Can psychics really see the past/future?

[Waltz1982]

I’m sure everyone has seen the signs for “$5 Psychic Readings� in their town or while traveling elsewhere. What I wanted to discuss here were your thoughts on using psychics for more than just personal entertainment, more specifically in police and detective work.

There’s been documented cases in the past where police haven’t been able to solve a crime, at which point they turn to a psychic for help.
What I find the most interesting is when the psychics they hire actually solve the case.

What are your thoughts on this? What about using psychics to help solve some of the current investigations (such as the Peterson or Hacking
trials?)

I’m not an expert myself on the topic, but I’ve been learning a bit more from a new show on Court TV called Psychic Detectives. It’s on Wednesday’s at 9:30pm in case you want to watch it too.

[Soapy Sam]

No , they can't. But they can make good money by convincing people that they can.

Welcome aboard, by the way.

[roger]

Originally posted by Waltz1982
There’s been documented cases in the past where police haven’t been able to solve a crime, at which point they turn to a psychic for help.
What I find the most interesting is when the psychics they hire actually solve the case. Please provide this documented evidence. This has been debated widely on this board (which you of course can't be expected to know, being new here), and there is no known evidence of a psychic solving a police case. If you have evidence to the contrary, we would love to hear it.

[hgc]

Originally posted by Waltz1982
...

I’m not an expert myself on the topic, but I’ve been learning a bit more from a new show on Court TV called Psychic Detectives. It’s on Wednesday’s at 9:30pm in case you want to watch it too. Nancy Grace claims another victim.

[Ashles]

Hi Waltz - welcome to the forum.

If you fancy a long fun read about this subject:

All you could ever want to know about the Police and Psychics (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7420)

But if you can't be bothered to slog through it (and I wouldn't blame you, although it is highly entertaining) the precis is:
Police NEVER call in psychics. Ever. This is Policy in England, Wales and certainly parts of America - this has been confirmed by both serving and ex-policemen on both sides of th atlantic, and in official statements by the Metropolitan Police and the English and Welsh Police forces.
If a psychic calls the Police with information the Police are legally required to follow it up. All information provided by the public must be investigated, no matter who the caller is or how they claim to have come by the information. This, of course, can waste an enormous mount of police time.
No case has ever been solved by a psychics input. Ever. Not one. The best any psychic can claim is that they predicted a discovery that the police later made using their own police procedures (and these very anecdotal claims are the subject of very serious doubt).

A lot of us here are pretty disgusted with the Court TV programmes and the false hope it creates.

The facts, when investigated, are extremely clear on this subject. Have psychics found the bodies of the missing Moors' Murderers victims? Lord Lucan? Osama Bin Laden? Genette Tate? etc. etc.

At their worst these psychics are attention seeking vampires, at best misguided and trying to help people with their grief. Unfortunately they can prevent the grieving process from occurring naturaly and in a healthy normal way.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by Waltz1982
I’m sure everyone has seen the signs for “$5 Psychic Readings� in their town or while traveling elsewhere. What I wanted to discuss here were your thoughts on using psychics for more than just personal entertainment, more specifically in police and detective work.

There’s been documented cases in the past where police haven’t been able to solve a crime, at which point they turn to a psychic for help.
What I find the most interesting is when the psychics they hire actually solve the case.

What are your thoughts on this? What about using psychics to help solve some of the current investigations (such as the Peterson or Hacking
trials?)

I’m not an expert myself on the topic, but I’ve been learning a bit more from a new show on Court TV called Psychic Detectives. It’s on Wednesday’s at 9:30pm in case you want to watch it too.

It's sound exciting, doesn't it?

Life is rather much more mundane.

[Dragonrock]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
It's sound exciting, doesn't it?

Life is rather much more mundane.

I disagree, once you begin really looking at the world life can be quite interesting. I could listen all day to archeological experts explaining how thousands of egyptian workers built the pyramids or what really happened to the advanced south american tribes who just disappeared. Some of the creatures discovered during oceanic deep diving expeditions give me chills that no psychic could hope for. Watching a 100,000 ton ship carrying more people than a small town moving effortlessly away from the dock and knowing that it was built by human hands is awe-inspiring.

Life is far from mundane, people are just too lazy to look for or too familiar with its beauty to see what is right on front of them.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by Dragonrock
I disagree, once you begin really looking at the world life can be quite interesting. I could listen all day to archeological experts explaining how thousands of egyptian workers built the pyramids or what really happened to the advanced south american tribes who just disappeared. Some of the creatures discovered during oceanic deep diving expeditions give me chills that no psychic could hope for. Watching a 100,000 ton ship carrying more people than a small town moving effortlessly away from the dock and knowing that it was built by human hands is awe-inspiring.

Life is far from mundane, people are just too lazy to look for or too familiar with its beauty to see what is right on front of them.

I agee with your assessment, but I feel a reasonable case could be made that lots of woo beliefs exist for their simple excitement factor.

What's more exciting to Rapture-believing Christians than the coming of the End of the World?

It's exciting to think that people might divine hidden knowledge through some sort of psi.

It can be exciting to think that our lives are already charted out by the position of planets and stars.

If those things were boring, they would have far fewer believers.

[alfaniner]

Hello, Waltz!

Just curious as to how you found this website? I'm sure you've had some time to browse around and I appreciate your willingness to pose a question and (hopefully) read the discussion it entails.

[Bikewer]

Consider as well the long list of earth-shaking events that psychics did NOT predict.

9/11, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Challenger disaster....One could go on and on.

[Phil]

Originally posted by Ashles
Hi Waltz - welcome to the forum.

If you fancy a long fun read about this subject:

All you could ever want to know about the Police and Psychics (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7420)

But if you can't be bothered to slog through it (and I wouldn't blame you, although it is highly entertaining) the precis is:
Police NEVER call in psychics. Ever. This is Policy in England, Wales and certainly parts of America - this has been confirmed by both serving and ex-policemen on both sides of th atlantic, and in official statements by the Metropolitan Police and the English and Welsh Police forces.
If a psychic calls the Police with information the Police are legally required to follow it up. All information provided by the public must be investigated, no matter who the caller is or how they claim to have come by the information. This, of course, can waste an enormous mount of police time.
No case has ever been solved by a psychics input. Ever. Not one. The best any psychic can claim is that they predicted a discovery that the police later made using their own police procedures (and these very anecdotal claims are the subject of very serious doubt).

A lot of us here are pretty disgusted with the Court TV programmes and the false hope it creates.

The facts, when investigated, are extremely clear on this subject. Have psychics found the bodies of the missing Moors' Murderers victims? Lord Lucan? Osama Bin Laden? Genette Tate? etc. etc.

At their worst these psychics are attention seeking vampires, at best misguided and trying to help people with their grief. Unfortunately they can prevent the grieving process from occurring naturaly and in a healthy normal way.
Welcome to the board, Waltz.

What Ashles said.

How's that for being lazy and running up my post count?

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by Phil

How's that for being lazy and running up my post count?
Pretty good, I must admit.

[Marquis de Carabas]

But not this good.

Welcome to the forums, Waltz.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by Marquis de Carabas
But not this good.

Welcome to the forums, Waltz.

I had a vision of you doing that. Really. Call my psychic.

[Grendel]

The roots of modern paranormalism are found in the spiritualism movement of the mid to late 19th century. It was an unabashed attempt to validate religious beliefs by establishing a record of physical evidence for the assorted sub-isms. If one could prove the existence of ghosts, for example, this would also prove the existence of the 'soul', that this soul could survive the death of the body, and further, that the living could physically sense the souls of the dead, and perhaps even communicate with them. This is very heady stuff, and it is easy to see how believers might overlook pesky issues like the absence of reliable, testable, physical evidence. They tended to redefine these terms, in essence by lowering the standards for what constitutes scientific evidence -while keeping that label, of course.

You may lay the credit -or blame -on the British Society for Psychical Research, founded in the latter half of the 19th century, whose efforts were at least in part an attempt to counter the growing consideration and acceptance of the theories put forth by that Darwin fellow, which were an anathema to religionists.

In the very late 19th century/early 20th century, the American Society for Psychical Research was formed in concert with the Brit version, and the hilarity of ineptitude begun overseas ran on unabated in the New World. Both Brit and Yank psychical researchers were earnest and well-intended for the most part, but woefully unequal to the task, and a great many charlatans and con artists had no trouble fooling them, winning their stamps of approval, and turning these endorsements into big-time bucks. Spiritualism was a big moneymaker on both sides of the sea for many, many decades. As I've mentioned in another post, obtain and read "A Skeptic's Handbook On Parapsychology", edited by Paul Kurtz, published by Prometheus Books, for an excellent history of the beginnings of modern paranormalism.

In the years completing the 20th century, as genuine science expanded at a near-miraculous rate, the spiritualists morphed into would-be scientists, malappropriating whatever new scientific discovery might serve their beliefs, again, all done mostly by honest effort, but shaped by woeful ineptitude, credulity, and outright fraud in many cases.

Here we are, 150 years or so later, and there exists not a whit more releiable, testable, physical evidence for the existence of the assorted 'psi' powers than was on the table in the time of the Fox Sisters in the mid-1800s.

The reason belief survives such a woeful research record is because of two main points: Firstly, because the *implications* of the existence of many/most paranormal powers is so satisfying and personally attractive to spiritual types, i.e. ghosts = souls, psi = superscience power of some sort (why not Divine?), an emotional response is triggered, and the intellect loses this tug o' war in believer's minds and hearts. Secondly, only an idiot could have missed the facts that a huge percentage of paranormal believers are also religious believers, that a certain level of scientific ignorance goes hand in hand with paranormal beliefs, and that the paranormal believer can and does warp and twist the "evidence', such as it is, into whatever is required to justify the belief. Religious belief and paranormal beliefs require the same ability to pick and choose which scientific facts will be used and which will be ignored without excessive qualms about the inherent intellectual hipocrisy involved. An argument could be made for moral hipocrisy, but... that's another thread altogether, eh?

Religious and paranormal beliefs share other characteristics, among them the need to nurture and caretake for unevidenced beliefs, while concurrently fending off doubt-inducing new knowledge, typically in the form of established scientific facts. This is hard work.


The skeptical/bleever wars are known for occasional acrimonial exchanges*, but the anger from eaach side originates from different places. The skeptic may become angry in response to his or her frustration over bleevers who seem incapable and/or unwilling to simply consider, if only for the sake of argument, the established facts on the way our universe works and how they impact the paranormal bleefs. This is an unpleasant thing to experience for the skeptic, but it is reasonable.

The anger of the paranormal bleever, however, originates from an entirely different place. it is simply this: Cause folks to doubt cherished beliefs, and they will hate you for it.

Credo Consolans.


*Sarcasm Alert

[DustiRose]

I do believe that psychics have helped the police solve cases. Have any of you ever watched psychic detectives on Court TV?

[Azrael 5]

There's a difference in believing in something and having some evidence to back it up.

[thaiboxerken]

Originally posted by DustiRose
I do believe that psychics have helped the police solve cases. Have any of you ever watched psychic detectives on Court TV?

I have, and those programs didn't even show that psychics have used psychic powers to help solve cases. At the most, these psychics have encouraged LE and victims and simply take a second gander at evidence they already had.

Believe what you want, but your beliefs are unsubstantiated.

[Ashles]

I do believe that psychics have helped the police solve cases. Have any of you ever watched psychic detectives on Court TV?
Do you get all of your world information from one TV programme?

Believe what you want, the actual real evidence doesn't back you up.

[Ratman_tf]

I’m not an expert myself on the topic, but I’ve been learning a bit more from a new show on Court TV called Psychic Detectives. It’s on Wednesday’s at 9:30pm in case you want to watch it too. [/B]

Learning and television are oxymorons. (Or they should be. :D )

[Gastric ReFlux]

For some reason this guy decided to ask about this at another another message board (http://ootpdevelopments.com/board/showthread.php?t=74715)

Copy and paste, the delightful tool of woo believers across the internet.

:cs:

[Yaotl]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
For some reason this guy decided to ask about this at another another message board (http://ootpdevelopments.com/board/showthread.php?t=74715)

Copy and paste, the delightful tool of woo believers across the internet.

:cs:

He also posted at the arstechnica forums.

[hgc]

Originally posted by Yaotl
He also posted at the arstechnica forums. I smell a Court TV shill/spammer.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
For some reason this guy decided to ask about this at another another message board (http://ootpdevelopments.com/board/showthread.php?t=74715)

Copy and paste, the delightful tool of woo believers across the internet.

:cs:

The link I posted earlier got erased by that board's moderators. While it had lasted, a couple more people posted links to other boards with the same copy and paste.

[Dr Adequate]

Originally posted by Waltz1982
What are your thoughts on this? What about using psychics to help solve some of the current investigations (such as the Peterson or Hacking trials?)
Well, what about it? This is not a question to ask US --- WE don't have any psychic powers (apart from Lucianarchy, of course, but even he can only speak to dead people if they like The Clash). This is something to ask a psychic. Where is the psychic coming forward and revealling the truth about the Peterson or Hacking trials? There are, after all, millions of the bleeders. They can, if they are not liars, see into time and space and communicate with the dead. They could tell all. Yet the sound of crickets is heard.

The root of a lot of these "psychics who help the police" stories seems to be:

(1) Psychic phones police. Police are obliged to listen politely to psychic gibble. Police ignore psychic gibble.
(2) Police conduct thorough investigation, not using psychics in any way, which solves the crime.
(3) One of the things the psychic said ("The missing person is dead"; "The body will be found in an outdoor location") turns out to be true.
(4) The psychic counts this as validation of her psychic powers, rather than a vague guess which turned out lucky.
(5) Not only does she think this proves that she's psychic, but by an extraordinary leap of illogic, she believes that this "information" was crucial to the police solving the case.
(6) She goes around telling everyone how she "helped" the police solve a murder.

Vanity and stupidity are often bedfellows.

[Ashles]

Hmm, check out the first links here:

Rough and ready Google search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22I%E2%80%99m+not+an+expert+myself+on+the+topic %2C+but+I%E2%80%99ve+been+learning+a+bit+more+from +a+new+show+on+Court+TV+called+Psychic+Detectives% 22&btnG=Google+Search)

EDIT: Link doesn't quite work, but type in
"I’m not an expert myself on the topic, but I’ve been learning a bit more from a new show on Court TV called Psychic Detectives"
into Google and see what you get.

Could this be a publicity scam by the Court TV people? Could they really sink that low?

Any way to find out about Waltz 1982? Is he genuine, or does he have a Court TV domain name?

He certainly hasn't been back to discuss the issue.

However cynical I think I am, it always appears that I am not cynical enough.

[Dr Adequate]

Originally posted by Ashles
Could this be a publicity scam by the Court TV people? Could they really sink that low?
I think you've hit the nail on the head. "Sink that low"? Could they? Really? Let's think about it for a moment. Not only are these charlatans deceiving millions of people for profit --- but they are using advertising techniques to help them do it. The swine. Who could have thought it of them? However, I notice that you too have nibbled at the tawdry lure that is commercial sponsorship. My friend, you are little more than a puppet of the minty-industrial complex.

[Ashles]

My friend, you are little more than a puppet of the minty-industrial complex.
I don't mind putting it in my sig, it's just having it tattoed on my forehead that causes the real embarassment.

[Czarcasm]

I see waltz1982 made it over to this board to spam CourtTV. Has he used the name "dubba" yet to do the same thing, like he has on a bunch of other boards?
Don't expect him to comment any farther-tv execs are busy people.

[Ashles]

Well here he is on the CHiPs board.

I like the way he cunningly works in a mention of CHiPs to make it board friendly:

Court TV publicist visits another board (http://forums.chips-tv.com/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=14&topic_id=315&mesg_id=315)

[Ashles]

My Heavens! This poster has been insanely busy.

Check out how many bords he/she has visited under the name Marysol.

Type

marysol "court TV"

into Google to see just how busy.

Obviously this doesn't include all the other names they are using.

Is Court TV strapped for cash?

[Dr Adequate]

What's the reaction on other boards? Have they figured out that he/she/it/4th gender as yet undiscovered is an Evil Corporate Sock Puppet? Have you tried telling them?

[Yaotl]

Originally posted by Dr Adequate
What's the reaction on other boards? Have they figured out that he/she/it/4th gender as yet undiscovered is an Evil Corporate Sock Puppet? Have you tried telling them?

I told ars, but they were mostly still ridiculing the OP. One guy found it amusing that CourtTV was spamming.