Once or twice I have posted on this board about a tarot reading my wife had last year with the minister who married us. A certain prediction she had made in great detail had come to pass.

Another prediction she made that day was very specific. She stated that we would hear at the end of March 2001 about the death of a young man, ages 36-42, who would die under unusual or mysterious circumstances. I was kind of freaked about because I am a man in that age group, and it sort of became a joke around the house-sort of a "death" watch. I have been extra cautious driving, and everytime I had any kind of pain in my body I thought it was the beginning of the end!

Last night my mother called. She had read an article in the paper about the brother of my first love from high school-a women I dated for several years, so of course I knew her brother well. His body was found on March 22nd underneath a train platform, cause of death initially unknown. He was 41 years old! The article my mom read stated the authorities after a week of theorizing, decided that Lee had tried to jump of the back of the train onto the platform and happened to miss.

I was totally freaked out. How could this tarot card reader predict the gender, within a very narrow age range, and that the death would be "mysterious". Would any skeptic like to explain?

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), March 31, 2001

Answers

futureshock: what a perfect example of a category 5 personality you are. fantasy prone, and easily manipulated.

YOU are the one that found the info to make that VERY VAGUE prediction come true. Look around at any other person you might consider significant in light of this false prophecy....chances are, someone from your past has a sibling or friend that lost someone in that age range as well. maybe a classmate, someone you went to camp with, etc. etc.

THAT is how the tarrow hucksters work....ALL of them. Give out vague and non-descript "predictions"....the suckers fill in the details.

Look at how your life changed just because some nut told you some made-up nonsense! YOU might very well have caused your "prophecy" to come true....through sheer paranoia!

Tell the conical star-n-moon hat wearers to take a hike!

Get a grip on reality!

-- Puh-leeez (use@your.gray.matter), March 31, 2001.

At least you can rest a little easier now,knowing that it isn't your number coming due.Maybe a party is in order,celebrating the end of the death watch?

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), March 31, 2001.

a minister that reads tarot-cards DUUUUUUUUUH?? GOD call's that an abomination--you think satan doesn,t =SET things up.??------deception is the name of the game. do yourself a favor=renounce that trash -repent & ask GOD to forgive your=ignorance.it is =witchcraft. and places you in a dangerous-position. dmeons function in --any form of so-called future seeking-apart from=scripture. ~~~~~~~~be not=decieved!!!!!!!

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), March 31, 2001.

demons was the mispell,I knew awoman in texas that commited-suicide- she was heavy into-tarot cards. sooner or later[after] the trap is set--satan,turns on those that=dishonor GOD.

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), March 31, 2001.

No I won't explain...since I can't. I'm just glad you're number isn't up yet, as I'm sure I'd be missing you.

-- (bygrace@thru.faith), March 31, 2001.

Years ago I had a vividly disturbing dream that my fiancee had been murdered. Shortly afterwards a neighbor went to a psychic who said "someone near you will die a violent death." Perhaps I was being suggestible but I then became very reticent to go into my bedroom at night with the drapes open and the lights on - I was irrationally afraid of shots being fired from the alley into the house. Lo and behold, six months later my fiancee was shot and killed by a neighbor who lived directly across the alley in view from our bedroom. Don't ask me how these events were "known" ahead of time but they sure as hell woke me up to the fact that there's something more out there that we occasionally pick-up on.

Let me also add that a dozen different people tried to make it to our house that night and all were detained for unexpected reasons. There's no doubt in my mind that this event was *supposed* to happen just as it unfolded and nothing was going to change it. When it's your time, it's your time!

But to make things even MORE freaky, my fiancee had a ring that he *always* wore. When it wasn't on his finger he gave it to me for safekeeping. He wasn't wearing the ring when he died and I didn't have it. I ripped the house apart looking for it but to no avail. His family came to pack up his belongings and they ripped through the place grabbing everything they could. I went to my room in tears because they were taking everything that reflected his essence. Then I looked up and there was the ring! It was just sitting on a table next to the bedside. I swear it materialized out of nowhere. In my mind I heard my fiancee say "I'll always be there when you need me"...the same words he had said to me only a week or so before his death.

Belief in the beyond, paranormal, other dimensions, parallel universes - whatever you want to call it - is experiential in nature. When the skeptics have unexplained events happen to them, then they won't be so quick to dismiss these types of occurances with smart-ass, dismissive remarks.

-- 1 (2@3.com), March 31, 2001.

Question: So how was Joseph's (?) ability to read the king's dreams any different than a psychic ability?

Weren't there many prophets and seers spoken of in The Bible?

-- (question@question.question), March 31, 2001.

Thank you, ByGrace, for your kind words. You have always accorded yourself in a civil manner here, and though you have a set theology, you do not denounce others, typically, and that is a definate plus.

I fail to see the vagueness in the prediction. The date was specific, the gender was specific, and the fact that the cause of death was not known for over a week was specific. I might even give a little on the age range, since it is mine and I know many people in that range; it is the total package, however, that makes this work.

Mt mother knew nothing about the prediction. It was not even my reading; it was my wife's reading.

Certainly there is the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy. I see nothing here suggesting that. I had not spoken to the victim's family in over a decade. This psychic also predicted three days before it happened that a Leo would be telling us bad news about a gemini. We received a phone call from my wife's mother, a Leo, regarding the sudden death of her first cousin, a gemini. The odds against making that kind of call are, pardon the pun, astronomical.

As for al-d, well, I am so glad that you consider my marriage a fraud because you do not agree with my minister's spirituality. It is your kind that continue to give christians a bad reputation.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), March 31, 2001.

p.s...welcome back, FS.

-- (cin@cin.cin), March 31, 2001.

question -

>>>>Question: So how was Joseph's (?) ability to read the king's dreams any different than a psychic ability?

I don't believe Joseph was psychic. He said he did not have the ability to interpret. -------Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I have had a dream, but no one can interpret it; and I have heard it said about you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.'' Joseph then answered Pharaoh, saying, "It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.''

>>>>Weren't there many prophets and seers spoken of in The Bible? Yes. In those days, if the prophet/ess was ever wrong, he/she was to be considered a false prophet. I don't believe there are true prophets today. I believe in a sixth sense (de ja vu type thing)...dunno what to think of that, frankly. Odd, I suppose. I haven't been to a psychic, so I can't vouch for their accuracy...but I believe they can be accurate.

-- (bygrace@thru.faith), March 31, 2001.

F.S, READ what GOD SAY,S A BOUT fortune tellers!!

and maybe theses words also from book of JOB=''the thing i[job] feared the most--has come upon me!!! I was in no-way knocking your marriage.but what kind on''minister'' violates =GODS WORD??? your marriage-commitment is between you & GOD--not a minister & his=tarot cards. all i,m trying to share with you,is YES there is the PROPHETIC-GIFT,S [BY=HOLY-SPIRIT] and the other=spirit[satan] he is a copycat you know!! ask the LORD for=discernment---we are living in an AGE of mucho-deception-peace bro.

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.co.), March 31, 2001.

FS - YW... and thanks for your contributions.

-- (bygrace@thru.faith), March 31, 2001.

P.S GOD said in jeremiah 33:3=''call upon ME and I will show you great & mighty things''---not read tarot-cards-or seek-future thru- mediums that are [clearly] forbidden in BIBLE.

~~~~~noy MY words-but=HIS~~~~~~we make=choices.

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), March 31, 2001.

Being general enough so that the True Believer can fill in the details is one trick. Relying on people to forget the vague predictions for which no plausible details could be made to fit is another. Anyone with a passing knowledge of parlor magic knows a hundred of these.

So I guess I should point out to FutureShock that those predictons weren't nearly as specific as you claim. The person was not identified by name, the day was not specified, the circumstances were described (in your own words) as "unusual or mysterious". And another parlor trick (and one of the very most important) is that people are easy to "steer" toward what they actually remember. It has been demonstrated ad nauseum that people who are inclined to believe this claptrap can be relied on to "remember" the after-the-fact specifics into something that was never said. Indeed, these *same people*, when they are played a videotape of what was actually said, sometimes become violent swearing that the tape was doctored. Their memories can be *trusted* dammit, they are *vivid*!

As Casey Stengel used to say, you can look it up.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 31, 2001.

"Would any skeptic like to explain?"

Well Future Shock, you said it yourself, don't you remember?...

"I've fallen, and I can't get out of Sleezy board...

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), February 21, 2001."

-- (Mr. Smartass has shoe @ on. other foot now), March 31, 2001.

FS, you say this incident is abnormal.

Flint, you say it is normal.

Exactly what is the difference?

How is anything in a world as mysterious the one "explained" by our science books "normal"?

-- oYo (@@...), March 31, 2001.

At least you can rest a little easier now,knowing that it isn't your number coming due.Maybe a party is in order,celebrating the end of the death watch?

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com),

ROFLMAO.....hey capn, can you give me the number (sending you telepathic energy) um, i need tonites lotto numbers the pot is at over 25 million.

Oh please? can you?

I went to a palmm reader w/my sister once, they took us in seperate rooms, and when we left, we discovered in addition to taking our $#$$they gave us the same line of BS....!

go figure.

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), March 31, 2001.

This was not a matter of remembering-the interview was taped and my wife and I transcribed it.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), March 31, 2001.

no no no that's normal what's not normal is keeping the tape for that long ..... hic!

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), March 31, 2001.

Hi,FS, I got dragged along to a medium many years ago and she told me i had a gift of healing which I thought was totally off the wall.Some 10 years later a friend of mine was suffering from gout and jokingly said he would try anything to help ease the pain.So I said i would try out this healing "gift ".Boy there was nearly a riot !He accused me of trying to burn him ....with my bare hands.Now a skeptic would just dismiss that comment by saying that his knees were cold and my hands were hot but all I can say is thereafter he was almost wary of me as though I was going to sprout two wings or something. So I have never tried healing another person .I guess what I am trying to say,FS,is to keep an open mind but not get tooo hung up about what happened.

-- Chris (enquiries@griffenmill.com), April 02, 2001.

Once, when I was a child, I had a dream about a giant easter bunny. I awoke in the morning with the sticky residue of chocolate smeared all over my face. Coincidence? I think not!

So a couple of years ago I had a dream about the end of the world with the year "2000" in bright lights floating over my head and buckets of hundred dollar bills being dumped on me. I woke up, started a Web site and fleeced a lot of suckers out of their money.

I BELIEVE brother!

-- Idiot Savant (gary@north.com), April 02, 2001.

"SKEPTICS"? On this board? Naaah, never!

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), April 02, 2001.

-- (-@-.-), April 02, 2001.