ESP and Super ESP... My take and hypothesis on Mediums and their 'talent'.

I will start off this discussion by stating the following:

All of the following is purely a pouring out of my recent research into ESP, Super ESP and its relevance.
I am also not a fantastic linguist, but i will do my best to explain the hypothesis as best to my ability

OK i will start by setting up a situation.

Person X is the 'customer' of the medium.
Person Y is the subject of discussion, a deceased relative/friend of X.

X visits a medium, and gives no information about Y, the medium then appears to communicate with Y and describe Y, give 'evidence' to indicate that said medium is genuine, and basically convince X that they are communicating with Y in some sort of 'chat' with Y. (a medium gets information from an ostensibly deceased individual. The information is not known to the medium,only to X, but is later verified as true. There exist such cases.)
A skeptic's approach to describing this phenomenon is to say it is purely 'ESP' (Extra sensory perception) or Super ESP, Lets examine exactly what ESP means...

ESP is a wholly negative term used to describe our LACK of knowledge, it is a word that basically say 'the person gained information about Y, not using any of the 5 senses, hence using a '6th sense',it does not tell us how they detect such knowledge, it only tells us that we know they do not use the 5 known senses. Skeptics who attempt to disprove mediums believe that their is no life after death, that consciousness/spirit is purely biological and can only exist in a living body, however, ESP tells us that a person can somehow gain knowledge that existed in a brain that is no longer functioning, so the medium must be mind readers right? WRONG. As you will be able to verify through further reading, scientists have proven through rigorous,detailed and contained experiments, that genuine mediums can 'operate' in exactly the same manner, and attain this information whilst being miles away from X, and thus surely not able to 'mind read' from this distance right?

Slightly off topic, lets put this 'Super-esp' thing to bed, Super ESP... 'The person really really doesn't use the 5 senses' The whole idea of so-called Super ESP is useless, its is identical to describing someones ability in a sport as 'useless' and then 'super useless', it only exaggerates 'useless', as does Super-ESP.

Back on to the topic i wish to discuss, and hopefully enlighten people about. I have recently spent a lot of time reading about how skeptics attempt to disprove mediums, one hypothesis is that mediums can pick up on brain waves which can somehow carry information, again this is disproved via the distance method, since 'brainwaves' must comply to the law of physics, waves strength weaken over time/distance, and the fact that mediums can provide accurate information from considerable distance, completely removes the 'brain waves' thing from our discussion. I will try to rediscover the websites which detail the experiments further for those of you who refuse to take my word for it.

Strictly speaking, a skeptic cannot call the retrieval of information beyond the use of the 5 senses “mind-reading”, because he does not believe that mind has any existence apart from the brain. So to be consistent with his own position, he should talk about “brain-reading”. A consistent materialist position would have to assert that the brain of the medium is able to retrieve information stored in the brain of the sitter. Brain waves, presumably, would be the mechanism by which this information is retrieved.

So, to recap;
Super ESP is a load of crap
ESP tells us only that we don't know how the person detected such knowledge, only that they don't use the 5 senses, so it simply CANNOT be used to disprove a mediums 'talent' as i suppose it could be described.
The whole 'brainwave' theory used by skeptics is also a load of crap, the scientifically proven test which i will try to re-discover and provide a link to, proves this using simple, basic physics.


I now have to sleep, this thread is FAR from finished and will be expanded upon in due time, i appreciate that it probably does not make a lot of sense so far, but i can guarantee you that everyone who reads this thread will at least gain some knowledge into the world of mediums and how they retrieve their information, unless of course you where the person who created the webpages i have been using to research further into the subject.

ALSO, one or two of the paragraphs in this post are taken directly from a page, *(i will leave a link to this below)*, purely because it describes the hypothesis in a way i cannot communicate, it is fantastically written and i recommend people start here if they have further interest in the subject, for now i will leave this thread as it is, I'm aiming to complete the thread (and possibly further threads born from my initial interest in the subject) by the end of this week, just in time for Christmas!

I appreciate massively, anyone who has taken the time to read through this thread, again i will state i'm not a fantastic linguist but i have done my best and in places, used direct quotes to describe what i wanted to say in a more detailed in-depth way.
subversivethinking.blogspot.co.uk...
Thanks!

I'm very interested to hear more of your thoughts and what you've come across in your research.

Psi and Mediums are very interesting to me. I had never heard of "super ESP" before - but I guess that goes to show how much I have to learn. I believe that most likely consciousness does indeed survive death of the body. Having said that, I'm not sure if Mediums can actually speak to dead people or not - but I try to keep an open mind. It seems possible, but it's just not something I really understand yet.

I've never had experience with a medium personally, but I will admit (embarrassingly) to watching the popular TLC show Long Island Medium! My husband and I even went to see her live show when she was touring. She's funny and entertaining, we had a good time. I think she (the long island medium) is sincere, but I don't know if she is actually communicating with the dead. It seems possible that she is reading people's minds, especially those that come to her for a reading. Is this similar to the Super ESP argument?

I don't know how any of this works, but it's a really fascinating subject and one that I hope to learn more about. Looking forward to more posts from you.

Originally posted by VegHead
I'm very interested to hear more of your thoughts and what you've come across in your research.

Psi and Mediums are very interesting to me. I had never heard of "super ESP" before - but I guess that goes to show how much I have to learn. I believe that most likely consciousness does indeed survive death of the body. Having said that, I'm not sure if Mediums can actually speak to dead people or not - but I try to keep an open mind. It seems possible, but it's just not something I really understand yet.

I've never had experience with a medium personally, but I will admit (embarrassingly) to watching the popular TLC show Long Island Medium! My husband and I even went to see her live show when she was touring. She's funny and entertaining, we had a good time. I think she (the long island medium) is sincere, but I don't know if she is actually communicating with the dead. It seems possible that she is reading people's minds, especially those that come to her for a reading. Is this similar to the Super ESP argument?

I don't know how any of this works, but it's a really fascinating subject and one that I hope to learn more about. Looking forward to more posts from you.

Hi mate,
Super ESP is a weird one, as i said above, ESP in its self is a completely negative reply, it only tells us that its NOT the 5 senses, and doesn't give any sort of indication on how the person gains said information, so Super esp? weird use of the language!

MOST Mediums use a technique called 'cold reading'. Cold reading is a very detailed technique and uses tiny, subtle movements of the facial features to guide a medium on his or her way, for example 'Is it your Nan you're greaving for? ' will be said by the medium, the customer,so to speak, will not be aware of any movement, but said medium will have 'trained' him or herself to recognize the slightest positive reaction or negative reaction which will then guide him or her further, its not uncommon for a medium to claim something and then because of a subtle negative response appear to 'know' that its not right, its all very clever and is used in a lot of magicians works, Derren Brown being the most popular at the minute.

On the other hand, their is the argument of the believer, the argument that this person is gifted with the ability to do one of two things, read a conscious mind, or somehow extract information from something not of this planet, a dead mind. Its this subject i'm gonna expand on further in my OP, it also crosses over with the phenonenom of young children describing, in detail, a past life! i feel their could be a possibility that these children have a similar talent to the genuine mediums, but its not a talent they are aware of and as such, their brain does not understand and process's it as if it had happened, its a very deep subject i aim to cover this side of the year!

Thanks for the very encouraging reply, i'm currently writing up a draft which i am editing and re-editing to get it as near perfect and as easy to understand as possible, its an amazing topic and i genuinely think i could sit here and write for a whole day with the wealth of information I've discovered recently through my internet based research.

Thanks again!

As far as "mediums" go, I believe that they all use cold reading techniques to talk to deceased people. However, psychics, as they are usually known, are quite different, and can be quite real. A real psychic does not channel a particular spirit, unless that spirit happens to be inhabiting a certain location that the psychic is in. They just do not channel them from beyond the grave, unless they remain on earth, and have yet to move on. And like I said, they still have to be in the physical location that the spirit is in, usually a building or residence.

These beliefs that have are from research I have conducted, and from some personal experience. A psychic or medium, the kind that are real that is, is able to pick up on energy that is already present. That is all they do, and every single one of us can do this, although some do not have this ability suppressed as much as others from birth, and are able to do it more easily than others.

This is why it usually works to bring a psychic into a haunted location. If the spirit does not completely hide from them, the medium is able to actually "see" the spirit inside their mind...It pops into their head like the image of a memory would. I suppose some may physically see the spirit, but to my knowledge this is not how it works. And they are able to receive actual words, again inside their mind, from the spirit. The spirit can also make the person feel certain emotions, or even physical pain. This is usually a residual type of energy, that somehow connects to the death of the now deceased person, who has not moved on and has become a ghost here on earth.

If you are not a psychic, and have ever been in a truly haunted house, you may have gotten an "oppressive" feeling, or an ominous feeling of someone "watching" you. This is the same type of things psychics do, just on a stronger level. Not everyone will pick up on these feelings, but many people will. Many more people feel this type of energy than the amount of people who truly are psychic. Picking up on these energies is known as sensitivity, or being sensitive. That, imo, seems to be a step below an actual psychic. There is probably a way to develop your skills into true psychic power, if you are already sensitive. I think it has to do with tuning in to what is around you. Meditation probably helps a lot, but I am really not sure, as I have not had much experience with this. I have read about it, but I cannot be certain that what I have read is correct, so I will not include it.

That is the basic method that a psychic uses to operate, and how they actually operate, as compared with those who do cold readings with a large audience present. I do not believe those people for a second. Sometimes however I think that some of them could be legitimate, but what they are doing does not seem to jive with what I personally have experienced and know to be relatively accurate. But I suppose I could be wrong, and maybe I just do not know about or understand the way these types of mediums operate. This is entirely possible, and I will be the first to admit that I could be wrong.

I will admit that while I do try to be open minded, "cold reading" is sort of my default assumption when it comes to mediums. This was part of the reason I wanted to see Theresa Caputo (long island medium) in a live show, because you just never know how editing works with "reality" television.

I will say I was more impressed than I thought I would be with her live show. When walking by a row of audience member she suddenly stopped and said "Did someone here bury their mother in a Juicy track suit?" Everyone laughed, but sure enough someone in that very row claimed to have buried their mom in a Juicy track suit.

If fraudulent, this wasn't an example of cold reading... it would more likely be a plant. Of course, it may be an example of something paranormal - ESP or actual real mediumship, for example.

There were several similar example throughout the evening. It was very intriguing. I'm still not totally on board with her, but it was certainly a fun show - thanks mostly to her personality. It was difficult to see grieving people hoping to hear from a loved one, but people seemed to come away from it in high spirits (so to speak).