Psychic abilities

Discuss the October 2016 Book of the Month, Unspeakable Acts by Janet Leigh Green.
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gali
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Psychic abilities

Post by gali »

Sheila Mathers had psychic abilities. What are your thoughts on the subject? Do you believe in that?
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Post by katiesquilts »

I have a hard time believing in paranormal psychic abilities. I might be convinced that someone is super sensitive to auras or has a knack for catching glimpses of ghosts, but I just can't believe that one person can be so in-tune with the dead.

That being said, my mom has some stories of when I was little and would "talk" with our next-door neighbor, who had passed away several months before.
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Post by Heidi M Simone »

I personally don't believe in people having psychic abilities, which I guess goes hand in hand that I don't believe in ghosts.

Back in high school, one of my closest friends was curious about this ability and she found a place where a woman claimed she was able to read into the future (a bit different than Sheila's ability). I agreed to go with my friend, so she didn't have to go alone. To be honest, the woman's evaluation of my friend's future could have been said to any female teenager. I obviously didn't need to be told the same thing, so we left before the woman tried to talk me into getting a reading. This probably doesn't help me in believing.
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Post by Kourtney Bradley »

I would like to believe in this kind of stuff, but ultimately I just don't.
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Post by Annelore Trujillo »

I do believe in psychic abilities, even though I shouldn't based on research I have studied. There is no proof that psychic abilities exist, but I still believe in it. I don't think it is this huge predicting the future thing. I think it is a lot more subtle.
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Post by gali »

I also don't believe psychic abilities, but like to read about it on books.
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Post by Sarah_Khan »

I don't believe that a person can have psychic abilities and I feel like psychic abilities in books can go very right or very wrong. When it is in a book where someone has psychic abilities and that is part of the main subject (like in this book) then that is fine, but I really dislike when a character gets a totally unrealistic "feeling" in a book just to push the plot.
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Post by LivreAmour217 »

I'm not sure if I believe in psychic abilities. I think that there are a lot of charlatans out there who can be pretty convincing, but I'm not one to completely discount anything.
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Post by Scott »

Short answer is no I don't believe in psychic abilities, which seems to put me in the majority of those who have responded.


Longer answer: I certainly don't believe it in the strong extra-supernatural sense of someone talking to ghosts and such. However, even as a matter of pure technology and science, there are already devices one can wear on one's head to control a remote control helicopter with their thoughts alone, for example.

There's really nothing inherently supernatural about a creature existing that has the same natural machinery in their body or brain that exists an everyday old radio, for example, namely such as creatures being able to communicate silently through telepathy or such. It's not any harder for me to imagine creatures evolving that capacity anymore than evolving to communicate with sound-waves or see electomagnatic waves (light).
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Post by katiesquilts »

Since someone mentioned different types of psychic abilities and fortune tellers, I'd like to share a story about when I went to a fortune teller in Japan.

The man specialized in palm-reading and the place was very business-like, with cubicles instead of hanging beads and cushions. The only things we were asked were our names and ages. My own fortune was a bit boring, basically I will go through life without any major ups or downs, but if I really want to succeed in my career I have to focus on just one specialization. (Which is hard for me, because I often imagine switching jobs just to change my lifestyle.)

For my boyfriend, however, the talk was more in-depth. The man said that my boyfriend would have trouble finding a job at first, and that even after finding one he would quickly switch jobs. He would be able to work in that job for many years, but trouble would come again when he tries to retire. The interesting part is that my boyfriend failed many entrance exams for the government job that he wanted (different exams for each city that he applied to) and after failing he decided to look for outside jobs and joined a real estate agency. He had already started training for the job when he got a positive result back from the last exam he took, so in the end he became a government employee.

Obviously we haven't gotten to the retirement part yet, but everything has come true so far... And the most interesting part was that when I said something along the lines of, "Everything is going just as the fortune teller said!" he couldn't even remember going to the fortune teller.
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Post by Gnome »

To a small degree I think that I do believe in psychic abilities.

I work with a small group of developmentally disabled adults and one individual has a habit of sitting up from where he was curled on the couch chatting with himself and declaring "someone's here" before falling back into avoiding eye contact or conversation. Almost every time another staff is either pulling into the parking lot or walks in the door five minutes later. If he knows which staff went out for an errand he will name that staff five minutes before the get back.

If it really is a psychic power of some sort it's very minimal precognition. Now that I'm thinking about it, if that's possible, what else might be?
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Post by MrsCatInTheHat »

No, I do not believe in psychic abilities to the degree that Sheila has them in this story. Do I believe that some people have a six sense with the ability to sort of see things coming in a very accurate way? Yes, but I wouldn't really call that psychic.
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Post by Genaaa »

I think they do exist in one way or another, maybe just not in the way the stereotypes make them out to be. New things are constantly being found out, and just because we aren't aware yet doesn't mean it's not possible somehow.
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Post by Rachel1019 »

I do not believe in psychic abilities along with most of the people commenting on this post. I think that it is impossible to see into the past like Sheila does in her visions in the book. I think some people think that they can see into the future, because they remember thinking something a bit similar earlier, and then when it happens even slightly the same, then they fill in their memory to match what happened. I have done this before, when I have had a dream about someone, and then they tell me something that day, and even though I don't remember my whole dream, I'm totally sure that what I dreamt was what happened.
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Post by lane_vespertine »

Psychic abilities don't exist.

I feel like I could end it there, but imma gonna keep going.

Did you know that James Randi, along with other organizations in the US, Europe, and Australia (there are probably more, I just know about these for sure) will pay you one million dollars if you can show you have psychic abilities?

Seriously.

And here is the thing: You can choose the parameters!
If you talk to dead people, great!
If you can guess a card, great!
If you can make a cat jump on a table slightly more than average, great! (This is actually an example of someone's claim.)
All you have to do is tell them what you can do because of psychic powers, and then do it!
If you can perform better than chance, you get the money!
There are some limitations here ("I knew it" you say!).
You have to agree to some controls (they will present these to you for approval before you try for the million though.)
For example: If you claim you can talk to dead relatives of audience members, then you have to talk to one of the dead relatives of a group chosen by the foundation (BTW, the group can be as big as you need.)
They will do everything in their power to set you up for success.
And you want to know why? Because all of us what magic to be real!!! Holy crap, wouldn't that be cool?!?!
Wanna know how many people have ever won this money?
None. Ever.
Thousands have tried. And again, let me repeat. Before these people arrived to demonstrate their abilities, every single one of them was been informed (and in many cases, allowed to change in order to better fit their needs) of the controls and exactly what was going to happen. They were asked if they still believed they were able to fully demonstrate their abilities. They all agreed that they could.

And they have always failed.

My final point isn't that there are fakers out there. We all know that the dude reading tarot card by the river is full of it and just looking to hustle a few bucks. That isn't news.

My point is that those people who actually believe that they are psychic (and these people completely exist) aren't. And they don't even know it.
They use:
cold reading techniques (which can be done unintentionally and intuitively)
confirmation bias (remembering the times they were right and forgetting the times they weren't)
general suggestiveness ("you look sick, are you feeling sick. you really look sick")

And they do it unconsciously!
Someone who is aware of these techniques and uses them intentionally has identical results.

Wow, are you bored yet?
Are you even still reading?
Ha!
Ciao!
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