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After reading many discussions about the validity of psychics I thought I would try to see what people think about this topic.

I wonder what the the psychological difference is between an illusionist/magician and a psychic? Why is it that society readily believes that people such as David Blaine are illusionists and possess no supernatural powers (even though they can fly and perform other seemingly impossible tasks). Yet, if someone claims to be a psychic, there's considerable discussion about the validity of the claim. How do the two differ in society's mind?

I realize that we can probably find many people who believe that there is no illusion to the works of David Blaine et al. But, in general terms, there is little discussion about the validity of an illusionist and much about the validity of a psychic. There seems to be a basic assumption in society's mind regarding the two that differs. Why? How is the following link (sorry not embedded) any less supernatural than a psychic reading?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weQjBJ3Lm_M

The answer to the question seems to me self-evident: An illusionist is honest enough to state upfront that it's all a trick; he/she doesn't make any false claims to "supernatural" powers. Whereas the psychic performs the same tricks and illusions claiming them to be supernatural in origin.

In other words, the Illusionist is honest whereas the psychic is not and feeds off the gullibility of those who prefer not to cultivate a skeptical (i.e., scientific) mindset.


- Upir'

Thanks for the response Upir'. Honestly, I was hoping for more of a dialogue than this considering all the psychics have the "for entertainment purposes only" disclaimer. Oh well, I suppose that's that then...

Here is some consumer info regarding Psychics.

http://www.skepticfiles.org/skep2/consprot.htm

http://www.ottawaskeptics.org/topics/psychics-and-esp/46-psychicsesp/117-we-need-a-psychic-fraud-law-too

hmm very interesting topic I will need to study this more before I can answer it

Charity scams are as popuar with crafty kin as well.

Great links Dabbler! Especially the Ottawa link. Hopefully, very eye-opening...

David Bkaine earlier may have shown some tricks but later turned to total psychic yoga exercises a full set which earned him hypnotizm and meditation in extreme and along with this he gained the real power of magic of diivinity. if he is doing center focal point exercises daily, today he is able of distant hypnotizm and distant reiki etc is up his sleeve. you can see him breaking world record does not matter him that moment coz he was involved in meditation in extreme.

Illusion too is a part of psychic art.

So wrong Demon. Please provide support for your statement.

Illusion can be said if hand made tricks but he did place the life in the danger, that can not be illusion...

see his breathe holding record. see his staying in ice coffin, see his current exhibition of hung that much time like a bat on wire...

one common man unable to do even 30 minutes of that exercise. within 15 minutes the blood start alraming in its veins in the head.

OK So all I need to do is find an article on Athletic Feats of Daring.

What do you have to support your statement that Blaine is Involved in Alternative Health practices?

I saw a ocumentry made on him on tv. total his exercises shown... and how did he do it too...

those exercises was in my list already of hypnotizm art...

and if you dd not see his breathe holding record or icr coffin

just see it by borrowing from some where... you will find in those time he is meditating and his eyes in one line in one direction only in front side... gazing center focal point consciously.

I will hold out for supporting info.

he was using those exercises on war level when he was intended to set breathe record. Coz he knew the impotance of breathe... total psychic and subconscious movement is regulated on unpaused breathe or ability in stucked breathe.

when breathe is stopped the elements in the body start balancing to cover the prana that have limitation depand on ability to hold the breathe before prana leaves the body to make him die or start breathe again.

no one will provide you the support for this except the mentor of hypnotizm...

see the difference before him the breathe record was 3.5 minutes appx and he stretched this record beyond 8.5 minutes. all such are darkst yogic exercises. very easy to do but no will power to do regulerly.

meditation word and method is so easy in lestening and knowing. but how many person knowing this, have stillness in meditation?

He is a performer.

You mistake Patter for reality Demon.

yes yoga is 100% health exercises and he had fitness programme to at the time he went for breathe record. including much jogging and running too. the whole team was training him physical as well as divine exercises.

Now all you need is a link to your source.

All showmen are performer and saints remain silent unnoticed. he is showman and with the art those cpmmon peepal do not adopt. He is divine performer and i respect him most for he gave a chance to think over that what exercises he might be doing, this to you. Just please check Honorable Dabbler he is pertaining to west side I can not arrange you the support coz he is not pertaining to my area. his cds are not available in my City in market.

I did try tp find his exercises on net thoese which i saw in his documentry shown on tv perhaps on axn or history

but there is no support to this on net. what i saw I explained you and those exercises if done 2 hours daily, the person become distant hypnotist within 2-3 years. he can hypnotize just by looking at kin's photo.

As I stated, illusionist are performers of slight of hand. Parlor tricks. Nothing more.

Blaine is just a performer. I have his book Mysterious Stranger and he never once mentions doing anything other than being a stuntman or illusionist. Some of the people he has in his think tank are the best names in the magic community but I don't remember him mentioning a single yogi or anything of that sort.

He has said that he gets inspiration from spiritualists. For example his inspiration for his Vertigo stunt were pillar saints. They would spend large parts of their lives upon pillars. This was just inspiration and not a methodology though.

Its just entertainment.

Holding your breath, demystified.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1736834,00.html

The Athalatic performers had mad skill, Houdini being among them, once going "head to head" with a person claiming higher consciousness
and devote spiritual practices made them "super naturally human", Houdini demonstrated his point very well.

Blurring the line between illusion, and the occult is nothing new, it goes well back to the fakirs.

Example the Stair of Swords, a feat performed by Masters of Ancient martial disciplines.. the patter being the Ancient Martial Arts Discipline the illusion, a person walking up 4 swords wedged risers. a rigged effect, but still something very dangerous to perform, It took me one flat run to know I was not ready to try with real swords.

What the majority accepts is that such things are all performances that create illusions, that are then interpreted to be confirmation of "unknown" forces.

Its true Mr Furcifer
But those are exercises of Yoga even you can do. breathe holding is the base exercise for darkth pranayam to lead person to hold breathe at least beyond 60 seconds and this is the requirement of darkth pranayam.

The major advanatage of this to common peepal that nightmare they do not feel some one locking them from living. no onewill grab their neck.

this exercise mentioned in my blog you can access by clicking any protection stamp on my profile.

this exercise of breathe holding is part of all divine yoga exercise. this is most helpful later in awakening of Kundalini

All those things have been tested, they all show a base training in Cardio enrichment. Even a number of former Mystic performers wrote a Tell all, with a warning on the Cover, Do not try this at home..

If the whole mystic thing was of any consequence the test where a performer sits on a block of ice would not actually lower their core tempature, BTW the block of ice chair is a physics trick, along with the bed of nails.

Perhaps a person that practices a faith has a meditation regiment, that in no way (and this is proven) gives them some mystic advantage.

for more info check www.wikipedia.org

Well well well you said base training for cardio enrichment. But no doctor suggest this exercise for cardio enrichment coz this exercise blocks the oxygen the key element what you say vital living force which is most necessary for working of brain and cardiac function.

You realised only when one of psychic set of exercises you did read.

tell me which of physical coaching or gym advise this exercise. My dear this when I brought to you then only you realised. Even which of yoga commune exposed this exercise or which of physio suggested this exercise. Please tell me. Even swimmer do not get the exercise of long time dive this way. They become diver naturally ad remain in the water much time.

Did you see the whale moving below the surface of water?
that coolness you gain by this exercise after you mastered this exercise.

This exercise is not useful physically and no physical use of this exercise. This exercise we do coz when in astral whenever our conscious or subconscious stuck or even in bad dream. but we are when doing this exercise, we do not stuck spatially nor any bad dream or evil in bad dream is able to hit us to make feel that we are dying coz they have grabbed our neck or striking on our breathe system...

divine yogi doing the set of dark exerises
does this exercise coz with this we are able to slow down our natural breathe rate to bliss state. and from there the start of celestial capabilities.

Yes Honorable Vitae of Life,

its true. the nice article o wikipedia

link is here "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_blaine#cite_note-burial-6"

each of such hisact gives him experience such as :

"On the final day of the stunt, April 12, hundreds of news teams were stationed at the site for the coffin-opening ceremony. A team of construction workers removed a portion of the 75 square feet (7.0 m2) of gravel surrounding the six-foot deep coffin before a crane lifted the 3-ton water tank.[9] Blaine emerged from his underground coffin and told the crowd "I saw something very prophetic ... a vision of every race, every religion, every age group banding together, and that made all this worthwhile."[7]"


he was not wrong coz such psychic exercises do attract high psychic celestial bodies...

Your statement though very testable, all it would take is a subject in these spiritual disiplines to work with scienctist to demonstrate effectivly what is claimed.. waiting for a subject to come forward...

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Not going to happen, why because those who claim such abilities have no confidence in what they claim they do, as anything but physical training, and aid from traditional performance tricks.

As far as visions are concerned, there are several theories as to why and how they occur in near-death experiences, not entirely dissimilar to being buried alive or otherwise pushing yourself beyond the bodies limitations. There are several physiological theories as well as astral theories, none of which have enough supporting evidence to adopt as a model of how and why the visions occur. Google "the light at the end of the tunnel" or "near-death experience" and you'll find all sorts of theories. So...

Back to the crux of this thread, does a psychic/mentalist/spiritualist have some sort of ability that illusionists do not? Or, do you think that anyone could learn to do the same things similar to how anyone could study to be an illusionist? Is there some sort of inherent difference between them? Does one possess indescribable powers and the other does not?

Hmm, kill me if im wrong furtzifer, but in my opinion it is all in representation of these two types which appear to be very distinguished from another, but in reality they are all one and the same, attempt to win over the masses with a representation which is out of every ones comprehension, which in reality is not really, but a skillful cautiously designed attempt to make the reality appear in different manner from what it really is. Certainly there are those who do possess a certain authentic ability of expression, no matter how small that number is, but they do not fit in to any of these groups here.

A person can learn to cold read. Cold reading by it's self is one thing, but i a person is charismatic they can arrange hot reads as well. a Socializing Talent helps, some acting (improve) skills. A study of generality , and trivial application are factors as well.

The appeal to going the spiritual route is in Billing. An entertainer has a set venue, and the compatition, it is the promotion that weighs the success of the artist.

Spiritualist by pass all that and hope on the 'religious" hype. using that established venue, along with "clinical" applications, or private reading. usually 80 dollars or more.

That and the flowery books they tend to put out in droves.

Entertainer.

Popular Spiritualist.

I am getting a vacation.. a vacation with an Uncle, this is a camping trip I am being shown..

How many people would that "hit" with?

Actually, that would depend on region and time of year to work. I'm from NY and if you asked me if I was going to go camping with my uncle anytime soon I would call you a fruit loop haha. It generally starts off more vague than that. Then it builds up to specifics.

Yea the Jewlery is always a good hit parade. Photos as well.. that weasel Praag.. errrr...

Oh I would disconnact the script with.. I am seeing that as something that someone will mention..

I am finding plenty of cases of card readers that operate as entertainers press for action against those who practice under spiritual/psychic pretense,
It encourages me, I never dismissed cards reading as worthless, I have seen some touching insightful readers, under no pretense of mystic sources, we all learned a little bit more about new faces.

A group that goes out to a performance gain more then some Ghost Charade Act.

Fantastic posts everyone.

It seems to boil down, like everything else, to supply and demand. A seemingly endless, demand from people to be told exactly what they want to hear and a supply of people willing to tell them whatever they want to hear. The difference being in the pretense of whether or not what they're hearing is real or entertainment. It's a question of morality then. We will all have varying opinions about morality, there are countless examples of differing morals all across the world depending on country, culture, individual, etc... In fact, it is a universal human right that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, OHCHR). In essence, no one can tell anyone else what is "right" or "wrong" (conscience). Basically, if someone THINKS that they are psychic or speak with the dead and decide to take advantage of people willing to give them money for telling them something that they would like to hear, that's alright because their thoughts and conscience are protected. For that matter, the beliefs of the people giving their hard-earned money away are protected as well. Apparently we must simply put up with it, instead of committing them to psychiatric care (for obvious reasons)....interesting....