Have you ever consulted a clairvoyant? How did you find the experience?

I had my tarot cards read once a long time ago. The reader didn’t seem to have any kind of special gift. She just gave me broad and generic answers to my questions, stuff like “look within yourself” and “keep persevering.” I wasn’t impressed.

I still have the tape of a session at a fair with a locally “renowned” psychic wherein he says I would never bear a child. A little over a year later, Voila! Katawagrey!

I had an ex-girlfriend who was big into that. She wanted to go to some psychic guy who had supposedly been born with a “veil.” I didn’t get much from him.

We went to another one and while he was trying to do mine the tape recorder got all buggered up and ate the tape.

She finally started learning about Tarot cards and practiced on me all the time. Hers were probably the most accurate readings I ever got.

Overall, though, I wasn’t impressed.

No. I don’t believe in any method of ‘therapy’ based solely on deception and self interest. Although self-suggestion and placebo work, it’s not fine to use them without consent in some form or another and in full deception.

There’s some cool videos on cold reading techniques – for how psychics can convince others that they’re actually doing something. But the key is, the information is provided by the client, and given back in novel ways. Or the answers are ambiguous but sound like a hit.
Here’s an overview: http://www.youtube.com/user/richarddawkinsdotnet?blend=1&ob=4#p/a/55A986E56B106611/0/Xswt8B8-UTM

I went to one years ago that told me I would marry a man with the first initial J and would meet him at a place that started with a M. Both of those things came true, but I don’t think anything else she told me did.

No I haven’t. They’re full of shit see, couldn’t stand the smell. IMHO of course.

Money for old rope springs to mind. Wouldn’t part with my hard earned I’m afraid.

I also have a second-hand experience of a clairvoyant. On one side of my family, an aunt went to one and was told the family had a curse on it. She tried to get her sisters to throw in money to get rid of the curse and no one else would. This actually caused a rift in the family for a few years. Thankfully, everything got smoothed over when the first aunt realized how ridiculous it was.

…very skilled in reading people’s body language and getting the answers out of the customer without the customer realising…

BING!BING!BING!BING!BING!BING!

I’ve seen one of them at work on one of my friends. It was a woman at Coney Island in the carny area. Very astute reader of people. She could tell by my friend’s body language that something was up and she used it. I have a friend who reads tarot sometimes as a lark, and she’s nowhere near as good because she’s really trying to divine the wisdom of the cards’ layout and not paying attention to the non-verbal signals that the other person’s giving out.

I went to one at a “Psychic Fair” many years ago, on the night of my ex-husband’s bachelor party. I deliberately went with no makeup (not that I wear much anyway), dressed down a little and didn’t wear my engagement ring. She told me that I shouldn’t feel bad that I hadn’t found anyone yet and that my time would come. HA!

@tedibear That just reminded me of a time I went to one with my oldest brother. None of us look alike, but he looks less like me than the rest. Anyway, we didn’t say we were brother and sister, so she started talking about us getting married, having children, etc. As we walked out, my brother said “by the way, this is my sister”. Very funny look on her face. But, really, the joke was on us. We paid her $15.00 for nothing.

They weren’t expecting me.

Spoiler alert:

So-called clairvoyants, psychics, palm readers, tarot readers, and their ilk are hucksters who only want your money. I’ve personally dealt with a few of them for various school projects and you wouldn’t believe the amount of bullshit that they are capable of in their “profession.”

Nah, I think people with such a gift are one in a million, if at all. Long ago, my mother did go to one though, she gave her pictures of my brother and me – psychic told my mom that my brother would die in his 20s (which happened) and that she would be married twice (which happened, to my dad both times, but still), that I would be married twice, second time to a foreigner (which happened, to them an American certainly qualifies as a foreigner) and that I would have a daughter (I have two sons but I’m not done having children yet).

2x. waste of $$

I’ve been to a lot of psychics, tarot card readers, and astrologers. Honestly, I meet 99 charlatans for every 1 who is genuine. I’ve been lied to and manipulated for money. I’ve been told I had to pay a lot of money to get the reader to say certain prayers for me to avoid bad occurences. That is bunk.

I have, however, found a few psychics, readers, and astrologers who proved accurate. I have found 2 astrologers who correctly pinpointed events in my past (a job change) and personality traits (I’m good at learning foreign languages) without my saying a word to them. They were simply looking at my charts.

I met one psychic who—again without saying a word to her—listed the contents of a memoribilia drawer I hadn’t opened in a very very long time right down to the brand of my grandmother’s watch that I have. (This is an 90-year-old watch and the brand is out of business.) She told me of past events in my life, and she outlined a mundane future event which came true as predicted. She told me I would move back to Hawaii and that I would buy a car found for me by a friend in a barn covered in dust. There were other details about the car that she named that were true. When I moved back to Hawaii, a friend did indeed find a car for me in just such a manner. It wasn’t until after the event that I remembered the prediction.

I read tarot cards for myself and others, and I don’t charge a thing. I can offer only a few bits of evidence that the cards were giving me correct information. A friend asked me about moving off island. We laid out the cards, and I told him the correct month he would leave. It’s very easy to say that he simply chose that time because of the reading, but it was over a year later, and there were many reasons that contributed to his leaving then. In another reading for a person that I didn’t know from Adam, I looked at the cards and told him he’d just come into some money, which he had. I’ve been told by many people that my readings are accurate. I don’t know for sure, because the vast majority of these people, I never see again. I don’t ask questions at all. The person gives me one question, and we lay out the cards. I simply relay the information that’s in the cards.

Is it all magic? I don’t know. Is it tapping into a spiritual resource? I think it’s accessing something that’s bigger than me, but I can’t tell you what that thing is nor how it works. Does it make sense? No. Is it rational? Certainly not.

I do know that I’ve found some psychics, tarot readers, and astrologers that I can trust.

I was supposed to go to a clairvoyance meeting but it was cancelled due to some unforseen events

I went to a guy who started seeing dead people when he had brain surgery.
and a friend who did ouija on a manila file folder.
They were the real deal.

According to two unrelated “clairvoyants” I’m psychic, but my powers are being blocked by angst and skepticism. If that’s the case, I’ll never know for sure.

i went to one on two separate occasions. she came to the day care center where i worked (this was about 18 years ago) because the owners knew of her and her acccuracy. i didn’t sit with her that day, but when people there talked about her accuracy, i went to her house, which was in NJ. She told me some details about family members that i did not know, and details that were odd yet very true. she told me why my dad and mom split up, which i never knew. i went home and told my mom to find out if it was correct, and it was. i saw that woman a second time.