Using Psychic Ability to Spot Liars, Con Artists and Other Jerks

 

We like to be trusting and open people.  It’s in our nature.  Yet occasionally we get fooled by people who are just using us and we find ourselves wondering what went wrong.  Why didn’t we sense what was happening?  What the heck good is it being psychic if we can’t spot a liar or a con?

You can do it.  And if you know what to look for, you’ll get even better at it.  You do it by using your honest and trusting nature to work for you instead of against you.  I should add here that what I’m going to tell you are my thoughts on the subject and not the last word.  If you have anything you can add, please send me a comment.  (Comments are moderated, so it won’t show up until I approve your first one.  After that, your comments will show up when you write them.)  I think that this is a subject of some importance to psychic people, so let’s explore it.

I have some background with this.  I’m in business for myself and I see a lot of clients in the space of a year.  I was also in sales and purchasing and I learned something about negotiation as well.  So this will be practical information with a psychic twist to it.

First of all, you cannot do this if your own stress level is too high.  This will block  your ability to be sensitive to what is happening and will blind you to some obvious clues and certainly to the less obvious ones.  However, there are some things you can watch for.  The trick is often in not just what they do and say, but also what they don’t do and don’t say.

I’m defining a liar as someone who will betray you, and a con as someone who will get you to act against your own self interest.  The more professional they are, the more subtle the signs will be.  We’ll start with the basics and work into the psychic part:

1.  Liars and cons always have an answer ready. And why wouldn’t they?  They can always just make stuff up.  Most people focus on the answer and whether it’s reasonable, but you can also focus on whether they have an answer.  When people are telling the truth, they have no problem saying “I don’t know.”  If someone is coming up with answers no matter what the question, this is a red flag.  If you have the presence, you can test people on this.

2.  They use anger to deflect criticism. A great test for a liar is to question their truthfulness.  Pointed questions that get close to questioning truthfulness can also work. Their stress will increase in the form of anger.  This is why psychic people often get manipulated; our tendency is to avoid anger and they will use this against us to deflect attention away from their lie (or con).  The need to be polite can be overwhelming and this is OK.  You don’t need to confront them, you just want to know.  Anger is a red flag.  Honest people generally expect and welcome attempts to establish their honesty.  It’s no big deal for them.  Their reaction to a direct accusation is usually just stunned silence.   It’s unusual for them and they act like it.   Being quick to anger is a red flag.

3.  The story changes under questioning.  Big red flag.  This, above all else is a sign to get away from that person as fast as possible.  No good can come of this encounter.  The reason is that they are clearly telling you things that they think you want to hear and therefore have no problem shaping what they say to fit you.  This is also the realm of really bad psychic readers.

4.  Con artists want you to take action on something right away.  This is a typical sales ploy, but individuals use it as well.  By creating a sense of urgency, they increase the stress level and try to push people into impulsive decisions.  They always have a deadline.  What I do is simply refuse to be pushed into any decision.  I’ve had people tip their hands just by pushing me too hard.  They know that when you have time to think you’ll probably say no.  They are also generally emotionally invested in getting you to go along with them and if you know what to look for you can psychically sense this.  If someone is emotionally invested in getting you to go along with them, it’s probably not leading to a good outcome for you.

5.  Liars need you to agree with them.  This is one of the subconscious things that liars can’t normally control.  The need to lie is ultimately a position of weakness and it is emotional.  Disagreement grates on them and raises their stress level.  The heightened nervousness usually betrays them.

6.  They want to make you feel special.  This can catch you off guard if you’re not used to it, but it’s also an effective marketing tool.  In video games, the object is often to save the world and along the way you’re being told how special you are to the “cause.”  In a way, it’s the same thing.  A good way to tell that you’re being had is that you’re presented as being better than someone else.  Honest people almost never make these negative comparisons.  You generally know what you are good at and what you’re not.  You don’t need other people to tell you this.  If you’re receiving compliments that you wouldn’t normally receive, this is a red flag.

That’s it for the ordinary stuff, now we’ll move on to using your psychic ability.

7.  Liars and Cons are never truly relaxed.  One of  areas where you’ll have to gain some awareness is to realize that some people come to you with a great deal of tension that you’re going to pick up on.   It will happen every time because being a liar or a Con creates a lot of inner tension.  Your thinking will go mushy.  If this happens, you must remember just one thing.  No one can make you do anything, so do nothing.  Take no action no matter what.  Are you missing a great deal?  So what.  Did you just get told someone trash talked you?  So what.  Do nothing until you can get away from this person and get your head clear.  Then, if it’s important, go get some more information from someone else.  When in doubt, walk away.

8.  Liars carry the energy of being distracted. Liars are not clear thinkers and if you’ve encountered someone that never seems clear, they are almost certainly involved in lying.  If they were clear with themselves, they couldn’t lie.

9.  Cons carry the energy of guilt.  It’s impossible to hurt people without feeling something.  They can hide this, but not from us.  If you feel the powerful presence of guilt around someone, chances are, it’s not coming from you.  It’s this guilt and the lying that they constantly do that raises their stress level.

All of this takes some practice.  The hard part is to not get caught up in what people are telling you and to focus on the people themselves.  And not just what they’re telling you, but how they’re telling you.

The people I haven’t discussed yet are probably the worst because they carry none of the traits I’ve described except the high tension level.  These are the people who are focused on their needs exclusively of everyone else’s.  They are extraordinarily selfish but here’s the trick.  They don’t see themselves that way.  Because they don’t, you won’t pick that up from them and you will have all kinds of trouble if you get into any sort of relationship, business or otherwise with them.

Their idea of fair is completely skewed in their favor and they see a fair deal as getting cheated.  They will give you clues in their speech and behavior that this is how they think and they do have some behavior traits to watch out for:

• They expect to be trusted, but they don’t trust you.
• They are not straightforward and completely honest about their intentions.  It’s like pulling teeth to get them to disclose everything.
• They will almost always negotiate and they don’t care how fair the deal is to you.
• They will fight over money and possessions without hesitation.
• They perceive others as “out to take advantage of them” and feel that they always have to be on guard.

My strategy is to walk away from any situation where these people are present.  They are very troublesome unless things go perfectly well for them, which is usually not the case.  Trouble follows them.  Don’t do business with, or engage people with fundamental religious beliefs or very conservative politics if you can avoid it because that goes hand in hand with this behavior.  Also watch out for the very rich and others who are excessively focused on money.  You just don’t want to deal with people who are in these extreme categories.

You can protect yourself by comparing your honesty and openness to theirs. This is your measuring stick.  And in conclusion, stay alert and present and focus on the person.  If you find yourself getting caught up in a situation, just walk away.  Your head will clear and you will be be able to question what is going on and remember, no one can make you do anything you don’t want to do.

Advice for Young Psychics

 

Nothing sucks quite like being in the 12 to 15 age range.  For many of us, this was one of the hardest times of our lives and most of us do not have happy memories from this age.  As adults, this is a time when we remember that being accepted by other kids and being part of the gang was very important.  Unfortunately, psychic ability makes us different.

I can remember watching other kids and wondering how they could just relax and enjoy themselves and wondering why I couldn’t do that too.  I think that it takes us a long time to get settled.

Part of that difference is that we are more emotional than most people.  Psychic people have bodies and minds that are more sensitive than normal and this affects everything in our lives.  One of the important things about this is that as our emotions rise, our normal thinking changes.  This happens to everyone, but because we are more emotional it affects us more strongly.  This is a weakness when we are young and becomes a strength later in life.

Because we experience these changes in our thinking more strongly, we become more aware of it and we learn to deal with it better than most people.  But that happens much later; for now, you will just have to go through the emotions and know that this changes your thinking.   An example of this is that when we are very angry we might hate someone, but once we calm down we don’t feel that way anymore.  I just want you to know that this is normal and it happens to everyone, even adults.

I don’t know of any psychic people who are really popular and have a lot of friends.  That’s normal for us; we don’t like parties very much either.  They’re too noisy; we’re much happier hanging out with a few people that we know really well.

Psychic ability generally grows stronger as you get older and there is no peak and then decline as far as I can tell.  It takes a long time to integrate it into your everyday life and to understand how it works for you.  Because of how our society views psychic ability, there is no test for your ability and you will have no way of knowing what the strengths and weaknesses of your talents are without a lot of trial and error.  You will be literally discovering who you are.

You will have to deal with people who don’t believe that you have psychic ability and they will be completely certain that they are right and you won’t be able to convince them.  You will read in textbooks that you are fooling yourself and that you have a mental problem.   Some people will act like you’re crazy too.   People have all sorts of reasons for believing that psychic ability does not exist and they will ridicule you for thinking differently.  There will occasionally be people who are frightened of you.

Most people though, either won’t care or will be supportive of you if they find out that you’re psychic.  Most psychic people that I have known dislike being told they are phonies so much though, that they rarely tell anyone about their ability.  It’s normal for psychic people to wait until they know someone pretty well to tell them.  Even though I write about it all the time, even I don’t tell everyone I meet.

The truth is that your psychic ability can be shown through subatomic physics (quantum physics) to be ordinary.  It is natural.  There are people who study psychic ability called parapsychologists.  These scientists have proven that psychic ability exists by regular scientific standards but it involves a really big change in thinking that many people are not ready to accept.  We are in the middle of a long and difficult scientific revolution and psychic ability is in the middle of it.  It has to do with consciousness and physics.  As with any scientific revolution, many people do not accept the new ideas and most people don’t know anything about it.  That’s what’s happening.

You may end up finding this out the hard way, but I am going to tell you anyway.  Psychic people and drugs do not go together.  Cocaine, meth and other stimulants are absolutely horrible for you and don’t bother even trying them; you won’t be missing anything.  You won’t get the high that other people like, but you will get the side effects.  I’m not going to mention cigarettes because you’ll never smoke them.  Cigarettes are nasty and you’ll know this immediately if you ever try one.

Alcohol, pot and heroin are the drugs of choice for sensitive people, but they all come with a very high price: They do two things that you won’t like at all.  First, they shut off your psychic ability and make you stupid; You won’t be able to really “feel” when you’re under the influence and second, they stop you from growing emotionally.  Probably the worst of it is that you forget to do stuff that is important to you and your self control gets pretty bad.  If you do drugs you’ll always be feeling guilty about stuff you did or didn’t do when you finally sober up.  Because you are psychic you will never be able to forget how you treated people badly or the times that you screwed up so much that it hurt other people.  You’ll remember for the rest of your life.  You can’t be on drugs and be a good person.  You have to choose.

When it comes to other drugs, such as aspirin or prescription drugs, most psychic people find that they either avoid them, use natural remedies or use drugs in moderation.  Also, because depression is a serious problem for psychic people, some of us, (not me) use anti-depressants.  You can beat depression without drugs, but you have to be honest with yourself and be sure to talk to people about your feelings.

And I want to end this with the understanding that I cannot possibly tell you all the things you need to know and I cannot guarantee that I have even told you the most important things.  What we don’t know about psychic people could fill a library;  I can only help so much.  After that, you’re on your own.

The Perils of Skepticism

I had an on-line discussion recently in which I debated the subject of Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge, about which I know quite a bit, so I completely punked the guy’s arguments. How he handled utter defeat was instructive, because it shows a lot about how skeptics think. Here’s the beginning. M is the skeptic, W is a neutral observer and I am C:

W: you honestly dont beleive ANY are real, anywhere ? or have some unexplained gift ?

M: Nope. None of them do. They’re mostly a bunch of con artists, and those who genuinely believe that they CAN predict the future, are insane.If they wish to PROVE their abilities at predicting the future, then ask them to accurately choose the next winning sequence of numbers in a major lottery drawing.

C: In case you’re interested, psychic ability has been proven to exist. There is a lot of science to back it up and it doesn’t conflict with physics.

M: NOT according to Dr. James “The Amazing” Randi. His entire life has been devoted to exposing fakes, charlatans and con artists.

He and his foundation have a standing offer of ONE MILLION (USA) DOLLARS, to anyone who can conclusively PROVE that ANY form of psychic phenomena or paranormal ability genuinely exists, in front of a panel of scientific experts from all over the world.

Take a look, for yourself:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Clearly, what we have here is an uneducated skeptic.  Anyone who uses Randi’s challenge instead of real science to determine the validity of psychic ability has already made a grave logical error and one that I have seen many times coming from skeptics.  Believing themselves to be rational and logical, they do not question their own assumptions.  Randi’s challenge is seen as the ultimate proof that psychic ability does not exist and they don’t need any evidence beyond that.  So they don’t look for it.  The belief is never challenged.  Now watch what happens when I call this into question:

C: I’m sure Mr. Randi is a nice man, but he hardly trumps 130 years of science. He has no experience with the field of parapsychology, no experience in running scientific experiments and has not published any scientific peer reviewed articles. A challenge in which he is judge and jury cannot be seen as scientific proof of anything. Although the challenge has been ongoing for what? ten years? We have only his word that no one can pass the challenge. There is absolutely no transparency in his process.

Compare that to the Parapsychological Association, which is a member of the The American Association for the Advancement of Science and regularly publishes peer reviewed studies. Here’s my article about the evidence for psi. You should read it.
http://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/evidence-for-psi/

W: nicely said

M: I am still waiting for Randi’s bona fide challenge to be accepted.

Note how he publicly embarrassed THESE phonies/fakes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch

Know about James Hydrick? He’s now a prison inmate. Here he is, being exposed as a total fraud and fake, by The Amazing Randi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch (Part 2)

Here is James Hydrick CONFESSING & ADMITTING to being a total fake and a fraud:

http://www.youtube.com/watch

Those who deride James Randi, have no idea about what they are talking. “They” prefer to believe in the unbelievable.

James Randi is one of the most respected members of the scientific community, and a hero to skeptics and logical-thinking folks, everywhere.

Make sure you have your “facts” correct, before publicly spewing them on AB. Otherwise, you display your ignorance.

At this point of course, the discussion has completely jumped the rails.  He does not address transparency, nor the actual evidence for psi nor calmly address questions of fairness that I have brought up.  Instead, he gives me a list of debunking success as though this were proof of any sort.  To him perhaps, it is.  He is having a logic problem; he does not understand that positive proof of frauds is not negative proof of psychic ability.  And note the use of the insult at the end of his statement.  It is an indication that at some level, he knows he is losing the argument.  We continue:

C: He is a debunker, not a scientist. You should know the difference. His value is only as a magician catching frauds. Please note that none of this has to do with the challenge, which, according to Randi, many people apply for. Where are the detailed results?

He has explicitly refused to test homeopath John Benneth and backed down from a challenge issued by Dr. Jule Eisenbud, who wagered $100K that Randi could not duplicate the “thought photography” of Ted Serios, even with the aid of a prop in which a gimmick could be housed. Randi has ignored challenges to the test such as English psychic Chris Robinson.
Dick Bierman, PhD proposed a presentiment test to Randi which Randi simply never followed up on.

This is from the book “Parapsychology and the Skeptics” by Chris Carter

M: I will respect your position, only AFTER someone from “your side” has COLLECTED the US$1,000,000 being offered by the JREF., OR you prove conclusively, before a panel of scientific experts, that JAMES RANDI is a “fraud” and “a fake,” which you will NEVER DO.

(And James Randi is MORE of a scientist, than those who castigate him.)

Or, failing that (as you certainly will), prove that Uri Geller or Peter Popoff are indeed “real.”

The ONLY WAY to get me to believe IN YOU, is to do the things I have previously mentioned.

James Randi is more REAL than Jesus Christ.

It should have been obvious to “M” that logically, once it is shown that the challenge is not offered in a fair and even handed way, that the discussion is over.  The claim that no one has demonstrated psychic ability and therefore it doesn’t exist, cannot be legitimately made if you leave anyone out.  The million dollar challenge is reduced to a mere publicity stunt at this point.  If “M” cannot challenge my facts directly, then he has lost the debate.  What you are seeing here though, is the main point of what I am talking about when I bring up the perils of skepticism: namely, that skepticism always has the danger of degenerating into a form of dogmatism.  While many examples are more subtle than this, much of skepticism goes down this path.

The problem with skepticism is that in operating from a position of assuming that they are right they inevitably give more weight to their evidence while trivializing evidence that they disagree with.  In this case, the skeptic has gone to absurd lengths to maintain his position.  He sides with a single publicized challenge over a mountain of scientific evidence; his need to be right has overshadowed any and all logic in his arguments.  Although the argument continues, nothing more can be gained from it.  The skeptic piles it on with his personally unchallenged belief that The Million Dollar Challenge is last word in evidence for psi.  To wit:

C: If James Randi is not taking everyone who applies and putting them through an open and well documented test whose fairness and rigor can be shown to be beyond question, then I cannot take his challenge seriously. It does not appear that he is willing to let anyone win. Therefore, I doubt that I can prove anything to you on your terms.

I consider Randi to be an excellent magician and extraordinary debunker. He is quite useful to parapsychology in this capacity. His flaw though, is that he lacks any sort of objectivity.
You have not commented on the Evidence for Psi article that I linked to. I suggest you do so. I think that the science is quite different than what you believe it to be. The tests have nothing to do with being duped by tricksters. They’re not set up that way.

M: In every case where James “The Amazing” Randi has refused to allow someone to participate in “The Challenge,” it was because the challenger has requested to CHANGE THE PARAMETERS in some way (as James Hydrick tried to do, in front of a nationwide audience, and a live studio audience).

James Randi has told every one of them, “There will be no changes to ANY of the protocols,” which have been agreed to by the scientific community who actually makes the final decision in awarding the money.

It’s like saying, “I’ll play baseball with you, but MY SIDE must be allowed FIVE ‘OUTS,’ instead of the normal three.”

It’s the foundation’s money (not James Randi’s) so the foundation protocols WILL govern the outcome, and with NO CHANGES, WHATSOEVER.

Those who can’t abide by the rules and protcols, CAN’T “play.”

C: There are really only two scientific communities who can scientifically evaluate a psi experiment. The Society for Psychical Research and the Parapsychological Association. No one else has the expertise or understands the subject as well. Parapsychology is a statistical science and there is a lot you have to understand to create a fair test. I guarantee you, the experts in the field are not involved with the challenge. So technically, no, it hasn’t been agreed to by the scientific community.

The most important part of the test is what odds against chance are considered sufficient to pass. Randi can win every time if he sets these to impossible levels. (In fact, that’s exactly what he does.) A test that would seem otherwise fair can be doctored this way.
You should read the rules more carefully. Challenges are strictly at the challengers’ expense.
-
This is all moot though. Since he has decided not to take on all comers, his claim of no psychic ability is void.

M: I’ve already explained that Mr. Randi and his group will NOT honor any requests of ANY kind, to change the test parameters. I suspect that you are one of those individuals who enjoys deriding folks like James Randi, because you know of no other way to tear him down.

But, you fail, because you can’t provide any EVIDENCE to prove conclusively that Mr. Randi, his foundation and his offer are “bogus.”

As far as the scientific community backing him up, here is just ONE organization that supports his challenge:

http://www.csicop.org/

That organization is composed of many respected members of the scientific community.

I suggest you utilize your energies towards coming up with as way to get the US$1,000,000, instead of arguing with me, because no matter how much you argue or belittle Mr. Randi, I won’t pay you US$1 Million.

After this I finished with an admittedly snarky comment about an easy victory.  I probably shouldn’t have, but I did.  The tone and arrogance of these discussions  occasionally get to me.  I could have pointed out that CSICOP, or The Committee for Scientific Investigation as it is now known, has no real investigators on staff and explicitly does not do investigations, and isn’t actually scientific, but why? There is obviously some serious cognitive dissonance going on here.  More arguments, no matter how sound, are not going to change anything.

How is this skepticism better than approaching things that I don’t understand with an open mind?  Why not suspend disbelief over someone else’s argument long enough to consider it?  From my side of things, I didn’t start out doubting Randi’s challenge.  I just started looking into it to get a feel for what it was.   I was willing to believe that it was legitimate but not without investigating it.  The more I found out though, the less I was impressed with it until finally the weight of facts and unanswered questions led me to understand that it was not worthy of inclusion in legitimate discussions about psi.

The trouble with skepticism is that it rests on all sorts of beliefs like this.  “If psychic ability were real, then they would be able to . . . ” if you’ve filled in the blank, then ask yourself the question:  How do I know that?  Did I pull it out of thin air because it sounded good, or do I actually have science to back it up?  A lot of what sounds logical and rational is built on nothing more than beliefs.  To learn anything, we have to give some topics room to be different than what we imagine them to be.  Skepticism simply does not allow this.  Consequently, it forces a person to unlearn something old in order to learn something new.  This is advancement by cognitive dissonance and it’s very inefficient.

Consequently, I try to keep my skepticism to a minimum.