no more psychic readings on ebay

RHemmings

Strapped wrote: »

Oh Jesus, seriously?

Ermmmmmmm...the British Admiralty knew it had been sunk. They also informed all the next of kin (with admittedly a request for secrecy). Let's consider which was more likely: she had access to privelleged information, or she could talk to the dead. Hmmm, tricky one that.

An alternative is that she guessed, and by coincidence was right. During a war it's not unusual for ships to be sunk. It is a common strategy of psychics to make many, many, predictions or guesses, and then to brush off or conveniently forget those that aren't true, and publicise those that were true. And of course there were many psychics making predictions etc. at that time. Those that were inaccurate are not notable, some of those who will have got things right by chance are much more newsworthy.

Strapped

RHemmings wrote: »

An alternative is that she guessed, and by coincidence was right. During a war it's not unusual for ships to be sunk. It is a common strategy of psychics to make many, many, predictions or guesses, and then to brush off or conveniently forget those that aren't true, and publicise those that were true. And of course there were many psychics making predictions etc. at that time. Those that were inaccurate are not notable, some of those who will have got things right by chance are much more newsworthy.

I personally think she knew or had heard a strong rumour. It can't have been that secret, when it was in full view of many of the other ships in the convoy (and filmed by a news crew on board one of them! Famous footage) So that's at least a few thousand people in Britain who knew about it - the Admiralty, the relatives of the >800 men killed, the crew members of the rest of the convoy, and at least a handful of non-military witnesses.

soolin

Strapped wrote: »

Oh Jesus, seriously?

Ermmmmmmm...the British Admiralty knew it had been sunk. They also informed all the next of kin (with admittedly a request for secrecy). Let's consider which was more likely: she had access to privelleged information, or she could talk to the dead. Hmmm, tricky one that.

PS It's "Barham"

There was a documentary about her and it was shown she had a link to someone in the navy who gave her this info, the military knew about this and that's why she was jailed, although the witchcraft act was just something to draw attention away from a gossip monger who may well have ruined morale. The sinking of the ship was not secret, as has been said before thousands knew about it, she was the one who decided to leak the info.

This is not even worthy of a 'maybe she really was psychic ' statement

Regardless of all that, real or not she would still not have been able to,practice on eBay. (note I'm trying to get back on topic)

charlies_mum

Ok, I'll concede on that one, Helen Duncan was a bad example.

How about Eileen Garrett.

"One of Eileen Garrett's more memorable communications, as a medium, was the case of the R101. Here is what Nandor Fodor says about this in his Encyclopedia of Psychic Science:

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]"In a sitting at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research on October 7, 1930, two days after the explosion of the R101, Flight Lieutenant H. C. Irwin, Captain of the airship, suddenly entranced Mrs. Garrett, announced his presence and gave the listeners a highly technical account of how the airship crashed. The narrative was taken down in shorthand and a copy was submitted to the Air Ministry. According to the opinion of experts, a number of observations in the message tallied in every detail with what was afterwards found in the course of the official inquiry. E. F. Spanner, the well-known naval architect and marine engineer, came to exactly the same conclusions in his book, The Tragedy of the R101."[/FONT]


Sorry Soolin. Gone a bit off top again, but Eileen Garret wouldn't be able to practice on Ebay either

RHemmings

charlies_mum wrote: »

Ok, I'll concede on that one, Helen Duncan was a bad example.

How about Eileen Garrett.

"One of Eileen Garrett's more memorable communications, as a medium, was the case of the R101. Here is what Nandor Fodor says about this in his Encyclopedia of Psychic Science:

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]"In a sitting at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research on October 7, 1930, two days after the explosion of the R101, Flight Lieutenant H. C. Irwin, Captain of the airship, suddenly entranced Mrs. Garrett, announced his presence and gave the listeners a highly technical account of how the airship crashed. The narrative was taken down in shorthand and a copy was submitted to the Air Ministry. According to the opinion of experts, a number of observations in the message tallied in every detail with what was afterwards found in the course of the official inquiry. E. F. Spanner, the well-known naval architect and marine engineer, came to exactly the same conclusions in his book, The Tragedy of the R101."[/FONT]


Sorry Soolin. Gone a bit off top again, but Eileen Garret wouldn't be able to practice on Ebay either

Eileen Garrett is no longer alive and hence cannot be subjected to rigorous testing. If you look at the history of testing of psychics it is only in recent decades that this has become robust. E.g. see the testing of Uri Geller at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s. As a summary, the experimental design left ample opportunities for Geller to achieve a positive result without having supernatural powers. When Geller appeared on Johnny Carson's show to demonstrate spoon bending, Carson, an amateur magician, carefully chose the spoons to be used and didn't allow Geller access to them. Geller failed to bend the spoons. Since then it's been known that it is good practice to involve skilled magicians in the experimental design for testing, as well as those trained in the scientific method. Eileen Garrett died in 1970, and while she put herself forward for experiments, this was before there was a robust experimental method for testing psychics.

So what we are left with is evaluating her in hindsight. If we are looking at one accurate prediction, we have to know how many predictions she made and how many were right. I note in your quote above that "a number of observations in the message tallied in every detail". How many observations out of how many? And was Eileen Garrett consistently "very accurate", or is this an accurate prediction among how many less accurate predictions. How many such sittings at the National Laboratory for Psychical Research were there, and how many of them produced accurate predictions?

Also, we're talking about technical details of an air crash. Airships are a relatively simple technology, and there was considerable discussion of their safety aforehand. Were there predictions of how a fire might proceed that Eileen Garrett read? Or was she able to make her own predictions based on an understanding of the technology.

As an example, Richard Noble's team is planning to build a car, Bloodhound SSC, to attempt to take the land speed record to 1000mph. Psychic RHemmings could make the seemingly detailed prediction of a fatal crash if they run the car. I'll say that the car will crash somewhere between 550-650mph, after suddenly veering to the left. (Can I point out that I wish no harm to driver Andy Green whom I consider a hero of our modern age, but I don't believe in "jinxes"). Now, my prediction looks to be quite specific, and might count as a psychic "hit" if it came true, but it's not. The stability problems for the previous land speed record car the Thrust SSC were mainly within the "transonic" region (if I recall correctly about 550-650mph), where airflow around the car transitions from subsonic to supersonic. Due to differences in the surface of the car, even down to the rivets being slightly different, it's possible that one side of the car will transition to supersonic airflow before the other. This can cause the car to veer to one side. Left or right is a 50/50 guess, but that's not too long odds. So, if I was a psychic, I could leave this prediction posted here. If in 2013/2014 when they plan to run the car, an accident occurs, I could quote this posting and say I predicted it. If no accident occurs I don't mention this posting and no-one will remember it by then. And most people don't know about how airflow changes around a car as it goes supersonic, and hence the prediction will look spookily specific and accurate. Would Eileen Garrett have known ahead of time that she would have the opportunity to talk about the airship disaster and prepare for it? Given that it appears from the account that Garrett chose that subject herself, then that opportunity for cheating is there. And this was two days after the disaster, so a large amount about it would have been written in the press. In predicting what happened, was Ms Garrett more accurate than those who might predict what had happened based on the external evidence and technical knowledge of airships?

Returning to the question of how many sittings there were at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, and how accurate there were, we can't just compare the accuracy obtain to wild guessing. Because the "null hypothesis" of no psychical powers will not be the accuracy due to wild guessing, but the accuracy expected due to normal human means, which can be based on significant research/background knowledge/understanding of the situation. And even when there isn't background knowledge, look how stunningly accurate Derren Brown can be based on simple tricks of human psychology.

This shows why robust experimental technique is necessary to test psychics. Otherwise there are just too many ways of obtaining a "positive" result by non-supernatural means. Experiments need to be designed that as much as possible, prevent this and leave true psychic ability as the only possible explanation for positive results. This can't be done in hindsight from events in an earlier era, it can only be done if modern psychics submit themselves for rigorous properly designed experiments.

coinxoperated

markmas wrote: »

Wow, 206 of these items sold at £4.95 each. That is 206 victims of fraud just from this one listing.

Ah you see, you would think thats 206 victims of fraud but...


Recent Feedback ratings (last 12 months)

Click for help

1 month6 months12 monthsPositiveNeutralNegative

1317 people in 12 months happy with their purchase!

Personally, I see nothing wrong with this!

RHemmings

coinxoperated wrote: »

Ah you see, you would think thats 206 victims of fraud but...

Recent Feedback ratings (last 12 months)

Click for help

1 month6 months12 monthsPositiveNeutralNegative

1317 people in 12 months happy with their purchase!

Personally, I see nothing wrong with this!

As an example, if you read some forums, then a lot of people are very positive about the predictions at the time they are made. But months or a year later when the accuracy of the prediction is known, they are significantly unhappy. But this is outside the window where feedback can be given.

Are there psychics on ebay making predictions for a few days into the future, whereupon there is the opportunity for buyers to leave feedback in full knowledge of how accurate the prediction was?

uncle-buck_2

RFW wrote: »

I really have no idea if there are genuine psychics or not, but I know there are plenty of crooks involved. When 0898 numbers were popular we were in the same building as a dial a psychic company, they just employed anyone and their job was to keep the poor sod who had called on the line as long as possible.

The company were later exposed in the newspapers but by then the guy who ran it had moved on to something else.

My local jobcentre still has adverts for this type of scam, they offer £20 an hour. I complained about them being advertised and the reply was "if they are offering payment for your time - e.g. wages...we have to accept their advert"

...Thinking of becoming a witch doctor... get me some sticks and roadkill ma!

ashleypride

charlies_mum wrote: »

The police won't charge them as in some cases they consult psychics

No, they don't. Psychics may have offered unsolicated generally useless 'leads', but theres only one case in history of the Met police consulting psychics

There are many stories of psychics helping the Police, but dig deeper and they are just that - stories, vague useless help, or information gained from much more mundane sources.

RHemmings

ashleypride wrote: »

No, they don't. Psychics may have offered unsolicated generally useless 'leads', but theres only one case in history of the Met police consulting psychics

There are many stories of psychics helping the Police, but dig deeper and they are just that - stories, vague useless help, or information gained from much more mundane sources.

Here is a youtube video of a well known psychic telling the parents of a kidnapped child that their child is dead. The child was still alive. Psychic predictions and other similar spiritual "things" are not always innocent pasttimes, but can involve very important situations with real and very deep human emotions and hurt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yzz8vaZgE8

While there are no ebay listings for readings for kidnapped children. But there are listings for things that include real human emotions. Though, I wonder what would happen if someone asked for a reading for a, say, teenager who had left home and not made contact.