I was watching the Louis Theroux (?sp) programme about spiritualists the other day and I wondered what your views are.

Do you believe, and if so have you had any messages that came true or were true in the past?

If you dont believe, why not? Would you ever consider going to a meeting?

My parents are extremely open to this. They go to a meeting every week and see a different medium every week. Its something they do together and it gives them comfort that their loved ones are okay. My view is if it gives someone comfort what is the harm in it. Also, I have been to meetings and some of the things they come up with are truly amazing and cannot be guess work nor digging for information.

I am a definite believer.  Many of the things I have been told are too personal to put on an open forum but one clairvoyant told me I would have dental pain that I should get seen to.  she gave me a date range of 7 days a few months after the reading e.g. 20-26 Oct, and told me that it would be on the top right hand side.

On the first morning of the date range I woke up in agony and checked my reading and it was the first day she had said.  I convinced myself it was psychosomatic so persevered with painkillers for a couple of weeks.  It eventually went away but came back a month or so later.  when I went to the dentist she told me I had exposed nerves and should have been there well before I went - spooky or what.

I also have lots of friends and family who have come through and again things that no-one would have known.

Myself and a friend went to see Sally Morgan star psychic at a big show she did and we had been out for dinner first.  We rolled in slightly tipsy and scurried to find seats.  no sooner had we sat down that my friend was picked out by sally with a message from one of her relatives.  Again it was spot on and sally identified her by her initials prior to passing on the message.  We weren't even in our own seats so there's no way it could have been through the seat bookings.

I am an absolute believer but as in all trades there are charlatans out there

Unfortunately fakes like Derek Acorah ( yes, i believe he is still plying his trade ) don't help those who might have a gift .

I would love to see one who people have faith in as i would like to see if i get a message from my passed relatives .

I don't know if i believe or not but i would like to (if that makes sense, LOL) 
I think a lot of tv programmes sensationalise this type of thing and that spoils it and also makes it harder to spot the frauds.
Years ago i saw a psychic but i wasn't told anything exciting would happen, but there again looking back i suppose he was right in way LOL

Someone that my mum saw very many years ago predicted quite a few things but the TV guys are so fake.  Went to a show of a certain TV medium a few years ago and he was absolutely rubbish, he didn't have a clue, talked a load of **** and really showed himself to be a true fake. 

I still don't know whether I believe or not but still hve an open mind. 

Hokum.

Based on training 'frame works' that I have been trained in and use (Method pioneered by the American Military initially to create a 'template' that would train the perfect sniper, Now expanded and become somewhat 'faddy' in certain areas [see NLP] <- The Derren Brown style of 'Mind Mapping' ;)
   Prior to my present job, I was trained in the same (similar) template in Aviation security (with El AL)
I know that an accomplished practitioner can 'read' a person like a book and ensure that person accepts suggestion as their own idea's/memories/thought process.

Its clever manipulation..... nothing more.
I use it daily (to good ends.... ensuring competency in skill training and knowledge retention) :)  (Honest!! :-P)

I too think its a load of rubbish and don't beleive any of it.

On the other hand am I just being manipulated by HuskyGal planting her suggestions and me accepting them as my own :)

I don't believe in any of it either. At best it's entertainment (for some). At worst it's preying on the vulnerable :(

Daisy

Personally I like Colin Fry. I watch his programs and although I view myself as an 'open minded skeptic' my opinion is is if he gives people words of comfort and they really think theyve heard from their loved ones and are happy in what they have heard, what really is the harm? Derek Arocorah on the other hand winds me up. I think theres good and bad in them all. I watched Psychic private eyes on the Sally Anne Bowman case which ran in conjuction with the police enquiry, I had to admit i found it impossible to dismiss their findings (Colin Fry was involved in that). So basically my main thought is, is people are given comfort, then its not a bad thing  xx

Anyone watched the Mentalist on channel 5?  He's so scrummy.  Anyhoo, a "mentalist" is what I would say a supposed clairvoyant is.  Just a very clever person who can observe and manipulate human behaviour.  They only tell you what you want to hear.  I do believe that people can have second sight etc, but not as a regular thing, and certainly not when they accept money for it.  If you've been sent a message to help someone, then help them by all means, but don't charge them for it.

I have an open mind, and would believe if I saw any evidence, but I'm afraid I've never been convinced yet. I watched one on TV where the people in the audience who he was talking to seemed to accept what he was telling them, but as an impartial outsider I could see he was getting loads wrong and leading them with his questions - they wanted to believe this so couldn't see it themselves.

A friend of mine went to see one at a private reading and got a tape of it - utter rubbish! My friend said she hardly said a word, the medium did all the talking, but you can hear her on the tape telling her things! The stuff she came out with was so vague, she mentioned a man whose name began with 'S'  - you could hear my friend gasp, so obviously medium knew she was on the right track! People tend to go to them when they want answers to questions, normally relationships, jobs or children, so they know how to hook you in, and look at your age, wedding ring or lack of, etc. She ended up telling her she saw her living in a house with tall trees near it - well, that proves she's psychic then! 10 years later non of it has come to pass.

People like Derren Brown are brilliant and just prove how to fake it.

However there are some unexplicable things, and I would just love to be proved wrong, I really would. I know a girl called Lyndsey, a fairly unnusual name, who had a close male friend who confided in her. He went to a psychic/medium on a pier for a laugh and said it the usual rubbish, but as he came out, she said 'one more thing, stop telling Lyndsey your secrets'  - well, I can't explain that one, but it's not enough to convince me ;-)

Im a bit stuck on this my Mum believed 100% and she had a lot of things happen that were foretold! I did go once with a mate, I was told I would be married in 3 weeks. Went home having a laugh, my OH had his divorce and did not tell me, he arranged our wedding by special licence and we got married 2 weeks later I had 3 hours notice. Now that was spooky.

Would I visit a medium - no, let the dead rest in peace. But I "know" things like if someone is ill I know the day they will die on more than 1 occasion. I just feel it and end up saying it out loud, people think Im nuts but when it happened they are as curious as I am as to why I said it and I dont know. My Nan read tea leaves and could tell if someone was to die, she read them for a member of the family and her husband died suddenly, she stopped after that. I think its more like intuition myself but my friends says she see's the dead, if thats the case we have been friends for over 20 years, I really do not want to know any more than that.

I am a believer and would love to actually have a reading with some one like Colin Fry or Tony Stockwell.
A few years ago Part of my  eldest nephews jobs involved attending certain venues and weed out the fakes from the genuine people.There were a few fakes but also some people who did have the 'gift'.At one of the venues he got a message from his late nan and thought it was a load of rubbish,when he told his mother the messages he had received she was shocked at them.Everything that had been said was indeed true and related to her childhood, which apart from her and her mum no one could have known.
I also like watching the Psychic detectives and sensing murder programs - they are good and makes you wonder why more police forces dont use them to find missing people/criminals .

I believe,I have had several experiances with mediums where they have told me things about me no one could possibly know as I give nothing personal away ever. I also had one come to my place of work to seek me out to give me a message from a dead friend,he answered questions about promises made between me and my friend I wanted answering that no one could have known as I kept them to my self. I had never seen this particular medium  before or since and also if they had known my friend I would have known that too.

I do believe some people like Derek Acorah are fake though and that spoils it for people who do truly have the Gift. I also believe in ghosts as I have seen several and I have one in my house. Ive also seen objects move around with no possible explanation and when I first moved in my house a necklace I had that was too precious to wear incase I lost it went missing from my jewellery box. At the time we never went in the back bedroom as it was a mess and needed decorating so it was one of the rooms we were leaving till last. A medium told me my necklace would turn up in the middle of a floor in a bedroom and guess what a few weeks later I went into the bedroom to start clearing it to decorate and hey presto there was my necklacce in the middle of the floor, the rest  of the room was empty.
Make of that what you will but to me it proved gifted mediums definately do exist.

> I also like watching the Psychic detectives and sensing murder programs - they are good and makes you wonder why more police forces dont use them to find missing people/criminals .

I often wonder that too SandyP,if it helps catch killers im all for it

> Do you believe, and if so have you had any messages that came true or were true in the past?

I have been to a few meetings, still not 100%.
Shortly after my nan died when I was 11 years old, my mum had a medium to our house, don't remember to much but one thing that always stuck in my mind was when she mentioned a neighbours son, he had died in circumstances which my mum did not no about and "he" asked to pass a message on to his mum, we didn't really know her, but what she was told she was really grateful for.

> some of the things they come up with are truly amazing and cannot be guess work nor digging for information.

We had our tarot cards read, (my mum, sister and I separately and privately) I was pregnant at the time with my eldest daughter who will be sixteen next month, she did not pick up on this, during my mums reading she asked the woman about the pregnancy. I got asked to go back in and see her, she told me I would have a boy and two girls very close together.
Well five months later I had a girl and laughed my socks off, what a load of cod's wallop! Or so you would think, 13 months after my first daughter along came I had a second baby, which was another girl! :-D I was pretty gobsmacked, coincidence maybe??

> I wondered what your views are.
> My view is if it gives someone comfort what is the harm in it.

Very much the same, I know people who have said this has been a benefit to them when a loved one has passed on, but when it begins to take over your life, rules what you do and the only one benefiting is the one making money then you do doubt their "gift".

We have someone locally who does shows  (some around the world). I work with a girl who I have gotten to know and know all her past history (loss of husband etc). I said I was going and she said she would love to come. Well, she was picked out and then he related her story about her husband that had died of cancer and all about the home she had shared with him and gave her messages from him. Well, she was in tears and so was I because I knew it to be all true. He had no idea who she was as I had booked the tickets and they had come to my address. Brilliant.

I sit on the fence for this one, I have never witnessed anything to prove to me that otherwise.
My mum and sister a true believers, my sister even claims to have a gift too, and maybe she has, she claims to have seen 'ghosts' in my parents old house, she talks to them and has had weird things happen around her,,,,
I went with my mum to see Colin Fry in London about 6 years ago, well I went with an open mind, but really was not convinced at all, and later I read in the press that his shows had 'fixed' people in the audience that would be picked in his first part of the show, and I did recognise one of them from our visit.

However, even though I am not convinced, you would never find me in a haunted house, grave yard or such like, NEVER on my own! :)
My sister does tarroo (sp) cards, and has read mine, and my parents, some of what she says from the cards I can link with, but I just dont know, and my parents are still waiting for the reading prodiction to happen,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Colin Fry, ahhh that was the rubbish one, who didn't have a clue!   Just couldn't remember his name last night.

I'm not sure but my mums friend went to see one as her friend had to cancel so she thought she may as well go as the tickets were paid for, even though she was a total non-believer.  She was told all sorts of things by this woman that were very specific and happened in the time scale mentioned, along with things that had happened in the past she didn't know about until she spoke with her dad afterwards, again very specific.  The clairvoyant didn't expect it to be my mums friend as she went at the last minute so couldn't have done any research on her as such and asked her not to speak throughout the whole proceedings.
This is the only time I have heard of anyone being totally convinced and she has now changed her view of clairvoyants somewhat.

the wierdest thing happened to me years ago , I was sitting in the hospital waiting room with my mum as my aunt was being admitted. A youngish woman was sitting opposite my mum and myself and I caught her looking at me a few times I just thought she was a 'bit odd' , the waiting room was packed .
This woman came walking over to me and said I hope you dont mind me speaking to you but I am a psychic and would love to look at your hand.Well I began laughing as I was around 18 and thought she was a nutter!!  she insisted so I let her look at my hand ...after mentioning this and that she then said you will be ill in a few year time and receive many flowers and cards people will be concerned about you and think they are going to loose you but dont worry as you will be fine , she then told me I would have just one child ...can you imagine someone saying this to you at 18 my Mum also thought she was a strange one anyway she wished me luck and walked off and sat down. I couldnt wait to get out of there I tell you ...we went home and ..that was that forgot all about it.
Years later when I was 26 I was pregnant, after the birth I had complications (too long to talk about) had 50 pints of blood ..died in theatre twice ended up having a hysterectomy to 'save my life' was in intensive care with pneumonia given 24hrs to live ...obviously survived was put in a side ward in the hospital with my son and guess what was surrounded like a florists shop by flowers and cards from friends and work colleagues .

Very weird but Mum remembered that girl in the hospital waiting room .....I believe yes!

Im very wary of so called psychics/mediums/clairvoyance etc and once heard someone say that if they had a 'true gift' they wouldnt charge people for it.

However, i do definatly believe that loved ones from the other side try and and contact us and i was lucky enough to be contacted by my grandad.x

A few month's after my sister's partner died, my sister went to see a spiritulist, one highly recommended.   Everything that woman told my sister was true even down to the clothes Hugh was buried in (Chosen by my sister) with thorough descriptions and even the information she gave for the future has come true so far, as well.

Id like to believe.. it would be nice.

I believe some people can read people (and animals) a lot better than others, we as a species are spectacularly rubbish at understanding our own body language, I think because we rely so heavily on verbal communication.

A lot of 'psychics/mediums' etc just tell us vague things that are either likely to have happened to us in the past or are likely to happen to us in the future.

Telling a young person that they will at some point in the future be seriously ill... thats just knowing the odds. A person in their late teens has a lot of life ahead of them and its pretty likely that all of us will at one time or another have an accident or an illness thats fairly serious. Most of these people will tell you a thing like this in such a way that it encourages the person to speak up IF they have already had a serious illness.. so that makes them look cleverer too.

Thats why they wont say 'on the 5th of June 2010 you will fall off a ladder, break your left leg and be in hospital having it fixed and nearly die of MRSA'.... they say 'i see a serious illness, people are worried about losing you'...

If nothing has happened to you, you say nothing at that point and so the medium goes on to say that it will be 'in a few years' (like, how long is a piece of string!).. if something HAS then at that point either you say 'oh!... ' and recount something that has happened, or your face gives it away and they dig a bit further.

I do think our minds are always seeking to belive this sort of thing too, we are seeking a 'higher purpose' or magical whatevers, so we do tend to want to believe.. and that leads to us making the facts fit the prediction.

If it truly does no harm, if people are not coughing up money for it, fine.. have a bit of fun..

But some people are harmed by it, some peole are conned out of lots of money and it goes without saying realy, that isnt on.

> If it truly does no harm, if people are not coughing up money for it, fine.. have a bit of fun..

> But some people are harmed by it, some peole are conned out of lots of money and it goes without saying realy, that isnt on.

This is one of my big problems with it (especially as I believe it's a load of rubbish). It's not just the money, there are people who can be badly affected by predicitions, it can affect the way they live their lives, even their mental state.  For example my OH is a trained Cruise councillor and to do this you have to go through a fair amount of training because you are dealing with vunerable people who are easily led yet these same people can go to a medium etc who has no training and no understanding of the harm they can cause.  Everyone who loses someone close has to get over it, has to come to terms with it and get on with their lives but for some vunerable people going to a medium etc is at the very least in effect delaying that process and could be causing all sorts of harm. 

As for predictions of illness etc sorry that is a load of rubbish, if someone predicts something that comes true people remember it, if it doesn't people tend to forget it.  I could stand in front of an audience and point out nine people and say to them you will develop cancer and 3 of them will (and guess which 3 will remember my prediction).

Shadbolts I do hope you are not inferring my mental state is affected!! :)

R~

I wouldn't dream of it! :)

but my point remains, people who are properly trained to deal with vunerable people whether they are psychiatrists or councellors go through some extensive training because the patients they deal with are very vunerable.  It is not difficult to manipulate people and to do things like plant false memories (eg there are a number of cases where it has been proved that people who claim to have been abused were not because they had memories of something that never happened planted by people who did not know what they were doing).  Mediums etc are in an ideal position to do this because they are dealing with some vunerable people who want to believe what they are being told.

So my problem with this is that it is a potentially dangerous thing to be doing to vunerable people

I agree that some people are fake and making money is thier only aim. ...but I wasnt taken in at the time she didnt ask for money, the fact that my Mum was with me and we in fact laughed it off ....but nontheless and whether I like it or not I was told sooo many things that day apart from the illness, involving work ,the male in my life at that time and in the future in detail and more (I would bore you to death) it was a very weird experience indeed but the fact is she got it all right ..I remember it so clearly because it was so strange I do believe there are a lot of fakes but I also believe there are some who do have a special gift.

I believe 100% that some people can talk to spirit. But i also get extremely mad with the people who do it for money and make out they can talk to spirits. Ive seen 3 mediums. The first one was amazing, i saw her about 6 yrs ago, she predicted that i was moving before the year was up, i moved 6 months after, she described my OH as if she knew him!! She said i had a little boy about so high and said she can also see a little girl in the future as well, i now have a 2 yr old little girl. Told me about my abusive ex, what he used to do and said exactly how long i had been with him. Brought some family members through who had passed, even said their names and what they died of. I am so peeved that i never got her number.

The second one i saw runs her own spiritualist church that is next door to her house. She didnt tell me an awful lot that i can remember, but what i do remember is her saying that I had lost someone very close to me within the last 18 months and it had knocked me for six, and this lady is giving me a bunch of Freesias in spirit. My Mum had died 14 months earlier and her favourite flowers were Freesias, i know its nothing amazing, but how many peoples fave flowers are freesias? And not only that, before i went in i was thinking of that particular flower after thinking to myself, what could she say that she wouldnt have known.

The third one, omg what a load of crap she was. She was recommended to me by my cousin, i looked at her website and some of her reviews, it all looked amazing!! Anyway, got there, went in, she started talking and never flipping stopped, she said every single name under the sun, well must have been about 25 names and only 2 of them i knew! I gave nothing away, didnt wear any rings, didnt even say yes or no and i think thats why she couldnt come up with anything except everything if you know what i mean. She described me as tho i was my sister, a real girly girl who buys loadsa magazines and buys expensive beauty products, that couldnt be more wrong!! She said i have loads of bags and shoes, i have one bag and 2 pairs of shoes lmao! I just wanted to smack her and run out!! People like that infuriate me, she was obviously in it for the money and she was doing a good job robbing people, i could tell from the stuff she had in her house.

I really do believe there are people out there who have "the gift", theres no explanation for some things that they say or predict. They cant get a prediction from reading your body language or your mind, so how do you explain that? Ive always wished i could do it myself, i would love it! The closest ive been to being anything like that is for example, i predicted my friends baby's sex as a boy, weighing 7lb 2oz and making an appearance on the 29th June. It was a boy, weighed 7lbb 2oz and was born on the night of 29th June within an hour labour!! I was shocked, i dont know how i did it, a little voice in my head just kept saying it, so i told  her! Maybe im going crazy? lmao!

I went to see John Edward in Manchester last year, he was amazing!! My Dad went to see Colin Fry and said he was rubbish. I wish Doris Stokes were here so i could have seen her, read all of her books and what an amazing lady xx

Doris Stokes was found out to be a fake, she used to invite people to her 'audiences' that had written to her in the past for help so she went prepared!

Sorry I don't believe either, when you are grieving and want to believe something, you will pick up on any positives somebody is telling you.

I dont have a belief in any religion and obviously dont believe in god but since loosing my father very suddenly nearly 2 yrs ago have thought about going to a 'medium' as there are things i want to know from my dad or for him to tell me everything will be ok or not as the case maybe.

This would be very hypocritical of me if i went along to someone as i always believed once you are dead that was it BUT the desire to try and make contact with him is huge even though i feel its rubbish.

how do you go about finding a 'good' medium or going to a big meeting? I went to a couple when i was a teenager with my friend for laugh but it was sooooo long ago and we did just see it as a laugh.

Maybe as SharonM says because of grief you want to believe something. The rest of my family (mother and sisters) are definately against anything like this because of their strong religious beliefs - its demonic.

Ive not lost anyone close and Im in no way grieving but I go to weekly meetings which are a really close knit group now. We all enjoy each other's company after and its lovely. I dont think its just for people who are grieving.

I do believe in "other wordly things", but  a bit dubious about most mediums etc. who do it for cash.  We used to have Tarot reading evenings which were a lot of fun, and got some very spot on readings from one girl - she described some events in my life which only 1 other person knew about, said she could see a red car (I had a red mini at the time) and warned me to get rid of it asap, 2 weeks later it's  brakes failed coming up to a roundabout and I hate to think what would have happened if road works hadn't been going on at the time and I was able to steer it into a big pile of sand, which stopped it.  But for the most the predictions were more hilarious than accurate, with one medium even telling my sister that he could see so much more that he wanted to tell her, but needed an expanse of water to help the spirits come through, so wanted to come back for a private session -with her in the bath!!!!  Needless to say that never happened :)  My ex and I also got a phone call out of the blue from someone we had not seen for about 10 years to say she had started attending a spiritualist church, and a message had come through formy ex from a friend who had died a while before - the message was "Don't forget the marmalade".  It meant absoutely nothing to either of us, and neither of us could fathom why a good friend would choose to contact someone who he only vaguely knew to pass on a message anyway!  We declined an invite to attend the church and be contacted directly!

I suppose you could argue that a doctor has the gift of saving lives, they have to earn a living and so do mediums!?!