seeing a medium

PuzzledDave

The great Penn & Teller did a good show on this years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb4_TKByRLY

As P&T mention, this kind of reading was debunked by Harry Houdini... a century ago !

HKitten

I went to see Sally Morgan do a show in Oxford once and if anything, it convinced me that the whole thing was a load of rubbish. She got tons of stuff wrong, or adjusted her answers to fit what people were saying. It was more sad than anything, to see these poor people who had lost their loved ones being fobbed off with vague or incorrect answers.

Goldiegirl

Filey wrote: »

Thanks to you all for your input. It turns out it is going to be one of those 'performances' with an audience. I have told her about cold reading and suchlike, and let her read all your replies. I have also convinced her mother that her daughter is unlikely to be led astray as she is a sensible girl and a well trained sceptic I'm pleased to say.

And it only costs £3.50 or thereabouts so is no great loss for an 'educational' experience. Friend's mother is going too and I have the impression the mother is more likely to be taken in than the girls.

I think this sort of thing is fine when it's treated as as an entertainment - it'll be interesting if you can post after the performance to let us know what your grand daughter made of it all.

System

Of course it could be all a con but a medium made my mother feel better when she had been told be a colleague at work(a fruitcake) that she was being followed by a spirit. I knew a medium through a friend and she performed a reading based on a photo of my Mother. It was fascinating as she came back with loads of random stuff that she had no right to know which was true. In fact nothing she said was wrong!

Of course it could just be clever guesswork but she reported the spirit was nothing to be worried about as it was looking out for her and it made my mother feel better.

More importantly it cost nothing.

silverfoxlynx

It sounds to me like these kids are just doing it for a lark. They probably do not believe in this hocus pocus any more than I do. Yes it is a waste of money but then so many other 'entertainments' are and it seems harmless enough. I am all in favour of educating kids so that they learn to recognise fact from fiction asap!

Filey

Update.

It all turned out to be rather a non-event from what I can gather. Granddaughter hasn't said much but as performances go it seems to have been a bit of a failure. She was not impressed and spotted lots of cold reading ploys from the 'medium'.

Granddaughter's friend's mother seems to be more into this kind of thing, which is probably why she suggested going in the first place. I'll try to wring some more detail out of my granddaughter when I next see her.

edinburgher

Thanks for the update.

My wife's sister is heavily into her mediums, spiritual hoo-ha and anything else a bit fringe-y. While I'm not so unimaginative as to suggest that there's nothing beyond what we can see, isn't funny how the only ones who can see it want money from us?

Filey

I have to admit that when I was young and impressionable I used to read about this sort of thing and wonder about it. Not to mention ouija boards and tarot and wandering spirits and so on. And of course it would be lovely to communicate with our deceased nearest and dearest but preferably without having to go through a third party who required money.

However I am now much older and a bit wiser, and a fully paid up sceptic. We do live on, but in people's memories.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for their input.