Ouija boards, psychics, etc.

Exactly Jane

I don't know if there are any genuine readers or not but a lot/most are con artists. They fish for information and human nature makes you remember the 'accurate' stuff and forget the inaccuracies.

It's like the people who predict airline disasters. I could say that I had a dream last night. I saw a large white plane with some sort of blue markings flying over water. The I was inside and people were screaming as plane seemed to drop and the oxygen masks were released. The I was floating about the ground and I could see burning wreckage. I don't have to specific about where or when because unfortunately at some point in the future there will be a plane crash. The plane will be white with blue markings. Part of it's flight will have been over the sea and the wreckage will burn. If this happens sooner rather than later I will claim that I foresaw it in a dream. If it doesn't happen within a reasonable time then my dream will be quietly forgotten.

Also why are all the dead people happy. Surely some have been consigned to hell and come back to warn of the consequences of certain behaviours.

The only one I've ever heard of was Jacob Marley and he was fictional lol.

I have very specific but not very useful dreams. eg: I dreamt I saw a killer whale very close up-next day one was photographed in the Firth of Forth. Then I dreamt that Catherine Cookson has died. Read the paper next morning and there was the news that she had. I had absolutely no prior knowledge of either of these and similar events and they were of no interest at all to me. Was just left wondering.

Also why are all the dead people happy. Surely some have been consigned to hell and come back to warn of the consequences of certain behaviours

If it was real, and I have no doubt that it's not, but if it was and some psychic came and found me in the afterlife and said "I have your DD here do you have a message for her?" my message would be "C'mon love, you need to concenrate on the living an not be spending your time and money like this trying to contact the dead, stop this now, love you! mum."

Dreams: people have tens of thousands of dreams in their life time, the ones that bear no resemblance to their days don't get noted, but the odd one that statistically will appear to "come true" will be remembered

E.g. I've probably had 100s of dreams where a dog featured in it at some point, and I went on to have a normal day, but if I had another dream which featured a dog, and then a dog ran out in front of my car later that day - did I predict it in my dream? I don't think so, however I'll remember that dog dream IYKWIM

How about respecting other peoples hopes and not trying to squash them to fit with your particular beliefs? The dead hand of your particular logic may be trying (but not succeeding) in crushing something potentially extremely interesting. There is more in heaven and earth etc etc

spooky coincidences are statistically going to happen

People have no reason to mention all the times where there was nothing weirdly coincidental about an event, they'll only mention when there IS

Absolutely fine. I'll leave you to your closed mind. I wish you much joy of it!

Actually believing in superstitions rather than explainations is more closed minded by definition.

Why try to wrap all these different experiences as 'superstition'? There is clearly far more to this than some can perceive. Believe what you want to. Your beliefs are not the only ones.

supersitions/occult/otherside, just using it as an umbrella term for believing the old fashioned "spooky" explainations to things that have since largely been explained by maths and psychology etc.

Oh no they haven't! We must agree to differ. I wouldn't dream of rubbishing some of the experiences related by other GNers on this thread among others.

Psychics do people harm, superstitions and belief in the occult cause real harm. Whatever OuiJas do to people's psyches, it can be very damaging for them. I don't really believe that "live and let live" applies with things that cause real harm and damage.

You don't have a choice. People will always believe what they want to believe.

notanan what harm and damage? What evidence?