Vision From Feeling

Status
Not open for further replies.
<snip for brevity.>

I know, I know, I've said all this before...and I also know that I'm probably shouting into a hurricane, for all the good this might do...but I had to give it one last shot. Turning my nagging switch off. :)


You may be shouting into a hurricane, but others can still hear you.

While I can only hope that some of your words finally reach Anita in the spirit in which they were intended, please be assured that they have already reached me.

You've invested a lot more of yourself in this thread than I have myself, as has Sleepy Lioness, and I'm thankful for what I've learned from you both. I'll try and be a little less cranky in future as token of my appreciation.

Thank you both for going the distance.



Cheers,

Dave
 
In that case it sounds to me like this isn't the Forum of discussions toward my investigation.
This forum has uniformly encouraged you to seek independent testing.
This forum has come up with several more testable protocols based around abilities you yourself claim. All of which you have rejected.
This forum has attempted to seek more information about specifics of your claim in order to facilitate meaningful testing.
This forum has attempted to seek more information about yur other claims as thy would be more testable. You are not interested in those. Although you brought them up.
This forum has attempted to engage you on specific knowledge you said you had about the scientific mechanism underlying your claimed ability. Which you now say is a secret.
This forum has people knowledgeable about many scientific disciplines and th creation of robust tests.
This forum understands how to test for paranormal claims which, to be honest, even some professional scientists struggle with. People here understand trickery, confirmation bias, various types of conscious and unconscious reading, strict goal setting etc. Things that are often not required to be controlled for in more standard experimentation.

If this isn't the right forum for you then you don't really want honest testing.

If Einstein would have intended to collaborate with certain others in order to have his discovery published and all those people could have done is distract with nonsense, then I think he would have found another group of people to collaborate with.
Einstein would have worked with those people fully, not given them only just information to not be of any scientific use.
And Einstein would have tried to test ALL aspects of the phenomenon as you never know which might be the most indicative.

And I think I am about to do the same.
Erm bye then. Nobody is forcing you to stay here.
The usual claimant, when it becomes obvious they cannot change skeptics minds using only words and unverified claims, often strops out in exactly this way.
They are usually not heard from again.

This is not productive. Rather than receiving encouragement toward planning a study, you guys go on and on about ridiculous misconceptions and insults against me.
You have had encouragement after encouragement. That's not what you want. You want unquestioning acceptance.

This is a skeptics forum.
 
Okie-dokie. After 34 pages, these discussions seem to blur into each other.

Condensed version: The JREF forum web address is written on the walls of several psych wards across the world. "For a good time, go here."

You know, I first came here because I was doing research for an article on just this type of fraud - RSL's site directed me here, and I came across the gold mine that is Creekfreak. These nutcases pop up on a lot of forums, but I think this forum attracts the cream of the crop. :boggled:
 
VfF: This is getting ridiculous. Get tested, already. And if you fail and decide that you still DO have those abilities, then get professional help. It doesn't get any simpler than that, and there's no shame in it.
 
You may be shouting into a hurricane, but others can still hear you.

While I can only hope that some of your words finally reach Anita in the spirit in which they were intended, please be assured that they have already reached me.

You've invested a lot more of yourself in this thread than I have myself, as has Sleepy Lioness, and I'm thankful for what I've learned from you both. I'll try and be a little less cranky in future as token of my appreciation.

Thank you both for going the distance.



Cheers,

Dave

Thanks. And thanks to you and everyone else who stuck it out. Didn't do any good, but, hey, we tried.
 
Me: "Yes, but if you say you cannot perform with a screen how do we control for cold reading? I don't understand why blood disorders are unsuiatble for your investigations. "
To have no screen on a test is only permissible if there are ailments to test for that are inaccessible to cold reading.
Yes, like blood disorders.:confused:

But I don't know about that, so I am going to try out some good test conditions such as screen. If you read my previous reply to your question but I will answer it again in the very same way. Some blood disorders have externally detectable symptoms. I'm surprised you don't realize that. If I had suggested blood disorders for a test, I'd be criticized for that. If you suggest blood disorders then nobody seems to react. I'll just say it again: some blood disorders can have detectable symptoms that show on the skin.
*sigh - tries to type very slowly*
Then a good idea might be to select ones that don't have external detectable symptoms.
Gosh that was difficult to control for wasn't it.:rolleyes:

That way we can eliminate aspects of cold reading and unconscious signals by the subject indicating a specific area.

I await your next reason why blood disorders (yes, ones not externally detectable) are not valid for your test.

ME: "That has become a bit of a mantra for you now.
It's simply unbelievable that you wouldn't yourself involve your University in this research (apart from the fact you have three times, plus an actual study involving the ideas!).
So the 'don't drag my school into this' plea is rather disengenuous."

I confided to them on a personal level. I do not want involvement beyond that.
You told three Professors, at least one a Professor of Physics about an ability that breaks the laws of physics... just on a personal level?
"My goodness Anita this sounds incredible!"
"No no I don't want a fuss. I don't want to test it."
"But this could change the face of Physics!"
"No I'll do that on my own. In the future."
"But how do you know that it is real?"
"Oh I know it is real. I just don't want to test it."
"So why did you tell me in the first place?"
"Just, you know, for personal reasons."

Me: "I notice one of them "expressed tremendous interest and curiosity in knowing more" but never took it any further themselves."
Why should they. Someone else is already doing the testing.
No they aren't no-one is.
And again this is a literally unbelievably cavalier attitude from Professors of science.
"My goodness this could change the face of Physics. Can I test this further?"
"No someone else already is."
"Oh well never mind." [walks off staring vacantly.]

And they were never even interested in contacting the skeptics group to offer support or help with subjects, testing, equipment or even out of vague curiosity?

ME: "Another thought it was "thermal information". What? He encounters a girl who can see thermal information, who apparently has receptors that operate outside of the visible EM spectrum and... also does nothing about it?"
Someone else is already testing for it. Besides I did not present the information to be taken as evidence. I just wanted to share an experience.
See above.
You don't want to involve your University. You just tell several Professors, engender their interest and then leave it there.
More incredibly so do they.
You told them just, you know, for no reason. Just sharing an experience. Take it or leave it. Whatever.

But when it comes to us however... We have to accept everything you say, you reply over and over to try to convince us and claim to be doing all you can to run tests, you ask our opinion on scientific areas, you spend your entire Winter Break writing posts to us about it, you actually run impromptu tests...

I just cannot, cannot accept that if any of these Professors genuinely believed you, they would not have taken it further. If you trusted them enough to tell them about these paranormal abilities (despite the potentially negative connotations) then it is just utterly unbelievable you wouldn't trust them enough to run some simple tests.

If found to be real it would have hugely have assisted your professional life at college and subsequent career.

In reality you would already be internationally famous.
 
I just cannot, cannot accept that if any of these Professors genuinely believed you, they would not have taken it further. If you trusted them enough to tell them about these paranormal abilities (despite the potentially negative connotations) then it is just utterly unbelievable you wouldn't trust them enough to run some simple tests.
Actually, I'd be surprised if any of them were able to keep a straight face if she really told them she can "see" things on a atomic level.

It reminds me of a time when I was a lowly UG Math major; I found what I thought to be mistake in our text book on combinatorics. Unlike "Super Secret U" where VFF goes...the next class the teacher brought it up, held class discussion, etc. It was agreed as a class that there was a mistake, and as a class we wrote the author outlining it. The author wrote back, thanked us, and acknowledged the error.

Now granted, this discovery was not Nobel Prize, change the fact of mathematics as it is understood today, kinda stuff....

By contrast, a claim (et al) that would change the very face of physics and medical science as it is understood today...a ability no other person on this planet has ever exhibited before....and all she gets from not 1 but 3 Professors is a "meh"?

IF she really told them, and I'd say that is a big IF, what I find most disappointing is not the "meh" response...but that they did not encourage her to seek professional help (by her account).
 
Last edited:
Anita, you need some help in the analogy department. Let me try:

Patient: I think I have malaria!

Doctor: Why do you say that?

Patient: I've got fever, chills, headache, sweats and nausea.

Doctor: So does everyone in the lobby. It is the cold and flu season.

Patient: But I read this thing on the Internet that says most malaria patients in the USA contracted it while traveling abroad. I traveled abroad last summer.

Doctor: Where did you go?

Patient: Sweden.

Doctor: Go home and take some Nyquil, the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, sleep better to feel better medicine. You don't have malaria.

Patient: I still say I have malaria because you have not proven that I don't. By the way, when I was waiting in the lobby I sensed that the middle-aged, heavy set guy sitting next to me has a blood sugar problem. He told me I was right. Amazing, huh?

Doctor: Well, we have a big flier in the lobby announcing that we're doing a drug trial for a diabetes medication, and he fits the demographic.

Patient: Well, there's no way I could have known any of that. You see, I just sensed the vibrational signatures of the chemicals in his bloodstream and determined that his glucose levels were way off from where they are supposed to be.

Doctor: Right. That's why he's here. He doesn't feel well at all. Didn't you see the nurse checking up on him?

Patient: Ah ha! I knew I was right. Did you know I have used the vibrational signatures of diabetes and various chemicals to perform Vibrational Algebra in my mind. I have invented a hypothesis to cure diabetes. I would share it with you, but I need to get full credit when we win the Nobel prize.

Doctor: Wow. That's pretty out of this world.

Patient: What do you expect? I am an extraterrestrial incarnation from a white dwarf star near Arcturus. It's that heritage which gives me these abilities. I can see down to the atomic level. I can detect bacteria and sense what insects and animals are thinking and communicating. And I have never been verified to be wrong.

Doctor: Have you shared this with anyone else?

Patient: Oh, yes. I have a website, and I contacted several skeptic groups about it. One group of skeptics has a bunch of people telling me I am delusional and that I should seek professional help for a diagnosis, but I don't think they are serious. Except for this one mean lady who has a schizotypal disorder herself, so what does she know?

Doctor: So, did you take their advice and see a mental health professional anyway?

Patient: Why would I do that? I'm not delusional. My perceptions are real. You just saw how I was able to detect the vibrational signatures of that man's blood and know that he had diabetes. There's no way I could have possibly known that.

Doctor: But you saw him checking is glucose levels with his...

Patient: No, I didn't. How can you say that? You weren't there.

Doctor: And there's the big flier about the diabetes study and he's overweight and...

Patient: That doesn't explain the images I saw. And these images match up with other images of what I know was diabetes. That is how I was able to use vibrational algebra to invent a hypothesis for curing diabetes. How could I do all that if it wasn't real?

Doctor: But you haven't proven anything. Everything you have described seeing sounds like good observational skills and a vivid imagination.

Patient: Well, it's just apparent accuracy then. It's not like I really believe all this stuff is true or act on it. I just want to test it and find out if it's real.

Doctor: Okay. So what is your hypothesis for curing diabetes.

Patient: I can't tell you because you might steal the idea and take all the credit. I want the Nobel for myself.

Doctor: Nobel prizes can only be awarded to humans. You said you were an Arcturian.

Patient: Well, that does present a problem. I think I will have to postpone my testing until I can figure out a way to ensure I get the prize.

Doctor: But you can still go on talk shows.

Patient: <giggling> That's great. I can't wait to tell David Letterman that I detect heart issues.

Doctor: But it has been widely reported that Letterman underwent heart surgery back in 2000.

Patient: Ah ha! Another hit! I have never been wrong.

Doctor: But it was in the news...

Patient: I was in Sweden in 2000. Swedes don't watch Letterman, so this is seemingly impossible for me to know. Besides, I saw the vibrational signature of the scar tissue. Even if I did know, that doesn't explain my ability to detect vibrational information.

Doctor: You've seen him in person?

Patient: No, just on TV. Where I will be someday.

Doctor: How does a TV transmit vibrational information on his scar or heart? It can't. You are not detecting any vibrational information about Letterman.

Patient: Well, my main claim is that I can do it with live persons. I have never been incorrect.

Doctor: Well, back to that vibrational algebra thing. Which of these pills over here are we using in the diabetes trial?

Patient: This one? No? How about this one? No? Okay, definitely this one. No? Hmmm...I am getting a headache and feeling nauseous. This testing is making me sick. I have to stop.

Doctor: You came in here feeling that way.

Patient: I might try testing again later, but my main claim is diagnosing live people. And I will win a Nobel for it. Or since Arcturians can't win them, the I will choose who should win it in my place. Maybe my boyfriend should get it. Did I can tell you I can taste exactly what he is tasting?

Doctor: Wait a sec...you actually taste what he's eating by sensing this vibrational information?

Patient: Yes. I can smell the inside of a stomach, too. I can hear red blood cells scraping against the walls of the blood vessels. I can also see, hear and speak with ghosts. One even pushed me.

Doctor: These sound like hallucinations. And everything else you have described is at best wishful thinking and at worst irrational and delusional. I am very concerned for you. Here, please schedule an appointment with this doctor. She's the best in the business.

Patient: You're not serious, are you?

Set out this way, the "patient" does appear to be stark raving bonkers, but I wouldn't wish to appear to be making a diagnosis...


M.

ETA: Very well done, UncaYimmy!
 
IF she really told them, and I'd say that is a big IF, what I find most disappointing is not the "meh" response...but that they did not encourage her to seek professional help.

In fairness, they may have. But, they may not have realized how serious it was, especially if they didn't compare notes. And I'm sure she isn't the first student they've had with a little "weird" going on. IF it happened, they may not have pursued it as far as they could have - but they still may have suggested it. We all know how resistant Anita is to any suggestion that her fantasies aren't "real".

Or maybe they just "meh'ed" so she'd stop talking. She does seem somewhat verbose.

But, I still find it hard to believe that she told one professor, much less three, and all were "meh". Like you, I think that's a big "if".
 
In fairness, they may have. But, they may not have realized how serious it was, especially if they didn't compare notes. And I'm sure she isn't the first student they've had with a little "weird" going on. IF it happened, they may not have pursued it as far as they could have - but they still may have suggested it. We all know how resistant Anita is to any suggestion that her fantasies aren't "real".
Agreed; I thought that right after I posted and added the "by her account" comment after the fact...our posts must have crossed.
 
That sounds close to the term "latent learning". But more likely "learning without awareness".

This reminds me of a Derren Brown show in which he'd placed clues all over the place for people to see, but not deliberately. Later, back in the studio, he did some spiel with them in which he got them to recall things he already "knew," and they had no memory of having seen the clues; ie, their brain had processed the images in a seemingly subconscious manner. Of course, all participants were astonished that he could "know" what was in their minds.

It was a very informative show.

M.
 
Last edited:
You may be shouting into a hurricane, but others can still hear you.

While I can only hope that some of your words finally reach Anita in the spirit in which they were intended, please be assured that they have already reached me.

You've invested a lot more of yourself in this thread than I have myself, as has Sleepy Lioness, and I'm thankful for what I've learned from you both. I'll try and be a little less cranky in future as token of my appreciation.

Thank you both for going the distance.



Cheers,

Dave


Yeah, good job, guys. I simply don't have the patience.

It's been very informative and entertaining reading this thread, and it ain't over 'til the "Swedish lady" sings. :)


M.
 
...
EHocking is back...
Never left. Just lurking and laughing...
EHocking:
Not necessarily a miss. We don't know that the small intestine was not associated to the strain and cramp below the sternum even if the small intestine is not just below the sternum...
Nice dodge attempt. Of course it was facilitated by misquoting my post, but others have also pointed out that tactic, so instead I'll repost that point to remind you of what I actually said.
All this is post-hoc excuses from vff.
This is the description of her "ability", from her website:

...I see images in my mind of the inside of their bodies. I see organs, tissues, cells, and chemicals
...The images appear on any level of magnification
...in my mind ...images of the atoms that they make, and then into images of molecules, cells, and tissue.
...Anything unusual, especially health problems, are what most often form the images.
...The images that form on their own show health problems in their most appropriate level of magnification, sometimes combining more than one magnification at once.
...This is similar to but beyond magnetic resonance imaging used by the medical field to detect some forms of illness that show as darker areas on a photographic image.
...I do not have to look for diseases, they are already highlighted for me to see, with all the relevant structures and areas of the body shown together.

So all of vff's talk of odds of hitting a general area is pure post-hoc rationalisation of a miss. She claims to be able to SEE THE ORGANS.

It was a miss.
No argument.
Boasts of 100% accuracy of medical diagnoses by vff are similarly contradictory to the evidence provided by herself.
Note the bolding.
 
Originally Posted by Professor Yaffle:
The apparent ability to receive knowledge that can't have been gotten by normal means will turn out, after more rigorous tests, to be caused by sensitivity to small mundane clues, logical guesses, support from agreeable subjects, recalling hits more than misses, and so forth.
Then if that's what they are, I am fully open to it. I just want to know where the (apparent) accuracy comes from. Regardless of where and how it comes about, I am curious.
Anita, it’s been explained to you, time, and time, and time again.

CON–FORM–A–TION BI-AS.

You keep insisting that the headaches and nausea come BEFORE your misses, and are the CAUSE of them. As I pointed out in an earlier post, THIS IS NOT TRUE. In post #220 YOU document your own cereal test.

Test 1

Results: Very bad. I felt nothing. I made two forced attempts although I hate to guess when I don't feel the answer and both were incorrect.
1) F
2) F

Test 2

Results:
1) F
Comments: Am I overwhelmed by the five cups?

Test 3

Results:
1) F
2) F
Comments: Were four cups also too many and overwhelming? Since I have to try to feel all of them. My strategy has so far actually been to "find the heavy vibrations of plain cereal-cups and eliminate those, and then figure out which one is the supplement one". (I don't know why but that is how I had come to do these tests.)

Test 4

Results: It was VERY easy to detect the bacteria! I felt it stronger than ever before. … Initially they were absolutely easy to detect and I was totally certain.
1) C
2) C
3) F
4) F
Comments: In the first two trials I was absolutely certain. In trial 2 I said to my assistant that I am so certain that the bacteria is in that cup that I would bet all I have on it and that if it is not in that cup then I will declare myself crazy. In trial 3 I didn't know. (See comments below.)

Test 5

Results:
1) C
2) C
3) C
4) F
5) C
6) C
7) C
8) C
9) C
10) C
11) F
12) F
Comments: … With this new method I became extremely confident in where it was, but that also made me worried. I worried that being so incredibly confident, what if I'd be wrong? That would have been the end of it. But each time I was confident, it turned out to be correct. On trial 11 I wasn't sure and guessed, and sure enough, with a 1/3 chance of guessing it was incorrect. Trial 11 and 12 I was tired with headache and nausea and had to stop.

So, by your own account, you’d failed EIGHT (out of 19) times before you ‘got sick’, AND were ‘worried’ (sick?) about failing.
 
Doctor: But you can still go on talk shows.

Patient: <giggling> That's great. I can't wait to tell David Letterman that I detect heart issues.

Doctor: But it has been widely reported that Letterman underwent heart surgery back in 2000.

Patient: Ah ha! Another hit! I have never been wrong.

Doctor: But it was in the news...

Patient: I was in Sweden in 2000. Swedes don't watch Letterman, so this is seemingly impossible for me to know. Besides, I saw the vibrational signature of the scar tissue. Even if I did know, that doesn't explain my ability to detect vibrational information.

Doctor: You've seen him in person?

Patient: No, just on TV. Where I will be someday.

To elaborate on this part a little (and then I'll shut up-at least, unless the Swedish lady sings again)...the other night, when I was putting together that list of Anita's collective claims, something kept popping out at me. When she first started posting here, Anita talked a lot about taking her show on the road. Diagnosing celebrities, having a radio show (she says now that was a joke, but it clearly wasn't) - she even started a thread specifically asking people to help her compile a list of "do's and don'ts" for doing psychic medical diagnose for entertainment purposes. Once people expressed disapproval at the idea, she backed off...but she continued to drop hints here and there in this thread about it. Course, she continually stressed that she wouldn't do it "for money", but, hey, radio show psychics aren't in it for the station donuts-and, last time I looked, the Nobel includes a pretty tidy sum, as well.

I've been focused on her mental health issues, so this part of the picture didn't hit me until I was looking at ALL the claims the other night. (And I'm kinda slow anyway.) I think the above quoted section may be even truer than we think.

From the moderated thread:
UncaYimmy said:
First, there's the need for attention. It is painfully obvious to everyone but yourself that this is a major issue with you. You talk about winning the Nobel prize. You don't want to share information that others might steal. And you have written thousands of words trying to convince people you are special before you ever once questioned yourself.

You've concocted a fantasy with yourself at the center. In this fantasy you help everyone around you and become famous in the process. You sense the "bad" and the "good" in the world that nobody else can.

My own addition is this: Anita also came here because she is just arrogant enough to think that she could persuade the scientific people here into formulating a protocol for her that would be easy to pass-carrying the extra bonus of fooling the skeptics and solidifying her belief in claims-but also to have the skeptics here point out the holes in those claims, so she could perfect her act for public consumption. Course, when we really started to focus on her contradictions, her redirections, and the delusional basis of her claims-which she didn't expect and wanted to avoid-she started to get uncomfortable and hostile. She didn't want us looking too closely at the woman behind the curtain.

I think the idea that we are looking at a budding Sylvia Browne, as someone suggested, isn't wide of the mark at all.

Done musing out loud now. :)
 
Last edited:
<snip>

I think the idea that we are looking at a budding Sylvia Browne, as someone suggested, isn't wide of the mark at all.

Done musing out loud now. :)


Yeah, desertgal, I think this is a distinct possibility.

I said in an earlier post that I wasn't sure what this person was up to, although the thought you've expressed had crossed my mind. But at that stage of this ongoing saga I was leaning more towards hoax, sort of like "fooling the unfoolable skeptics." My thinking then was that he/she was perhaps a psychology student and that this entire opera was something to do with his/her studies. If that were so, then it is possible that the cast of characters he/she has introduced here -- the "local skeptics' group" -- are all in on it. Whatever the case turns out to be, it's been an entertaining ride thus far.


M.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom