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squidge
30-Apr-12, 20:55
Last night I had a weird and bizarre experience. This might be a bit lengthy but bear with me folks. Last Friday a lassie I am friends with asked did I want to go to An evening of mediumship with Tony Stockwell at Eden Court on sunday. Her friend had pulled out so she had a ticket. I laughed and said I didnt beleivein all this stuff but she said it would be a giggle and so I said I would go. I have never been to one of these things before but the mannie stands up on the stage and is very personable and gets a few laughs from the audience but basically he says a few "details" that he gets from the "spirit" and you put your hand up if you recognise the person and he tells you a bit more.

So the first half of the show passed - very watchable and I was quite impressed by his accuracy for the people he spoke to - the level of detail was quite impressive. We went for our wee drinkie at the interval and I laughed with my friend and said that I was quite impressed considering I was an old skeptic. In the second half he did the same thing and then he said

" I have a lady here - she is mum - age 70 ish - she passed with cancer from smoking." a couple of ladies put their hands up but he asked a few more questions and said no it wasnt them. He then said " she is a cleaner in a pub - Im seeing her with a mop and a pinny" I laughed and turned to my pal and said that it sounded like my late mother in law from my first marriage. Kath said "put your hand up" and after a bit of persuasion - I did. What unfolded has really made me feel a bit wierd.

I said it sounded a bit like my mother in law and he asked me did she clean a pub and yes she did - her last job was cleaning the Colliers Return pub where we had the christening parties for the boys. He asked me did she die from smoking related cancer - yes she did - she was 69 though not 70. He then said she was saying to him that she was "mum" very definitely "mum " not mother in law. When I fist met her she stuck her head round the door and said " HI you must be ,,,,, I'm Mum" and I always called her mum.

I told him this and he then went on to say she seemed like she was always on the go ( she was) she walked everywhere and never stopped talking and chatting and everything - her legs were always moving right to the last, In fact on the day before she died the nurse told us that they couldnt settle her - although she was heavily sedated her legs kept moving and it wasnt until my ex husband went to see her with his brother that she settled down and she died later that night.

The mannie then said that he had the impression of 3 boys - well I went rather chilly, I have three boys - the older of my children who are her grandchildren. He said that she is "in and about them" and that she is proud of them and keeping them in her love. He asked had I been throwing up recently and I said no and then he asked had I been looking after someone who was sick. Last Thursday the old lady I help out was very sick and I had to care for her til her daughter arrived. I was rubbing her back and putting a damp cloth on her neck and I was quite worried about her. I told him this and he said that "mum" said I was doing good things.

There were a couple of other things about people she knew that I understood and there was nothing that he said that I didnt get the reference to.

I dont know what to think. I dont know how to feel about this.... I dont believe in this stuff but i cant explain it. My friend swears that she never told anyone anything and she wouldnt have known any of this stuff really, Certainly not the pub cleaning or the pinny thing - not the legs thing or that I called her mum. She didnt know that the lady I care for had been sick. My mum in law has been dead for twenty years and i have been apart from her son since 2002.I still miss her but I am no longer "grieving" for her so wasnt looking for anything when I went last night. Anyone got any ideas? Im not scared - I couldnt be scared of her - I loved her dearly and I know she loved me but I am still a bit weirded out over the whole business. I am never going to one of these things again.

Niall Fernie
30-Apr-12, 21:08
You should have a read of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading

a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading)nd a watch of this:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derren-brown-the-specials/4od#2921957

O (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derren-brown-the-specials/4od#2921957)bviously not easy to do, but explainable non the less.

Dog-eared
30-Apr-12, 21:15
Wanna buy some snake oil ? Cures all ills.

squidge
30-Apr-12, 21:18
Yep Niall, I have seen this but he was not "fishing" he didnt seem to ask me anything that was searching only to confirm that what he said was right and I couldnt say "no" to anything. He didnt suggest that there were "children" or a couple of children, or ask me do i have children - he said categorically "three boys". The other thing about the cold reading thing is - he would have stayed at mother in law surely not pressed the mum thing. Why would he do that? Lucky guesses?

I have also seen Derren Brown and I know that its techniques and things. I just cannot understand how he was so accurate in his "guessing". Am I really being conned? He doesnt seem a very nice man either from some of the stuffon the net although you have to expect that people will either love or hate these people

Phill
30-Apr-12, 21:44
Am I really being conned?Yep! I reckon if you'd have taped the show and then had it transcribed you'd be surprised how much info you gave him from his random speculative guessing.

I always found Clinton Baptiste pretty good though.

Tangerine-Dream
30-Apr-12, 21:50
Last Friday a lassie I am friends with asked did I want to go to An evening of mediumship with Tony Stockwell

Is "mediumship" a code word for an evening of passionate sex? Is Tony Stockwell a slang word for your manhood? your "Tony"..... yes, I get it.... Tony stocks well.... Tony packs a punch ;) It's a pity that the evening was "medium", if you'd pushed the boat out and bought her a bag of chips she may have opened up to you more ;)

John Little
30-Apr-12, 22:04
Squidge is a person of great intelligence who thinks deeply about things.

She describes something which has quite clearly disturbed her equilibrium and I for one am not going to laugh about it. I have come across a few things in my life that I simply have no explanation for- and all it means is exactly that.

I can't explain them.

It does not mean that one day they will not be explained.

Try explaining computers to a man or woman of the 13th century.
The world was flat for thousands of years.

So just because we do not have a rational explanation for something right now does not mean that we never will.
To think we know all would be just hubris.

mi16
30-Apr-12, 22:10
Is "mediumship" a code word for an evening of passionate sex? Is Tony Stockwell a slang word for your manhood? your "Tony"..... yes, I get it.... Tony stocks well.... Tony packs a punch ;) It's a pity that the evening was "medium", if you'd pushed the boat out and bought her a bag of chips she may have opened up to you more ;)

I think you will find that Squidge is of the fairer sex.:roll:

lisagrace
30-Apr-12, 22:22
I went to a spiritualist once and I was so impressed with her accuracy, however she provided a tape recording of the reading and when I listened to it I couldn't believe how much information I had given her and she was correcting her story all the way along, for example she said she had a man named william, very common name but was my grandfathers (which I told her) then she said he was called Bill, no he wasn't, then she said he was called Bill in the army, I told her he wasn't in the army to which she replied no sorry the navy I knew it was the military etc etc but at the time I was quite convinced - I don't know why she recorded it

squidge
30-Apr-12, 23:05
yep Im a girlie - well an owld wifie really lol. I dunno - John is right - it has disturbed my equilibrium. There was no guesswork like lisagrace suggests though. Although i responded to verify what he had said I did not have a conversation with him in the way she describes. It was actually that which was the most freaky. The statements that he made. And the mum thing was just spooky. Some of it was general though - the thing about being active and her legs moving could be a lucky guess and it could be a fair assumption that she was a knitter and so could I be.

Ach Im flummoxed. I guess there are many things in the world that we have no explanation for but I am NEVER EVER EVER going to one of these things again.

secrets in symmetry
02-May-12, 23:34
Just how "flummoxed" were you? Medium-flummoxed ain't good enough.... You gotta go for multiple-flummoxed every time.... :cool:

squidge
03-May-12, 10:09
I was multiple flummoxed completely. I have no idea how to think about it because if i decide to believe it then i have to think differently about other things. I spoke to my ex husband who doesnt believe in ANYTHING lol. Explained to him what happened and he thought for a minute and said " i knew she would be looking out for them" like it was the most sensible conversation we ever had! He wasnt flummoxed at all and i have never known him to believe in stuff like this. Sigh

RecQuery
03-May-12, 10:19
It could be warm or hot reading, lots of these mediums bug the queues and seating. And do research of the people attending. It's hard to tell if the person was fishing or other techniques with a video also as most people being fished don't realise it, rule of three and all that.

John Little
03-May-12, 10:28
Just how "flummoxed" were you? Medium-flummoxed ain't good enough.... You gotta go for multiple-flummoxed every time.... :cool:

Oh come now.

If a medium flummoxes you, it follows that you are medium-flummoxed.

Unless the experience was multi-medium...

squidge
03-May-12, 10:33
It could be warm or hot reading, lots of these mediums bug the queues and seating. And do research of the people attending. It's hard to tell if the person was fishing or other techniques with a video also as most people being fished don't realise it, rule of three and all that.They could have bugged the seating and the queue. They could have had bugs around my HOUSE and not heard me talk about my mum i. Law. Like i said she has been dead for 20 years lol. I do accept that some of the stuff i heard might have been picked up. It was clear that some people had gone with the hope of getting a message. Oh crikey i dont know!!!! John i was multiple flummoxed by a medium lol. He flummoxed me every time he said something

Gronnuck
03-May-12, 10:53
squidge just accept it as a strange experience, don't let it bug you. OH and I have never visited a medium but accept that there might be something there. OH has spooked me and our closest friends a few times with her dreams, visions and predictions. We've even scared friends when she's answered their questions before they've even asked them. We just live with it. We don't discuss everything she experiences because too many cynic's first reaction is to scoff. I would argue that we would be naive in the extreme if we believe we know everything about everything, we can only accept that there is still a lot we have yet to discover.

ducati
03-May-12, 13:54
My problem is this, if there are ghosts or at least spirits able to comunicate with the living, we would have to scrap pretty much everything we have ever learned as a race about physics in the whole of history. I don't think it is wrong, and neither do all the Physicists. It's fine to say we don't know everything and there is more to life than science, but that isn't right.

Everything has to fit into certain models of the universe, for everything else to work. There are gaps in knowledge, but there are no spaces where something should be, like ghosts, but isn't.

John Little
03-May-12, 13:56
It's Physics Jim - but not as we know it.....

Rheghead
03-May-12, 14:49
So, he has managed to get you to respond to him for getting in touch with a woman about 70 (she didn't even know her own exact age I might add) who died of cancer and was a cleaner in a pub, the legs thing and the 3 boys thing you've managed to apply to her in your own head (by which time he got you to start fitting the vague things by then fairly flexibly).

I know of 2 people who fitted that vague description.

squidge
03-May-12, 19:41
I know rheghead. When I got home I wrote down what he said and it was a bit more precise than i put here. It was a bit lengthy. It was just too long. What it felt like was that he had picked out the key memories i have. The legs, the mum thing, the holey knitting, mrs Highton. I cant square the way he did this with the way that i have always known that this stuff is not true. I also dont understand why he didnt think the two other people who put up their hands were right. Why me? Im a bit cross about it I think lol.

gleeber
03-May-12, 21:52
It's Physics Jim - but not as we know it.....
I like that. So much better than the original
Everyone thinks of ghosts and spirits. Some of us dont believe they happen anywhere outside the confines of our own heads but either way they attract our attention. I think thats why some people can use it so expertly when they are doing readings. Im sure most mediums are as genuine as any Christian evangelist and it appears harmless enough for those who want to believe it. In fact it obviously helps some people get by.
Once the medium makes a connection for us it's a bit like the blind leading the blind.
I believe in delusions. :lol:

squidge
03-May-12, 22:01
See though, if i decide that I believe this WAS Sally then I Have to believe in life after death. If i believe in life after death then dont i have to Definitely believe in God?

sassylass
03-May-12, 22:07
Squidge is a person of great intelligence who thinks deeply about things.

She describes something which has quite clearly disturbed her equilibrium and I for one am not going to laugh about it. I have come across a few things in my life that I simply have no explanation for- and all it means is exactly that.

I can't explain them.

It does not mean that one day they will not be explained.

Try explaining computers to a man or woman of the 13th century.
The world was flat for thousands of years.

So just because we do not have a rational explanation for something right now does not mean that we never will.
To think we know all would be just hubris.

Well said. And in the meantime, we can be content to know that we don't know everything.

gleeber
03-May-12, 22:09
See though, if i decide that I believe this WAS Sally then I Have to believe in life after death. If i believe in life after death then dont i have to Definitely believe in God?
you wouldnt definately have to but it a closer jump for you to make than me.

secrets in symmetry
04-May-12, 10:26
This has nothing to do with Science. Squidge was bemused and befuddled by a polished stage performer - a magician or a conman, if you prefer - and she's trying to work out how he did it. If he'd taken her onto the stage and sawn her in two, you wouldn't be asking if God exists. Yet, sawing her in two is far more implausible than a few well-practised (and, in some cases, lucky) guesses!

David Banks
18-Feb-16, 16:49
Squidge is a person of great intelligence who thinks deeply about things.

She describes something which has quite clearly disturbed her equilibrium and I for one am not going to laugh about it. I have come across a few things in my life that I simply have no explanation for- and all it means is exactly that.

I can't explain them.

It does not mean that one day they will not be explained.

Try explaining computers to a man or woman of the 13th century.
The world was flat for thousands of years.

So just because we do not have a rational explanation for something right now does not mean that we never will.
To think we know all would be just hubris.


Just how "flummoxed" were you? Medium-flummoxed ain't good enough.... You gotta go for multiple-flummoxed every time.... :cool:


Oh come now.

If a medium flummoxes you, it follows that you are medium-flummoxed.

Unless the experience was multi-medium...


My problem is this, if there are ghosts or at least spirits able to comunicate with the living, we would have to scrap pretty much everything we have ever learned as a race about physics in the whole of history. I don't think it is wrong, and neither do all the Physicists. It's fine to say we don't know everything and there is more to life than science, but that isn't right.

Everything has to fit into certain models of the universe, for everything else to work. There are gaps in knowledge, but there are no spaces where something should be, like ghosts, but isn't.


It's Physics Jim - but not as we know it.....


And now, there is even more to talk about.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FPossibly-Ghosts-John-Little%2Fdp%2F1523835915%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fs%3Dbook s%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1455750774%26sr%3D1-1%26keywords%3DPossibly%2Bghosts&h=4AQEasVMb