no more psychic readings on ebay

luxor4t

luxor4t wrote: »

I predict there will be continued discussion, even disagreement, on this matter.

And somebody reading this will go on a journey over water soon. ..........

Hey, why am I sitting on the naughty step when my prediction came true?
(Thanks for the popcorn Soolin, sorry Charliesmum, I finished it all ).

RHemmings

Here's an analysis by Simon Singh concerning potential harm done by Psychics. This analysis concentrates on readings by "Psychic Sally" Morgan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/16/psychic-sally-morgan-deluded-harmless?intcmp=239

I think this is actually relevant because it discusses situations where psychic readings could actually be harmful to those that receive (and believe) them, and it's a reasonable follow-on question as to whether ebay should allow products which are likely to cause harm to a proportion of people who buy them.

Edit: Some of the comments are even more revealing than the article. I quote:

Many years ago, some friends and I went to a live Psychic act, not Sally Morgan, I can't remember the man's name. I thought I would give it a chance and at the back of my mind there was even a little bit of a thrill of anticipation that someone might "talk to me". Just a daydream of a thought, like when you enter the lottery and automatically imagine yourself winning.

Oh, it didn't take long to become pretty disgusted at what was taking place. The room was packed with people grieving and it was horribly obvious that the "Psychic" had read up on coroners' reports of deaths that had happened in the region in recent years. He would describe some circumstances and that would lead to the parents of a child who had been killed in a car accident, or something, calling out as they recognised "their story".

It wasn't even just using the cold reading technique that Derren Brown has skewered so well, but very deliberate, planned exploitation of people's grief. And yes, even if they did get some temporary comfort from "their messages" it was exploitation for cold, hard cash nonetheless.

cestlavie

i think it's a good move on ebay's part, i was a shocked when i learnt they sold "spells" - and fyi that " psychic/witch/wizard" was a complete fraud - part of a shill ring selling other unrelated items.not sure why digital artists are banned though..

RFW

cestlavie wrote: »

i think it's a good move on ebay's part, i was a shocked when i learnt they sold "spells" - and fyi that " psychic/witch/wizard" was a complete fraud - part of a shill ring selling other unrelated items.not sure why digital artists are banned though..

I can see that at some point Ebay will buy/start a digital download service but I can understand the logistical problems of having sellers sell digital copies of anything.

porto_bello

soolin wrote: »

From 11 September, the following categories will be removed and the following items will not be allowed on eBay.co.uk:

The date of September 11th is bound to get the psychics looking deep into this announcement!

With regard psychic predictions, they can be predicted with a degree of accuracy. For example, if you look at the statistics for air crashes, you can glean that they tend to happen at certain times of the year, in certain weather conditions, more likely in certain parts of the world and involving a certain number of people.

There was one chap (American I seem to recall) who did this down to a fine art and later revealed he wasn't a good psychic, just a good statistician! He confidently claimed that the next airliner to crash would have red on the tail ... then laughed that his analysis showed that virtually every airline livery had red on the tail - it was by far the most popular colour, so how could he get the prediction wrong?!

RHemmings

I think the myriad examples where psychic abilities have been explained and debunked shows that we as a society have a good understanding of how psychics work, and that there is nothing supernatural in it. E.g. Derren Browns TV specials, the example from the previous post, etc.

But what we do see is that the tricks used by psychics can create a very convincing illusion of supernatural powers. Hence people can be fooled. And not just "stupid" people, but intelligent and highly educated people.

I've been trying to think of how to say this: but there is a problem in our society that people aren't aware of how "the evidence of their own eyes and ears" can mislead them. Psychics, and the methods by which they convince people that they have psychic powers, are a classic example. This should warn us to be much more careful about what we choose to believe and how much evidence of what types we require before we choose to believe something.

But this requires a certain degree of humility. To admit to ourselves that we can be fooled and that something we believed is actually wrong. Even though at the time there seemed to be conclusive evidence. Along with other temptations to believe something, e.g. to believe that we can find out what will happen in the future rather than have to face too much uncertainty and complexity, IMHO this will mean that psychics will have rich pickings of many willing clients into the foreseeable future. And IMHO many people will have their lives damaged because they put too much credence into claims of psychic abilities and offers of psychic services.

Haffiana

In my youth I was a hobbyist student of, and practitioner of 'mentalism'. This is the type of magic that Derren Brown et al perform. I also learned about stage hypnotism.

I performed at a number of venues, including Universities. What struck me then, and still amazes me now, is how few people watching truly start from the premise of 'this is a trick, can I work out how it is done' rather than 'this person has learned special powers of observation/ knows about human behaviour and can predict what people will do/ can tell things about people because they are giving subliminal signals'. Mentalism is based on producing the illusion of the latter - it isn't about pretending to do mind reading or whatever which few will truly believe, but just pretending that you know more about people and their behaviour than you actually do. The secret truth that all mentalists and illusionists know is that the audience are already in the frame of mind to be tricked before you even set foot on the stage. They 'want' to be tricked, even though they honestly think that they are going to be critical.

It is the same with these spells and predictions and associated nonsense. I am not going to say any more about this, because belief systems are not based in logic (including incidentally belief in scientific proof!). I have nothing to say either about people willing to spend a lot of money on their beliefs. But I do think that peddling this rubbish to the vulnerable is immoral.

Hughjass

Where are all the people who sell this kind of thing on ebay likely to go now then?

soolin

Hughjass wrote: »

Where are all the people who sell this kind of thing on ebay likely to go now then?

Facebook maybe , we certainly have a few on each selling page I use. Otherwise it will be the back of the local paper with the other people guaranteeing you all sorts of things.

RHemmings

soolin wrote: »

Facebook maybe , we certainly have a few on each selling page I use. Otherwise it will be the back of the local paper with the other people guaranteeing you all sorts of things.

And Google ads. Try typing in "local psychic" into google.