Got psychic powers?

June 20, 2005 5:18 AM

GotPsi online testing. Many people have had precognitive dreams and successful intuitive hunches and would like to know if they have psychic abilities.
posted by nickyskye (32 comments total)

If you have psychic powers perhaps you would also like a million dollars.
posted by PenDevil at 5:24 AM on June 20, 2005

Huh... after clicking around their website it seems that they aren't a front for a new video game or movie... Regular 'ole quacks... nothing more.
posted by wfrgms at 5:30 AM on June 20, 2005

Many people have read about amazing "get rich quick" schemes and are absolutely convinced they've won more on the lottery than they've spent. They also have a positively uncanny ability to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. These people may be interested in purchasing a famous New York bridge which I happen to own.
posted by Decani at 5:58 AM on June 20, 2005

For those that don't want to register, BugMeNot gave me psychicdonut/psychicdonut as a valid login :)
posted by gren at 6:07 AM on June 20, 2005

How can you psychically tell which "card" has a picture on the back when none of the "cards" actually have backs? It seems to be testing something different (predicting the future) than if physical cards were used (x-ray vision).
posted by leapingsheep at 6:19 AM on June 20, 2005

Took a course in "transpersonal and humanistic psychology" aka "paranormal psych" and part of the fun was having the class tested for all kinds of things.

The upside: we learned all about proper-skeptical paranormal research and the kinds of bullshit (you'll see what I mean) they have to put up with that day-to-day psychology researchers don't.

Example. You're testing, say, distant viewing. Photo in a sealed envelope. Draw it. Ok, you say, and begin scrawling away. But wait! Did you control for extraneous variables? In this case, that includes: reading the mind of the experimenter, seeing into the future (do you get to see it later?), and various other explanations which most experimenters would think pretty strange to have to account for. Fascinating, actually.

Downside: none of us had any talent whatsoever. Though I did poorly enough on one to beat the statistical average.
posted by dreamsign at 6:42 AM on June 20, 2005

Downside: none of us had any talent whatsoever. Though I did poorly enough on one to beat the statistical average.

Never mind, dreamsign. You can be sure that some credulous goober will look at those instances where people did well enough to beat the average and draw wholly unfounded gee-wow conclusions about them.
posted by Decani at 7:17 AM on June 20, 2005

Many people have had precognitive dreams and successful intuitive hunches

No, they do not.
posted by LarryC at 7:30 AM on June 20, 2005

"Many people have had precognitive dreams and successful intuitive hunches"

"No, they do not."

and they won't in the future, either!
posted by HuronBob at 7:37 AM on June 20, 2005

This is not the website you are looking for. Move along.
posted by grateful at 8:03 AM on June 20, 2005

Thanks for the bellylaugh HuronBob! Gee Willikers, doesn't anybody see the fun in these online tests? (precognitively I hear a resounding "NO!")
posted by nickyskye at 8:11 AM on June 20, 2005

I had psychic precognitive dreams for about a month before I realized that a timed clock radio set to a news station was turning on between 3 and 4 am every day in my bedroom.

For a while there it really had me going. Dreams about fire confirmed on the news the next day. surprisingly easy to accept the unexplainable, like "huh, so it does happen."
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:38 AM on June 20, 2005

I sucked at the picture stuff, and the clairvoyance test ...

But I rocked on the location test ...

End of run. Your combined results for this run are odds of 1,674 to 1.
This is a great score!

So I guess I should make my riches searching for buried treasure. Of course, my not believing in psychic powers (well mostly not), maybe a career obstacle.
posted by forforf at 9:18 AM on June 20, 2005

No one has paranormal abilities; this is lame.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:25 AM on June 20, 2005

a timed clock radio ... was turning on between 3 and 4 am

But who set that clock to such an unusual time in the first place? Perhaps Seth?

"We are gods couched in creaturehood"
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:28 AM on June 20, 2005

WOAH! I just did the remote viewing test and I saw a sort of regular, pointy, peaky, "diamond-on-its-side" shape. I took a wild guess that this might be a mountain, but that phrase "diamond on its side" was the best description of what I was picturing. When I saw the picture it was of some steps and seats with the struts arranged in a sort of.... SIDEWAYS DIAMOND PATTERN!! And - get this - there was SNOW on the ground! Like there is, you know, often, on.... MOUNTAIN PEAKS!!!

I am Nostradamus. I see... I see.... I see that someone will post a complaint about someone else's FPP on MetaTalk! They will use phrases like... like... "lame post".... "best of the web"... "newsfilter"....

Are y'all spooked out yet?
posted by Decani at 10:20 AM on June 20, 2005

Dr. Peter Venkman: Alice, I'm going to ask you a couple of standard questions, okay? Have you or any of your family been diagnosed schizophrenic? Mentally incompetant?
Librarian Alice: My uncle thought he was Saint Jerome.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'd call that a big yes. Uh, are you habitually using drugs? Stimulants? Alcohol?
Librarian Alice: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: No, no. Just asking. Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?
Man at Library: What's has that got to do with it?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Back off, man. I'm a scientist.
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:32 AM on June 20, 2005

60% on the card test. The other 2 I did, not very good. The card test worked the same way I beat coin toss. The location test also, but not as impressive in results. But the first photo test I got right because I 'saw' something that in shape resembled one of their pictures.

I find its much more fun to suppose such possibility exists than to deny it. I've seen too many weird things to make such a supposition.
posted by Goofyy at 12:12 PM on June 20, 2005

hey! I can psychically predict the past! Isn't that amazing - I know what I will be doing yesterday!
posted by blindsam at 12:14 PM on June 20, 2005

I find its much more fun to suppose such possibility exists than to deny it.

Ah yes, the "much more fun" approach to investigating the nature of reality. So much more fun than that boring old scientific method.
posted by Decani at 12:36 PM on June 20, 2005

Hmm, are there scientific tests for the "nature of reality"?

If you meant scientific reality testing, there can be a lot of fun in that.
posted by nickyskye at 1:47 PM on June 20, 2005

I am currently ranked second in the card test hall of fame and all I did was click the same card over and over for two trials. According to the site, the odds of it happening are at 99.2 to 1. Yeah, right...
posted by joedan at 3:52 PM on June 20, 2005

Its not crazy to believe that its possible:
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Institute
(but it may be crazy to believe 99% of what's claimed around town)
posted by arjuna at 4:40 PM on June 20, 2005

PEAR is bullshit.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 4:49 PM on June 20, 2005

Wow, materialist fundamentalists saying something related to psychic research is bogus?! Alert the media!
posted by bunnytricks at 8:37 PM on June 20, 2005

Wow! A pro-magic person lazily dismissing the reasonable demand for hard, reproducible evidence of extraordinary claims as "materialist fundamentalism"? Alert the media!
posted by Decani at 9:59 AM on June 21, 2005

But that's the thing. They're not demanding reasonable evidence.

There is a group of people who insist to this day that heavier than air flying machines are impossible. The planes we see flying in the sky? Why they have to be placed there by holographic projectors ran by the hucksters in the control towers, while the passengers are whisked from destination to destination in underground maglev trains. Because flying machines are physically impossible, they have to be a con game. No amount of reproducible evidence will ever be enough to satisfy these people. Let them run every aspect of the experiment and they will find a way to keep the plane grounded, because even if it lifted off it would merely be on account of a trick they didn't take into account. They would lie for the greater good.

As do materialist fundamentalists.
posted by bunnytricks at 12:40 PM on June 21, 2005

You are stupid. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but that's The Way It Is. You lump "materialist fundamentalists" - who merely require convincing evidence - in with those for whom no amount of evidence is enough. That is some serious bullshit, and here's why: the amount of evidence supporting the theories surrounding paranomal activity is close to zero. Conversely, the amount of evidence supporting heavier-than-air flight is close to 100%.

What I like best about your post, bunnytricks, is that you can't come up with any convincing evidence supporting your claim, so instead you decide to tell a story about mysterious reality-denying crackpots and then claim - again, without support - that somehow these people are like "materialist fundamentalists."

They would lie for the greater good.

Please. If your "magickal chaos energies of eldritch power" are real, then surely you have better things to do than post on a website about the conspiracy of skeptics. Blast us with a fucking Kamehameha, Goku. All I'm interested in is the truth. Not the capital T truth of seers and prophets and charlatans, but the way the universe works in an observable, measurable context. You and your buddies would rather sit around and jerk off about elf rangers and Gandalf and shit and then have the audacity to get pissed off when reasonable people point out your fantasies are just that: fantasies. Delusions. But I can't reason you out of a belief that you didn't use reason to get to.

Snap out of it, shave off your neckbeard and start fighting the real fucking enemy.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 1:44 PM on June 21, 2005

Nice ad hominem attack, punchy.

If you are interested in scientific truth, do science. Put your great intelligence to use in biomedical engineering or materials research and make the world a better place. Don't waste your enormous talents smugly citing skeptdic while playing the role of "Elitist Douche #2" on blogs. Science is a beautiful, noble endeavor which will eventually lead to final truths.

If you want proof of "the paranormal" look at the PEAR data. The original data that is, not the Bush admin-like games that they played with those results to make it almost fit their worldview. Look at the work that remote viewers do on hard targets (when not allowing their imaginations and fantasies to get the best of them). What it shows is that consciousness seems to have a non-local effect. That doesn't mean crystals have healing properties or gods sit in thrones on clouds or people are reincarnated ascended masters or otakukin in any way other than in their own head. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

And, yeah, hate to say it but I've never found fantasy novels and RPGs to be anything better than faintly ridiculous. You're weaving an imaginary world about me that would make a new ager proud. Good effort!

Also, thanks for the advice, but I've already shaved the beard and cut my hair while I was at it. The results are pleasing. I only wish I could give you credit for it.
posted by bunnytricks at 3:58 PM on June 21, 2005

The original data that is, not the Bush admin-like games that they played with those results to make it almost fit their worldview.

If the original data was so fucking great they wouldn't have had to massage it.

Look at the work that remote viewers do on hard targets (when not allowing their imaginations and fantasies to get the best of them).

First I'll need to find the "work" that remote viewers do, and thus far, it's all bullshit.

What it shows is that consciousness seems to have a non-local effect.

Cool, thanks, I believe you now.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 5:42 PM on June 21, 2005

No amount of reproducible evidence will ever be enough to satisfy these people.

That's the point. There has been NO reproducible evidence of any paranormal claim. After all if there was someone, somewhere would've won that million dollars.

To win the million the JREF doesn't devise the test, the claimant does. And under controlled lab tests, which the claimant devises and which is supervised by people they both agree on. They ALL fail. Every. Single. Time.
posted by PenDevil at 12:23 AM on June 22, 2005

PenDevil, you forgot that Randi is a powerful psychic and he makes them fail with his spooky psi-negative abilities jesus christ any person who believes that should be locked up
posted by Optimus Chyme at 1:17 AM on June 22, 2005