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Psychics
Earthninja
WandererWest Australia Veteran
in Philosophy
I just posted in the thread about dreams but I thought if share some cool stories that happened out of the blue recently.
First one, well last week my wife had a dream that a girl at work called Amy, made an announcement at their work, she said in the kitchen that she was pregnant. My wife told me the dream last week.
I just got a phone call from my wife, Amy just announced she is pregnant. This happened at their work. In the kitchen...
This is the third time my wife has dreamt about someone being pregnant and it coming true!
Second story. I was at a dinner with family and friends last year. My co manager from work, Will, was talking to my wife's brother Mick.
I heard Will say "This is going to sound really weird but when's your birthday?"
Mick replied"May 21st"
Will says" omg that's mine too"
They has never met before and are about 8 years apart.
How weird is this? Have you guys got any stories to share?
Also do you guys believe in psychics Or know how it works?
First one, well last week my wife had a dream that a girl at work called Amy, made an announcement at their work, she said in the kitchen that she was pregnant. My wife told me the dream last week.
I just got a phone call from my wife, Amy just announced she is pregnant. This happened at their work. In the kitchen...
This is the third time my wife has dreamt about someone being pregnant and it coming true!
Second story. I was at a dinner with family and friends last year. My co manager from work, Will, was talking to my wife's brother Mick.
I heard Will say "This is going to sound really weird but when's your birthday?"
Mick replied"May 21st"
Will says" omg that's mine too"
They has never met before and are about 8 years apart.
How weird is this? Have you guys got any stories to share?
Also do you guys believe in psychics Or know how it works?
0
Comments
I know how some of it works:
20 people birthday coincidence
http://people.howstuffworks.com/question261.htm
pregnant women smell different and this was probably the subconscious cue for the 'prophetic' dream
http://community.babycenter.com/post/a33096277/do_pregnant_women_smell_differently
Also the example you have was that 2 people in the room have the same bday. Not necessarily the person asking
He also doesn't go around asking people when their birthdays are. So that would minimise the probability to less than 0.27% chance.
The paradox is based on asking everybody in a room of 20 when their birthdays are. (Was interesting though! I might try this!)
Not selectively asking one person in a feeling. What are the chances in that.
Hmm the second one won't load but I'm interested! Could be smell, I'll try read it on my comp and get back to you!
And people at her work normally make announcements in the kitchen so could be. !
Thanks @lobster
Uri Geller is a mystery... I can't quite make up my mind about him.... ON the one hand, he sounds and seems utterly plausible, on the other, I'm just not convinced...
Many years ago on UK TV, there used to be an entertainment, Saturday-night programme called "Noels' House party" and one feature was to trick a famous celebrity into doing somethin they had secretly been set up to do... without them knowing it was all a sham...
They did this with Uri geller.
ostensibly at a restaurant one busy lunchtime, to discuss aspects of his work, it was engineered that shelves would fall off the wall, pictures would spin, and tables would begin to move....
One minute into the "interview" and he suddenly sat back and declared to the young lady journalist, "That's not your real name!"
She covered up by saying it was a pen-name for business purposes, and he replied "But you aren't a journalist either...!" which momentarily flumoxed her, and she falteringly replied that no, but she was working freelance, it wasn't her usual job...
The interview continued, with Uri looking at her in a bemused way, when he suddenly declared, "Every single person in this room, knows you. Not because you are famous or a well-known journalist - they personally know you. Every one of them!"
At that point, a shelf fell off the wall, and Uri immediately declared "I didn't do that! I'm not responsible for that!" At which point, Noel Edmonds came out from behind the scenes and admitted that THEY had been got, by Uri.
It was amazing. Incredible how he actually divined he was being 'had'. Great telly!
Except that a few months ago, I happened to read a magazine article in the Doctor's waiting room, and it transpired that one of Uri's personal assistants, having by necessity been advised of the ploy, actually gave the whole game away and told Uri all the details in advance.
Here is Richard Dawkins demonstrating the 'find the psychic' test . . .
They place random number generators around the world and record the data. Between 1-0. It flips at 200 coins per second.
The medium line is called the drunkard walk, it's like a constant squiggly s pattern.
During 9/11 the data went through the roof for 2 days. The chance of this happening is less than 1/1000000000.
Critics say it's chance. As Dawkins claims above.
They say it may have something to do with global consciousness. Not sure but the data is weird.
Could this explain psychics? As Dawkins puts it, a chance event. That's bound to happen.
Or global consciousness?
Maybe but maybe not.
It could explain how the Flying Speghetti Monster is pulling our noodle. You start from a premise, show an anomaly and describe it as proof . . .
http://skepdic.com/globalconsciousness.html
I believe that same experiment has shown jumps at many times of globally-perceived tragedy, such as the Indian Ocean and Japan tsunamis. It's quite interesting.
I've personally heard and seen enough to believe there is something to people who have another, or just a better developed sense than most of us. I don't think that covers the phone, radio and tv psychics though.
Once upon a time, when "flower power" was in vogue (late 1960's early 1970's), I was assigned to interview a woman who claimed to get out of her body and was helping others to do the same. On the one hand, I wasn't against the ooooooeeeeeoooo stuff, but neither was I entirely credulous. And besides the latter, I felt I had to make the tale credible to the newspaper readers I was writing for. But how the hell was I supposed to do that?
My answer, limping as it was, was to ask the woman to do a test after the interview. I carefully snipped up 60 bits of paper each with a number -- 1 to 60 -- on it. When I said I would pull a number at random out of an envelope, the woman said promptly, "I don't do tests, but I'll give you a reading if you will give me something that's with you pretty much all of the time." I handed her my wrist watch -- a device used in olden days, although it had no Internet connection.
And she held the watch and talked. Nothing fancy ... just talked as if she were looking at a magazine. "I see fire," she said. "Does it affect me?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "Is it dangerous?" I asked. "No. But it will be very important to you."
Not more than two days later, I got a call from a state police officer who was also a news source. We were bs-ing on the phone when he asked, "How would you like to do a story about arson?" "I'd love it," I replied, "but no one is willing to talk about it." "Well, I've got a guy -- an insurance adjustor -- who will talk as long as you keep his name out of it." And within a day or two, I was tramping through the charred ruins of one house after another, guided by the adjustor who pointed out things like the fact that some arsonists were so dumb that they claimed for reimbursement the contents of non-existent rooms in one house or another. It was a juicy story... and a great invitation to burn the house down since 1. the evidence is generally burned in the conflagration and 2. arson is tough to prove and represents a minuscule portion of an insurance company's business ... and thus not worth their time in terms of the average pay-out.
The woman also said this: "I see two." "Two what?" I asked. "I don't know, but I do know it is very important to you." Ten years later, I was in a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan when I palm reader came around. He was part of the restaurant ambiance. After doing the ordinary spiel, suddenly he slowed as he said, "I see two." "Two what?" I asked. "I don't know, but it is very important to you," he replied.
After the interview with the woman, I went back to the office and called the only scientifically-recognized paranormal organization in the country -- an organization that was using the woman in experiments. I begged and pleaded with them to tell me how good she was at, for example, traveling some 200 miles out of body, entering a locked room in a particular building and describing items left on a table. The man I was talking to might as well have had lock-jaw. He told me he knew who the woman was, admitted she was part of their studies, but refused to give any particulars. I begged, pleaded, swore .... did everything I could think of to elicit an assessment. Steadfastly, he refused to open up ... until right at the end of our conversation when he remarked, "she is very, very good."
I wrote the story. It was not my most well-documented work but ... well, luckily news stories get lost to memory pretty quickly.
I had a friend/colleague who, though I didn't know it at the time, was a psychic. I later went to her a few times and had a couple of other psychic encounters. Quite spooky what she "knew" and the predictions that were made.
I've been known to "know" things. And I'm always right (sounds arrogant but it's just what experience has shown). I don't know why I know things, nor do I have the time or inclination to prove my abilities. It is what it is. Richard Dawkins is an ass. He may be a great scientist, but a lousy human when he likes to focus on deriding people and their beliefs.
I'd rather focus on things I can prove and work with - like the Dhamma and the Middle Way. It's better karma and much more skilfull.
_ /\ _
Speaking of Richard Dawkins, was that actually him on "The Good Wife" last evening?
There was a time, a long time ago, when, from time to time, I would wake up in the morning in my Manhattan apartment and 'know' I was going to run into someone I knew that day. Not who, in particular, just someone I knew. In a city of 12 million people. And I always did ... until I stopped paying wowsers attention to it. Then the ability disappeared.
There was a particular friend in Thailand from whom I would always know a letter would be in my mailbox. I was always wrong...but every time by 1 day.
So if you are having an uncanny experience at the moment RD suggests you should put your faith in the scientific method to describe what is happening to you now....
Really? Random chance... You have no control over your life... your a fatalist, a heads or tails person?
Or are you being what you are right here and right now...
If you are being what you are right here and right now - well done...
If you are a fatalshit, well done as well... you deserve everything that comes your way...
...\lol/...
So I'm laughing at you if you are the latter, and with you later...
"Psychics"
Nothing special
I feel it is interesting and it is significant and we don't have an adequate explanation for it. 'The mysterious woo dunz it' - not an explanation.
Frauds such as Uri Geller, professional psychics who are NOT used to tell the weather, have never made themselves rich through straight forward routes such as the Randi challenge or the stock exchange. They are a shameful sham of a particular type of inadequate mentality that likes to feel superior by conning and duping others. Then we have the self deluded who ignore their misses and up their hits. They are no match for professional conjurers and illusionists such as Darren Brown. The proof is in the evidence not the pattern seeking we all have a proclivity for.
The clarity of thought and more developed sense and senses does come through dharma practice. No doubt. However most mystics/practioners with developed sensitivity are not interested in proving known, inevitable and at times hindering abilities. Some of these are quite obvious in how they work, for example the emotional and mental calm that soothes people, animals and situations.
. . . as @Shoshin says, 'nothing special' . . .
A couple of weeks ago I bumped into a friend who lives locally on a crowded tube train in the centre of London. Neither of us are regular visitors to London and neither of us had used that tube line before. An amazing coincidence or something else?
I've had some odd experiences in the past, visual images in particular places when I touch rocks and buildings, like memories, also distinct feelings of presence in other locations, all a bit spooky. I've also been around some advanced Buddhist practitioners who always seemed to know exactly what you're thinking, rather alarming actually!
So I don't know, but I think it's best to keep an open mind on such things, somewhere in between complete scepticism and woolly wishful thinking.
Well said Dr Evil aka @SpinyNorman,
Dharma is at its best experiential. That wisdom base and heritage does unfold. Nobody bothers reading my mind because there is little there except the odd heading.
Sometimes the Buddha and his followers did spooky stuff. However the Buddha in his wisdom discouraged such egoism. If you want to work in a circus, then to a degree by concentrated effort you can manifest siddhis which are not well studied or understood by science. However to be sidetracked by psychic clowns or 'Mara the Marvellous' is just time wasting away . . .
Time just wasting away whilst you could on the path of self discovery.
It's how you approach things, I merely brought this up as something interesting that happens in the world. Just something to play with.
He never discouraged spooky stuff, he discouraged egoism.
Yes, that summarises it well.
Buddha did not believe in luck, fate or chance. He taught that whatever happens does so because of a cause or causes!
...Who said that?
...Dependent Origination
Probabilities on the deterministic ground. Everything that may happen happens sooner or later. And it's probable that something unlikely will happen.
I have had experiences, especially with certain people, that couldn't be cold reading. Once I saw a friend crossing a street, but she wasn't there. After half an hour I saw her in the same place. This time for real. Once I gave her a present, a thing she had been thinking during that day, which still gives her the creeps.
Time slices?
Do they taste like lemons?
Lime slices that are as green as my smiley face
Even if something happens not by any sense of chance, that doesn't mean there are people who for whatever reason have a sense of whatever is coming. But even if we remove chance and leave it ALL to causes and conditions, perhaps these types of people just have access to our
I have a friend who is like that. She never considers herself psychic or anything, she just says she is a highly sensitive individual to particular things.
Many years ago, I was just turned 20 years old and we were talking on the phone. We had a normal friend chat, and were about to hang up when she said "Holy cow. You are going to have a baby before the year is up." It was February of 1996. I laughed and told her no worries, I was on one of the most reliable birth controls. She said I might want to look into something else. I laughed again and told her no way I was having a baby at 20, I'd be careful.
My oldest son was born in December 1996. And she wasn't a girl who "smelled" me because #1 at the time we spoke I was not yet pregnant and #2 she lived 1000 miles away.
Now, sure, one might be able to make a random guess because I was young and had a boyfriend. But it wasn't like that with her, it was just a random vision she had and she knew it would be true.
"Multiple independent discovery" (e.g., chromosomes, the Higgs boson, the Möbius strip) is a fascinating phenomenom.
Memes spread quickly in the web, but bird species may also have kind of memes that spread quicker than in should be possible.
Subatomic particles may be entangled to each other in a very long distance.
Psychics is just a word. There are a lot of things that people is one setting will think is impossible compared to people in another.
I think it is a question of trying. If we didn't try or never had the ability to try many things would be impossible to us. Like walking or driving a car.
As a rule of thumb never believe in something you cannot reproduce by yourself.
If you really want to know then try and never mind what others or even your"self" thinks is impossible.
After all your "self" is conditioned to believe what the surrounding permits to believe.
Give it time and many things you thought impossible will become possible...
.
and other things will remain impossible.
You will be amazed at how many people who claim things are impossible have never tried it themselves...thus making it impossible per say.
But please don't place yourself or others in danger of course while trying.
It is the same advice as in the Kalama sutta. Try i before you Buy it.
See you on the other side....
/Victor
Psychic phenomena...
This happens quite a bit, it's no big deal..."Just cross wires"
For example....
I was walking home from work one sunny Saturday afternoon and I saw a wasp buzzing around trying to attract my attention, on doing so it then flew up in the air and off in the direction where I lived and all of a sudden a thought popped into my head saying "There's a phone message about a wasp nest" I wasn't expecting any body to call but I had a feeling this thought knew what it was on about, so I took note of the time this happened and sure enough when I got home there was a message on my phone -a lady wanted info on how to deal with a wasp nest, the message was left around the time I saw the wasp...
Then there's the "I knew it was you calling" or "I was just thinking of you!"... You think about a person and all of a sudden the phone rings or there's a knock on the door and the person you were just thinking about is there....
Or when you're listening to the radio or watching live TV whilst writing, you write down a word, it can be an unusual words not often use and all of a sudden you hear the person on the radio or TV repeat the word in a sentence...
Spooky ??? Or normal...Nothing special
We can guarantee that when more mindful and aware, the 'ordinary miracles' are ever present and extraordinary . . .