mediums

codwidow

From a young age I was taken to Spiritualist Church by my Mum & Dad - who had married in one as my Grandmother had been a medium since she was a child, she could see and hear people and passed on many many messages to people and all of it was 100% accurate.

My Grandmother was a respected and hard working medium who never took a penny off anyone for a reading, she knew when I had been up to things I shouldnt have and knew about things I planned to do, down to the exact detail.

I moved away from my home town and have paid to see a medium with a good reputation, she wasnt that great, most of it was guesswork. I still go to my local church and after my Mum passed I had the most incredible message from the lady who was doing the service, after the service had finished I was sat having a cuppa and she came over to me and started telling me all this stuff about my Mum. There is no way she could have known my family, I had moved into a different county and I hadnt been there that long, I offered no information to her, she simply relayed it all to me. She described my mums home, her bedroom, even down to something of my Mums I carried round in my bag. For the record, I was incredibly young when I lost my mum too so it would have been pretty unusual for her to have "guessed" that.

There are many charlatans out there, of that there is no doubt but people like my Grandma are a rare breed, the stuff she told people was uncanny, she was a humble lady who didnt want anything from anyone except just to help.

I cant believe I was sucked in to see a so called medium, like someone else said these people are making hundreds a day.

There are also many people, like my Grandma who just want to help, she was telling me all sorts of things up until she died aged 90

meames_2

I do go "ghost hunting", the more I do it the less I believe. The same of mediums. People only go when someones died/ they've broken up with someone or deperate for love / money worries. Usually one of these is a shot in the dark and will hit the mark.

Although one did say "the clap you heard in the living room was your grandad with red hair". Spookily, I did hear a clap by my head and so did the dog. I live by myself so noone was doing the clapping! My grandad did have red hair, I don't but maybe the freckles gave it away... Thepromised new man in october didn't materialise though... ;-)

concerned43

I beg to differ - all those sceptics out there - have you actually been to a medium? I went to a couple after a loved one died and they were so accurate, one even described all the rooms in my house! I only went through the local spiritualist church, they don't charge as such but you need to pay them their travelling expenses, which was about £5 - so they don't make a profit but not out of pocket either.

tandraig

I have seen genuine mediums, but in the spiritualist church I sometimes go to. I would not pick a medium from the 'small ads' just as I wouldnt buy a car from one. you may get a genuine good buy, but odds are you wont.
As for the government legislating against mediums, you are dealing here with a belief system arent you? I am not a christian, think the bible is a work of fiction, but recognise that people need their churches, their priests or vicars and wouldnt dream of calling for them to be outlawed on the basis that it cannot be 'proved'.
actually there has been legislation against mediums, but it is almost as impossible to prove someone is deliberately faking it (as against misguided or delusional) as to prove someone is genuine.
I have come up against this attitude time and again on here - people mocking those who believe in ghosts or the afterlife, and would remind them again that spiritualism is a recognised religion in this country and they may find themselves in trouble as this site frowns upon abuse based on colour, nationality or religion.

grey_lady

I've been to quite a few spiritualist services in different areas and none of them had me even slightly convinced.

The last one i went to, i think the woman in the audience who the medium was addressing seemed to find it totally genuine but it was obvious to me that she was being lead. I wasnt a sceptic either at the time.

tandraig

Well I have been to hundreds of christian services - and none of them had me convinced either!

dotstar24

I saw one for the first time on Friday. She named my Grandad's first name, straight off.
and she said 'he wants to say he's sorry for his family'...we had nothing but problems with my auntie and uncle when he and nan died.....how would she know these things?? esp the name thing!!! i had to wait 6 months to see this medium and the next available appointment is august. I'll be going back again.

Seraphseven

elektra-2007 wrote: »

I have genuinly seen a medium, I went with a friend because i was sceptical, and sat there mute, as I was determind to say nothing, and she got loads of stuff right even stuff i didnt know about (i questioned family afterwards), i didnt give her any indication as I was too scared to talk!. There was loads of stuff she just couldnt have known about even stuff only known by me alone.

You can call me all you want...Before this I would have totally agreed with you, and I still do in principle because Ive seen people who have just been cluching at straws and chatting rubbish, ive even told them so and refused to pay! But i can honestly say this women was genuine....what other explination is there for the amount of things she knew??

The other explanation you are looking for is all in the "art" of cold reading, Humans have evolved to make quick and easy links in their brains, assumptions that are there to help us survive in day to day life.

Our brain is one big link making machine it's what it has been naturally selected to become, this sort of thing was useful for example, when our ancestors were faced with a predator; they wouldn't think, "now is this a nice lion or is he going to be one of the ones that tries to eat me" instead their brain would make that natural link between Lion and danger and they'd get the hell out of there, Incidentally this is how a lot of our racial stereotypes are so hard to fight against.

Anyway, what i'm saying in a roundabout way is, people are predictable in so many ways. Think of a geometric shape, something like a square but not so obvious, chances are you thought of a triangle, or if you were trying to catch me out then a dodecahedron :rotfl: this is a very crude example but 9 times out of 10 that would be a "hit" for a medium obviously it doesn't only work with shapes but "you have had issues with a loved one in the past month or so" this could be a range of so many things, You could have fallen out with a partner, a parent could have been ill etc etc. but again 9/10 this would have been a "hit"

And once they've got one or two false hits people are generally putty in their hands: from this point on, anything they say will be made to fit your life by your wonderfully evolved, lion dodging, link making brain. It's human nature, and of course when you think about it later you naturally remember the things he/she said that would fit your life and forget the rest of the dubious not quite hits that came in between.

This is a quick basic overview of the sort of things that can affect the human brains' perception on reality, apologies if i rambled but i find all of this sort of thing fascinating. If anyone is interested i have dabbled in reading people and am normally pretty accurate, I could actually PM anyone that requested it (free of charge of course ), a reading based entirely on their personal profile on this site to see how accurate I may be. Let me know if you are interested!

Seraph

tandraig

there are charlatans out there, but there are in all businesses unfortunately people out to make a quick buck.
my objection here is that the OP seems to tar all mediums with the same brush.
If he was ripped off by one car dealer - would he want ALL of them banned?
as in everything else - choose your medium carefully! the spiritualist church know of reputable people who wont rip you off.
if you go through the o800 numbers - you deserve what you get! the small ads - Good mediums dont need to advertise, they usually get more work than they can handle through word of mouth.
oh and seraph - not everyone is gullible - I am well aware of the ways of cold reading and fake mediums, also have taken several psychology courses with the OU, and some mediums in my opinion, either have to be genuine or have an intelligency agency rivalling the KGB!

Bunnie1982

When visiting friends little over a year ago (bearing in mind I was over 120 miles away from home and these friends knew nothing of my childhood life) they took us to our local spiritualist church - I was open minded, I hadn't recently lost anybody and it was mainly curiosity why I went.

About four people in I was approached by the spiritualist who described my Grandad perfectly and also described our unique relationship when I was growing up - it wasn't something that could be applied to everyone and very specific to me. She described a situation I was currently in and gave me a distinct message.

I try to apply logic to everything but can't explain how she knew the information. My friends assumed I had both living sets of grandparents and my husband didn't know some of the childhood information, so no one could have set her up.

Oh! and I didn't pay - we put a small donation in a tray and also bought a raffle ticket (which husband won something)

I'm aware there are lots of frauds about, but there are also things in this world, I believe, that cannot be explained.