Am I Psychic?

[craig weiler]

I don't need a book on mentalism. It's too easy to see people psychically. There is an unmistakable feel to people when they're doing their psychic thing.

[Craig Browning]

Keep telling yourself that. . .

[ProfWag]

[craig weiler]

ProfWag,
I expect you to be a cynic and to not understand at all what I am talking about. I get that. Craig B. is a bit more of a mystery to me because he's not "seeing" me at all. It's as if he's having this conversation with someone else.

The thing is, I walk into people's homes and start talking to them and practically everyone can intuit the kind of person I am immediately. I think that if you met me you would have a hard time reconciling who you think I am with the person in front of you.

As for psychics and frauds, I can only speak about the people I've encountered; I haven't run across any fraudulent psychics. For the most part, the job is too low paying to be that interesting to hucksters anyway. But I do have a lot of experience with people and I am a close observer when it matters. Certainly a psychic is different from a mentalist in much the same way that an honest salesman is different from a con artist. The former is just doing their job and the latter is trying to convince you of something. There is an unmistakable difference between the two.

A psychic is just sharing information on the understanding that not all of it will be useful. A mentalist though, has to convince you of their sincerity in order to be effective. How can differentiating the two be so difficult?

[ProfWag]

[craig weiler]

Profwag,
Geller isn't the only one and people have done this who are obviously not mentalists or magicians because they did it a couple of times to prove it to themselves and that was pretty much it. I don't really think of, or include anyone who is high profile and particularly not those putting on a show. Those people exist in limbo land as far as I'm concerned. I'm not calling them fake, but not real either, because I don't know. I only concern myself with people I've actually met because it's much easier to get a feel for people I'm interacting with.

[ProfWag]

[craig weiler]

No, I've seen a few interesting things, but not that. From what I've read it works best with larger groups of people all together and focused on building the energy and putting a lot of emotion into the attempt. It's a kind of spoon bending party. Then a few people can do it well, some can do it a bit and others not at all. That's what I've read. I'm sure you're convinced that it's all a bunch of hooey, but from my perspective the account of this that I read seemed credible. It was a scientist that had witnessed this. I just can't remember which book it was.

[Craig Browning]

Let's consider a few things first;











These are all examples of ways by which magicians/mentalists contort and torture perfectly innocent flatware. This list gives you demonstrations but only one actually tips a very basic method when it comes to "How" To understand any of the other you must buy the items listed. I'll warn you however, some of the systems used can cost hundreds even low thousands of dollars.

Other PK/TK type phenomena can likewise be presented in very realistic ways including the Classic Table Tipping bits of the Spiritualist Church fame, causing watches to stop or change time and even make an hour glass run backwards. Add to this a huge collection of systems by which to cause "ghosts" to appear, leave messages and more. . . including photographs of images on your own Cell Phone as well as EVPs.

Craig, you cannot recognize a fake unless you are educated in their methods, it's that simple. This is why Pit Boss types in the Casinos are constantly taking workshops and classes in how cheats do their thing; everything from basic slight-of-hand to high tech methods. Similarly, law enforcement and specifically detectives and bunko officers must constantly be studying both, methods as to how cons work as well as methods by which to "read" a suspect during general conversations (look up FACS).

I can "Read" you, and more so, I understand you. The problem is, I'm not giving you the feedback you're used to when it comes to "like minded" people that encounter you. Rather, I'm challenging you to take the next step and to be blunt, escape from your denial or, as it may be, your chosen level of ignorance; it's common to the believer regardless the issue, even skeptics within this topic are guilty of such things if and when they don't elect to take you (and I) up on the challenge of walking in our world for a bit. We can't expect them to do something we refuse to do, can we?

Believe it or not, it's far easier (in my experience at least) to get a skeptic to set things aside and look at the paranormal arena from the believer's perspective than it is to get a believer to consider a more analytical set of "theories" and "explanations". The reason is purely psychological and I've always find it peculiar in that people of faith fear such things rather than hosting sufficient faith as to confidently investigate and consider the more scholastic views.

In the 1970's I was a good little Baptist lad whose mother believed would be the next Billy Graham. In those days there was a research team that was investigating the long held perspectives around Moses and the whole mess he made of Egypt along with the escape of Israel. The ministers claimed this was the work of Satan himself and yet, 35+ years later we have programs being embraced by fundamentalists as "proof" to how god did it all, in hope to use logic and research to their advantage; the same demonic explanations that were shunned and denounced for literal millennia have finally become the testimony of god's truth. . . of course, they still want to refute what anthropology and actual history reveals when it comes to such things, but they are slowly coming around. . . as they always do.

This is the same scenario; the believers are being handed a more logical face to the divine that they initially don't want to accept. Yet, compared to that same generation or two time period, we find more and more educated believers accepting what science and logic have revealed vs. blind faith and adherence. While the latter has its place, when practice at extremes and void of logic, it proves a policy for fools. Frankly, I can't believe anyone would endure the tortures of the Inquisition based on blind faith alone, they had to have a more concrete reason -- KNOWLEDGE vs FAITH or perhaps combined with faith, which I believe to be closer to the truth, which is why I tend to lean that way -- a more gnostic mind-set, if you would -- when it comes to this issue.

Again, I'm not attacking you or trying to insult or affront you in any way. I'm just trying to help you take the next step on your already expressed journey; I'm being used by the Universe you might say, to help you move-on in your quest for knowledge & understanding of what being a real psychic entails. That may sound arrogant of me, but it is one way to look at our situation -- the "higher ground" so to speak. But hey, I'm just the messenger, I've never claimed to be anything other.

[Arouet]

[ProfWag]

[Arouet]

Hmm, he describes it quite differently there but I'm certain I heard him in an interview describe that he wasn't looking at it at the time,then looked down and saw it was bent. Wish I could remember the source, but I don't remember where I heard that interview.

[ProfWag]

[Arouet]

Haha, funny thing is, I remember exactly where I was when I listened to the interview - I was standing on the playset in the playground outside my house watching my kids, on the steps up to the slide. I can picture it very clearly.

Weird that I remember that! But I can't for the life of me remember the source. It may have been an interview I downloaded from the IONS site, or something else. I seem to remember him discussion his role in that movie - what was it called? What the bleep do we know?

[craig weiler]

Ok, I found it. Not from Radin interestingly enough. It comes from the book "Best Evidence" by Michael Schmicker. He describes a "PK party at the Oasis Resort an hour outside of Las Vegas. The party was hosted by aerospace systems engineer Jack Houck. They first started in 1981. At his first party he had 21 friends and 19 were able to do spoon bending. He is going by the theory that the best way to do this is to create a very emotional event. The technique is as follows:

1) Make a mental connection with what you want to affect, focus your attention and concentration on the spoon.
2) Command what you want to happen by shouting Bend! Bend! Bend! and
3) Release, let go mentally, let it happen.

According to the book it happens in about 20 to 30 seconds. It works best in large groups of people working together.


In the book, Schmicker is offering this story as an interesting aside, not presenting it as part of the evidence.