I lived in Tennessee 15 year ago, and dropped into a roadside house which had a sign hanging up saying “psychic”
I thought it would be interesting to see if they said anything “real”
The lady was called Vivian Grey, she was in her eighties and bed-ridden.
The bed was in the front room of a small house ( shack really) outside of Knoxville, TN.
There were pictures on the wall of her with various country music stars she had done readings for.

I was carefull to not tell her anything about myself, as I wanted to see what she would tell me.
I was very impressed with her. She was very specific about details of my life, my family, and my work.
I didn’t get the sense that she was “fishing” for clues, she did just come straight out with information.

She told me that I had come to Tennessee to take care of a sick friend ( true).
She used his name (true, Bill), which impressed me, as I’d been careful to not say his name, as I wanted to test her abilities.
She told me when he had died. (true, he had died 5 weeks earlier)

She told me I worked in a new technology, at the forefront of technology ( true, I had been working in a genetic laboratory in NC)
She said I could also work in television (true, I make films, and had a community TV show)
She said I was artistic ( true, I paint and draw)
She said I was the eldest of 3 brothers ( true)
She said one of my brothers is gay (true)
She said that I was interested in social justice ( true )
She said that my grandfather on my mothers side was also interested in social justice (true)

When I asked her about the future she shocked me by saying ” you will nearly be killed twice in your life, once when you are
27 and again when you are 40.
I really didn’t want to be told that and it was a surprise.
I can say that when I was 27 someone tried to shoot me in the head outside my house in Tennessee,
and when I was 40 I missed the London subway / bus bombing.

I just thought that Vivian Grey was so specific and detailed in what she said to me that she was for real.
I understand that we are continually expanding our understanding of the mind and the universe, and things that “seem” impossible do occur. I consider myself to be psychic.

I was interested to hear from anyone else who visited Vivian Grey, and see what they thought of her.

Sounds like cold reading to me. The ‘you will nearly die twice’ seems to base upon hindsight. Any accident occurring in a certain year of your life could be construed afterwards as near-death (and it would be true certainly for the hundreds, if not thousands who didn’t die in the Underground bombings).

Wasn’t ‘Vivian Grey’ a book written by Benjamin Disraeli? I’m sure it was.

Renquist - 22 June 2007 01:02 AM

Wasn’t ‘Vivian Grey’ a book written by Benjamin Disraeli? I’m sure it was.

Yep.  I was just googling that.  Familiar with the title, but not the book itself.  It seems heavily linked (on Google) to psychic societies.

Tah - 22 June 2007 01:08 AM

Renquist - 22 June 2007 01:02 AM

Wasn’t ‘Vivian Grey’ a book written by Benjamin Disraeli? I’m sure it was.

Yep.  I was just googling that.  Familiar with the title, but not the book itself.  It seems heavily linked (on Google) to psychic societies.

Way-hey! Obscure literary knowledge wins again

Well, ideacircus (great name!), I for one have a truly open mind.

If your report is true, then perhaps you did run into a psychic, and insofar as she sounded fairly indigent, she was not the typical person we run into here, namely the Sylvia Browne type, or Uri Geller, or five thousand others of that ilk.  WE also get lots of people predicting Armageddon and nuclear attacks and such, though they never come back to post after their ‘hit’ date comes and goes.

To be sure, I do maintain an open mind on everything, but your story is truly and honestly pretty uncommon, perhaps the only psychic reading ever in the history of mankind that came true.

Your near-death incidents certainly are genuinely near-death, and everything else was pretty accurate.  (Not like the Art Bell psychic on the radio who predicted a couple years ago there would be a tragedy involving water, then a few months later Katrina hit, causing Art to declare her ‘an amazing prophet’.)

Now, of course, it is only your word that I have to go on, and I do not know you.  My skeptic side tells me you are hoaxing us, or probably hoaxing us, whatever.

But, you yourself are the only person who knows for sure!

Dan, carefully straddling the fence

Dan Jr. - 22 June 2007 04:10 AM

If your report is true, then perhaps you did run into a psychic…

Or a time traveler!

She came to this time (or anywhere in the future where this thread still exists), read this and then knew exactly what to tell him!!!

Amazing!!!!!

I’m interested to read all your comments.

I was surprised at how specific she was, and consistently accurate with facts.
She did say some things about my life that were inaccurate.
As soon as I left her, I wrote down what she said. The vast majority of it, happens to be accurate about me, my life, my family.

I have always been sceptical about psychics, but wanted to see if she was for real.
I would say that I was convinced that she had some ability.

I can see how after the event I could make the the readings ” predictions ”  have meaning.

I still cannot see how she knew peoples names, as I was careful not to say them.
I may have said the person name without realizing ?

One of the things she said that is the most difficult to explain away is about my grandfather.
She told me about his beliefs, which were things that I didn’t know about, till I checked it with my mother.

You may think this sounds funny, or that I’m joking.
She had a poodle sitting on the bed with her, and a parrot in a cage.
She kept looking at them while she was doing the reading. She didn’t just casually glance at them, she stared at them. I got the impression she was reading their reactions to me, and to my responses.
Have you heard of psychics “reading” animals reactions to people?

I wasn’t very happy about her telling me I was nearly going to die twice.
I rather wish she had never said it, as I spent the whole of those years with that thought in the back of my mind.

I can see how her “predictions” can be explained in “rational” ways; but I think that at least some of her reading of me was psychic.

Try http://badpsychics.com.
Maybe they know of her.

[quote author=“Beasjt

I remember an experiment where test subjects were shown a film of a psychic (actually a stage magician) bending a key with his mind, after the initial sleight of hand, the magician put the key on a table and said “...and look, I’ve let go of it and it’s still bending!”

Questioned later, I think more than half of the subjects reported they had seen the key bend while on the table.

I am sceptical about psychics (particularly some of the mumbo-jumbo that is used to explain their abilities such as all that stuff about “a higher plane” and so on), but not actually hostile so long as they aren’t hurting anybody. And every now and then you do run across something that sounds at least possible.

Anyway, I have a friend (I’ve unfortunately lost contact with her, but she’s a good person) who is sort of a believer in psychics. I say “sort of” because she’s so much more…rational about it, if I can use that word, than most believers you run into. She in fact says that there’s nothing supernatural about psychic abilities and that everybody has some psychic ability but that it has to be cultivated.

But the other thing she told me that really struck me is when she said that the problem with psychics is that no matter how much natural psychic talent you have and no matter how much you’ve developed your talents, you will not always be on the the top of your game, psychic-talent-wise. You will always have bad days and mediocre days.

This isn’t a problem so long as you use psychic abilities as, according to her, they are meant to be used, which is as they are available and as needed to help yourself and those around you. The problem, she said, really starts when you begin to make money from it and particularly when you come to rely on the money you make from it. The reason that’s a problem is that you’ll still have those bad and mediocre days, which means that you will almost inevitably end up cheating. On one of those bad or mediocre days, one of those days when you have all the psychic ability of a fungus, you will need money for rent or food or something, and you will end up cheating somebody in order to get paid. And once you do that once, you’ll probably do it again. And once you do it twice, you will do it a third time. And so on.

Anyway, I just throw that out for what it’s worth. Could it be that there is “something” to the idea of psychic ability, but that it goes bad when it’s exploited for gain or by unprincipled people? I don’t know. I doubt it, but it’s an interesting possibility.

The other problem with psychics is that there are far too many people who are ready to believe anything even from an obvous con artist…but then, that’s a problem in other areas of life as well.

Kathleen - 22 June 2007 12:56 PM

Anyway, I just throw that out for what it’s worth. Could it be that there is “something” to the idea of psychic ability, but that it goes bad when it’s exploited for gain or by unprincipled people? I don’t know. I doubt it, but it’s an interesting possibility.

Apparently, psychic ability doesn’t like being tested much either. Or rather, it doesn’t mind being tested as long as the test is relaxed enough for it not to have too hard a time doing its psychic thing; but make the test too controlled - say, by eliminating most likely methods of cheating - and it gets all huffy and won’t come out until the test is over and it’s in the presence of decidedly less-critical friends.

With all due respect to ideacircus, the fallible memories of a psychic reading of 15 years ago amount to diddly over squat in the proof stakes. Now if there was a tape recording of the reading…