I really liked this blog. Magick or psychisism that doesn’t work pragmatically in the real world is delusion (personal opinion). i do believe in magick and in psychisism so please don’t mistake me for an “unbeliever” I just prefer to keep my shoe laces tied rather than to trip over them because some “guide” says not to worry about it.

My personal tests include:
Does it claim authority. does it cultivate reliance on it. Does it condemn me for sin or offer me salvation. Doe sit claim 100% accuracy, then it’s delusional or dishonest BS.
Does it challenge my ideas instead of telling me what I want?
does it give me information I don’t already know, and does that information check out as true?
Can it, or the medium teach me quickly, and effectively how to begin receiving information direct, rather than through a medium. then there is a good chance It is correct.
About names and naming: My own mystical experience (valid for me only, however it may bear on others’ experience) is that when a spirit or text speaks of a magickal or spiritual name, it is NOT talking about a name that can be pronounced. Instead, it seems to be talking about something I would rather call an energy signature: how the interaction between my own energy and the energy of the entity in question interact and combine, and how that feels to me emotionally, and physically in my gut. With careful attention, and a good knowledge of physical and emotional feeling words, one can get fairly complex and specific “emotive energy names. I have in fact, received messages for mediums that to me came with the same energy signature and was in fact a beginning of the message, end of the message kind of thing, but the mediums each gave a different name to the guide. Later testing confirmed data in both messages.
On detail testing
The notion that a spirit would necessarily notice or care that I had scrambled eggs this morning I find ridiculous. Spirits don’t seem to have a body, or eyes, or ears, and so would not experience the world in the same way we do. In fact the wiser and more powerful the guides seem to be, the harder they are to “hear” because their human experience is so far away from their own. However, the notion of Yo were upset about … and I nudged you this way, and you did it, seems a typically effective test. The draw back here is the mental laxity that inclines us to say “close enough”.
Any one interested in testing such phenomenon might benefit from a read of the book entitled: The art of cold reading. It is a textbook for stage magicians. Once one learns to recognize cold reading and differentiate it from messages with real content, 1/2 the battle is won.
The draw back from this is that many sincere “psychics” I have interacted with have discovered that they are in fact, unconsciously “cold readers” and have been deeply disillusioned and hurt by this discovery. They don’t always then, continue on to learn how to develop genuine and testable psychic ability of whatever accuracy percentage. For me, this seems quite sad.
Thank you for your blog.

My personal tests include:

Does it claim authority. does it cultivate reliance on it. Does it condemn me for sin or offer me salvation. Doe sit claim 100% accuracy, then it’s delusional or dishonest BS.

Does it challlenge my ideas instead of telling me what I want?
does it give me information I don’t already know, and does that infomration check out as true?
Can it, or the medium teach me quickly, and effectively how to begin receiving infomration direct, rather than through a medium. then there is a good chance It is correct.

About names and naming: My own mystical experience (valid for me only, however it may bear on other’s experience) is that when a spirit or text speaks of a magickal or spiritual name, it is NOT talking about a name tha can be pronounced. Instead, it seems to be talking about something I would rather call an energyu signature, how the interaction between my own energy and the energy of the entity in question interact and combine, and how that feels to me emotinally, and physically in my gut. With careful attention, adn a good knowledge of physical and emotional feeling words, one can get fairly complex and specific “emtoive eneryg names. I have in fact, received messages for mediums that to me came with the same energy signature and was in fact a beginning of the message, end of the message kind of thing, but the mediums each gave a different name to the guide. Later testing confirmed data in both messages.

On detail testing
The notion that a spirit would necessarily notice or care that I had scrambled eggs this morning I find ridiculous. Spirits don’t seem to have a body, or eyes, or ears, and so would not experience the world in the same way we do. In fact trhe wiser and more powerful the guides seem to be, the harder they are to “hear” because their human experience is so far away from their own. However, the notion of Yo were upset about … and I nudged you this way, and you did it, seems a typically effective test. The draw back here is the metnal laxity that inclies us to say “close enough”.

Any one interested in testing such phenomenon might benfit from a read of the book intiled: The art of cold reading. It is a textbook for stage magicians. Once one learns to recognize cold reading and diferentiate it from messages with real content, 1/2 the battle is won.

The draw back from this is that many sincere “psychics” I have interacted with have discovered that they are in fact, unconsciously “cold readers” and have been deeply disillusioned and huirt by this discovery. They don’t always then, continue on to learn how to develope genuine and testible psyhcic ability of whatever accuracy percentage. For me, this seems quite sad.

Thank you for your blog.

While I applaud the efforts of you and your colleagues to validate your experiences, I gently remind you that there’s a colossal gap between having the intention and desire to validate an experience and knowing how to go about validating it effectively. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t desire validation — of course it’s better to have it than not have it — but the criteria for validation that I’ve seen runs the gamut. For some, a message is validated if it bolsters the beliefs they already hold. For others, it’s validated if it brings them happiness. And for others the errors are more subtle. Validation can be a difficult thing requiring a level of intellectual self-discipline that few of us come by naturally. This is why it takes so much training to become a scientist — if genuine objectivity were easy we’d all be scientists from birth. We’re stuck with a wide array of cognitive quirks to work around. But exploring what does and doesn’t constitute validation of psychic abilities is the approximate purpose of this blog, so I’ll always have more to say on that.

I agree that we should be careful about being negative, but this is because I argue we should be careful about holding any expectation whatsoever in occult exercises, positive or negative. Both open the door wide for bias and make one vulnerable to suggestion. In occult circles, warnings of excessive negativity are ubiquitous, however I don’t recall hearing any warnings of excessive positivity. I suspect it’s because positivity is what makes an occult exercise in which nothing is actually happening work — that is, it produces the illusion or sensation of it working. The eagerness of our brains to generate certain sensations (even in the absence of an actual paranormal stimulus) is just another hurdle in the process of validation. It’s often a good idea not to put the person who benefits emotionally from an experience being genuine in charge of validating that experience, for reasons which I hope are obvious.

John Edward’s statement is a strawman, I think. In the circles he travels in there are stereotypes of skeptics bandied about, usually that they’re closed-minded curmudgeons that are impossible to please, or that they place unreasonable, unsurmountable demands on people making paranormal claims. This is patently untrue. Psychics are not expected to perform perfectly; they’re only expected to perform above chance, or else how would their performance differ from that of a non-psychic? Even the famous curmudgeon James Randi has repeatedly put his million dollar prize on the line for an 80% success rate (often when testing people who claimed 100% success rates). If psychic abilities were confirmed and put into use in all areas of society, I suspect psychics would only need to be as successful as a meteorologist or a financial analyst: imperfect, but still able to get results.