4: Mediums & Hauntings Explained Somewhat

hello!
ghosts, yes
carrying on where we left off, hauntings and people who contact the dead
what's going on there?
ok first of all I'm gonna look at
fake mediums and magicians
because basically they are the same act
but they have different claims
a fake medium's act would consist of
any combination of the following that would be cold reading hot reading
flattery
magic tricks sleight of hand luck
and most importantly
showmanship
in general you have two
main types of medium
number one a warm welcoming
overly spiritual and relaxed person the second type is someone more
professional looking
who probably has like
degrees on thei wall
either way you have a strong persona that says i'm the real deal
we are going to contact that baby
and that encourages openness and trust and general compliance from its
audience
it's less Sherlock deducing
the state of your marriage from the state of your fingers and more
extracting information from you without you realising that they've done so
let's say i was giving you a reading
and i said
it's your great grandmother
she's... she's worried about your health
does that make sense to you if you then go
or just
you give that look
then i can go I don't mean your physical health i mean emotionally
and then you can either go
i understand
or you can go, nuh
and if you go nuh
then i've also got an out by going, well
it must be in the future 'cause ghosts can see the future you know
she's worried
there's going to be something that will happen soon which will impact you
emotionally
and you need to watch out for that
there is a cabbage every conference day
and if you hit
then that makes you look like a miracle worker
the main thing that makes these acts impressive
and believable
is quite simply suggestion
this is the reason why
even without all the techniques i just mentioned
people who genuinely believe real mediums
are so convincing if you have the sense of
oh something's gonna happen
then you are going to pick up on things happening more
for example
if you believe that you are going to commune with the dead
then chances are you going to come away going i just communed with the dead that's
it for part one i um
i don't want to go into much detail because
these techniques are
really what
more honourable
entertainers use to earn a living
i don't want to give
too much away without sort of like breaking the magic for you
spectators and
I know i'm not going to ruin their jobs by explaining just a little bit of how they
do a little bit of what they do
but you know honour yes
that's what i do
cocktail
so what about all of the ghost stories that don't have mediums in them i hear you
chime
what about haunted houses and evil prescences and
ghosts standing at the foot of your bed well
here is my most favorite and most excellent answer and that is suggestion
again
suggestion is the main overriding reason
why anyone ever experiences any paranormal activity
ever tests have proven over and over again that if you send two groups of
people around the same area and tell one of them that the place is haunted
then one group
will come back and report nothing unusual
and the other group will come back crying they will report everything strange
noises
feelings maybe
being touched by a ghost or even seeing a ghost
strange breezes strange prescences absolutely
anything and everything
interpreted in a paranormal way
just because someone told them this place is haunted
suddenly
if is they don't even have to believe it
but they experience
all this multitude of maddening things
it's brilliant i love suggestion a really interesting kind of ghost phenomena
is the old
someone standing at the end of your bed thingamy
in a typical experience
you're lying in bed
ready to sleep or having just woken up
at some point
you look up and see a figure at the end of the bed some people find this
really scary some find this
unusually peaceful and
are very relaxed about it and might just fall off
to sleep anyway
other people might find themselves like frozen in fear
and find that they can only break free once the apparition slowly dissolves away
people always believe these ones 'cause
they're so vivid
but they're not ghosts
they are something really interesting
a psychological phenomenon
known as sleep
paralysis
what happens is you're in this strange sort of state between
your waking and your sleeping life and
something goes a little bit wrong
your body is convinced that it is still asleep so you can't move
meanwhile your mind is sort of somewhere between the two
so you can think normally
and go what's going on here
but at the same time the brain is still producing the same brain waves it makes
when you're drifting off
which is why people experience
these sorts of visions at this stage
some people don't experience anything at all
what you see is limited only by your imagination i read somewhere that a guy
woke up
and thought there was a giant maneating venus fly trap in the room with
him
terrifying at the time but funny now
in the olden days the church explained sleep paralysis as ugly little demons incubi
and succubi
which sat on your chest while you're sleeping
and tried to eat your soul or
have sex with you
nice one church
did you know
that sleeping
makes girls wet and makes guys hard
it is true
uh... which is why the encounters whether they
feature ghosts
goblin imp things or potted plants
can actually turn out to be sexual and last of all
ghost photography
which that's just rubbish isn't it
all the ghost photographs you see
are either deliberate hoaxes
so photoshopped staged
uh... camera tricks or they've
done a camera trick on accident resulting in
blurry
figures unnatural shadows
or there's a really popular one which is
spirits spheres
which are apparently ghosts that manifest in sphere form and can only be photographed
but they're actually dust particles
lit up by light from the camera flash
that is it
that is everything that i wanted to tell you
i will be explaining ouija in the next one where i actually do a bit of ouija
so that'll be very fun i hope you're looking forward to it 'cause i am
uh... yes joke
i was going to tell you a joke at the end of every one
and the joke for the day which i made up
i remember
i remember it i do what is it
why did the ghost cross the road?
TO EAT YOUR SOUL D: