Psychics

People who believe that they possess 'psychic ability' term themselves as being a 'psychic'. They are referred to as 'psychics'.

So what are 'psychic mediums' then?

Some mediums, claim to be 'psychic mediums', which is misleading because all mediums are psychic, but not all psychics are mediums. Mediumship is supposed to involve psychic ability - such as clairvoyance and clairaudience - but not all psychics are medium. Not all psychics claim to have the ability of being able to communicate with the dead. So why do some mediums claim to be psychic also when they are supposed to psychic anyway? Maybe it is because it sounds more appealing to the sort of people who would go to their shows and buy their books. Perhaps they feel that it makes them sound better, as more people may know what a psychic is, as opposed to what a medium is. 

             Psychics vs. sceptics

Psychics make a fortune out of their public shows that are supposed to demonstrate their 'amazing' psychic abilities, their books which are filled with their person sensantional psychic or spiritual  encounters, which are entertaining but make you wonder just how honest those accounts are. Having kept a 'psychic journal' myself has opened my eyes to the various flaws in writing up one's own 'extraordinary' psychic experiences and, furthermore, to the more dreadful problems with getting them published into a book. 

         Here are some points to bear in mind when you next pick up a psychic or medium's autobiography:

• Readership: What sort of people (readers) is the book aimed at? How are the experiences phrased? What sort of people would buy it? People who already believe in the paranormal/psychic abilities/mediumship? People who need academic, scientific evidence that psychic and mediums are what they claim to be? People who need a tiny bit of persuasion to believe in what the psychic or medium is saying?
• Honesty: Bearing in mind that you have to take the author's word for it, how honest, genuine and sincere do you reckon the person is as they tell you about their personal experiences in their book? They will have needed to be edited in order to make it successfully into being a book and to ensure that people will buy it.
• Sensationalism: The accounts will have been distorted to be enjoyable and entertaining to read. You can't know that they are accurate, nor can you be sure that the details of the accounts weren't exaggerated to make a good story. Who knows, perhaps the original story didn't make good reading, so the author had to change it in a lot of places to make it readable and, well, make it a good story worth reading.
• Selective memory: Brilliant. Now, I discovered that my psychic diaries were like one's own mind. You record experiences that you personally find interesting and dismiss anything that you don't. In the same way, psychic diaries only record what the person found interesting - experiences that they thought were interesting, perhaps possessing psychic ability. Any moments in which psychic ability did not appear evident are not recorded in the diary. So then, the psychic diary is like selective memory, because you choose what to remember (or write down in the diary) and what to forget (not write down in the diary). 
• Reconstructive memory: Fantastic. You can't rely or trust psychics' or mediums' accounts because the actual experiences may have been completely different to what they're claiming now. They may have misremembered details and distorted certain details in accordance to their own beliefs. Bear in mind that they are giving you an account of their experience which sounds extraordinary. It doesn't hurt to be sceptical about it, because you're only listening to one person's account which may not be as accurate about the event as they would have you believe. Then again...
• Deception: What if the psychic or medium's story is just that, a story. Why would they want to deceive us into believing in it? For multiple reasons. To help their popularity and following, to make money. If they sound amazing, the right sort of people will want to go and see them, go to their shows and buy their books. 

Money, money, money...

Mediums are not there to prove that the dead lives on. They do not exist to prove that there is life after death. They are not there to prove that they communicate with spirits. Why are they there? To make money. They may want to prove that they are what they say they are, but they also want to make money out of their profession. Likewise, psychics do not exist to prove that they have psychic powers. They are also there to make money.

       Imagine that you are a psychic. You are making a fortune for yourself by working as a psychic. Your shows are so popular, they are a sell-out. Your books are popular, too. You appear regularly on TV shows. Everything seems perfect, you are making so much money, you feel like you could carry on like this forever...

      Then Mr Collins arrives, by the entrance to your shows. You recall that he is a sceptic. He doesn't believe that you are what you claim to be. You see him standing by the huge queue of people who are making their way over to your theatre for your show. He's handing out leaflets. He's probably handing out leaflets to promote my shows, You find yourself thinking. Wait a minute! He's a sceptic! Why would he do that?

      So you approach Mr Collins. You try to keep your temper under control. "What are you doing here?" you ask. "I'm just handing out leaflet to people," Mr Collins replies. You look at the leaflets. They are warning people to think for themselves. They are stating that the information psychics give are just cold reading statements that could apply to most people... "What right do you have to be handing these leaflets to people on their way to my show?" you angrily ask. 

     Yes. The only people 'standing in their way' of the psychics and mediums are the sceptics. The people who are trying to educate others on the techniques psychics and mediums use. Cold reading, Barnum effect, flattery, high-probability statements, hot reading, repetition. If less people were aware of the counter-arguments of the sceptics, then more people would be attending psychics' and mediums' shows, buying their books, etc. Because psychics and mediums are making a fortune out of their claims and demonstrating their 'abilities', they don't want sceptics to discourage people to go to their shows because they are educating them otherwise... The psychic or medium does not want people to become sceptics because that would mean that less people would go to their shows because they no longer believe in what they are claiming to be able to do. 

   

      

Seeing 'real' psychic abilities at work...

The two above excerpts about the same event give an interesting glimpse into the psychic's demonstration. With public demonstrations, what is picked up on by the psychic or medium that is incorrect tends to be forgotten by the main of the audience. The more cynical or sceptical viewers would recall these events better, because they are not easily persuaded to believe in the psychic or medium's abilities. If someone wants to see what 'real' psychic abilities are, indeed if they actually exist, they should be advised to join a psychic development circle.

Psychic abilities: at work and in the lab

J. B. Rhine found in his ESP experiments that subjects scored a little bit above chance, suggesting that something like psi may have been in operation. However, if the higher-than-expected score was down to psi - or psychic - ability, it would suggest that the whole population possess a degree of psi ability. Yet if this degree of psi ability is very small, in everyday life it would be pretty much undetectable. Furthermore, if people who believe in psi also believe that they possess psychic abilities, their assertion that they are psychic may be overblown, because they forget all the times that their psychic ability proved to be wrong or did not fit in with their belief. Essentially, therefore, they believe that are more psychic than they really are and this results in self-delusion.

       Although some ESP experiments, such as the card-guessing experiments, may seem to be rather novel activities, their results are nonetheless interesting. Similar examples of apparent ESP at work like the card-guessing can occur in real life involving trivial things. Correctly guessing a number to be rolled on a dice before it does, knowing something, such as the year a film or music was made without prior knowledge which turns out to be correct, to 'knowing' what someone will say before they do are rather mundane examples. Whether they are examples of psi ability/ESP at work is debateable, since there are other explanations for them and they may not be authentic examples of psi ability. One other criticism of the experiments, however, is that the participants used are strangers to each other. Telepathy, for example, tends to occur more amongst family or friends, not between strangers, so perhaps the experiments should focus more on using participants who are not strangers to each other and testing them in an ESP experiment. In that way, the experiment would seem less artificial.

     So assuming that the whole population has a small degree of psi ability, how would it relate to real life? Consider the following points:

• Psi ability may function undetected, because it exists in the person/population is such a small amount
• Psi ability may not be too amazing, because it exists in such a small amount
• If Psi exists in only a small amount, all the other times that psychic ability seemed to occur  may be easily explained away
• Real life psi ability will be difficult to test scientifically, because real life does not allow for all variables to be controlled by experimenter

There are no doubt more points to add to the above list. Now think about the people who profess to be psychic/mediumistic. If psi ability only exists in a small about in people:

• Are professional psychics/mediums REALLY psychic?
• Are professional psychics/mediums deluding themselves by believing they are more psychic than they actually are?
• Are they more psychic than the rest of the population?
• Do they present real evidence in their work of psychic ability that cannot be explained rationally?
• If the whole population do not possess a lot of psi ability, why is it that they present themselves to be more psychic than the rest of the population?

Psychics seem to present themselves as being gifted with extraordinary psychic abilities, but why is it that psi ability is seemingly substantiated in ESP experiments to be only a little bit above chance in participants' scores? If participants were to have extraordinary psychic abilities, then their score would be amazingly above chance in experiments. Why, if the mainstream psychics possess greater psychic abilities, does their 'evidence' presented in their shows seem to involve cold reading? Is that really what psychic ability is all about? Obviously, psychic abilities cannot be sufficiently tested scientifically in real life, nor at psychics' shows. Just because the psychic claims to be psychic doesn't mean that what processes he/she is using are psychic or paranormal and that, furthermore, their 'evidence' is unexplainable rationally.

Animal psychics

  

What do the sceptics say? 

Above is an interesting handout regarding psychics and the supposed abilities, from the Good Thinking Society. It touches upon most of the points already mentioned here. The problem is, however, that if people really believe that someone who claims to be psychic is REALLY psychic, they do not accept anything that goes against they belief. Instead, they will find explanations to explain the points that are not in accord to their belief. 

        It is true that a large proportion of the performer's statements are incorrect, but how many people would remember those if they already believe that the performer is psychic, or a medium and not a fraud? Anything that is in accord with their belief is remembered, whereas anything that isn't (such as incorrect statements) are forgotten. This is what cognitive dissonance is!
      

      

Sceptics and psychics

Mark Tilbrook, had, according to http://boingboing.net/2014/10/10/video-exclusive-sceptic-bulli.html "... decided earlier this year to leaflet outside various psychic stage shows, encouraging members of the audience to ask themselves questions about psychic ability. My first three visits were to shows by Sally Morgan, and on each occasion her husband John Morgan approached me. I found him to be threatening and abusive.

After being threatened during my first encounter with John Morgan, I felt it necessary to have a camera with me when leafleting, to record events and provide evidence of the threats I faced. ...
None of this has stopped me from being determined to continue leafleting at psychic stage shows. This is why I have been working with the Good Thinking Society to hand out more leaflets at psychic shows throughout October 2014. You can find out about 'Psychic Awareness Month' at the Good Thinking website.

Are psychics frauds then? If they are, they seem to show themselves to be absolute believers in their claims, no doubt because we are more likely to believe in them if they show themselves to be, too. There are some people who genuinely believe in their psychic abilities, but they may just be deluded. Certainly, even psychics lose their keys and can't remember where they'd put them last...

The psychic development circle

How does public demonstration differ from psychic development circles? For one thing, at the circle, people are not deliberately nor intentionally trying to fool each other nor themselves. But in other respects, the two are similar. Cold readings are given, but in the circle, those are more 'part of the process' if you like. They are not deliberate, although they are still something to do with the mind. Collaboration does occur still. A point which is confirmed by the other circle member in psychometry for example, may be elaborated on by the psychometrist (if that's a word). However, taking part in a psychic development circle gives a more realistic idea of psychic abilities than going to a public demonstration of them, because the performer at the demonstration may be a con artist or be deliberately deceiving you.
     

The explanations

Cognitive dissonance
Cold reading 

So, seriously psychic? 

It is well worth remembering this: