@Stephanie M: the last advice you gave appears to have hit the nail on the head!

Unless psychic abilities are a very recent mutation of course.

In the last few days I have been re-reading Farmer’s Riverworld, where everyone who has ever lived is resurrected on a terraformed world that is a single million mile long river. Virtually every lives a stone age existence, even those who died in the 20th Century.

It got me to thinking about how few people really live at more than a stone age intellectual level. It doesn’t take more than stone age skills to drive a car, run a microwave, watch TV. The only people who really NEED logical, advanced thinking skills are folks like the engineers, designers, scientists and programmers. Our education system gives the smart ones the chance to learn the great things. But for the rest, critical thinking skills aren’t really needed. Superstition lives in the primitive mind. Our society is primarily composed of primitives. I don’t see astrology and psychics going away any time soon.

Hairy

I tried to endure it, I think I lasted about four minutes. Once my frontal lobe threatened to crawl away so as to die in peace, I had to stop.

It sounds like verbal dysentery.

Re 1), 2) and 3) – if that had been a psychiatrist or a doctor for that matter, wouldn’t they have been struck off immediately?

Good to know that psychics don’t need guvmint interference. (Actually, yes, as the recent story of Hypno Cat in the UK shows, registration of woo is bollocks.)

Great story idea. Unfortunately, I have a vague memory of a prior story that touched on that. Can’t recall the name, however.

Gary 7

Even if you couldn’t pick and choose the people you contacted, I can imagine you would still be the most sought after person on the planet — historians, for one, would be chomping at the bit to get some quality face-to-soul time with anyone who had died more than a few decades ago.

Archaeologists, treasure hunters, sociologists, cultists, clergy, genealogists would happily pay you hundreds of dollars an hour for a chance to talk to the dead. You would be set of life.

The limitations that *we do* see of psychics and astrologers is indistinguishable from cold reading and leading the client to fill in the predictions and the occasional lucky hit.

Ok, just an honesty disclaimer: I really love Whoopi. She is an amazing woman.

HH, you should have some idea where people are coming from before you decide they’re just woos. Note that at one time, Whoopi was living on the street with an infant to care for. She rose from that state of abject poverty to a funny, capricious, insightful and compassionate human who is a success by nearly anyones standards. I don’t know her personal beliefs, but she has a fine appreciation of evidence, including anecdotal(yes, I know quite well that, to an independent observer, that’s tantamount to no evidence however, it can be “real”. Remember how long we disavowed anecdotal evidence of rocks falling from the sky or balls of lightening floating across the land). There are a few people throughout history that have had a direct experience with,,,something,,,that they refer to as god like. It’s called a mystical experience and has been much sought after but seldom attained. I don’t know if Whoopi ever experienced that but SOMETHING significant happened to her to impel her change of status and I suspect it had something to do with the aforementioned(but about that I have nothing more than inference).

Anyway, she has mentioned once or twice having a belief in a higher intelligence. So do I for that matter. I just don’t call it God( to do so would imply I know what God is and that would just be hubris).

So, she believes there may be something to Tarot? I don’t but that’s just because I’ve never seen any replicable evidence. Maybe she has, or at least what appeared to be satisfactory evidence to her. My feeling toward ANYONE who claims to have special power gifted from on high is that they are con artists, but then, I’m a cantankerous old Frak who would be unlikely to believe anyone seeking to make other folk pay for the privilege of their “special” knowledge. You’ll note that Whoopi never tries to influence anyone into believing she is special in any way. She just makes me laugh and feel good things. THAT’S special enough.

Gary 7

Stepping for a moment into the ‘woo’ side, how about the possibility that ‘psychic powers don’t work that way’ in that one cannot use them to enrich (monetarily) oneself? True, that would require some kind of “enforcement mechanism”, but there is still a chance that limitations could exist.

To which the appropriate response is: “Well, there are certainly a lot of charities and needy individuals to whom you could donate all that money, instead of keeping it to benefit yourself. So, if you do that, your powers should still work.”

They usually don’t respond after that question.

One of the reasons I think ‘psychics’ and ‘mediums’ are so popular is because people need to feel that there is something beyond our natural perceptions. I think it’s the same thing that drives people to believe in UFOs/extraterrestrial visitation. We want to be a part of something bigger, something greater. Really, isn’t that what religion is all about?

Screw altruism. Show me the money.

Stepping for a moment into the ‘woo’ side, how about the possibility that ‘psychic powers don’t work that way’ in that one cannot use them to enrich (monetarily) oneself? True, that would require some kind of “enforcement mechanism”, but there is still a chance that limitations could exist.
/woo

J/P=?

Sadly it was Whoopi who bought into the psychics. She had a tarrot reading done (and was very friendly with and genuinely impressed by John Edwards) and declared that the reading was accurate, even after Elizabeth pointed out that the predictions were vague enough to have applied to any number of people (I’m not normally impressed with the things that come out of Elizabeth’s mouth but I’ve got to give her credit for that one).

And on this latest episode of the view when Barbara Walters directly asked Whoopi if she thought she was psychic herself (apparently because she played a psychic in Ghost*) Whoopi’s response was that she ‘didn’t want to say’. It saddens me that Whoopi, who I really like as an actor, is so into psychic woo nonsense.

*never mind the fact that she played a fake psychic in the movie who just happened to stumble upon a real ghost

But then I knew he would.

I used to have a good opinion of Whoopi Goldberg, but she’s become so moderate as to condone every craziness The View showcases.