Do you have any paranormal experineces?

[adey67]

I don't believe in it because nothing has ever been definitively proven, not one ghost picture not one haunting not one psychic medium has ever been proven genuine beyond reasonable doubt ever. Paranormal investigation is widely considered pseudoscience and there is little in this field that cannot be reasonably explained using current scientific methods.

[Brian37]

I don't believe in it because nothing has ever been definitively proven, not one ghost picture not one haunting not one psychic medium has ever been proven genuine beyond reasonable doubt ever. Paranormal investigation is widely considered pseudoscience and there is little in this field that cannot be reasonably explained using current scientific methods.

The easiest way to expose these frauds is to challenge them to a neutral lab they have no control over. 

Same with psychics. <-- All of them are frauds and cons.

[The Valkyrie]

I don't believe in it because nothing has ever been definitively proven, not one ghost picture not one haunting not one psychic medium has ever been proven genuine beyond reasonable doubt ever. Paranormal investigation is widely considered pseudoscience and there is little in this field that cannot be reasonably explained using current scientific methods.

But haven't you seen Ghost Hunters?

If light reflecting off dust motes and people screaming and running from random noises in old, neglected locations isn't convincing proof, I don't know what is!

[The Valkyrie]

I don't believe in it because nothing has ever been definitively proven, not one ghost picture not one haunting not one psychic medium has ever been proven genuine beyond reasonable doubt ever. Paranormal investigation is widely considered pseudoscience and there is little in this field that cannot be reasonably explained using current scientific methods.

The easiest way to expose these frauds is to challenge them to a neutral lab they have no control over. 

Same with psychics. <-- All of them are frauds and cons.

I knew you'd say that!

[fredd bear]

The easiest way to expose these frauds is to challenge them to a neutral lab they have no control over. 

Same with psychics. <-- All of them are frauds and cons.

I knew you'd say that!

 Hang about.

Not always quite as simple as some might think;

One of the most famous photographic frauds was the case of The Cottingley Fairies. It fooled some pretty serious people.Eg the techies at Eastman who declared the photos could not possibly have been faked. Also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  believed. He even wrote a book about it; "The Coming Of The Fairies'"

Context: During WW1, 1917. Sir Arthur had lost a beloved son, and was desperate to believe. I think that mindset also at least partly explains the massive interest in spiritualism at that time.

Over 50 years later, one of the girls confessed it was a hoax, and showed how they did it. Look at the photos today, and they are obviously fakes.  Everyone has 20/20 hindsight. Detailed pictures are available on Google images.

The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright (1901–1988) and Frances Griffiths (1907–1986), two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 9. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Doyle, as a spiritualist, was enthusiastic about the photographs, and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena. Public reaction was mixed; some accepted the images as genuine, others believed that they had been faked. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies

[adey67]

I knew you'd say that!

 Hang about.

Not always quite as simple as some might think;

One of the most famous photographic frauds was the case of The Cottingley Fairies. It fooled some pretty serious people.Eg the techies at Eastman who declared the photos could not possibly have been faked. Also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  believed. He even wrote a book about it; "The Coming Of The Fairies'"

Context: During WW1, 1917.  Sir Arthur had lost a beloved son, and was desperate to believe. I think that mindset also at least partly explains the massive interest in spiritualism at that time.

Over 50 years later, one of the girls confessed it was a hoax, and showed how they did it. Look at the photos today, and they are obviously fakes.  Everyone has 20/20 hindsight. Detailed pictures are available on Google images.

The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright (1901–1988) and Frances Griffiths (1907–1986), two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 9. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Doyle, as a spiritualist, was enthusiastic about the photographs, and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena. Public reaction was mixed; some accepted the images as genuine, others believed that they had been faked. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies

Excellent post, and grieving people like Conan Doyle are why I can't stand psychic mediums in particular. No medium has ever been proven genuine in 150 years of modern spiritualism and mediumship. In controlled testing where the chance to cheat is removed 100% of mediums fail 100% of the time but over the years many thousands have been definitively proven fake, the arithmetic isn't hard to follow. 

These people are grief vultures preying on the vulnerable usually for money sometimes for complex psychological reasons such as the kudos of being perceived special and gifted, occasionally a mixture of the two.

They mess with the grieving on a psychological level in a way they are completely unqualified for, implanting in the minds of bereaved people false memories of their loved ones, frequently surplanting and sidelining the genuine memories.

They take money to pretend to talk to the dead and justify it to themselves and others by saying they're helping with the grieving process but they're NOT, at best they hinder it and at worse they halt it completely sometimes causing a lifelong dependance in the bereaved for consultations with mediums.

There's a good website you can Google called Bad Psychics which debunks and exposes bad mediums and other paranormal phenomenon including ghost hunting shows and the like, it's worth a look if anyone is interested.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I talk to dead people. Nearly every night.

Excellent joke ! 

Actually, not a joke. My old friends visit my dreams.

[Brian37]

The easiest way to expose these frauds is to challenge them to a neutral lab they have no control over. 

Same with psychics. <-- All of them are frauds and cons.

I knew you'd say that!

Reminds me of the old joke, "Psychic hotline, we knew you were going to call."

[EgoDeath]

Recently was watching some "true paranormal stories" type show on Netflix and it's interesting to me how convinced the people are the ghosts/spirits are the only explanation for the things they've experienced. Many of these "encounters" can be easily explained away by sleep paralysis experiences, hypnagogic hallucinations or intense nightmares, interestingly enough. The issue I have is that rather than asking themselves what rational explanations there could be for these weird experiences, they immediately jump to the conclusion that their house is haunted.

This tells me that these people are likely already believers in the supernatural; they're predisposed to interpreting events in a specific way that could allow them to actually believe they're being haunted. Many of them even openly talk about how they've always believed in ghosts or will talk about how "skeptics" should learn to "accept the evidence given to them."

I wonder how often it is that a truly skeptical person is convinced that they're being haunted. I have to assume it's very rare.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's the explanation they want, so it's the right explanation. Humans tend to go that way.