Can psychics read people without permission? (Blog)

[Erin Pavlina]

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

Can psychics read people without permission?

[carenkh]

Thanks for this. I can "pick up" stuff about people, but like you, I've learned to not share it unless asked - or, if it seems important, I'll ask permission first.

Just recently, I was watching Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead. I can see that she's a warm, caring person, and her readings are usually quite accurate. Something that bothered me was that during the show, if she was just out shopping or whatever, she kind of ambushes someone with a reading. She *does* ask permission; tells them she's a medium-clairvoyant, and asks if she can do a reading. Usually, it really upsets the person! I mean, overall, they say it brings them peace and closure, but initially, they're upset and crying. When they cry, she moves in and comforts them... it feels like an odd dynamic to me. It's like she has a need to mother them, so she does this thing to generate the need to be mothered from them. It's... just kind of strange. Of course, I wouldn't tell her that I picked up on that unless she asked.

It would be different if she set up a table in a public space with "clairvoyant/medium" signs, and people came to her. But it wouldn't make for as good television.

[Erin Pavlina]

I think she just does that because of the show. They want to show that she can go up to a random stranger and give a good reading. I am sure she doesn't do that normally.

On Char's show she did the same thing. And I agree, the people are always crying and upset.

I deal with similar issues when I'm doing a reading for someone and bad news is coming through. Sometimes it sucks being the messenger. But at least I can offer some comfort and almost always some hope. As a psychologist, which I was training to be long ago in college, I was told I would always have to maintain an emotional distance from my clients. That never sat well with me.

[Mato Kinze]

It occured to me, reading your post, how entertaining it would be to be a "fly on the astral wall" in a room full of psychics playing poker.

For instance, you said that you would pick up on how confident I was in my hand. However, what if I could project my confidence in my ability to bamfoozle you??

Just like poker with "normal" folks, at that point it's got almost nothing to do with the cards in your hand, but rather how you "feel" about the cards in your hand - or more specifically, how you feel about your ability to make others feel something about the cards in your hand. Gives the term "poker face" a whole new dimension.

[Erin Pavlina]

Good question. I might pick up on the fact that someone was exuding something they didn't really feel, but that would indeed be the best way to thwart my detector (trying to really believe you have a good hand when you don't).

I can tell you that I joined a poker tournament once at a company picnic and I had almost no idea how to play poker, I didn't know what hands beat what, and somehow I beat 50 other people playing poker. It finally came down to just two of us and we were pretty much stalemated and it was getting late so we picked one card and highest card took home the prize money (I lost). So all I'm saying is... don't test me boy! hahahah

[Buttercat Apocalypse]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

Good question. I might pick up on the fact that someone was exuding something they didn't really feel, but that would indeed be the best way to thwart my detector (trying to really believe you have a good hand when you don't).

I can tell you that I joined a poker tournament once at a company picnic and I had almost no idea how to play poker, I didn't know what hands beat what, and somehow I beat 50 other people playing poker. It finally came down to just two of us and we were pretty much stalemated and it was getting late so we picked one card and highest card took home the prize money (I lost). So all I'm saying is... don't test me boy! hahahah

You know erin.. with a bit of ingenuity money really need not be your problem anymore... just go to a couple of casinos and play high enough stakes

Or do they have some sort of way of telling if you're a psychic at casinos? Some "third-eye detector" lol

[Erin Pavlina]

If I understood the betting and those blinds and all that stuff I would really love to test myself at a poker playing session in a casino. Steve plays sometimes but the problem is that he often just doesn't get a good hand and spends most of the time folding his cards. There's gotta be a better game for trying the psychic stuff. Something that would go a little faster than poker.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Erin's article

Now about the mind reading… I want to put this in bold. Psychics are not mind readers! I don’t know what you had for lunch. I don’t know that you’re thinking about cheating on your wife. I don’t know what number between 1 and 10 you are thinking of. It just doesn’t work that way.

I'll attest to mind-reading being really hard, and it apparently being another skill completely different to intuitive (psychic) readings.

However, when I was in high school I used to ask people to think of a number between 1 and 5. I could usually get it right the first few times, unless I was distracted and unfocused, and after doing it a few times, my accuracy went down, I think because I started thinking consciously instead of intuitively reading whatever was happening.

Originally Posted by Erin's article

However, a psychic can read whether you are feeling depressed, or guilty, or whether you’re bluffing at poker. I may not know what cards you’re holding, but I can get a sense of how confident you are about your hand. So if you’re sitting next to me someday at a party you don’t have to worry. If you’re sitting next to a psychic darkworker, then I’d move seats.

I just want to clarify for non-psychics and posterity that, in my experience, distance has nothing to do with your ability to read someone. It may be "easier" to read someone closer to you, or in person, etc, but it's quite possible to read someone remotely.

I think Erin would agree; she was probably just kidding a bit, or doing it for effect, or something.

I often say that the "intuitive realm" I seem to be able to intuitively read feels like it has no concept of space and time (i.e. distance and "the decay of time" don't apply). Something may "look" like it's further away in the physical realm, but it "feels" as if it's in the same location as everything else.

It really makes me wonder whether physical reality is more of an illusion than we know, or rather, a very elaborate projection of energy. I'm not sure what that energy is; it's super-hard to understand the concept of non-space, just like concept of the non-physical being everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Mato Kinze

It occured to me, reading your post, how entertaining it would be to be a "fly on the astral wall" in a room full of psychics playing poker.

For instance, you said that you would pick up on how confident I was in my hand. However, what if I could project my confidence in my ability to bamfoozle you??

As someone who can basically always know when someone is lying based on how what they're saying "feels" to me, I'd say that unless they deliberately honed their deception projection skills (like the term? ), I'd be able to feel that (A) they feel confident, but (B) something also doesn't feel right.

I can't read people and say, "you're lying," but I can sense when whatever they're saying isn't 100% honest and direct (i.e. sometimes people aren't lying, but they have resistance to what they're saying, or they aren't speaking the whole truth, etc). Truth feels different to lies, and the worse someone is lying and the more they seem to be *trying* to lie (perhaps they feel uncomfortable or resistant to the idea), the more I can sense the "something's not right" feeling.

If I get the "something's not right" feeling, I make it a habit to questioning what people say based on what I know about them and their body language, tonality, etc, rather than just saying, "I think you're lying," which never went down too well, heh, but was something I said until I learned more about my ability.

If you want to understand people with intuitive ability, think of it like this: these people have another layer of info available to them that most people think is hidden, so unless you're really good, trying to scribble out or cover up something you've (figuratively) "written" on that layer will just seem obvious, like trying to change the number on a test score, or something.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Mato Kinze

Just like poker with "normal" folks, at that point it's got almost nothing to do with the cards in your hand, but rather how you "feel" about the cards in your hand - or more specifically, how you feel about your ability to make others feel something about the cards in your hand. Gives the term "poker face" a whole new dimension.

Poker has two layers: what is statistically good (only taking into account the game "pieces", such as the cards, not the players), and what is situationally good (taking into account the players, and any information surrounding them, discernible by you or not).

As a competitive gamer, I'd say that while misdirection is useful, how you feel about the decisions you make—including whether you use misdirection and how you'll do that—is the primary factor. Even when you factor in information from the "situationally good" layer, the best gamers seem to be able to mysteriously be good at "winning", not just "playing the game", and winning is directly related to your ability to make good decisions.

It seems to have something to do with your subconscious, and expert players either consciously or intuitively use this process to win. (Whether they are able to say whether they use it or not. Our innate processes are so close to us that we may even not be aware we're using them. Eg. We may think we're "thinking through" options to make decisions, but as you're doing that, you're secretly assigning weightings to certain options and making choices about how they feel, all the while you think you're being "logical." Ha!)

[Erin Pavlina]

"If you’re sitting next to a psychic darkworker, then I’d move seats."

Yes, mainly I meant that if you're sitting next to them, their attention will be drawn towards you.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

If I understood the betting and those blinds and all that stuff I would really love to test myself at a poker playing session in a casino. Steve plays sometimes but the problem is that he often just doesn't get a good hand and spends most of the time folding his cards. There's gotta be a better game for trying the psychic stuff. Something that would go a little faster than poker.

Erin, and others interested in testing what Erin mentioned:

I recommend the competitive online card game, Kongai (available to play for free). It's in closed beta right now, but in (I estimate) one to three months, it should be publicly available.

What is Kongai like?

Kongai, at the core, is a simple turn-based game of rock/paper/scissors played in a double-blind fashion (i.e. "double blind" = players make decisions without knowing what decisions their opponent is going to make), but with an added layer of complexity on top of that to give the game some depth.

It's almost a game of complete information, in that you don't have to memorise much or internalse many mechanics; most information is easily accessible on-screen.

Some things that are hidden from you include: you can't see what cards your opponent has until they bring them into play; you can't see what decisions your opponent makes until they make them and the turn ends (there's a focus on "guessing right", which is less about guessing and more about making good decisions).

It rewards and tests all of the skills poker rewards and tests, and has significantly less randomness. The abstraction is two "character cards" battling it out, but that's just a representation—a construct—for the real mind/thinking game underneath. You could represent poker with on-screen characters, too, if you wanted, but the underlying game—the rule set: the very soul of the game—would remain unchanged.

For more information about Kongai, see my Kongai FAQ, or my "what is Kongai like?" FAQ post which covers the game in much more detail than I talked about here.

Alternatives to poker and Kongai

If you don't like online card games, a friend of mine (David Sirlin, a competitive Street Fighter champion and professional game designer)—the same person who designed Kongai—is making two physical card games ("Yomi", and "Spellblind"). He'd like to try to get them playable online, too, but they, unlike Kongai, can be played with physical cards. (Kongai needs a user interface, etc. It'd be too difficult to reasonably represent with physical cards and the like.)

Learn more about Sirlin on his site, Sirlin.net — Your source of shocking insights on game design. I'll probably make a post about Kongai, Yomi, and Spellblind on the forums once they're released (since they're really unique, well-made games that will most likely appeal to many forum members/readers).

Hidden requirements for the test to work

While you may think you'd be able to test out psychic stuff with a game faster than poker, it may be a bit more complicated.

I try not to actively "cheat" and use any psychic ability when playing games, and it's hard to get an intuitive read on people I don't know that are a continent away from me (I seem to need to be able to at least pick up on their energy before I can read them; not so easy when there's little representing them apart from in-game decisions), but competitive games that are played quickly seem to draw on non-psychic skills (even Kongai, which has zero execution required. I.e. You don't have to put in a tricky button combo. You just click an option, and it happens in-game).

I also think that experienced and expert players would beat you even if you did use your psychic ability, because they'd—somehow—use the one skill that most expert players seem to all use to make superior decisions. Their ability to do that would probably, at least at first, trump your ability to consistently your use psychic ability to make winning decisions.

As most of you know, psychic ability is just that: one ability among many others, and many get by just fine without them. Perhaps if you were an expert player with honed or latent psychic ability, then you'd be able to test things decently. Alas, I am neither, but I'm working on the "expert player" part.

A note to Sirlin

(This part is slightly off topic. Forum members: replying to this part of my post would probably disrupt the topic and drag it off-course. Please refrain unless constructive.)

Sirlin, if you read this, which you might because this post will probably ping your blog, don't get hung up on my usage of "energy" and "psychic." They're just labels I give to abilities myself and others seem to be able to use. Whether it's supernatural or not, it's an interesting think to explore, hence my posting here. I find assigning "a" label better than "no" label while you explore the actual *meaning* and possibility.

Most skeptics, however scientific they may say they are, seem to be more interested in fearfully shooting down ideas because they aren't "logical" or "likely" when, to me, science is about exploration and deliberately doubting your doubt to explore untapped potential and find those fascinating, unlikely insights. (Also note: I prioritise effectiveness; whether I can explain something is less interesting to me than discovering a useful mechanic. Explain it *after* you discover it—the meaning—not before.)

I find being able to consider and explore two conflicting ideas and beliefs, especially when "the masses" disagree with you, is worthy of aspiring to. I'm inherently an optimist, so I bet zero skeptical people reading this will agree with me (which is what they do! Disagree and prematurely doubtfully-question instead of consider possibility and doubt their doubt; I use the latter approach).

Either way, what "the masses" believe is often plain bad and limiting. Most business, scientific, or psychology-related discoveries that buck common belief are called revolutionary. When people make discoveries in the paranormal category, even if they can't yet be fully explained, they're called not-kind words. In the latter case, fear seems to be the ingredient cultivating said not-kind words, not inquisitiveness and wonder. (I don't believe the scrub-like fear approach would not be effective in competitive games, either.)

What is the nature of reality? A fascinating, worthy question, whether considered on a specific or general level. So far my studies show that the universe is resting on a giant turtle, with "turtles all the way down," but I need more testing to be sure.

[Nneka]

I recently started overlapping consciousness with a few people. I had no idea I was doing it until something "negative" happened. I also mistakenly lifted someone's veil without their permission. I've been very reticent even to mention that I might know anything about someone or even to respond if asked. A friend of mine asked me to tell her what was coming through for her. I did and it resulted in the abrupt end of a relationship.

I say all this to ask if you could do a few posts on ethics, specifically how to handle unwanted information especially when you know that the person does not want to hear it? Also, I hang out with highly attuned folks, is there a way to bubble my consciousness (someone suggested surrounding myself with golden light)?

Thanks,
Nneka

[Erin Pavlina]

Good idea for a blog entry, thanks for the idea.