Do you believe fortune tellers have supernatural powers?

I believe that most fortune tellers do not have any powers of any kind.

A good fortune teller usually has a preternaturally developed ability to read the person in front of her/him and excellent salesemanship. There may be an actual psychic or two sprinkled among them, but I never met one.

If some of them are able to tell fortunes I wouldn’t call it Supernatural but just that they are more attuned to their natural powers.

No. They are just generalizations, which with a little practice anyone can do.

The worst ones are just bullshit artists. The better ones use body language reading techniques like cold reading (but they’re still bullshit artists too, but more entertaining ones).

I’m not sure about fortune tellers but we all have abilities that we don’t know how to access at this point in our evolution. In time all will be able to do some of these things and so much more.

No.

Charlatans of all stripes (including “leaders” of all kinds, including political, religious, business and others, including used-car salesmen – not to imply that used-car salesmen are as low-down as political and religious leaders) have amazing powers of persuasion. They can convince you that they know more about you than you do, that their sources of knowledge are superior to yours, and even that their intelligence is somehow (magically) better, too.

Nearly always, the answer is “No, they don’t.” The answer to your specific question is that they absolutely do not have supernatural powers – until they can prove otherwise.

Anyone can make assertions or predictions about the future, and sometimes they come true. That doesn’t mean that they actually foretold the future.

I don’t need to see someone to make a prediction. I can do it over the phone. I’m also just as accurate as some psychics and more accurate than most.

Also, I have Powers.

Scary!

I believe people that fortune tellers trick have supernatural vulnerability. Don’t worry about anything.

No. When I was in college, I visited my roommate’s “cousin” or some such who claimed to be clairvoyant. I can’t say I was a believer then—I’m certainly not now—but I will say that the woman scared the beejeezus out me with some vague reference to how “disturbed” she was by what she saw. Of course she was disturbed; she was looking into the eyes of a person who absolutely did not want to be near her. Very unnerving—it’s all horseshit. Some a better smelling variety—but horseshit nonetheless.

No.

Only a supernatural ability to remove money from the gullible.

No.

Read this very carefully.
http://www.bad-language.com/psychicskeptic

Like horoscopes and fortune cookies, fortune tellers give you generalized info that can be true for most people. And they throw in the word might a lot. You might move to England, you might get tired of your boyfriend. You might come into money, you might find the love of your life. Or you might not. But either way, the fortune teller will be right.

They also tend to say things that have 2 possibilies (that are opposites) for you, that are very common things, so one of the other of them will always be right. Example from the horoscope that I read 2 days ago (and put onto another thread). You are in love with your spouse, or if you don’t have a spouse you may meet the person who will become your true love today. If you are married, you probably love your spouse. If you aren’t married, you MIGHT meet the person who will become the love of your life today.

See how it works? Fortune tellers also talk to you a little bit (and you give them all sorts of little tidbits of info about yourself, without you even realizing your doing it) they look at your clothes, your makeup (or lack thereof) and they play upon the typical fears/interests that most people have: love, money, desire to travel, job security. They throw out little suggestions and phrases and see how you react (without you realizing that you are doing it). Then they give you some generalized information that CAN be true for almost anyone.

When you desperately want to believe that horoscopes and fortune tellers have super-natural abilities, then no matter what anyone says (or shows you how they did it) you still won’t believe it.

Nope. So-called “fortune tellers” are gifted at reading people and at making generalizations seem specific to you and plausible. A little showmanship never hurts, either. Stop wasting your money.

It’s a load of old crystal balls, in my humble opinion.

And by the way, dumping your boyfriend and moving to England because a psychic told you to would be foolish to say the least. And that’s advice that’s better than the psychic and you got it for free.

No I don’t. They may be fairly intuitive and have good observation and even interviewing skills, but supernatural powers…no.

Nope. Stop worrying, and build your future the way you want it to go.

Yes I do, and I have proof that they do!
Oh and Happy birthday Houdini!

:D

@everephebe I love Derren Brown, although as usual the comments on those links are the usual asinine youtube comments.

@Rarebear Ah, if only youtube comments were as good as fluther comments….

I would go so far as to say that every fortune teller is a sham.

Bitches don’t know about my James Randi million dollar challenge.

Oh yeah James Randi how could I forget. His TEDtalk reminds me of Keith Barry’s talk too.

The phrase for a psychic’s uncanny knowledge is cold reading
old carny trick, also used by magician/mentalists and by savvy lawyers and managers conducting job interviews

hey @Rarebear ! that was fun!

They don’t. If they did, the Japanese authorities would have evacuated the whole Sendai area days before the tsunami hit. No fortune teller would keep such information to herself.

All fortune tellers and psychics can can do is interpret body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. Some people love to think they find stuff in crystal balls or cards. That’s why they are being used. There’s demand for mystery.

They have the power to convince the innocent and or stupid to buy something, anything.

@josie Ah! The media! Commercials! They’re fortune tellers, aren’t they! “You will get a Dread Disease / Body Odor / Clamedia / High Blood Pressure unless you use XYZ.”

Well they got the body odor part right

You should be angry. This person throws a load of doubt into your life, tells you to move halfway across Europe because of a glass ball. They are charlatans, every one of them.

On the other hand, you may be dissatisfied with your life and he/she reflected that back to you. I would rather have discussions like that with trusted friends than someone who’s trying to make a quick buck from me. Either way whether you move or not it’s your decision.

What? I live in Kansas. How do I go about moving half way across Europe? Where is that located, anyway?

@Dutchess_III I could be wrong, but I think @brengunn was responding to the OP. ;)

Let me help you out here – I worked for many years on the “psychic circuit” coming into contact with all types with varying “abilities”. No one has magic powers and the vast majority of psychics are blatent charlatans that give general readings that could apply to anyone (a little like horoscopes) and tend to tailor the reading by your questions or responses. (probably 98% of so called approved psychics and spiritualist mediums fall into either this category (we’ll call this group one) or the following one.
There is then a second group that would fall under the label of the tv programme “the mentalist” These people have zero psychic powers or mediumistic abilities but are reasonably good at reading people….sometimes stunningly good and the readings they can give you are entertaining especially if they have little asides with their imaginary spirit guide)and have just the right touch of authenticity for you to go away happy and entirely convinced of their “magic powers”.
Often these type of people will keep a file on you which is quite detailed so they can swot up on any information you volunteered during the reading if you should come back. It is not uncommon for these types in an area to all know each other and therefore have access to your file (often for a small price) – wowing you by feeding you information about things they could not possibly know.
There is also an extremely small (probably about 2%) that have some kind of intuitive empathic something. A kind of knowing that they can’t explain. Often things will come out of their mouth or they will just instinctively know things and describe in detail things or experiences such as child abuse that you have never shared, or give you names and descriptions of people that have passed over that are uncommon such as Agatha for instance as opposed to Mary.
I belonged to the latter 2% and the simple truth is I have no idea how i knew the things I knew. Perhaps on some subconscious level I was reading every blink or twitch, perhaps it was some kind of intuition / insight / some entirely logical function or part of the brain we
simply know little about at this point of time – therefore we ascribe almost magical powers to it. Some years ago 4 or 5 colleagues and I went to do readings in a pub in bedford. I was distracted, felt ill… every time i tried to focus on the reading all i could see was huge slabs of meat swinging on hooks. The stench of intestines and blood on the floor was overpowering and my animal guides were all fleeing in panic – only insects and carrion crows would approach. I ran outside and was sick. The landlady brought me a drink and asked me what was wrong. I was evasive , upset, just wanted to leave but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. When i told her she called some of the other staff and they told me that where we were sitting to do the readings was a recentish extension, at one time it had been an abbotoir. I was the only one of the group that was invited to remain afterwards and do a walk through of the pub – presumably because they took this as an indication of authenticity. I saw the guy with the three pointed hat – like something out of a costume drama, the ex landlord I saw lying dead in the old part of the pub where there was a couple of stairs going down. The doors were locked, yet i saw them thrown open onto a muddy street where ladies and lords alighted from carriages which also carried the mail. When I looked over to the left where the pool table and darts area was I saw a huge fireplace practically the length of the wall with a pig on a spit and various pots hanging. The staff having confirmed everything else seemed baffled by this but an old timer after declaring how could I possibly know that…went on to say it had been taken out in the 20’s when he was just a boy.
In short I genuinely have no idea how i could know any of these things or be so accurate in the statements i made on many many different occasions or frankly in the case of the fireplace why i should see that or what possible relevance it has to anything.
But I can assure you I have no magical powers. Perhaps it’s a mixture of intuition and imaginative reasoning. We might not have the answers now but I’m sure one day logical rational scientific data will explain that which for now seems like magic powers.
I can often predict the outcomes of situations simply because I can see the patterns and the logical way things will unfold depending on what sort of person I’m talking to and how they will likely react and respond to the situation they find themselves in unless they are presented with alternatives.
I hope this hasn’t destroyed the mystery and mystik surrounding this subject. With regards to your reading bearing in mind the above – perhaps take it with a pinch of salt, nothing is set in stone, and every word and action can have a bearing on the outcome of a situation. In short the reader is not always correct – something i can testify to by many clients who were told this or that by such and such a reader. Often they just throw things out on intuition and 50% of the time they hit lucky and the rest of the time they are 100% completely utterly and totally wrong – a great example of this being the half wit that told a client that either her mother or husband (I can’t remember which now) was a violent sociopath and would be imprisoned / committed – when in fact what was actually indicated was the fact that the lady in question had obsessive compulsive disorder (and was a prisoner of the rituals associated with the condition)- something I picked up immediately because i was familiar with it in respect of another client.
Sometimes these nit wits can do more harm than good – and unfortunately every half wit with a tarot deck seems to be setting themselves up as a psychic now with no thought or care to the damage they do. Often people like me are the last port of call when talking to family, friends and therapists have failed which is why I always refused to have a time limit on appointments. I would hate to have a suicide on my conscience that could have been prevented had it not been for my determination to squeeze in another appointment for a few more quid.
You make your own future – noone can dictate what it will be but yourself. In reality all they can do is tell you the likely outcomes if you do this or you do that. THAT IS ALL. Nothing is set in stone. Hope this helps.