Google:Like I said, I haven't got an axe to grind, nor even a notion about what priorities a dead person might have. I just have a sneaky suspicion that the latest lottery numbers are not high on the list, for an incorporal being (and like, how would they know, anyhow??).
A Challenge For FunkyDerek... My Experiences With The Afterlife
by FMZ 70 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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FMZ
First of all, let me answer the questions about the names real quick... Names are very hard because there is no "symbol" for a name. Often, names like "Rose" are often given, as there are symbols and icons that can easily be transmitted, but have you ever tried explaining the name "Keith" to someone? lol
As for the rest, I have still yet to see many explanations for the fact that every single statement given was applicable and true. Sure, they were general, but even 1 or two generalizations would have been incorrect. For instance, how many of you have a grandfather that was well known for his 2 very large dogs? If the percentage is less than 50% then it is a statistical hit. How many of you have become father figures recently? Again, less than %50 means that it was a statistical improbability that I did.
Now, how about how many of you had a tall grandfather on your mother's side, in the military, who would be proud of you right now for becoming a father figure, who would be pissed at you for trying to pull someone away from what they loved, and who had two large dogs for which he was well known? Do you see what I am getting at. Sure, anyone can make a general statement, and sure, the info could apply to someone else (Crumpet ;) ), but what are the odds that all of these facts would be so applicable. Even if he would have said "Hey Keith, your dead grandad Bill wants to say Hi"... that would have applied to someone else in England. Doesn't make it any more probable to happen.
So, how is it that all of these facts applied to me at that very time?
KJ
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FMZ
Here is the picture of great great aunt Francis... I am told she was a bawdy one :P
KJ
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doogie
Names are very hard because there is no "symbol" for a name. Often, names like "Rose" are often given, as there are symbols and icons that can easily be transmitted, but have you ever tried explaining the name "Keith" to someone? lol
i'm sorry, i don't know much about how the spirits communicate, but why do they have to speak in symbols? do they speak only in mental images? why can't they speak in the mental image of a K, an E, an I, a T, and an H?
Sure, anyone can make a general statement, and sure, the info could apply to someone else (Crumpet ;) ), but what are the odds that all of these facts would be so applicable. Even if he would have said "Hey Keith, your dead grandad Bill wants to say Hi"... that would have applied to someone else in England. Doesn't make it any more probable to happen.
sure, the names would've applied to other people in england, but statistically far less than a description of a tall military man with 2 dogs. personally, this grandfather applies to me as well. as far as i know, my grandpa did not have 2 large dogs at the same time, but he did in the course of his life. even the most direct aspects of the read have a certain amt of ambiguity. and in the end, if it turned out that your grandpa hated dogs, well, then the message just wasn't meant for you.
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hemp lover
Nice hat. Your experiences gave me chills. I love reading about stuff like this. I thought the readings were extremely detailed as well. Has anyone addressed the fact that the aunt mentioned a specific phrase that Sarah uses? The odds seem pretty slim of a psychic or a "psychic" picking up on that and being accurate.
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FMZ
Doogie, what about the rest? You are picking out bits and pieces and saying they apply to one or two people. Now.. take the whole reading, and see how many people it applies to. Then please explain that phenomenon.
Hemp, my thoughts exactly :)
FMZ
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funkyderek
FMZ:
Hey mate, don't mean to pick on you, but I know you are a good sport. ;)
No problem. I'm honoured to have a whole thread dedicated to proving me wrong.
It seems you always want proof and evidence of some kind of afterlife, but always have a "Reasonable Explanation" for any evidence put forth
Well, I try. If you want me to believe in anything, you're going to have to provide evidence. Otherwise, I will default to the most parsimonious view based on the evidence I do have.
A word of warning: Don't take anything I say on this thread personally. Yes, I believe you're wrong and that you've been fooled (either by genuinely misled people or con artists) but that doesn't mean I think that you're stupid or gullible. Also, this is likely to be a long fragmented post so I may repeat myself and/or be unclear on certain points.
As he was walking though, he looked distracted for a second, and looked up and looked directly into my eyes for a second, nodded, and carried on. Strange, I thought.
Seems like he was looking for a 'mark'.
He told me he was getting an image of a tall man, and he felt this man was a relation on my mother's side.
Nothing amazing there, I'm sure you'll agree.
I nodded.
You indicated that he got a hit, thereby encouraging him to continue along the same line.
He said he was getting military images also
Not an amazing prediction, as most men from your grandparents' generation would have served in the military.
and asked if I knew who this person could be. I said "Yes", not hinting as to who he actually was.
He didn't need your hint. He never identified the man as your grandfather, so as long as you had someone in mind, he was covered. His getting you to say that you recognised the person he was describing, would likely have reinforced in your own mind the belief that he had made an accurate prediction.
At this point I was as much a skeptic as anyone, and knew what "reading someone" consisted of, so I gave as few physical or verbal signals as possible.
That's always a good way to approach "psychics" and "clairvoyants". I'm not sure you did that very well in this case though.
He said this spirit was here to tell me he was proud of me (lol, I am already almost crying here) for what I was doing with my life.
That's a generic, feel-good message.
He said he was proud that I was taking on the fatherly role that I had, that I was doing good, and was a positive influence on their lives.
That's interesting, if, as you say, he really had no way of knowing that you had taken on a fatherly role. I'd need more information though.
He told me I needed to be more patient with the kids, and that I need to just let them be kids sometimes. I nodded in acknowledgement.
Well, once he realised you looked after children, that's just generic good advice.
He also said that although I am taking control in that part of my life and doing well with it, I have to learn to let others be where they want to be, and not try to push or pull them into another way of life, I should just keep the peace. Again, he said he hears the word patience.
Really nothing special there. That would apply to just about everybody. I did find it interesting how you interpreted it though:
This, I was very certain, was referring to the way I almost lost my family due to trying to pull them out of the Organization.
From a vague and generic message that would fit anybody, you found an application that applied to you. The "psychic" didn't need to do much here. You did most of the work for him!
"Well, there is one more thing he wants you to know, the dogs are OK". I was puzzled. I didn't recall him ever having dogs, and my mother had never mentioned them, which would have surprised me as my family love dogs.
This is a miss. It's a big fat miss. The "psychic" should have left well alone, but he was just playing the odds. A lot of people have dogs. As he was obviously going for a grandfather or maybe an uncle, it's quite likely that you would have remembered him having some dogs. But you didn't. No big deal. He just worked around it:
He closed his eyes for a second, and held his hands level at his hips as if to denote height and said "I am getting a picture of two large dogs, not just big, but large, and I get the impression these dogs were well known where this gentleman lived."
He's free to go into detail here, as you've already said you didn't know of any dog connection. He still plays it fairly safe though. It may be just the way you've paraphrased it, but the above sentence wouldn't require your grandfather to have been the dogs' owner, just that they "were well known where this gentleman lived".
He told me not to worry about it, to think about it, ask my family some questions, and if I still had no idea then maybe the message wasn't for me.
That's his "get out of jail free" card. If it doesn't match up, then it wasn't for you. If it does, then, hey, that proves he's a real psychic.
I asked my mother [...] if grandad Bill had any dogs. She said he did [...] one was a boxer, and one was an alsatian [...] they were really big and were always barking at people as they passed the yard when they were let out of the house. Yep, they were well known in the neighborhood alright.
Firstly, I think a man who was in the military, especially a man of a generation or two ago, would be unlikely to keep, say, chihuahuas as pets. I don't know the precise numbers, but I'd bet it's statistically quite likely that he would have owned dogs, probably medium or large ones. Secondly, boxers aren't large dogs. Alsatians are, but not alarmingly so (like a Great Dane or a Saint Bernard for example). Thirdly, most dogs bark at passers-by. If this counts as fulfilling the prediction of being well-known in the neighbourhood, then it's not much of a prediction.
To me, it doesn't make much sense that, of all the things your grandfather could tell you about the afterlife, he chose to mention two dogs that you didn't know existed.
First of all, this man could not have possibly known or recognized me.
He didn't need to.
I lived most of my life 6 hours away from that place, and was 2 at the time of my grandad's passing. No-one there knew my grandad, pretty much including me.
He never mentioned your grandfather. He gave a vague description of someone (tall man, in the military). You filled in the blanks yourself.
He did not see me walk in with my wife, my friend, and his wife, and as he was a visitor himself, he could not have known who was with who. My wife and I are never associated at first glance as husband and wife, due to the age difference. Even when we are holding hands and canoodling, people always assume we are mother and son (very disconcerting at times). He could not possibly have known we were married, and if so, there was no way he could have known I was the father of stepkids (taking on the fatherly role).
He probably saw you sitting with your wife. He may have clocked the age difference and the wedding rings or heard you talking as he came in. I don't know for sure, but it's important not to confuse an unexplained event with a supernatural one.
So, his first three comments identifying the gentleman were dead on hits,
Not really. He described somebody vaguely, you decided it must be your grandfather.
as were all circumstantial comments after that, regarding the fatherly role,
This is about the only thing I've read here that could possibly qualify as a hit
my expectations of the kids, and the pulling my family away from where they were comfortable.
All generic stuff, you don't need to be a psychic for that.
As for the dogs... I did not even know the dogs existed. Even if you use the argument that the first half of this event was "read" (I was about 40 feet away from the gentleman), there is no way he could have "read" from me what I did not know. Especially the details, them being very big dogs and that they were well known to be Bill's.
For me, the fact that you didn't know about the dogs makes it a miss. A lot of people would have broken down crying after the comment that "the dogs are OK". You didn't so he advised asking your family, and suggested it might really be a message for someone else, thereby covering his bases. As it happens, your grandfather did have two dogs, one of which was quite large. So he got lucky. But not very lucky. He's betting on short odds.
On to experience two, then.
This time Sarah was the first to have a message. He looked directly at her, and verbally described her so she knew she was the one being spoken to. The guy said that he sees an older lady, who feels like it is a sister of sorts, on "a motherly vibration" (Spiritualist jargon for "on your mother's side").
An older dead lady, a bit like a sister, a bit like a mother. (While you interpret "a motherly vibration" as meaning on the mother's side, it seems likely that this could - and ofthen would - be interpreted to mean someone who was like a mother - an aunt, a grandmother, a kindly neighbour).
He asked if Sarah knew who it could be, and Sarah had no clue, and neither did my wife.
The only description he gave was of an older dead woman, and he still couldn't get a hit. That's really unlucky.
He said this lady loved hats, that she was showing him an image of her wearing a big hat, and that she seemed to have died in her mid-50s. Still nothing from Sarah or Tammy.
Another miss.
Again, he gave the "ask around your family" thing,
This seems like a standard response to getting a miss, which makes sense, as it takes the edge off the miss.
he went on to say a few things personal to Sarah. The parts that I knew about were spot on, including noting a few personality traits of Sarah's that needed work according to this old lady, and one particular phrase Sarah likes to use ("could things get any worse?"), and that she needed to stop using it "because the answer is yes". It seemed very personal, but we had no idea who this lady was.
There's not really enough information here to say whether any of it was accurate apart from more generic comments and advice.
He was very accurate in what he stated to us, in describing the lady, her age,
Well, he was only accurate in the sense that you found someone who matched his description. He didn't accurately describe anyone you knew. You found someone who matched the description.
and also the things he presented to Sarah about herself.
I didn't see anything amazing in what you posted. Perhaps there was more?
Also, three generations had no idea this lady existed.
Again, you seem to be using as a positive what I would see as a negative. A woman who wore a hat and died in her mid-50s was described to your daughter. Your daughter had no idea who it could be. Her mother had no idea. Her grandmother had no idea. But against spectacularly underwhelming odds her great-grandmother had a sister who matched this two-point description (died in her mid-50s and wore hats).
I have not embellished either of these stories to make them more interesting or believable. These are the facts. Believe them or don't.
I believe them. I don't believe your interpretation of them though. I don't see the need for supernatural explanations. Most of it can be explained by age-old confidence tricks. It is likely that what is unexplained would also fit into this category if we had more information.
I sincerely would like to know how a non-believer processes and makes sense of this information.
I hope you have a better idea now. Personally, I break things down and look at them piece by piece. I will always accept a natural explanation over a supernatural one. (If I'm wrong, at least I'm starting with a falsifiable scenario). In this case, I don't even have to try too hard. There's very little to explain.
You mentioned that you were aware of the tricks that fraudulent "psychics" can use, such as cold reading. I believe both of the "psychics" you encountered did exactly that. The reason you didn't spot the trick is because they are better at it than you are. There's no shame in that. They're professionals - and they may even believe it themselves. But I've never seen a psychic do anything that can't be done better by the likes of James Randi or Derren Brown. The only difference is that those men admit what they are doing is a trick.
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doogie
Doogie, what about the rest? You are picking out bits and pieces and saying they apply to one or two people. Now.. take the whole reading, and see how many people it applies to. Then please explain that phenomenon.
ok, well, my girlfriend has 3 little brothers of varying ages (the youngest is 10). lately we've been doing more stuff with them and i've been bonding more especially with the youngest. i'm not embellishing when i say that i feel, if not paternal feelings, at least like a big uncle towards him. however, him being 10, i do lose my patience with him from time to time.
the patience thing, although maybe you feel that that is something that you're working on more than most, would apply to anyone in a parental position, i'm sure. also, judging by your and my age, its a pretty safe bet that there will be someone in our lives that looks up to us (be it a kid, a stepkid, or a nephew). i think it's also a symptom of being human to want others to see things our way, so the "let others be where they want to be" comment applies to far more people than it does not.
i'm just saying, and i could be wrong, but taken altogether, his comments seem remarkably accurate, but each detail on its own would apply to a statistically large portion of your (and my) demographic. (i.e. cold read)
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Double Edge
FMZ...I'll keep this simple. While I believe the world is full of fakes trying to fool people into believe something that's not there, I also know from experience that there is indeed an afterlife. I've learned from being on this board that it doesn't matter what one experiences, others can only truly relate with what they've experienced ... otherwise they tend to dismiss it, because they haven't experienced the reality of the event.... and I guess that's human nature. (you should know that, living in Missouri, the "show me" state... hehe).
Thank you for sharing your most interesting experience... I believe you.
D.E.
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EvilForce
Funky..great post.
**Now, how about how many of you had a tall grandfather on your mother's side, in the military, who would be proud of you right now for becoming a father figure, who would be pissed at you for trying to pull someone away from what they loved, and who had two large dogs for which he was well known?
That could have been my grandfather. Or one of my uncles. Or great grandfather.
You WANT to believe therefore you are going to convince yourself.