What would a genuine (fictional) psychic look like?

So I just finished RSL's recent multipart saga about his adventures in the perilous land of JVP, and an idea for a fictional work was hatched in my devious mind... (oh, okay, a certain amount of inspiration also came from The Dead Zone. (Clearly, this basic idea has been before, but there's nothing new under the sun. )

The plotline would involve a main character who had some kind of experience that turned him/her (not sure which yet) into a genuine psychic who could actually see the things that JVP, Sylvia Browne, etc., pretend to see. However, the crucial difference would be that this person would have absolutely no cold reading/manipulation abilities, and they'd have to tell people the truth instead of what they wanted to hear. So the question is what a genuine psychic would actually look like; what would their qualities be, particularly if their abilities had appeared unexpectedly?

Wouldn't we need some kind of police sketch artist for this?

They'd probably be unpopular for telling people bad news, whether true or not, and suffer from depression or anxiety from unwelcome visions.

Poor

A decent model would be Miles from Lost. He would have solid information, and would probably be able to make money from unsavory elements who wanted to know the combination of the safe.

You'd have to come up with a plot twist explaining why he couldn't win the MDC.

Well for start as you admitted, you watched the Dead Zone.
That should give you, in my opinion, a rather plausible notion already.

Medium, though it is supposably based on you know who, isn't so bad either on this aspect.

The bigger question is - can you be more specific on what you are looking for?

stephenenelson said:

You'd have to come up with a plot twist explaining why he couldn't win the MDC.

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Or you know... say that he actually won...

Maia said:

So I just finished RSL's recent multipart saga about his adventures in the perilous land of JVP, and an idea for a fictional work was hatched in my devious mind... (oh, okay, a certain amount of inspiration also came from The Dead Zone. (Clearly, this basic idea has been before, but there's nothing new under the sun. )

The plotline would involve a main character who had some kind of experience that turned him/her (not sure which yet) into a genuine psychic who could actually see the things that JVP, Sylvia Browne, etc., pretend to see. However, the crucial difference would be that this person would have absolutely no cold reading/manipulation abilities, and they'd have to tell people the truth instead of what they wanted to hear. So the question is what a genuine psychic would actually look like; what would their qualities be, particularly if their abilities had appeared unexpectedly?

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Would he need cold reading skills to find out what people want? Isn't that also a psychic ability?

what type of world are you aiming to set this in? Is there really an afterlife, or just information about missing people and car keys? (Without an afterlife, you could still "talk" to to the dead, i.e. gain information about their former lifes, but you wouldn't hear anything about how they are happier now, etc.)

I am sure there would be a way to make a lot of money with those abilities - either in the casinos, solving crimes or what have you.

does anyone remember Early Edition?

I never watched The Dead Zone, actually... just read the book. The thing is that I don't see this as a character who brings outstanding happiness, because he/she can only tell people the truth. The psychic abilities would be limited-- actually, I think part of the problem would be that she (let's just pick a pronoun!) couldn't tell people about anything that was or wasn't going on in an afterlife. Oo! I know. I kind of like the idea about her having psychic abilities only in relation to the tragic events that had happened or were about to happen in people's lives... How could this be used with the MDC challenge? Maybe only happy skeptics were involved?

Maia said:

I never watched The Dead Zone, actually... just read the book. The thing is that I don't see this as a character who brings outstanding happiness, because he/she can only tell people the truth. The psychic abilities would be limited-- actually, I think part of the problem would be that she (let's just pick a pronoun!) couldn't tell people about anything that was or wasn't going on in an afterlife. Oo! I know. I kind of like the idea about her having psychic abilities only in relation to the tragic events that had happened or were about to happen in people's lives... How could this be used with the MDC challenge? Maybe only happy skeptics were involved?

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So I'm assuming you're going to call her Casandra?

Well, she would have no problem predicting 9\11 or any such disaster. I would say that she could identify if someone's mother is dying or anything of that sort. Any sort of tragedy that can be predicted scientifically can be used to see if the person has a high accuracy rate enough to warrent the MDC.

Of course since it's a fictional character we have no idea how her ability works exactly.

There was also an old charmed episode in the first season that set a similiar situation. Phoebe, a witch with psychic visions, sees a person is about to die in a car accident and she tries to warn him but is not willing to listen so she keeps harassing him over and over again.

Example of real psychic in a story:

1) no cold reading ("does her name start with a M ?").
2) question don't come from the psychic (see 1) the question comes from the readed person and do not contain hint.
3) the psychic answer with plenty of detail which cannot be gleaned from public record. To heap on that, in your story the psychic could give detail which are actually noted false in the public record but the psychic's version turn out to be true.
4) no allegory reading, no "picture" to be interpreted. Direct info which have an immediate meaning.
5) poor and not believed, even by otherwise normal SB/JVP believer
6) shown to be angry toward JVP, SB etc...

Aepervius said:

Example of real psychic in a story:
5) poor and not believed, even by otherwise normal SB/JVP believer

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Why? Seriously?

If I were a real psychic and I could try to win the lottery I would do it. I would go for the MDC. I see no reason why a psychic has to be poor.

Heck, even *Randi himself said there is nothing wrong for charging people money for psychic reading so long as your are providing a real service with real results.

(IIRC it was during an interview hosted by Larry King that also included Rosmeri Althea)

If they're able to predict lottery numbers, they may be wealthy. If they have to rely on fees from clients, they're likely to be poor. Why? Because people don't go to psychics for the truth (if they wanted truth, they wouldn't waste their time on nonsense). They go to psychics to hear what they want to be told. A real psychic who isn't blowing a bunch of sunshine up their butt about it, is not likely to impress.

I've been told as much to my face by believers: they don't care if they're right or wrong--they believe it because they want to believe it. And they don't want to believe in anyone who gives anything but good news.

He would probably get sick of telling people bad news all the time - they'd get upset and angry, and he'd go into hiding, vowing never to use his powers again.

GrandMasterFox said:

Why? Seriously?

If I were a real psychic and I could try to win the lottery I would do it. I would go for the MDC. I see no reason why a psychic has to be poor.

Heck, even *Randi himself said there is nothing wrong for charging people money for psychic reading so long as your are providing a real service with real results.

(IIRC it was during an interview hosted by Larry King that also included Rosmeri Althea)

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Good call, but the psychic wave are disturbed by the skeptic wave and he can never predict lotto, or casino , or anything .

Just kidding you are right naturally.

RobertlewisIR said:

Because people don't go to psychics for the truth (if they wanted truth, they wouldn't waste their time on nonsense).

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You would be right on most occasions, but of course not always.
The classic case would be parents of a missing child. They just want answers period. Sometimes not knowing is worst than knowing.

arthwollipot said:

He would probably get sick of telling people bad news all the time - they'd get upset and angry, and he'd go into hiding, vowing never to use his powers again.

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Actually, I'd agree with you on hiding but from an entirely different reason.

If I were a psychic and could predict something like the results of football games, I would single handendly have the unbelivable power of squashing the entire gambling industry. And it's not like the industry is known for playing fair.

So most odds that some mobster will take a hit on you.

RobertlewisIR said:

If they're able to predict lottery numbers, they may be wealthy. If they have to rely on fees from clients, they're likely to be poor. Why? Because people don't go to psychics for the truth (if they wanted truth, they wouldn't waste their time on nonsense). They go to psychics to hear what they want to be told. A real psychic who isn't blowing a bunch of sunshine up their butt about it, is not likely to impress.

I've been told as much to my face by believers: they don't care if they're right or wrong--they believe it because they want to believe it. And they don't want to believe in anyone who gives anything but good news.

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To all real psychics. How to earn heaps from clients. Tell parents of missing children "Send me no money now, but once you have used this information to find your child, dead or alive you pay me what you think the information is worth, so that I can afford to give the same service to other people." You will also pick up reward money from the police for finding criminals and the evidence to convict them. You do not have the same clients as fake psychics, so you do not care what they think.

RobertlewisIR said:

If they're able to predict lottery numbers, they may be wealthy. If they have to rely on fees from clients, they're likely to be poor. Why? Because people don't go to psychics for the truth (if they wanted truth, they wouldn't waste their time on nonsense). They go to psychics to hear what they want to be told. A real psychic who isn't blowing a bunch of sunshine up their butt about it, is not likely to impress.

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On the other hand, a true psychic would know exactly what they wanted to hear...

Dave

IIRC, the character from "the Dead Zone" could only see events as he touched a person, and it was always bad. Hard to make money off that kind of ability. Wasn't there a movie recently about a character (nick cage?) who could only see 5 minutes into the future?

mrq

The old X-Files had a great "near" psychic. I can't remember the name of the episode, but it was an older fellow whose powers seemed to blink on and off. I seem to remember one scene at the beginning where he was looking at a lottery ticket - he had picked one off all the correct numbers.

Also, he was assisting the duo in finding a killer. Unfortunately, the killer found him, because he (the killer) needed to know why he was doing what he did. I loved the old man's answer: "Why? Because you're a homicidal maniac."

Anyway, maybe the powers are real but not always "on". That could give you some good plot points.

These are some really good ideas... There are so many different ways to go with this (files away ideas in brain filing system. It's very full. A character who's a real psychic would make for a wonderful plot device (the target of a mob hit, a murder attempt for revealing the culprit, etc.). Or the character could be explored in more depth in a longer narrative-- what would happen if someone actually got psychic powers without any warning? What would their initial reactions be, and how might these change? About the advice to real psychics, though... something tells me that it might not actually be used by anyone...

I think that before you can really creative a genuine, if fictional, psychic you have to first establish what genuine is. Even if your world mimics our world it would have the one, major difference in that a psychic can prove that he is what he says without a doubt. So what constitutes as supernatural in your world? Do gods exist? Are there spirits? Does everyone project psychic energy? What is it that your character is able to manipulate/tap into to/see that no one else can? Once you have a clear picture of the setting and the material at your disposal creating a genuine, real person is easy. At that point you just have to determine how he reacts and associates with whatever reality is apparent to him and his fellows.

Maia said:

So I just finished RSL's recent multipart saga about his adventures in the perilous land of JVP, and an idea for a fictional work was hatched in my devious mind... (oh, okay, a certain amount of inspiration also came from The Dead Zone. (Clearly, this basic idea has been before, but there's nothing new under the sun. )

The plotline would involve a main character who had some kind of experience that turned him/her (not sure which yet) into a genuine psychic who could actually see the things that JVP, Sylvia Browne, etc., pretend to see. However, the crucial difference would be that this person would have absolutely no cold reading/manipulation abilities, and they'd have to tell people the truth instead of what they wanted to hear. So the question is what a genuine psychic would actually look like; what would their qualities be, particularly if their abilities had appeared unexpectedly?

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He would look exactly like me.

(PM me for photos.)

Kopji said:

Poor

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???


I was thinking multiple time lotto winner.

Skeptical spirits

Everytime someone asks about something for a story I end up writing one myself. Here goes.

SKEPTICAL SPIRITS: A short story

Andy was a typical businessman. He was in his early 40s, and was healthy and happy. He spent most of his time working at his software company. The hours were sometimes long, but he made good money and was proud of the business he had created and enjoyed the work. When he wasn’t working, he enjoyed sports, barbeques with the neighbors, traveling, and most of all spending time with his lovely wife and two beautiful children.

One day when Andy was golfing, he was struck by lightning. That’s when he met Doris. Doris had died 34 years ago. Andy could communicate with her psychically. Andy found “Doris” to be annoying and distracted him from his work and happy life. He told his doctor about the voices in his head. They tried drugs and therapy. Andy pretended like they were working even though he continued to hear Doris as clear as ever.

Doris told Andy that she was real. She told him some things about her life. He did some searching on the Internet and was able to verify a number of things Doris told him. Andy figured he must have seen information about this person surfing the web and was now just recalling some obscured facts due to the lightning.

Andy was driving out of town on business. He would be driving past where Doris had lived. Doris told him about a bracelet she had buried as child as “pirate treasure”. On his way back from the meeting, Andy went to the spot Doris told him about and started digging. He found the bracelet. Andy started to feel strange. He went to the court house and other places in town and verified as much as he could about Doris. Everything she had said was true. He was stunned.

Andy tried to convince his wife and others that he was psychic. He showed them the bracelet—but it was just some old child’s bracelet. He showed them the documents about Doris that he had collected—but they were just documents that were publicly available. Nobody believed Andy. They asked if he was psychic why didn’t he win the lottery, or predict a disaster, or guess how many fingers they were holding up behind their back, or win the JREF MDC. Of course Doris couldn’t predict the future better than anyone living. And Doris was in the spirit world. She could only talk to Andy. She could not otherwise see or interact with the living or the physical world.

Doris didn’t have anymore secret, personal information to tell Andy that he could use to prove to everyone else that he was psychic. He tried to get Doris to find out something from some other sprit that he could use to prove that she was real.

The problem was, none of the spirits believed that Doris could really communicate with “Andy”. Sure, some spirits had claimed that they could talk with the living, but they were all charlatans and there was absolutely no evidence that it could be done. Most spirits though t Doris was an old crackpot. Most of the people drawn to her were, themselves, crackpots.

Andy couldn’t just get up on stage and do some reading for somebody—Doris would have to go and find some spirit that knew something about that person. Andy tried to get Doris to find some secret from some other spirit so that he could use to prove his psychic powers, like Houdini or somebody like that. But travel and communication in the spirit world was difficult and Doris was old and tired and not very social. She also wasn’t quite sure that Andy was real, and she didn’t much like looking like a crackpot. She made some effort, but almost all the spirits that she met had died hundreds or even thousands of years ago. It was enough work to find someone who had died within the past 100 years let alone getting some secret from them that Andy could verify. Doris gave him some information and Andy rounded up some friends to try to verify his predictions, but they all turned out to be either unverifiable, false, or something that was public knowledge.

Andy’s marriage and friendships, and sanity and happy life, were eroding. Doris was none too happy either. Neither of them could find any benefit of the situation. They started talking less and less. They didn’t have much to say to each other. After a while, they stopped communicating altogether.

When he was old, Andy died. Having forever and forever to spend in the spirit world, Andy eventually with much effort, found Doris. He arranged a meeting. Andy met Doris in the spirit world with some of both of their friends. Nobody believed them. They all thought they were both crackpots. They didn’t have much in common or much to talk about. They never met or spoke with each other again.

THE END

And then of course there is the idea that the psychic gets a vision about an unsolved murder investigation and finds out where the body is. She goes to the police and tells them, the police search and find the body, and the psychic is immediately arrested as the prime suspect.

MrQhuest said:

IIRC, the character from "the Dead Zone" could only see events as he touched a person, and it was always bad. Hard to make money off that kind of ability. Wasn't there a movie recently about a character (nick cage?) who could only see 5 minutes into the future?

mrq

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It reminds me of Cass in Spider Robinson's "Fivesight";

This:

Belz... said:

This:

[URL]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_60804c345678e10c3.jpg[/URL]

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Good guys have cool beards.

GrandMasterFox said:

So I'm assuming you're going to call her Casandra?

Well, she would have no problem predicting 9\11 or any such disaster. I would say that she could identify if someone's mother is dying or anything of that sort. Any sort of tragedy that can be predicted scientifically can be used to see if the person has a high accuracy rate enough to warrent the MDC.

Of course since it's a fictional character we have no idea how her ability works exactly.

There was also an old charmed episode in the first season that set a similiar situation. Phoebe, a witch with psychic visions, sees a person is about to die in a car accident and she tries to warn him but is not willing to listen so she keeps harassing him over and over again.

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I've found myself imagining, at times, what might have happened to a real psychic who was able to see 9/11 before it happened.

Scenario one: She knew it would happen, but nothing in the vision could tell her when. She'd try to warn people she knew to stay away from the twin towers, but nothing would come of it, and people would laugh it off. Eventually, she'd start to doubt herself, and would stop trying to warn people. Then, when it happened, she'd be wracked with guilt and thoughts that if only she'd handled the situation better, people might have believed her and been saved.

Scenario two: She knew that it would happen, and when it would happen. She did everything in her power to keep people away from the twin towers on that fateful day, including some very attention-getting things -- blocking traffic, chaining the doors, calling in a bomb threat, whatever. It happens anyway. And she, naturally, gets a not-so-friendly visit from a gang of scary government agents who want to know what she knew and how she knew it. Maybe she had a totally innocuous Muslim neighbour or coworker who the agents will assume, based on her foreknowledge, must have been in on the whole thing and told her something -- because someone must have told her something. Everyone knows there's no such thing as psychics! Both of these characters are now in a great big steaming heap of trouble.

Other variations in how this psychic power worked would lead to other ways the story could play out, of course. It's an interesting thought experiment...

Keep in mind, that if you with option #2, logic states that she has to be arrested or something. I mean if law enforcement heard there was a woman going around talking about the attack before it happened... Psychic visions wouldn't be the most likely scenario.

A problem that I see is that you have to carefully limit the problem if you don't want to create paradoxes.

For instance, let's say that in 2 years, IBM will have developed a new microprocessor. As a psychic, you look into the future, see and copy the schematics of the microprocessor. You then present it to IBM, and they won't have to develop it in 2 years.

Definitely some sort of hat.

Skeptic Ginger said:

???


I was thinking multiple time lotto winner.

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I have a funny story about this and I can't get to sleep.

So, my wife is a 'real psychic'. I know I think I'm an expert at this stuff but in reality there is always more to learn. So I'm always learning new stuff about it. One my earliest requests was to make money on this with the lottery or better yet, our local casino.

Answer to making money using psychic power to predict winning numbers:

"It doesn't work that way"

(I've come to know that phrase fairly well.)

But we were at a local casino playing the poker machines. I quickly lost my $40 (Note 1) and so went over to stand by my wife playing in another area. She blamed her eventual loss on me, "since she was winning till then".

kopji Lesson #1:
The proper reply is:
A: But It doesn't work that way (confirming my learning of the earlier lesson)
B: Sorry honey I won't do it again
C: You're just saying that cause you love me
D: I had nothing to do with it

You were correct if you answered B, other answers go to the doghouse

So another trip (the casino is about 50 miles away). I lose almost all my $40 fairly quickly (do you sense a trend here?) My wife loses her $60 (don't ask). I have to go to the loo (I love those English words) so I tell her to finish up my losing streak for me. I also tell her I think I've figured out a pattern in my losses (Note 2), so if it goes up to about $200 just stop even if she feels lucky.

About five minutes later I return, and she waves $200.
'Wow' I say.
"I could have won more but you told me to stop"
She hands me my $40

kopji Lesson #2
The proper reply is:
A: Hey! you won that on my money.
B: Wow, that's pretty lucky
C: We should go blow the $200, you pick the machine
D: Amazing.

You were correct if you picked D, but C is not too bad either.

So anyway, I suppose there should be a skeptical moral lesson in all this. I think it is that the success of a psychic is partly explained by the gambler's fallacy. People want to believe something so they remember the successes and forget the not-so-successful. "Failed" is not part of the language.

(Note 1) I always lose $40 at the casino. I've actually been up as high as several hundred dollars, and sometimes I can play for several hours on my $40 which is rather fun... but I always lose $40.

(Note 2) Yeah, I'm such an idiot sometimes

*************************
To the topic!
How about a psychic as a surfing pro living on a beach in Maui?
You don't ever think of a psychic surfing. The thought of Sylvia doing that makes me want to go blind... but that would be cool since a real psychic is a bit like a surfer anyway. The psychic could be alternately crazy and sane, giving incomprehensible examples of why psychic readings are like finding a good wave, while noticing that the sudden string of tourist murders on Maui are somehow related to each other.