone saw something they thought was something else, that's it". That said, I am really fascinated by what makes supposedly haunted places feel so uncanny and weird - it can't just be all draughts and weird noises from the plumbing, and it can only be in part because of people having prior knowledge of the place's history or reputation. My half-formed pub reckon is that it's something to do with the acoustics of the space, and soundwaves outside of our hearing spectrum that we process in other ways, giving us the feeling that we've sensed something, but without recognising what it was.

I don't think I've ever really believed in ghosts, though some friends of mine when I was a kid lived in one of the older houses in the village, and you got that sense throughout it, just that there was something. You couldn't fully explain it with the sounds and atmosphere of an old building, you'd just be sat playing at their computer and then a really oppressive feeling would come over you, and you'd feel a chill no matter the temperature. Very weird stuff that there must be a rational explanation for, but every part of your brain that seeks one is kind of short-circuited by it. My half-brother - who does believe in all this stuff - house-sat for them once, and after spending a couple of nights in there refused to ever go back. When I was back in the village for my Gran's funeral, a good fifteen years at least since that happened, he still upped his pace and power-walked past the house to get away from it as quickly as possible when we got near to it. When he refused to stay there any more, my other, older, half-brother, who as far as I know doesn't believe in ghosts at all, agreed to look after instead, and lasted even less time there. Weird, weird place.

In my last charity shop haul, I picked up a copy of Arthur C. Clarke's Chronicles of the Strange and Mysterious. Other than local ghost story books, Mysterious World was my gateway into all things Fortean and weird, and I've always had a soft spot for it, and this was a bit of a late cash-in, coming after Mysterious World and World of Strange Powers, but before Mysterious Universe. I thought it would be interesting to see what the big mysterious topics of the day were, as presumably some of them would have been solved, and some were peculiar obsessions of the day rather than long-running mysteries - similar to reading Randi and Gardner, where there's a lot of focus on psychic photography, psychic surgery, and other scams that don't really persist in the same way any more.

There's some expected old favourites - Loch Ness, the Nazca Lines, all that jazz - but it's the stuff that feels really quaint and of its time that I found really endearing. Alien Big Cats and the Beast of Exmoor, rains of fish, timeslips and phantom houses; stories of pubs and hotels that, once visited, people could never find again, usually populated by people in old-fashioned clothes. A surprising amount of time still dedicated to the Cottingley Fairies, which I remember still being a bit of an obsession into the '90s despite having always been an obvious fake. Some stuff on religious customs in Sri Lanka, and finding explanations for fire-walking and hook-hanging, which I associate far more with body modders in Bizarre magazine than with Sri Lankan religious devotees. And, of course, a massive section on Spontaneous Human Combustion, complete with grisly photos of loose limbs in piles of ash, and Clarke being thoroughly weirded out by it all. There's an old meme about childhood media making you think quicksand would be a much bigger issue in life, but for me it was SHC, I was utterly convinced it was a widespread concern. 

I just found it all really quaint and reassuring, this collection of odd little paranormal obsessions of my childhood.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

38 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

felt incredibly heavy, and very oppressive, as if I wasn't supposed to be there or wasn't wanted there.

Yet you still post here everyday 😁