forge wrote:
But as far as astrology goes, I've often wondered if there is a legitimate scientific reason for it - such as pollens in the air at that time of year - or whatever - because it has been staggeringly accurate at times, and difficult to explain away
my mum was a hippy right into it when I was a kid and time and time again I saw her get it right, she taught me a few bits and still to this day I frequently guess peoples sign
now, without going into my family history too much I'll say that my family are incredibly into this malarkey, dating from a long long time back. They have a history of it.
Of course it is possible that there is some factual basis behind personality typing based on time of year of birth, etc. etc. But there is a, lets be honest, greater chance there is no substance to it at all and that it is merely human psychology.
I know quite a lot about this stuff, like I said - family history, also I was in the Magic Circle when I was a lot younger. Recent practitioners of 'mentalism' like Derren Brown illustrate some of the quirks of psychology well.
As far as guessing peoples signs, you just guessed mine with a chance of 1:12 . you guessed wrongly. I want you to remember that and offset it against your next guess.
secondly - people are incredibly self deluding, this is a massive topic and it is almost impossible to cover adequately here as you simply wouldn't believe me without a string of detailed proof about just how incredibly people can edit their memories to conform to a belief system.
In brief : a test subject in a fake seance who is told "there is an older man coming through , he died with a health problem somewhere in this region (indicates torso) , his name is frank or fred, does that ring a bell"
Person : "my dad died of a health problem, a heart attack, but his name was bill"
Faker : "yes that's right he says HIS name is Bill, your dad. But he wants to tell you about someone called fred that he has met on the other side ..."
.. continues.
when the test subject is asked to recount exactly what was told to them, word for word. They will say
"I was told: there is a man here it is your dad, he is called bill , he died from a heart attack"
when asked to repeat EXACTLY what they were told again, the person becomes confused, "that is exactly what I was told"
when they are shown a video of what they were really told they then start to just ify it ! They cover for the 'psychic' , making cosmic excuses for the person who is actually a lab volunteer!
but hey, if it gets you through the day - whatever.
But trust me, there is a magicians forum on the net, and a hell of a lot of those TV celleb psychics are all in a special secret members only area , all swapping cold reading tricks like this.
It is a fascinating subject actually, there are thousands of mentalism books on the subject and I have quite a few of them. Summarised : All humans are a lot more gullible than they think they are.
chose his name