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View Full Version : Outperforming psychics - or perhaps it's real?

Rinky
14th May 2007, 01:05 AM
Well, actually it's not. But it's still a nice little story about some mighty good guesswork.

Some time ago I was surfing the net and I ended up chatting with a fellow Finn on some basic 'chat page' or whatever. I had never met him/talked to him before. After a while I asked what his name was, and he jokingly told me to guess.

I thought about it for some time and I got this strong feeling about his name, so I said it begun with an M. 'What?! Yes, it does!' Hmm, the next letter is... A. 'Oh my god, yes it is!' Then R? 'Yes' K? 'Yes' O? (Marko) At this point the guy freaked out completely and accused me of lying to him, he was sure it was either some prank his friends had arranged or that I was seriously scary.

I have to admit it was a weird feeling, but as I'm not wooish in the least, I managed to convince him it was just a matter of luck and some reasoning. I mean the first letter is the hardest to guess, after that you have an idea of the most common Finnish names beginning with M :D.

I thought about it afterwards and thank the FSM I'm not into any psychic stuff - I'm sure for some this would have been indisputable evidence of their sylviabrownish abilities (although I was better!).

Has anyone else managed to outperform psychics just by dumb luck? And then have trouble explaining they don't have special powers...
Jackalgirl
14th May 2007, 02:24 AM
...Has anyone else managed to outperform psychics just by dumb luck? And then have trouble explaining they don't have special powers...

Back in college (waaaaaaaay back in college), I had a reputation as a really accurate tarot card reader. Many people were freaked out.

The thing was, I'd carefully explain what we were doing beforehand: "this tarot deck is really just a set of archetypes, applicable to just about everyone at any given time. So what we're doing to do is just explore. You can think of a question as you shuffle the cards, but we'll probably just end up talking about whatever ends up being more important to you. And I'll be cueing off of your reactions to lead the discussion."

No matter how carefully I explained this, I'd frequently be told that no, I was wrong, I was actually psychic.
Ersby
14th May 2007, 03:12 AM
When I was mucking about with cold reading I did a few readings using private messages on forums, and got a couple of remarkable hits that I was quit proud of. The one of them was when I had "brought through" this person's uncle with a couple of fairly lucky guesses and at the end of the reading I chucked out the name "Pat" and that turned out to be the uncle's only living sibling!
casebro
14th May 2007, 08:49 AM
Oh yeah, that's is what this site is all about.

Try searching the "Commentary" section for the story of the actress who, with some coaching and a gypsy costume, gave uncanny cold readings. I realy felt sorry for the subjects, and the actress.
strider
14th May 2007, 11:20 AM
Oh yeah, that's is what this site is all about.

Try searching the "Commentary" section for the story of the actress who, with some coaching and a gypsy costume, gave uncanny cold readings. I realy felt sorry for the subjects, and the actress.
That story is here:

http://www.randi.org/swift/current/psychic.html
NobbyNobbs
14th May 2007, 11:42 AM
i once knew a girl who was really into the whole ESP thing. I asked her about it, telling her I didn't believe in such nonsense, and asked her how you would test for it (knowing what answer she would probably give). She told me about going through a deck of cards, guessing what the next card was, and how average people would get one or two right but people with "the gift" would get 6 or more right.

I just happened to have a deck of cards available, so for kicks we decided to test me. I got every 5th or 6th card right, totally convincing her I had ESP while denying the concept the entire time.

(I was using a marked deck. Had I wished, I could have gotten every single one right.)
thaiboxerken
14th May 2007, 11:45 AM
A skepchick was playing psychic on Paltalk for a couple nights and then let people know that she was just playing and has no superpowers. The believers then tried to convince her that she was psychic and just didn't know it.
solas
14th May 2007, 12:39 PM
it would be interesting to see how many 'scores' folk here could make.