Psychic Readings with Skeptics (Blog)

[Erin Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Erin Pavlina's blog:

Psychic Readings with Skeptics

[jewelfaeriedotcom]

Hi Erin! I remember the first time I had a reading with a medium...My words were short and clipped, and when he asked for confirmation/affirmation, I would answer yes or no, and no more. Luckily, he was able to get information from the other side and share it with me that made me an absolute believer immediately. I'm so glad I had that experience as it opened me up to practicing communication on my own and my life is better for it. I guess it's just hard at first, because there are a lot of fraudsters out there, but I would say to to anyone considering a reading that a medium/psychic who is willing to share so much knowledge of "the other side", as you have, and as my guy did, is probably legit. Take care!

Crystal-www.jewelfaerie.com :-)

[Joely]

Hi there,

I'm not so much a skeptic of psychic ability as I am of individuals who profess to have the ability but don't. I've had psychic readings done as a skeptic and found them to be highly accurate, so I'm open to the possibility of it at all times. And oddly for a skeptic, I've read the cards for myself with people who have absolutely no belief in psychic abilities and been dead-on. So dead-on they were scared.

I'm very much open to the possibility that psychic abilities exist simply because I'm aware that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I was born a synaesthete, and when I was born, synaesthesia was regarded as a result of behavioural conditioning and didn't exist in scientific terms. A skeptic would've told me that I saw letters and numbers and music in colour because I was conditioned that way. Science, however, developed the means to understand synaesthesia and it became a recognised neurological phenomenon. By the time I was about fourteen the whole community was going nuts over it.

I see pretty much everything in that light now: just because it can't be proved now, doesn't mean it won't become scientific fact next year, two years or ten years down the line.

J x

[Lola]

Originally Posted by Joely

I'm aware that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Great line. I'm going to adopt it and use it like my very own!

[Joely]

I have to credit my Dad, actually. He was a brilliant teacher and that was the most important thing he ever taught me.

[Andreas]

Okay, well I enjoyed this article, made a lot of sense to me. Of course it's possible to block a psychic if you really want to! The nature of existence is to respect that type of freewill.

Question about deep meditation: should one try to find a place of silence within themselves or pose questions to their guides in the meditation?

Ah, I just found this article: How often and in what way should I meditate? Perhaps you ought to link to that article in this latest blog entry?

Thanks again for providing this great info!

[Lallymac]

I have a lot of respect for the skeptics who cross my threshold for readings and figure that they're the ones taking all the risks because I'm in my comfort zone. I see them as little 'doubting Thomas's' desperately seeking proof of something they want to believe, otherwise why do they bother. That way they're longer intimidating, rather like a public speaker visualizing his audience naked. In saying that, it is much easier for me because lacking Erin's courage, I rarely step out into the public arena where 'balls of brass' are regarded more highly than genuine honesty so I 'take my hat off' to her on a regular basis.
Keep socking it to them Erin

Over time, I've found that the hardest nuts to crack have become my greatest advocates.

I have less tolerance for the psychic 'groupies' who jump from one reader to another hanging on their every word without really listening or thinking for themselves.

Originally Posted by Andreas

Question about deep meditation: should one try to find a place of silence within themselves or pose questions to their guides in the meditation?

Why not pose your question or sate your intention before entering into a deep meditation?
Lallymac

[Permafrost]

I still got a very generic reading with almost no info. I did not meditate before, but I was asleep right up until the reading, which I figure put me in a decently receptive cognitive state anyhow

What I wanted to know:
- hints/clues/ANY info for my purpose in life
- whether my brother who took his life had anything to say for himself
- any info on my guides

The reading went something like this:

- you're doing fine, keep doing what you're doing
- you're compassionate
- indistinct group of guides with a strong higher self
- no hint of brother/anyone else

I don't know if the celestial forces were just not cooperating, but I was a bit disappointed. Listen higher self, I could have used SOMETHING - throw me a crumb! Like lallymac said it's the seeking proof and really wanting for something to keep ya going... and it's disappointing to have no clarity whatsoever. I was so hoping for a bit of direction/clarity and even though I don't have a psychic bone in my body I don't think I was closed off or trying to 'test' Erin's skills.

[run_fly]

Interesting Erin.

I can sense when someone is skeptic before the reading... This is what I do...

My technique is I usually tune right into there soul and list off a bunch of attributes about them right off the bat so they loosen up then the reading is much easier.

I like the challenge when reading a skeptic.

[bluedragon]

I wonder... isn't this confusion weather psychic abilities exist or not creating a great deal of separation and conflict in the world? Don't you think it's the duty of genuine psychics to actually prove that this works, to prevent conflict and skepticism from multiplying from person to person ?

[Angela]

I don't know.... I'm not convinced there is supernatural source for what psychics provide -- my feeling is that it is a natural phenomenon -- and yet the advise, assistance, and support Erin gave me during a reading was tremendous, really helpful. And she mentioned that she felt a floodgate of information coming through, so you never know.

I think part of it is that, whatever the source is, I have a very deep trust for and sense of connection with Erin, and I think that opens the broadwidth of the very real and remarkable benefit she provides. I haven't had that with other people who call themselves psychic.

It's kind of like the Abraham/Hicks thing -- I don't think it's necessary to believe in the supernatural to get really life-altering benefit from what's given.

[AuspiciousEight]

<deep honesty>

I don't know either....but, quite frankly, I would sign up for a reading from Erin in a heart beat if I knew that she could kill my skepticism for me...

For me it's not just a matter of belief. It's a matter of a tremendously large and scary road block that stops me from enjoying life to its fullest. A lack of faith in spirituality leads to a lack of faith in God, which leads to more faith in death, destruction, and the meaninglessness of life...Which ultimately fuels the deep depression that follows me everywhere I go in life...

So for me, skepticism isn't just a belief. It's more like a malignant tumor...The more frightening thing is that I just said all this and yet I still feel ok with my skepticism for some reason...strange...

</deep honesty>

[Angela]

Originally Posted by AuspiciousEight

<deep honesty>

I don't know either....but, quite frankly, I would sign up for a reading from Erin in a heart beat if I knew that she could kill my skepticism for me...

Well, you may want to sign up for a reading for her not so that she can kill your skepticism, but so that she may bring something to life in you, like inspiration, direction, trust, or motivation. It doesn't take believing in the supernatural for her to work her magic on you. Maybe you'd just like to keep your skepticism and invite the benefits she has to offer in anyway. They're considerable.

[AuspiciousEight]

Originally Posted by Angela

Well, you may want to sign up for a reading for her not so that she can kill your skepticism, but so that she may bring something to life in you, like inspiration, direction, trust, or motivation. It doesn't take believing in the supernatural for her to work her magic on you. Maybe you'd just like to keep your skepticism and invite the benefits she has to offer in anyway. They're considerable.

At this point, skepticism is the only thing I struggle with in life. If I knew for certain that God was real, that there is an after life, and that physical life is just a staging area for this, I would already be in heaven.

Outside of this, there is nothing else I struggle with in life. I have everything else already figured out. Or, at least, to the point where I am tremendously happy about it.

[bluedragon]

For me skepticism is important, because if any one psychic helps and enriches the life of 1000 people, but on the other hand, creates 1000 haters who believe he is just robbing people, and some of these are psychologists or menatlists who make it their life purpose to prove that all psychics are frauds, then this creates a lot of separation in the world, and a lot of conflict between the people who get readings from psychics and their friends and family who start to criticize them, etc.

[Mynder]

Originally Posted by Angela

I don't know.... I'm not convinced there is supernatural source for what psychics provide -- my feeling is that it is a natural phenomenon -- and yet the advise, assistance, and support Erin gave me during a reading was tremendous, really helpful. And she mentioned that she felt a floodgate of information coming through, so you never know.

I think part of it is that, whatever the source is, I have a very deep trust for and sense of connection with Erin, and I think that opens the broadwidth of the very real and remarkable benefit she provides. I haven't had that with other people who call themselves psychic.

It's kind of like the Abraham/Hicks thing -- I don't think it's necessary to believe in the supernatural to get really life-altering benefit from what's given.

Hm, this thinking follows the line that some things are "natural", and some are "supernatural", when basically everything is really just "natural".

But I agree, you don't have to believe in how a message arrives on your doorstep to accept the message itself as true and/or helpful to you.

Originally Posted by AuspiciousEight

At this point, skepticism is the only thing I struggle with in life. If I knew for certain that God was real, that there is an after life, and that physical life is just a staging area for this, I would already be in heaven.

Outside of this, there is nothing else I struggle with in life. I have everything else already figured out. Or, at least, to the point where I am tremendously happy about it.

Ah, but don't you realize that you have a choice here? You have the choice to believe in whatever you wish. And if something is odd about your current model of reality (or faith/religion), then the answers to the "why" are also inside of you.

So, you're afraid of going into the "big nothing", just dying and withering away, atoms scattered by the wind across the countryside (or rotting underground and eaten by bacteria and maggots). Sure, you will still be "around" in one form or other (your atoms are, after all), but I assume you are afraid of losing your conscious personality, right?

Well, I've come to think of dying more and more like waking up from this life the same way we wake up from a dream.

Anyhow, I just thought that this might not help you at all, because you're so afraid of this never happening. You seem to rationalize things a lot, judging from your claim of having "everything else already figured out". Why do you need 100% certainty in this one thing, when there is no 100% certainty in about anything else in life? Life IS uncertainty...and the more we think we control it, the more we are roughly shaken out of our fantasy when something happens we just never thought could happen to us.

When you die, you die. It could happen anytime. Walk across the street - blam. Walk around a corner and get mugged - blam. Slip in the bathroom and hit your head - blam.

If you cannot logically be sure about life after death...can you be sure about life BEFORE death? If you cannot be sure about life after death...how do you decide to live your life until you find out "for sure"? Because after you die, either way that knowledge will not help you one bit in this life, today, now.

Basically, unless you have some experience about the afterlife as others have, you just pick what you wish to believe in. If you can't do that...maybe you don't really believe in it, after all. Go learn about other beliefs, and find something that simply "feels right", something where your gut tells you "this is it, this is what I've been looking for".

In the end, all roads lead to Rome. We all die, eventually, and find out.

[AuspiciousEight]

Originally Posted by Mynder

Ah, but don't you realize that you have a choice here? You have the choice to believe in whatever you wish.

Yes - I recognize that I have a choice here. I could blindly believe something that may or may not be true just for the sake of my own happiness. But, quite frankly, I don't get my jollies from deluding myself...

Originally Posted by Mynder

So, you're afraid of going into the "big nothing", just dying and withering away, atoms scattered by the wind across the countryside (or rotting underground and eaten by bacteria and maggots). Sure, you will still be "around" in one form or other (your atoms are, after all), but I assume you are afraid of losing your conscious personality, right?

No - I'm not afraid of bodily death. Or the death of my personality. I'm afraid of the end of life itself, or the end of existence, if that makes any sense. Existence vs non-existence. It is a certain type of fear that many people never experience.

Originally Posted by Mynder

Anyhow, I just thought that this might not help you at all, because you're so afraid of this never happening. You seem to rationalize things a lot, judging from your claim of having "everything else already figured out".

Actually - the fact that you are trying to help is more beneficial than the actual words that you are using.

And, yes, I do rationalize things a lot. In the Steve Pavlina paradigm of the world, I am a hard core Truth addict...

Originally Posted by Mynder

Basically, unless you have some experience about the afterlife as others have, you just pick what you wish to believe in. If you can't do that...maybe you don't really believe in it, after all. Go learn about other beliefs, and find something that simply "feels right", something where your gut tells you "this is it, this is what I've been looking for".

Actually, I have quite a bit of experience...with NDE's, astral projection, lucid dreaming, telepathy, telekinesis, and meditating until I drift into eternal bliss and lose all feelings of time, space, and self. My entire life thus far has revolved around the seeking of truth. Logically, I can conclude that there is an extremely high probability that God is real, as well as a slew of other things...

But in the case of the Source of life itself and the possibility of absolute death - I require certainty.

...

Thank you for your thoughts and intention Mynder....I think this barrier is too difficult for me to cross over by myself...

[Mynder]

Originally Posted by AuspiciousEight

Yes - I recognize that I have a choice here. I could blindly believe something that may or may not be true just for the sake of my own happiness. But, quite frankly, I don't get my jollies from deluding myself...

But when there is no way to be 100% sure of something, ANY deduction you make COULD be delusion and self-deceit.

Actually - the fact that you are trying to help is more beneficial than the actual words that you are using.

You're very welcome. And it's always fun to learn along the way, too!

And, yes, I do rationalize things a lot. In the Steve Pavlina paradigm of the world, I am a hard core Truth addict...

So, what is the truth? When you have establised that, with the means you have available, you cannot rationally PROVE or DISPROVE either possibility, on what basis can you decide?

Yes, I know, this is exactly your dilemma. Some things cannot (by definition) be known to us, because we have no way of understanding them completely in our glorious but limited state of existence.

Nothing I say will deliver any logical arguments to you that would allow you to irrefutably prove either alternative. There are some things I think we cannot logically understand, because we have neither all the facts nor the faculties to absorb them were they available.

I guess your answer is to go deep inside and just toss out reason, toss out the mind, stop the chitchat of thoughts and just FEEL.

Actually, I have quite a bit of experience...with NDE's, astral projection, lucid dreaming, telepathy, telekinesis, and meditating until I drift into eternal bliss and lose all feelings of time, space, and self. My entire life thus far has revolved around the seeking of truth. Logically, I can conclude that there is an extremely high probability that God is real, as well as a slew of other things...

But in the case of the Source of life itself and the possibility of absolute death - I require certainty.

Why? What would be the worst that could happen, and what would be your current implications from that?

Thank you for your thoughts and intention Mynder....I think this barrier is too difficult for me to cross over by myself...

Well, if it helps, I'm game!

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by bluedragon

I wonder... isn't this confusion weather psychic abilities exist or not creating a great deal of separation and conflict in the world? Don't you think it's the duty of genuine psychics to actually prove that this works, to prevent conflict and skepticism from multiplying from person to person ?

I've had Psychic readings done both when I was a skeptic and when I was a believer, and I can attest to the fact that they are very different.

Meaning, when I was highly skeptical my intention was to "test" the psychic rather than to use their abilities to help me connect to "the other side". What happened is that I got a reading that provided me with information, but still didn't conclusively prove to me either way whether the information was "psychic" in nature or just generally good advice.

After paying for a few readings with the main intention/motivation being to "test" the psychic I realized I was wasting my money doing that since nobody can prove something to you that you're not ready to receive as real. Your mind just filters out and sees whatever it wants to see.

So for a while I stayed away from readings, but I really wanted to find a "real psychic" that could prove to me that this stuff works.

Then, my wife got a reading done by a psychic when I wasn't home and I had no idea she was getting a reading done. When I got home, she told me about the reading and she said that the psychic also talked about me. Then she shared some details with me that sent chills down my back because the info contained a lot of "hits". The psychic left a brochure and when I looked at the picture on it, I immediately had this intuitive feeling that "this person is a real psychic".

Fear kicked in and I put the brochure away for like six months before contacting the psychic for a reading of my own.

Then I finally couldn't wait any longer so I ordered a reading, but this time I wasn't trying to test the psychic. It's almost like I already accepted they were real, I was just genuinely looking for a reading.

I got the reading and it totally blew me away. Aside from the possibility of having surveillance equipment mounted in my home, the psychic provided me with details that nobody could possibly know. She also provided me with some information about the future which later turned out to be true as well. I was pretty much convinced that at least her abilities are real.

That was about three years ago and I've had many readings from different psychics since then. Each reading I get nowadays gets clearer and clearer as I don't even question their abilities anymore. Some of the info that I get now provides so much "proof" it's not even funny, but I'm not looking for that anymore so it doesn't matter.

So I think it really depends on your intentions. Meaning, is your intention:

(1) I don't want the possibility of psychic readings in my life to exist. Nobody is supposed to know anything about me psychically. I'm going to prove that this person is a fraud.

or

(2) I want to believe in psychic abilities, but I just want to see confirmation/proof before I fully believe it.

If it's #1, I don't think any psychic will ever be able to "prove" to you that it's real because your intention runs counter to that.

If it's #2, then as long as you keep that intention, somehow, some way, that will manifest for you. It will be different for each person.

I had that intention, and it manifested for me through my wife getting a reading (she wasn't as skeptical, hehe!) and provided me with enough "proof" to at least open up my mind further.

[AuspiciousEight]

Originally Posted by Mynder

But when there is no way to be 100% sure of something, ANY deduction you make COULD be delusion and self-deceit.

Yes - strictly speaking, I have no rational way of knowing anything with 100% certainty. Any deduction I make could very well be self-deceit...But that's not going to stop me from striving to make deductions. Or perhaps that is the point? That I shouldn't strive for theoretical knowledge because it could be a delusion?

Originally Posted by Mynder

So, what is the truth? When you have establised that, with the means you have available, you cannot rationally PROVE or DISPROVE either possibility, on what basis can you decide?

Yes, I know, this is exactly your dilemma. Some things cannot (by definition) be known to us, because we have no way of understanding them completely in our glorious but limited state of existence.

Nothing I say will deliver any logical arguments to you that would allow you to irrefutably prove either alternative. There are some things I think we cannot logically understand, because we have neither all the facts nor the faculties to absorb them were they available.

I guess your answer is to go deep inside and just toss out reason, toss out the mind, stop the chitchat of thoughts and just FEEL.

What is truth?

I have tried to answers this question my entire life. Every time I take a step forward, the question itself changes because it no longer makes sense in the new context.

The current question is: what am I? Or, in other words, what is life? What is it that gives 'me' the capacity to experience existence?

I should probably provide some history here to provide some context for you. I'll try to be brief. Several years ago I got very involved in spirituality. Specifically, what I found intriguing was non-duality and enlightenment. During this time I opened up and experienced a lot of strange things...

Divine bliss. The perception of time would slow down and everything would be transformed. Everything would suddenly appear divine and beautiful - to an amazing degree. The bliss was so intense and overwhelming that I often had to stop what I was doing. Everything was amazing, beautiful, still. I know this doesn't make any sense - but it seemed like God was everywhere that I looked. It was, without a doubt, the most amazing thing I have ever experienced, and there is no way I could fully put it into words.

NDE. After experiencing the divine bliss for several weeks I started to hear a mental voice. Not a physical sound - like someone talking to me. Like mental chatter - only someone else's mental chatter. It said - "I am Jesus Christ". I got the feeling that Christ was there to help with something.

I woke up one night in an Infinite Void. Christ was there - along with two other entities that were not recognized. I rode an energy 'wave' where my spiritual 'frequency' suddenly increased tremendously. Parts of me began dying. I couldn't here my own thoughts. There was an infinite energy that I was being 'absorbed' into. I felt myself dying. It was terrifying - and "I" resisted it.

I woke up in bed sweating and terrified. For several weeks I woke up every night at 3 am. Terrified. I stopped pursuing 'truth', and sunk into depression.

...

This was years ago. Today - I feel very alone. I have yet to find anyone who can give me even a shred of understanding or insight into this. Most people don't have the capacity to even imagine the events leading up to it. It's like trying to explain calculus to a 5 year old who can't pass kindergarten.

I sincerely struggle with this and don't really know what to do about it. I have tried to forget about everything and bury my head back into the physical world - but this only leads to progressively deeper states of depression. It's like, once you go so far down the rabbit hole, there's no turning back.

I find myself stuck at a cross road. If I go back, knowing what I know now, I would just be deluding myself. If I move forward, I'm afraid that I would have to experience that again - which terrifies me.

What do you do when you are stuck between an unstoppable force and an unmovable object?

Originally Posted by Mynder

Why? What would be the worst that could happen, and what would be your current implications from that?

The experience of life itself could cease to exist. A possibility that I still find terrifying, even today. Yet it seems that this must be experienced, if I want to move higher.

Originally Posted by Mynder

Well, if it helps, I'm game!

Excellent! You are a brave soul.

[Mynder]

Originally Posted by AuspiciousEight

Yes - strictly speaking, I have no rational way of knowing anything with 100% certainty. Any deduction I make could very well be self-deceit...But that's not going to stop me from striving to make deductions. Or perhaps that is the point? That I shouldn't strive for theoretical knowledge because it could be a delusion?

Not at all. What I was getting at is that you require a working model of your environment to stay sane and to "put things into place", but that you simply have no means to ultimately prove it correct. It depends on your point of view, on your current amount of knowledge, and probably some other factors as well.

So, the best you can do is accept that you will never have it "all figured out" (otherwise you'd be omniscient, and I consider omniscience unattainable in an infinite uni/multiverse). Accept that there is a margin for error. You will not be able to completely eliminate that.

What is truth?

I'd rather not go into this. I've been drawn into a discussion about "objective truth" before in another thread, and I don't want to take this thread that way for some ten pages. ;-)

I have tried to answers this question my entire life. Every time I take a step forward, the question itself changes because it no longer makes sense in the new context.

You revised your working model of the universe. Great! You're growing!

The current question is: what am I? Or, in other words, what is life? What is it that gives 'me' the capacity to experience existence?

There are lots of different takes on this (or only one, depending on how far out you "zoom" to see the "big picture"). I'd prefer to just answer the rest of your post below, because I feel that is where your pain originates, and what keeps you hovering in uncertainty and fear.

NDE. After experiencing the divine bliss for several weeks I started to hear a mental voice. Not a physical sound - like someone talking to me. Like mental chatter - only someone else's mental chatter. It said - "I am Jesus Christ". I got the feeling that Christ was there to help with something.

I woke up one night in an Infinite Void. Christ was there - along with two other entities that were not recognized. I rode an energy 'wave' where my spiritual 'frequency' suddenly increased tremendously. Parts of me began dying. I couldn't here my own thoughts. There was an infinite energy that I was being 'absorbed' into. I felt myself dying. It was terrifying - and "I" resisted it.

I woke up in bed sweating and terrified. For several weeks I woke up every night at 3 am. Terrified. I stopped pursuing 'truth', and sunk into depression.

I think this is the key point in your life that sits at the bottom of all your doubts. Why would "Jesus" want to harm you when we know him as the greatest benefactor to mankind ever born?

First of all, it might have been true, and it might have been just a lie by that other entity. So take anything you are told, be it here or on some astral level, or even in weird dreams, with a grain of salt, and check with your intuition whether you are reluctant to believe them for some reason.

Next, in my "model of the universe", we "merge back" into our higher self when we have accomplished what we split off for in the first place. I see this life as kind of a dream life that we eventually "wake up from".

How you describe this threatened "dissolution" into that one energy source does not sound all that voluntary, though, and I assume there are beings out there who'd prefer to "capture you" to gain the knowledge and experience you have gathered for themselves instead of letting you merge back with yourself. Does this make sense?

So, you've been disillusioned about everything being just peachy and bright white. I bet you've known that about our physical world down here for ages. But, as you've experienced, you can defend against this kind of thing, and you successfully did.

I suppose your question is not really whether there is something after death (because you probably know deep inside that there is) but that you're unwilling to go "there" again and face what you experienced before.

So one part of you hopes it isn't true (so you wouldn't have to go through this involuntary dissolution process), and another hopes it is, because there simply being nothing after death is equally uncomfortable.

This is my current interpretation of what you describe. Does some of it ring a bell inside you? Or do you feel this is all just esoteric jabbering?

I sincerely struggle with this and don't really know what to do about it. I have tried to forget about everything and bury my head back into the physical world - but this only leads to progressively deeper states of depression. It's like, once you go so far down the rabbit hole, there's no turning back.

A thought, once thought, can never be taken back.

I've heard knowledge described as "the fruit that never sates", and I find it somewhat fitting.

I find myself stuck at a cross road. If I go back, knowing what I know now, I would just be deluding myself. If I move forward, I'm afraid that I would have to experience that again - which terrifies me.

Ah, the first may be "true", but the latter is simply an assumption. What if you prepared and learned to protect yourself? What if you talked about these things with other gifted people (of whom there are quite a few here on these forums) and see who "connects" with you in a way that gets you better insight into what you now do not yet understand?

Who's to say there isn't anything you can do about what happens to you?

What do you do when you are stuck between an unstoppable force and an unmovable object?

1. Make sure unmovable object really IS unmovable
2. Try out whether the unstoppable force can be dodged
3. Try out whether the unstoppable force is truly unstoppable by my stubborn defiance
or
4. get some genius idea that turns my perspective upside down and makes me realize I'm trapping myself in some limited environment that it's easy to step out of once you make that mental leap. Then step out and avoid the confrontation with either the force or the object completely.

I guess that would be my general take on that situation.

The experience of life itself could cease to exist. A possibility that I still find terrifying, even today. Yet it seems that this must be experienced, if I want to move higher.

If there is life now, there was a point in "time" where all this didn't exist, yet. A point before the creation of our physical universe. And there will be a point in time after this universe collapses, and before something else appears. After life is before life.

Or would you rather live through the same single day for the rest of your life, instead of experiencing ever new things on new days? But, in the end it is you who choose when it's time for you to finish this marvelous game of life and move on to something else that catches your fancy.

[AuspiciousEight]

Eddy,

You sound like a really interesting guy - and you seem to have a sincere desire to help in this matter. Do you mind if I PM or email you, and we can discuss further? I don't want to derail this thread too much.

Thanks,

[Mynder]

Originally Posted by AuspiciousEight

Eddy,

You sound like a really interesting guy - and you seem to have a sincere desire to help in this matter. Do you mind if I PM or email you, and we can discuss further? I don't want to derail this thread too much.

Thanks,

Sure thing! Send a PM, or mail me at mail@eddybuhler.de

[bluedragon]

So, how to deal with all the conflict of criticism and with skeptics? How to deal with the separation that dominates your life when you are practicing something that most of the population believes is fake ? Or is it not like that? Maybe the majority of people do believe psychic abilities do exist...

[Mynder]

I personally simply exert some kind of caution and deliberation before deciding who I speak with about these things.

Not everybody will react positively, and there's no use unsettling other people with things they don't even want to hear. Especially if that can mean trouble in the future that is simply unnecessary and avoidable.

But there is not really a separation in my eyes. Some people have simply come here choosing to live their lives mostly ignorant and uninfluenced by "supernatural stuff". It's their choice, and for the most part (almost always, unless I have a truly strong feeling they NEED to hear something), I respect that.

For some, there may come a time where they will be shaken to their bones and have their eyes forced open, but that is not my "job" to accomplish.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by bluedragon

So, how to deal with all the conflict of criticism and with skeptics? How to deal with the separation that dominates your life when you are practicing something that most of the population believes is fake ? Or is it not like that? Maybe the majority of people do believe psychic abilities do exist...

The world is our mirror.

When "everyone" out there seems to believe Psychic abilities are "fake" for you, that just means that YOU believe they are fake to the same degree.

Ever since I've begun to believe in and to develop my own abilities, I've seen a shift in the world. All of a sudden I'm running into and talking to people who take Psychic abilities for granted. Shows on TV seem to be progressively diving into the topic a lot more (Medium, Paranormal State, Psychic Kids, etc. ) and even my friends and family are more and more open to it.

The same thing happened to me with Law of Attraction. Before I believe in it fully, everyone was a skeptic. Once I proved it to myself, others followed suit. There's always a "lag" but you naturally attract people who think like you and repel those that don't.

I really doubt Erin and other psychics spend a lot of time talking to or hanging out with people who are skeptical about psychic abilities.

What I'm saying is simply:

"Change yourself, and the world will change with you."

[bluedragon]

All great answers. I'm really trying to use the LoA thing but it's hard to believe when you... don't believe. Kind of a paradox. I really hope I won't become a skeptic myself cause there are times when I doubt everything.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by bluedragon

All great answers. I'm really trying to use the LoA thing but it's hard to believe when you... don't believe. Kind of a paradox. I really hope I won't become a skeptic myself cause there are times when I doubt everything.

Maybe this will help.

Instead of thinking that you need to "try to use LoA", realize only that you're already using LoA all the time. It's not something you have to turn on by believing. It's always on.

The only thing you really need to do is become aware of how LoA works in your life already. Open up your perceptions and see what you're not seeing right now. What is your mind filtering out right now that's preventing you from seeing how LoA is working in your life right now.

This video might help you to see how you're already "attracting" everything in your life according to your values:

YouTube - Dr John Demartini - The value of money

[dhethic]

In my experience, one problem that seems to be pervasive is polarization. There seems to be a lot of, "Well, if one psychic is BS, then all psychics are BS." There's also the even more subtle, "Well, this psychic got this one detail wrong, so the rest has to be wrong, too."

The first logical fallacy is pretty self-evident, but the second one is far more insidious, and easy to fall prey to.

Even when I talk to my own guides about me, I'll mess up the channel and insert or change words in ways that they didn't mean. Sometimes it will just be one word or so, and they'll just pick up where I interrupted and patch over it to make sense. Other times, they'll correct me if what I ended up getting changes the message too much. Still, they don't always correct me. Sometimes I end up a sentence or few that make no sense at all, or that contradicts something that was just said. Sometimes at this point they'll throw up their arms and say something like, "look man, that was all you. Start over from here ->.", but occasionally they'll let it go, leaving it as an exercise to the reader.

That would be some serious fodder in a reading with a skeptic. I'm pretty sure that practiced, professional, legit psychics have this problem far less frequently, but I also doubt that it goes away completely.

If people didn't polarize so much, and kept what was useful as being useful, and discarded what wasn't, things would be easier. I'm biased, however. My days of being a completely dismissive skeptic are quite over.

[bluedragon]

Originally Posted by dhethic

That would be some serious fodder in a reading with a skeptic. I'm pretty sure that practiced, professional, legit psychics have this problem far less frequently, but I also doubt that it goes away completely.

If people didn't polarize so much, and kept what was useful as being useful, and discarded what wasn't, things would be easier. I'm biased, however. My days of being a completely dismissive skeptic are quite over.

What you say makes perfect sense from a pro-psychic point of view (as you admit yourself). I honestly hope it is this way.

But on the other hand, this is indeed one of the most powerful arguments of skeptics: someone who is very intelligent and good with people can easily tell them vague things and let them make it fit. They can say something like "there is something you are trying to achieve, and it's really important to you", and if they see the person nod, they'll go on "and it's probably related to your academic life", and if the person nods as well, they'll try to narrow it down like "you're probably in college and there's this particular test in the following... month, or is it next week?" etc. They can leave someone utterly astonished this way. It's pretty easy to give someone very specific answers as long as you go about it in this gradual way, allowing them to make it fit into their experience, and watching out for their body language. I agree that this absolutely doesn't mean that psychics cannot be genuine, just because there are mentalists who can pretend to be psychics with mind-blowing accuracy. It's just that, probably, mentalists tell people very specific things, but which do not necessarily come from the spirits, but from their own intuition and from the clues they receive from the sitter, while psychics, being equally accurate in their readings (maybe even less accurate) actually give the sitter something of real value, because the information comes from beyond, from a spirit guide or a deceased relative. But it's almost impossible to tell the difference between the two types of reading if there aren't some precise facts involved that no one could know. If the reading is done over the phone, I guess it's even more trustworthy.