Firstly let me say - I am not nor ever have been a medium and would appreciate the comments of any who have been in the context of this post.
My main point of conversation is what do you think of all of these help lines - well the very expensive ones advertised in many newspapers and magazines - saying they will contact spirits - do spiritual healing - contact your angel - read your tarot - do your astrology. all over the phone or via the TV
In fact there seems to be a few TV channels deicated on sky to such things - but how can it be accurate. Phone readings are haphazord to say the least - trust me I know. Its difficult if the person isnt there - personally I react in terms of tarot reading more from the person touching my cards than anything.
But T.V mediums I'm sorry its all seeming sometimes a little fishy to me - especially some of the American ones - sorry of that seems terible. But they just seem so bad
Its like - you over there ( medium points at woman in crowd ) do you know some one who wears socks, and shes like yes my husband Jeff wears socks.
Medium pulls a face and mutters darkly do not say any names they will affect my reading - woman apologises.
Ten seconds later 'I have a woman with me' - the lady in the crowd looks excited, the medium continues 'her name begins with A, its agnes, amy anise - the medium conitnues along the lady keeps shaking her head now he starts on the B's ' is it brenda , bertha, belinda' the woman continues shaking her head. Until suddenly she says yes my second aunt twice remove was a belinda. The meduim is trumphant - she's here with me now he says tears glistening in his eyes. The woman looks confused but Great Aunt Belinda's still alive she murmurs
'Well then the message isn't for you' he shouts and on till the next one.
Sorry for the story but I can't see how they can keep it up as they do all day every day I've met some great people - who would consider themselves mediums and they laugh at those on T.V so come on are they fakers or not.!!!!!!

That's a great description! I agree that tv/phone mediums seem to be huge fakes, taking advantage of mourning people. I think that human contact is very important for any kind of psycic activity. Having someone tell you about your lost loved ones from hundreds of miles away seems pretty fishy to me .

As for the American mediums, I'm sure I know at least one you're referring to because my sister loves his show. (I can't remember his name). I thought the same thing you did, he didn't seem very accurate. My sister even bought his book. I was expecting some insightful, spiritual writing when I picked it up one day, only to find a very boring autobiography. I think that celebrities such as these may have some powers and mediums, but they play them up and do a lot of imbelishing for the cameras, to get ratings and of course, money.

Sunny

All the TV ones seem like frauds to me- they seem to do more cold-reading (getting clues from jewellery, clothes, body language etc) then anything genuine.

Good topic - watched a really interesting TV investigation ages ago in which one of the fraudulent mediums showed the reporter how to go about it, using leading lines, local knowledge etc after which the reporter did his own show which was just as believable as most of them I've seeen - including Shirley Ghostman!

this is the best tv show ever!!! lolololol

To me alot of TV shows (John Edwards ARGHHH!!!!) are fake...Ive seen him start saying I have a lady here etc when no one held up their hand one of the crew said it was for them! cover up or what?! tarot, mediumship etc should be done in person and not on phone or email etc. I see it as a very personal thing and ok I wont slag off spiritual churches etc as I have seen many a great medium there but on tv alot of it is for show...although there is one medium who I really do like on tv but its with a audiance and is very similar to a spiritulist church is colin fry I also dont think he puts on any pretences if he cannot match spirit to person for want of a word he then goes on to say he is mistaken and moves on or gets alot of other deep information. I have seen him live and I must admit being a medium myself I did feel alot of what he was saying was truth.
as for phone in's they drive me nuts! pay however much money to ring in and have your cards read for you?! nope sorry cant be dealing with them people...or at least I havent come across any that are genuine and until I do I will hold the believe that I dont trust them.

John Edwards! That's the guy I was thinking of in my earlier post. I've noticed his show doesn't come on here anymore...suprise suprise. I guess his audience wasn't as blind as he'd hoped!

Just wondering, while we're on this topic, what everyone thinks of Sylvia Browne? She used to do the Montel Williams show all the time and I thought she was pretty good. Then I read two of her books, an autobiography and one on her own beliefs. I was really impressed! A lot of her philosophy was right on par with Wicca/witchcraft, like the value of meditation and the belief in reincarnation, even though she is a Christian. Definatly worth a read.

Sunny

Yup hes probably been seen through...

I havent heard of Sylvia Browne before...but Im always up for reading anything and everything
thanks

I do have a soft spot for Colin Fry and will look more into Sylvia Brown - Havn't heard of her either. But will keep looking

Hey, you almost forgot our Derek!

Derek

I still watch Most Haunted with Derek & the wailing banshee, the the more I watch the more doubts I have about Derek. I think Darren Brown done a lot to undermine mediums.

By the way what was the headline when a midget, spiritualist, broke out of jail.
Small, Medium at large.

I do enjoy Most Haunted for the entertainment, despite the problems I have with it. Derek may even be a genuine medium! But if he's not getting anything, the cameras are still rolling and he's got a role to play, so he'll say random things about an Anne or Mary or John.

I can say the same thing about their resident sceptic. One experiment he did was to think of an image and see who in the audience could duplicate what he was thinking. He collected a few interesting pictures which were one way or another in the same ballpark, either similarly shaped or themed. But later on, he totally rejected a fax someone sent in. This fax was a dead ringer for a portrait a psychic artist had drawn. This spot on duplicate, he dismissed. He may well be a genuine sceptic, but he too has a role to play.

DragonMaster, thanks for that Most Haunted link. I look forward to checking that out properly.

His role as a sceptic shouldn't be just to say, "that's a fake, he should research that fax, the person who did it, any whitness'es & then say if it's true or false. As believers should prove what they do, so should sceptics, but I have always said it's harder to prove something doesn't exist, than it does exist.

I agree Most Tv/phone Mediums are Fakers. Sylvia Brown is very intresting
person. I've actualy prodicted a few things she has

Ohhh, sorry to go on but.... I am very upset with Derek right now. He does all his stuff on T.V all fair and wonderful, but he has also set up a very lucrative phone line where you ring in for his advice ( it is from a designated reader! I'm presuming here Derek has selected them personally - ho hum and bollocks )
Very, very naughty as far as I can see, he seems to have sold out a wee bit there.

alush 2

I've sat with a medium who used to earn money by reading Tarot over the phone. He said he felt so bad about the rubbish he told people that he decided he would try to do it for real.

He is a very good medium now. I don't know why, maybe its because he cares so much for people that he developed something special.

Alot of these people do take advantage of others but there really are some gems out there and, by the way, most good mediums won't make a profit from it if they are really dedicated.

Blessings
trw

Fantastic Link - Especially liked "Mary loves DIck" what more can I say.

I did readings over the phone for several weeks, not as a meduim but as a tarot reader and I found it very difficult to especially as it was really a group of several people who constantly rang in and were charged about 25 a time. Two days later I don't have anything new to tell them - but my calls were supposedly monitered and I was to encourage them to call back incase something new came up. This was awful and I couldn't do it, I also know quite a few people who work on such lines and make a fair bit - one person does not even use their tarot they just follow through with how the person seems to be reacting with what they are saying - Very, very bad. I just think the premium lines are a con and really should't be allowed - yes you get some really good readers I'm not denying that. But they are usually good anough to set up on their own and you get so many dodgy ones - it is all profit orientated.