no more psychic readings on ebay

luxor4t

Sorry, Soolin I'm off to the naughty step.

soolin

luxor4t wrote: »

Sorry, Soolin I'm off to the naughty step.

I'll budge up a bit and make room for you- bring popcorn!

RHemmings

Charles' Mum mentioned Eileen Garrett's claims to have communicated with the dead captain of the R101. I've looked into this much further.

The claims that this is evidence for mediumship is based on claims that Eileen Garrett revealed technical details that she could not have known. I was disappointed in the gross sexism of some of these claims that often said that a woman couldn't have known these details (!!)

However, a very large amount of information had been published about the R101 disaster before the 7th of October 1930 when the seance occurred (since the R101 crashed on the 5th of October, and the seance is reported to have been "two days later"). In particular The Times report on the 6th of October 1930 is very detailed including interviews with survivors of the crash. Including a Mr Binks one of the ship's mechanics. Other information came from eyewitnesses of the departure and parts of the journey of the R101, and also the many telegrams sent from the R101. Assuming that other newspapers and other media such as radio would have given the crash similar coverage, there would already have been a wealth of information about the crash published the very next day. Even if it was only The Times that published on the 6th of October, there was already large amounts of information available for anyone to read.

There had been very significant discussions of the technical limitations and problems of the R101 before the fateful journey. There had also been twenty years of airship disasters since the LZ4 on 5th August 1908. Eileen Garrett had made predictions of the R101 crashing before the actual crash. Though this followed significant difficulties during the development of the airship and other problems with the design. But crucially it shows that Eileen Garrett was thinking about the R101 before the crash, and could have been gathering information for some time.

Finally, the seance according to this poorly edited transcript there is a claim that the bore should have been enough to give an engine size of 1100cc. That should be 1100ci. Someone who had read up on airships is quite likely to have made that error. I don't believe that the captain of an airship would have. The inquiry into the crash decided that a sudden and catastrophic failure was the only explanation for the crash, particularly since the watch had been changed at 2am just before the crash, which would not be expected to happen normally if the airship was in distress. The inquiry concluded that a tear probably formed in the fabric exposing the front gasbags to the elements which would have allowed failure. The seance transcript does not seem to mention a sudden and catastrophic failure, but talks about poor design of the airship leading it to be too nose heavy. I cannot see that this is accurate information that Lieutenant Irwin would have known having experienced the crash, but the semi-accurate surmising that anyone reasonable aware of airship design and the previous problems of the R101 would have been capable of.

Hence it looks entirely possible that the information transmitted in the seance could easily have been obtained by entirely mundane methods (e.g. reading The Times article "Great Airship Disaster - R101 Wrecked in France" of 6th October 1930, of which I have obtained the PDF), with some plausible (and only partially accurate) guesswork.

Looking at this, I cannot see this as strong evidence for mediumship. All information given could easily have been obtained by mundane means. But, this is often quoted as the best example of mediumship of Eileen Garrett, said to be one of the most respected mediums of the 20th century.

It does show how easily convinced people can be concerning mediumship and how claims can go unchallenged or at least insufficiently investigated. This is why we need modern psychics to submit themselves for testing using modern robust experimental techniques designed by both scientists and magicians.

Now do I have to join everyone else on the off-topic naughty step?

suited-aces

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!

If you believe in curses/spells whatever (you must do if you're buying one), would you risk giving a neg to someone you believed could put a curse on you?

soolin

suited-aces wrote: »

If you believe in curses/spells whatever (you must do if you're buying one), would you risk giving a neg to someone you believed could put a curse on you?

Nicely said, I think that is the real 'Mornington Crescent' winning comment

This naughty step is getting awfully crowded now though.

RHemmings

suited-aces wrote: »

If you believe in curses/spells whatever (you must do if you're buying one), would you risk giving a neg to someone you believed could put a curse on you?

The positive feedback that these people get strongly suggests that "something" is happening. Googling people who have requested psychic readings from ebay shows that a significant number of them have found the readings wrong/useless. So it's not due to all customers being happy. It seems that some ebay psychics/spellcasters at least arrange things so that failure will fall outside the feedback window, e.g. a free recast of a spell after 90 days if it hasn't worked. It could be that there are some negatives that these volume sellers are able to have deleted by the "magical ebay negative-away" powers that high volume sellers seem to have. I don't know what it is, but these 100% feedback ratings are due to something. And it isn't due to accuracy.

charlies_mum

Hats off to rhemmings for all the research.

Maybe I am deluded but I still believe that there are genuine psychics / mediums out there and I just hope that scientists will one day be able to prove this

Until then, we'll have to agree to disagree.

I suppose I'm on the naughty step as well ...

soolin

charlies_mum wrote: »

Hats off to rhemmings for all the research.

Maybe I am deluded but I still believe that there are genuine psychics / mediums out there and I just hope that scientists will one day be able to prove this

Until then, we'll have to agree to disagree.

I suppose I'm on the naughty step as well ...

Plenty of room for us all Charlies_mum :beer:

An interesting debate though even if we all have different view points.

minimoneysaver

Surely if they're psyhic they'll have seen this one coming?

RainbowDrops

minimoneysaver wrote: »

Surely if they're psyhic they'll have seen this one coming?

I'm getting deja vu