I thought I should do another post about Erin Pavlina, because the earlier post I wrote about her was a little stream-of-consciousness, but despite that it’s the third result in google for a search for “Erin Pavlina”, so I feel I should justify my comments a little. (It also annoys me that my blog is higher in a google search for her name than for mine, but whatever).
On the earlier post I received two incredibly contrasting comments. The first was this one from Sue:
Hi, I am totally mortified to admit that it is clearly me, not Erin, who is the crazy person. Because Erin has $500 of my money and I am still wincing from the pain of being ripped-off by paying for one of her psychic readings. I wish I had done more research before I went through with it – the problem is that people paying psychics are vulnerable and really want to believe in this bs. Usually I am a rational person but I got totally duped by the false promises on her website. So I would be grateful if you would please publish this comment as a big warning to anyone thinking of buying a reading from this lady – DON’T DO IT!! It feels like rape.
And another from Ellie:
I have to say I have had two readings with Erin and both have been accurate and helpful (including making contact with deceased relatives Erin didn’t even know existed) – a far cry from what Sue refers to here.
So how could two people feel so differently about the same process? And why does that process cost up to $800 for just an hour of Erin’s time?
To demonstrate this, I will now do a psychic reading of you. Yes, you, the reader. It will be a long and detailed reading. I’ll show you how amazing a psychic I am, even though I’m not in the same room, and for some of you, not even in the same country. Here it goes. By the way, I”m assuming that you, like the majority of my readers, are in university or college, or have recently graduated – if not then email me about a private reading. It’s only $200, and I accept payment by PayPal and all major credit cards. So, without futher ado, here is my psychic reading of you.
You are a person prone to bouts of self-examination. This is in sharp contrast to a striking ability you have developed to appear very socially engaged, even the life and soul of the parrt; but in a way that only convinces others. You are all too aware of it being a facade.
This means that you will often be at a gathering and find yourself playing a part. While on the one hand you’ll be talkative and funny, you’ll be detaching yourself to the point where you will find yourself watching everything going on around you and feeling utterly unable to engage. You’ll play conversations back to yourself in your head and wonder what that person really meant when he said such-and-such – conversations that other people wouldn’t give a second thought to.
How have you learned to deal with this conflict? Through exercising control. You like to show a calm, self-assured fluid kind of stability (but because this is self-consciously created, it will create bouts of frustrated silliness and a delight in extremes, or at least a delight in being seen to be extreme). You most easily recognize this control in how you are with people around you. You have learned to protect yourself by keeping people at bay. Because in the past you have learned to be disappointed by people (and because there were issues with you adjusting to your sexuality), you instinctively keep people at arms’ length, until you decide they are allowed over that magic line into your group of close friends. However, once across that line, the problem is that an emotional dependency kicks in which leaves you feeling very hurt or rejected if it appears that they have betrayed that status.
Because you are prone to self-examination, you will be aware of these traits. However, you are unusually able to examine even that self-examination, which means that you have become concerned about what the real you is. You have become all too aware of facades, of sides of yourself which you present to the world, and you wonder if you have lost touch with the real and spontaneous you.
You are very creative, and have tried different avenues to utilize that ability. It may not be that you specifically, say, paint; it may be that your creativity shows itself in more subtle ways, but you will certainly find yourself having vivid and well-formed ideas which others will find hard to grasp. You set high standards for yourself, though, and in many ways are a bit of a perfectionist. The problem is, though, that it means you often don’t get stuff done, because you are frustrated by the idea of mediocrity and are wearied by the idea of starting something afresh. However, once your brain is engaged you’ll find yourself sailing. Very much this will likely lead to you having considered writing a novel or some such, but a fear that you won’t be able to achieve quite what you want stops you from getting on with it. But you have a real vision for things, which others fall short of. Particularly in your academic/college situation, you are currently fighting against restraints upon your desire to express yourself freely.
Your relationship with your parents (there is a suggestion that one is no longer around, or at least emotionally absent) is under some strain. You wish to remain fond of them but recent issues are causing frustration – from your side far more than theirs. In fact they seem unaware of your thoughts on the matter. Partly this is because there are ways in which you have been made to feel isolated from certain groups in the past – something of an outsider. Now what is happening is that you are taking that outsider role and defending it to the point of consciously avoiding being part of a group. This will serve you well in your creative and career pursuits. You have an enormous cynicism towards those who prefer to be part of a group or who exhibit any cliquey behaviour, and you always feel a pang of disappointment when you see your ‘close’ friends seeming to follow that route. Deep down it feels like rejection.
However, for all that introspection, you have developed a sensational, dry sense of humour that makes connections quickly and wittily and will leave you making jokes that go right over the heads of others. You delight in it so much that you’ll often rehearse jokes or amusing voices to yourself in order to ‘spontaneously’ impress others with them. But this is a healthy desire to impress, and although you hate catching yourself at it, it’s nothing to be so worried about.
There’s also an odd feeling that you should have been born in a different century. You might be able to make more sense of that than I can.
There are some strong monetary shifts taking place at the moment. Both the recent past and what’s in store over the next few months represent quite a change.
You have links at the moment with people abroad, which are quite interesting, and will look to yield worthwhile results. You’re naturally a little disorganized. A look around your living space would show a box of photos, unorganized into albums, out-of-date medicines, broken items not thrown out, and notes to yourself which are significantly out of date. Something related to this is that you lack motivation. Because you’re resourceful and talented enough to be pretty successful when you put your mind to things, this encourages you to procrastinate and put them off. Equally, you’ve given up dreams a little easily when your mind flitted elsewhere. There are in your home signs of an excursion into playing a musical instrument, which you have since abandoned, or are finding yourself less interested in. (This may alternatively relate to poetry and creative writing you’ve briefly tried your hand at and left behind you.) You have a real capacity for deciding that such-and-such a thing (or so-and-so a person) will be the be all and end all of everything and be with you for ever. But you’d rather try and fail, and swing from one extreme to the other, than settle for the little that you see others content with.
Conclusion: It’s very interesting doing your reading, as you do present something of a conundrum, which won’t surprise you. You are certainly bright, but unusually open to life’s possibilities – something not normally found among achieving people. I’d say you’d do well to be less self-absorbed, as it tends to distance you a little, and to relinquish some of the control you exercise when you present that stylized version of yourself to others. You could let people in a little more, but I am aware that there is a darkness you feel you should hide (much of this is in the personal/relationship/sexual area, and is related to a neediness which you don’t like).
You really have an appealing personality – genuinely. Many thanks for doing this, and for offering something far more substantial than most.
So how was that? Accurate? A load of nonsense? If you’re a normal, fairly intelligent young person, you will undoubtedly have found, like I did, that at least some of this applies to you. Yes, sometimes I can be a little self-absorbed. Yes, I tried to play the guitar and then got bored of it, and gave up. Yes, I’d like to think that I’d rather try and fail than settle for less. And like most people, I have “links” abroad.
But do you see the problem with this? Most of it is so general and generic, that if you really wanted to believe it, you could. If you really wanted to believe that I was psychic and performing an excellent reading of you, you could take the phrase “links abroad” to mean any number of things. Maybe you have relatives abroad, or colleagues from work, or you recently went on holiday, or you’re just about to go on holiday, or that your girlfriend is half-swedish. It could literally apply to almost everyone, if they wanted it to.
Similarly, who hasn’t at one point in their life tried to play an instrument or some other creative exercise? Who isn’t a little disorganized sometimes? Who hasn’t felt a little odd or disconnected in a social situation before?
By now, you’ve probably worked out that I’m not a psychic. This reading was in fact copied from Derren Brown’s book Tricks of the Mind (which I’d highly recommend, by the way), and is an example of the Forer Experiment.
Forer administered a personality test to his students. Rather than scoring the tests and giving individual assessments, he gave all the students the exact same analysis copied from a newspaper astrology column. The students were then asked to evaluate the description on a scale of zero through five, with five being the most accurate. The average evaluation was 4.26. The experiment has been repeated hundreds of times since 1948, and the average remains about 4.2. The Forer effect shows that people tend to accept generalised descriptions of their personalities without realising that the same evaluation could apply to nearly anyone else, because people want the results to be true.
And do you see how someone could make this reading even more precise in person, with a number of probing questions? By saying things like “I’m getting an indication that you can be a creative person”, and guaging the person’s reaction, you can make it much more accurate. If they agree with you, you can go more along this line and say something like “yes, you like to express yourself creatively, through music or writing or something similar” which has every chance of being correct. If they don’t think they’re particularly creative you might say “well, not obviously, but you have a creative side of you that manifests itself in other ways. For example, you often come up with a solution to a problem that others don’t see”, or you could even say “well, you have a creative side that you’re not fulling embracing, which you need to do”. The possibilities are almost endless.
And to use these skills, as Erin does, to dupe people into thinking that they can contact their deceased relatives (for only $797.00 an hour!) is dishonest, exploitative, and disgusting. To offer someone false comfort about a terrible event in their lives, and charge them up the ass for doing so, is horrible.
Admittedly, it may not be that Erin Pavlina does this intentionally. Let’s look at the alternatives for what might be happening here:
- Erin uses cold-reading techniques to give the outward appearance of being a psychic medium, and all the content on her website and her blog is carefully constructed to uphold this appearance, as people will come to her already believing she is psychic, making her job much easier as a result, as they will mould what she says into something that fits their reality.
- Erin believes what she says, and thinks she is psychic, as do others. She is quite intuitive and can, for example, tell if things are bothering someone, and can be a comfort to them. She’s not psychic at all, but sometimes she gets lucky with the things she says.
- Erin can literally contact the dead, psychically read people, and everything she says is absolutely true.
Which do you think is more likely?
Hi, Andrew!
As you could probably tell from my comment, I would go for option #3. That is because I am a believer in psychic abilities (always have been) and also what I couldn’t explain is how Erin Pavlina (and another medium) can tell me my relative’s name, how they died, where we first met, and another specific and highly relevant thing she couldn’t have known. Lucky guesses? It IS possible. But it was several lucky and spot on guesses if that was the case, which seems unlikely to me.
You could call me deluded, but I find it all quite magical (the world of psychic abilities and the spiritual realm). I really enjoyed my readings with Erin and I get a lot of pleasure from a connection with the spirit realm. Whether it’s real or not doesn’t matter to me because I know that I can’t prove its realness. That is because everything I am perceiving is happening in my own mind and perception. Can I really prove that anything exists outside of that? I don’t think I can! Anyway this has gotten a bit deep and I’m rambling now so I’ll leave it there.
Thanks for covering this interesting topic. Ellie
Andrew,
I also wanted to add a few things about what I think about Erin, and the impact she has had on my life, because I think she has been slated quite a lot here and I want to give another opinion too to balance it out.
Having spoken with Erin twice on the phone, I find her to be a caring and genuinely well-meaning human being.
I think she helps a lot of people who have a spiritual worldview. She helped me locate a profession I’d enjoy and find the courage to do the work I am doing now, which I love.
That’s a lot of positives to my mind too to consider.
Nice try, Erin. Ah sorry, I mean Ellie of course.
Seriously, do you think people stupid? But maybe you are right. I would think so too if a number of people would pay me up to 800 Dollars per hour for bullshitting them.
Those 800 Bucks/h make me really wish I could be a cold hearted motherfucker without a conscience so that I too could bullshit people with emotional problems. After all, thats how nature works too. You pick on the weakest animal and have a really nice feast for you and your relatives. Lions do it all the time, according to the nature show I saw the other day.
Andrew, I have also recently had a reading with Erin Pavlina. Well – let’s just put the psychic thing aside and let me tell you that she was infinitely more insightful into my personality in just 10-15 minutes than any of my attempts to communicate with a therapist over a period of weeks or even months at different points in my life.
I gave up on therapy ages ago because I always felt more insightful than the therapist. It was frustrating and unsatisfying.
But with Erin Pavlina, I was amazed. So…how do you explain that? How stupid are therapists, in that case, if they study human nature professionally for years and years and can’t come up with an 1/8 of the insight that a ‘fake psychic’ (your opinion, not mine) can in just a few minutes?
Remember, with a therapist you tell them all about yourself and they STILL CAN’T FIGURE IT OUT!!!!! You have to admit it’s comical at least?
Also let me tell you that I never read horoscopes because I don’t believe in them, I raced out of a personality testing facility when I was 19 because after one minute talking to the guy I thought he was full of B.S., only to see the sign “DIANETICS” after slamming the door behind me!
I have never gotten involved in any kind of group or cult and even the Fountainhead, about 40 pages in, started to seem like somebody was trying to indoctrinate me into their belief system and all my alarms started going off madly.
I don’t even like some of the stuff that Erin approves of on her site. I think The Secret is a cheesy marketing scam (with some good points that have been made much better by others), I can’t stand the Power of Now, and many other things that other people go for…
That being said, Erin Pavlina is authentic. Crazy as this might sound to you, some people genuinely are psychic. But if I hadn’t had my own experiences with psychic phenomenon, I wouldn’t believe it myself. I really wouldn’t.
And yes, I did relate to much of this generic reading you posted above, but some of it was completely off the mark. I’m awful at parties and I space out and everybody can tell what’s going on in my head because I don’t hide it. So if Erin had started out a reading like this for me my heart would have sunk.
Fortunately, she didn’t. Anyhow, as I said I don’t blame you -why believe in psychic things if you haven’t experienced anything like that yourself? I wouldn’t either…but I have, and so I do.
Hi. I re-read what I wrote last night re: Erin Pavlina and it sounds kind of obnoxious so actually I prefer that you don’t publish it right now. Of course, now that I’ve submitted it you can do whatever you want, but I could have said what I wanted to say much better. I was extremely tired!
Plus I should not have said Erin Pavlina knew more about me in 10-15 minutes than a therapist would over a long period of time. Although there is some truth to that, I should have said 30 minutes, and there are some insightful therapists out there so I don’t want to mislead people.
Anyhow it’s a serious issue and I would prefer to have written about it more thoughtfully. Thank you.
Glad to hear it! She seems really nice.
My question is though, what does she do that makes you willing to pay that much?
I’ve been at the same work, including very successful healing and clairvoyance with a global following for 25 years and can’t get my head around her fees.
Just curious!
Arlene
Ellie, it’s called cold reading. It’s deception. Search on Youtube for “Derren Brown interview”. It’s an interview with Richard Dawkins – 6 parts.
THANK YOU ANDREW!!
Yes. And Ellie = Erin herself.
Someone set up a review site, please. That doesn’t allow Erin to post her own reviews.
Her reading is 100% pure cold reading. Any concrete information she tries to give comes from her own mind, and is further inaccurate. No actual psychic advice here.
P.S. how can she even give ‘health advice’ when she herself is so unhealthy? Terrible.
If she were really psychic, she would not have those problems herself, and especially not before giving such advice to others.
Sound advice: stay away.
P.S. Ellie and Zanya = Erin
She does this on her own site too, posting her own reviews.
And as for being okay to charge for a psychic reading, even if she is not psychic, as BOTH of these people here wrote,
well, that is not okay, because SHE MARKETS HERSELF AS A PSYCHIC.
Both of these posts– Ellie/Zanya/Erin – write that she gives some advice, even if she is NOT ACTUALLY PSYCHIC, and it should be okay to charge $800 for A PSYCHIC READING.
If she is doing this, and is not psychic, as appears to be the case, this is a con.
Erin herself KNOWS that she is not genuinely psychic. She would also not offer ‘consultation services’ if she were actually psychic. Being that she claims to have a waiting list for psychic readings, she would not offer ‘consultation’ on the side, from her rational mind, if she actually has a psychic mind. That’s like a solar car offering to run on gasoline. She is either one or the other, not both. If she could connect to the psychic realm, she would not also decide to give advice from her own mind.
Her ‘psychic readings’ anyways, are the same. All from her own mind, inaccurate, and not actually psychic.
I don’t know about Erin Pavlina, seems a tad sketch. Steve Pavlina’s posts are always pretty cool and helpful though. So I’m still on teh fence about that whole clairvoyance issue.
Clearly there is an interesting element within yourself that could be examined here, Andrew. A reaction like this has a lot more to do with you and your own issues than with Erin.
Why do you think you are so hostile towards someone you have never met? To the point of writing this post? Why does do you let it bug you so much? Why so quick to judge someone else when, again, you have never even spoken to her?
On a different note, why are you so convinced that psychic phenomena doesn’t exist? The true sceptics are sceptical about their own scepticism ;)
Erin charges those prices because of the huge demand for her (considerable) skills. There’s no way she could keep up with the demand if her prices were lower. And her abilities are such that it’s extremely well worth it. I’m afraid your equating of her work with that of Derren Brown is laughable :) There’s no comparison.
Sapphire = Erin as well.
This is typical of how she responds to criticisms of her readings. Erin’s protocol: first, turn the blame on the critic. Second, say that ‘she is in demand’ for her ‘skills’, and it is okay to say that she is psychic, even if she is not.
Both of these are logical fallacies. Erin and her ‘readings’ herself are false, and marketed fallaciously. Erin is conning people. It is not surprising that her second search result in Google is ‘Erin Pavlina, scam’. What ever happened to Steve’s ‘truth’ principle?
Would not be surprised if her readings are uncovered by more to be false. Can only hope that the number of those conned by her will lower as the result of exposure to the truth by articles like these, and that there are fewer victims in the future when people can see the truth of this more clearly.
I agree with Chris. Sapphire sounds just like Erin too.
I think it was Steve Pavlina that was behind the huge price increases for Erin’s “services”. Erin Pavlina and Steve have recently split – he was probably thinking ahead and trying to increase her income to save himself some alimony. Anyway, don’t get me started on Steve.
I assure you, I’m not Erin. I find it pretty hilarious that anyone who posts here in support of her is assumed to BE her. I thought you guys were all about rationality!:) She wouldn’t be bothered with or by this and neither will I from here on in, though I’ve learned from the experience: there’s no point in trying to convince anyone of anything, especially those like Andrew and many who have contributed to this thread. I guess I just wanted to post because Andrew’s site comes up so high in a google search for ‘Erin Pavlina’.
P.S. Paul, please don’t start on Steve. You might hurt his feelings ;)
Although it is interesting that this post hasn’t got any comments for over a month and yet not half an hour after Paul posts his comments you jump straight back on here to post a defence.
Out of interest, why do you say that equating Erin’s work to Derren Brown’s is “laughable”?
I just checked my email and saw Paul’s post insinuating that I was someone other than who I am. Felt obliged to rectify the situation. Will now happily unsubscribe from notifications of future comments :)
Fair enough. Good luck in the future.
Thanks. I wish you the same.
(Okay, that’s it! :)
Fun thread. I’d rather have a reading with Derren B any day. He’s probably cheaper!!
There is this talent of the dead.
From Erin Pavlina’s website, it is clear that she is convinced (at least in writing) that she has a not so common talent – the talent of the ethers. One who takes a look at her website will clearly see that she is deeply immersed in the world of the dead. She says that she frequently speaks with dead people and even with “people” who have never lived in this world at all. This last group of her favorites she calls them Angels and Guides. She has done a fairly good job of analyzing the “people” she speaks with. She gives some “information” on what happens when one dies, of the views of the dead about hell and heaven, of how dead people keep themselves busy given their unlimited time, of whether the dead respect the privacy of the living or not, of whether the dead do “die” again, of how to show love to dead people, of how one can develop a talent like her own etc. Most of this information was given to her by the dead in her dreams, or rather, that she dreamt that the dead were giving her such information.
When analyzing such claims, the first step is to give a provincial of the possibility that she might be sincere with her claims and dreams. Unless one is closely acquainted with her, we cannot out-rightly conclude that she is an imposter or a creative writer/dreamer. One of the closest persons to her is Steve Pavlina. Steve approves of her spiritual talent. Whether Steve is himself sincere or not on this issue is also a whole different question.
But again we should note that sincerity is not a proof of a claim.
We have read of the witch trials in Britain during the dark ages and we know that people not only confessed of witchcraft but also of impossible crimes like maliciously causing a storm in the sea or of causing frost, fog, snow falls or of turning themselves into wolves. They made these confessions despite their knowledge that such claims would amount to their death. We also read of the sincerity of the judges and the people of that time in their summoning of animals before a court of law for trial and the consequent public execution of these animals. We also read of how they used animals as witnesses before a court of justice.
One can be sincere in the absurdity of absurdities.
Taking it for granted then that Erin is deeply convinced that she has no mental problem (or mind reading talent) and that she actually thinks that the dead people do, in practice, relay information to her, then we can proceed to make the following observations about the whole process in a more ‘earthly’ way:
• * It is assumed that the information relayed by the dead concerning earthly issues is accurate. That the opinion of the dead on earthly matters is superior to that of the living (like which town here on earth is best for one to live in). It is on this assumption that Erin charges a fee to her sitters for receiving such ethereal information.
• * That the dead grow better in some professional careers like medicine after their death and that they can detect failed human organs without the aid of any modern equipments.
• * That the dead are so competent that they can accurately predict when a currently functioning body organ will fail and that through talented people like Erin, they can write there diagnosis to her brain through dreams. A story is given of a prediction of the death of a two week or so pregnant woman that would occur during her delivery. The cause of this foretold death was also predicted by the dead (or guide, angel etc) as being due to over bleeding. This prediction was told to Erin in a dream. The angel or the dead doctor encouraged Erin to relay this information to the patient. Steve also encouraged Erin to make after-delivery follow-ups of this woman. Erin however declined to do so.
• * That the dead get really pleased when we offer them sacrifices. They can accept physical sacrifices like food and that they do treat that as a sign of love. That the dead like us to think about them.
• * That when one is depressed or suicidal, the person’s angel does appear standing by the person’s shoulders. And that these angels are usually visible to Erin during readings.
• * That these dead people are good in financial matters and that they can see when one will have a lot of money.
• * That it is a productive thing to seek and listen to the opinion of these dead people.
• * It is however not clear if these dead people can be of any great importance to the living. It is also not clear whether they can help in improving science and technology, in astronomy, in geology, biology, history and any useful study.
• * It is easy to assume that given their power of examining internal body organs without any aid of scientific tools then it should be very easy for them to make enormous contributions to modern medicine. It is also tempting to assume that because these dead people are now contemporaries of the ancient world, they should be able to relay important and accurate historical information to the living. However, as of present we hardly receive such useful information from people like Erin.
• * It is also easy to think that there needs to be a reformation in the world of the dead as presented by Erin. That they, the dead, have to be taught to be courageous and bold. That they, the dead, should be taught that using dreams as a means of relaying information to living human beings raises, as it should, a lot of doubts and suspicion. That, that information that is of much interest to living beings is that information that affects human welfare in general. This could include prediction of earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes and tsunamis, information on medicine, geology, geography, biology, vaccination etc.
Anthony Kawa
LOL, this is one of the top results for Erin Pavlina. Andrew, I think you could make this even more of a “splash of cold water”. Erin Pavlina is a fraud.
She is making a 6 figure salary, peddling baloney. I’m seriously considering becoming a “psychic” myself.
The money is obviously SO easy. You don’t require any qualifications, you can charge through the roof, and you can sell yourself as an expert really easily.
Talent as a psychic can’t be quantified at all so you can make up some lovely stories (as Erin has) with vague yet vivid details. And people are so desperate to believe… Steve Pavlina is in the same boat here, in that his readership is comprised of highly vulnerable people. His is a different kind of baloney, taking advantage of people in a different way. He’s generated something of a cult following and convinced himself he’s “serving people” when in fact all he’s doing is jamming peoples’ heads with rhubarb: and even more reasons to feel inadequate when they compare themselves as failures next to his seeming perfection.
I remember firmly believing she was the real deal, but now I have to except the depressing fact that this sort of “phenomenon” doesn’t exist. Good God, Life’s boring–that’s what I’m most upset about. Only the charmingly peculiar occur in one’s imagination, whether it be widely published through Mass Entertainment or being privately relished. Can’t wait ’til automobiles have the ability to take flight, and finally be able to go further into space…
I hate to express extremist feelings…but I hope these apathetic, relentless liars get lynched knowing that there are people who love them and have seen their lovely aspects.
I’m inclined to agree with you that it’s not ‘real’ to the capacity Erin thinks it is. Perhaps she’s just intuitive. But I find it ironic you want everyone to believe your point of view, despite the fact you’ve never even had a reading with her yourself. Your insistence she is not psychic… is in fact some kind of prediction you expect everyone to believe.
I would be less bored with this post if you had bothered to have a reading with her first.
Ellie is probably Erin-the response was too timely and makes sense seeing the high popularity of the first post on this blog.
I don’t believe Zanya is Erin, the writing style is rather different, and doesn’t seem to get quite enough done considering the length of the post. Equally, s/he seems to actually suffer from exactly what this post is saying. First, because of the nature of this post, one becomes openly skeptic as we already know you don’t believe in this sort of thing. Second, when the reading occurred, Zanya was likely susceptible, and so believed it, then afterwords, is painting a memory with rosy retrospection.
Sapphire may or may not be Erin. She seems very ill-tempered AND polite at the same time, which suggests a mix between anger and realizing rude people always lose arguments. Any good deceiver knows this tactic, but by hiding under the guise of being someone else, it becomes infinitely easier to pretend to merely be a zealous defender of someone, whereas if it were openly the person being attacked defending in this manner, it would instantly become apparent what was occurring.
All of the above is based upon my personal analysis of the situation, based solely upon my understanding of the human psyche and without evidence, and so should only be taken as speculation.
With regards to this post, it seems like more of the same arguments I’ve heard against these things in the past. Either it’s incorrect and there are no other arguments, or it’s the truth, which is why everyone comes to the same conclusions. Either way, I agree with it.
Individual responses, since I don’t wish to “leave anyone hanging”:
Ellie:
I don’t want to regurgitate what I just typed, but there is the possibility of what I wrote about Zanya being applicable to your questions. Namely, you mention another psychic who was able to derive the same information from you, but I highly doubt that Erin and this other psychic have the same view on the afterlife. This suggests that you gave away the information without realizing it, and actually provides some data suggesting that both of the above “psychics” are fakes. The concepts of astral planes and the afterlife may be real, but neither of the people you spoke to likely were.
Zanya:
Therapists don’t tell you what you want to hear. This may be why they’re “wrong” so often, and why you seem to be more insightful than them. I already covered you, mostly, so again, I don’t wish to waste time. In addition, I won’t question your belief system, as I hate that aspect of typical atheists*.
Sapphire:
If you heard a story about a mass murderer who went about killing children in the dead of night all throughout towns in rural Spain, having claimed the lives of hundreds already, wouldn’t you be very critical and angry about that person, perhaps to the point of writing a blog post about it? Despite never having met or talked to the person? In addition, Andrew did put a #3 at the end of his post. He is skeptical about the possibility of psychic abilities, at the very least, enough to consider it, even if he does not believe in it.
Finally, as a too-long-didn’t-read version:
There lies a logical explanation for everything, and man’s greatest enemy is himself.
As a disclaimer:
I personally believe there is an afterlife, and think that psychic abilities may be possible. As a skeptic, I cannot dismiss the possibility of anything until solid proof arises, and even then, the proof I shall hold up to debate.
*The typical Atheist forces his belief system on others and is incredibly arrogant. That is why I dislike most Atheists. Don’t get me started on them.
I “predict” 80% of people will not read this post.
I also “predict” that among the 80% who did not, 10% of them read this post purely because I mentioned my “prediction.”
Michelle – sorry if I don’t feel the need to fly out to the US and then shell out 800 bucks for something that I’m 90% sure is BS before I write a blog post about it.
And I’m not insisting people believe me at all – I’m simply saying what I believe as another side to the argument. (Most) people are smart enough to make up their own minds.
Contempt prior to investigation?
Erin definitely has some sort of paranormal ability. A friend got me a reading with her for my birthday one year. While I never believed in any psychics/astrology stuff before, I can definitely say that I was shocked. She knew a couple of specific things about me- about a hidden skill that I have and about an illness I had- that she could not have intuited from my voice, or anything I said, or from a picture of me. To refute the conspiracy argument, my friend couldn’t have told her because my friend didn’t know about these things.
I do think there are a lot of “psychics” who are just intuitive people, and probably a good number of frauds, but Erin is definitely legitimate- as odd as it sounds to say that. I would love to do another reading with her again, if only I could afford it!
Umm OK. You think I’m Erin. Want to find out if I’m Erin? Check my IP address and look it up. I think you’ll find it’s not Las Vegas, and a long way away from the US.
No, didn’t think you would. prefer not to have your little bubble burst.
You know Andrew, I will second what a few other people have said here. You sound like you’ve got a bit of a problem – a hostility problem towards someone you never met or spoken to. Erin pushed a button or two at some point of yours.
You know how I know this (wow I am so psychic lmao) – because you discount the other side of the story. Including people who’ve actually got a reading from her (by saying they must be Erin.) Good luck building a weblog anyone listens to.
It’s a bit like a kid who puts his fingers in his ears and goes la la la when someone says something he doesn’t want to hear.
I also second what Michelle says:
I might find your point of view more interesting if you’d actually expanded your horizons and made an investigation of it.
I’m unsubscribing now. Again, I hope you lose the small-mindedness and the feeling you know everything. Really unattractive qualities to have for the future.
Ellie:
Point out exactly where I said that anyone that disagrees with me is wrong. What do you think I’ve been doing in the comments section here? Debating my side of the argument. I personally don’t believe in psychic abilities, or the supernatural, or God for that matter, but I’m grown up enough to accept that not everyone shares my viewpoint. That’s fine, that’s what debate is for.
As far as my having a “hostility problem”, maybe you’re right. Due to my strong opinions, I disagree with what she does. I also had a hostility problem towards the guy who stole my wallet.
LOL i just want to say that erin pavlinas psychic stuff is total garbage. no i will not be persuaded by the fact that it is 500 dollars for a half hour phone conversation. do you know what that is called? perceived demand. im not even a business student and i know that. raise the price of something to make it seem like its in high demand, and people will think it is. HAH
secondly, psychic abilities do not exist. sorry to burst YOUR bubble, but there is no way to speak with the dead. they are dead, and they are dead. attempting to convince people that one is able to communicate with them is wrong. simply wrong. doing this simply drives emotionally distressed people further into distress, and it is a sham. whether or not erin believes that she can do this is of no consequence, because what she is doing is wrong.
i think the fact that these people, who are most likely erin, continually threaten the writer of this with unsubscription is laughable. erin, it is obvious that you read this and its pathetic that you read and reply to something that criticizes you. its like being the kid on the playground who…. no. you know what? i dont even need to come up with a silly analogy.
erin pavlina makes me that mad. wowwwwww i wish i could express my disgust for her better. preying on emotionally weak people is the lowest of the low. charging 800 dollars an hour just lowers that bar.
one time, i read a blog entry by erins former husband, steve pavlina. he talked about how in order to make money doing something, you must provide something that consumers are willing to pay for. erin does just that, but in a very wrong way.
in the land of capitalism, it is the same as the wild. the hungry prey on the weak. sad.
people need to overcome their fears and insecurities and listen to their own voices more. when theres that thing in your head telling you “this is ridiculous,” listen to it! do you want your life in your own hands, or in the hands of a false prophet?
andrew, this is my first time reading your blog, but your thoughts are very similar to mine. im gonna read it more lol.
hi, i just wanted to say i’ve never had a reading (with any psychic) and i am not a psychic (to the best of my knowledge lol). i saw this post and figured i’d put my two cents into this lively conversation. =P
i’ll start off by saying that i believe psychics do exist, along with some form of afterlife and a soul. do i believe in spirit guides as well? yes. now, that being said, there are TONS of frauds out there in the psychic trade making a pretty penny for absolute BS. but i think there are a select few (who are probably damn hard to find seeing as how everyone claims to be legit) who truely are able to do the things that they say they can. also, just because someone says they are psychic doesn’t mean that they are able to “contact the dead” or the “other side”. i believe there are some people who are just super intuitive, and that intuition leads them to conclusions that less intuitive people could not achieve.
that being said, i also feel that all people have SOME SORT of psychic power. personally i have been subject to many precognitive dreams. i’m not saying i predict disasters, but i have had dreams (and written them down in a journal) and then forget about them, to then have the EXACT thing happen and feel familiar. when i go back to look, sure enough the situation was exactly as i described it in the journal.
the same can also be said of people who avoid disasters and traumas. there are several reports of people that said “something told me not to get on/in that plane/bus/train/car/building” and then sure enough something happened and a tragedy strikes. how else do you explain that? this happens to everyone, even if they don’t care to admit it. some people have said that in times like that, “destiny” takes over and your soul is moving along its preordained path. some say that is what deja vu is. no one knows for sure and that just adds to the mystery and skepticism.
well, that’s the end of my tyrade for tonight. haha. but i’m sure after a few comments on here i’ll end up posting back. so until next time have fun spreading the “psychics and all such phenominon are BS” BS. =D
“there are several reports of people that said “something told me not to get on/in that plane/bus/train/car/building” and then sure enough something happened and a tragedy strikes. how else do you explain that?”
There are probably millions of reports of people saying “I have a bad feeling about that plane. Don’t get on that plane” and then absolutely nothing happens. There are also hundreds of people who haven’t said “don’t get on that plane” and then it crashes. I have no doubt that someone, somewhere, has correctly predicted a plane crash or a car crash – it’s almost a certainty purely due to the law of large numbers.
why’d you remove jessie’s post? cus it was saying something good about my post? lol. that hardly seems fair. =P
anywho, you could attribute that to just sheer numbers i guess, so that was a bad example on my part. haha oh well, live and learn right? but what about what i said about my dreams that came true? here are two more examples, taking place within my immediate family. the first is of my mother, and this one cannot be verified for sure, but i figured i’d include it anyway. when she was young (12ish i think is what she said) she woke up in the middle of the night from a horrible dream that her grandmother had gotten out of bed to do whatever and then fell down the stairs to her death. her mother dismissed it as BS and told her to go back to sleep. the next morning when the nurse that attended her grandmother came to work, she found my mom’s grandmother laying dead at the bottom of the stairs. the time of death was estimated to be around the time when my mom had had the dream. freaky huh?
the second instance is something that i myself witnessed my sister heather do. we were on a road trip and made a stop in a town that none of us had ever been to. we checked into our hotel mid-afternoon and then went to get a late lunch. we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and my sister said “i’ve been here before”. my mom said “no you haven’t, none of us have even been to this city before, let alone this restaurant.” then we went inside and my sister said “yeah, i’ve DEFINATLY been here before…” to which my mom again replied no, none of us had been. about halfway through the meal my mom needed to go to the restroom and wondered out loud where was it? my sister then told her exactly where it was, how many stalls, sinks, and even the designs on the stall doors. my mom laughed and left, but when she came back she looked kinda in shock and was like “oh. my. god. that was EXACTLY how you described it!!! but that’s not possible! you have never been here with family or on any kind of field trip, and no one we know has lived around here and you were spot on.” can you explain that one? hahaha.
Having recently received a reading by Erin Pavlina, I was not impressed. She fishes for information by asking leading questions and when pressed to give a specific answer she says “your guides aren’t clear about that.” Erin is a waste of money, but that doesn’t mean every psychic out there is. I know of one operating out of Berkeley who is the real deal. Akasha Madron is one of the best psychic readers I’ve ever come across. If it weren’t for her, I would believe that all psychics and so-called mediums are scam artists. She doesn’t make phony predictions but instead gets at the emotional depth of a situation. She will not ask you leading questions and prefers it when you don’t tell her anything. Sorry, don’t mean for this to be free advertising for Akasha, but she is a treasure and living proof of why we shouldn’t give up on the notion that human cognitive abilities have great potential and very probably go way beyond the purely analytic.
I recently had a reading with Erin. I wish I’d seen this site earlier. I think Erin is a terrible psychic. She kept asking me leading questions and didn’t have any answers to questions I asked.
I suppose it’s my fault for being such an idiot and paying her $500 for 30 minutes of completely useless ‘guidance’.
She seems to be a nice person and is not malicious, but she’s definitely not a good psychic.
People, please learn from my mistake and save your money.
I’ve had experiences with psychics on Ebay and other psychic services online, and I can tell you what Erin is most likely doing for some of her clients to give such “accurate” readings.
Once you click to purchase a reading from Erin, you are sent to a secure order form in which it asks for your information (Name, Phone, Email, City, State, Zip, Country, Credit Card Information). Once you send that info over, Erin has it, and she can do a simple Google Search, or Free/Cheap Record Search on your name to find more information about you that you most likely don’t even know exists about you online.
During 4 different psychic readings from psychics online (I never had a reading with Erin, but other so-called psychics do this), I was given initials of a few of my relatives, and of those who are passed. They got this information from various free records online when they searched for my name, after seeing my name in the paypal and ebay emails that were sent to them!
It’s funny how many people give psychics on Ebay such great reviews, but most people are pretty clueless about information you can find out about someone online before giving them a reading.
I’m pretty sure the positive comments on Erin in this post are related to her giving out names, or the information of deceased loved ones. Much information can be found online with a simple google search, court record search, white pages search, etc.
Be warned of all online psychics on the internet! Many are doing searches on your name, as it’s so easy to search online these days and find information about someone. Granted not everyone has easily accessible information online (especially those not in the USA), but many do, and that’s most likely where many of the positive reviews come from.
Pingback: I am naturally skeptical of Erin's claims - Page 9
One of the main criticisms of psychics (and astrology) is that they provide general statements that could be perceived as true by a large number of receptive individuals. But isn’t the contra-positive also true?
What you take away from anything in life is heavily biased by your attitude when you enter the situation. A believe will find truth and a skeptic will always find fault regardless of the statements made.
I can honestly say that I’ve been addicted to phone psychic readings for a good chunk of my life, starting from when I was having relationship problems in my first year of university. I’ve have readings from local psychics in my area (Toronto) to the ones from popular psychic websites such as Keen, Liveperson, etc, you name it, I’ve done it. I realized after a year or so that probably 99.9% of them are scammers, but the hope that ‘maybe this one will be accurate’ kept me going. I also have to say that it became an addiction just like any other drug or alcohol addictions and it only stopped when I maxed out my credit cards and went onto stealing my parents credit cards to pay for a reading. I became pretty depressed and had to see a psychiatrist for a while before I could go back to being somewhat normal.
I realize that my case would be a little too extreme than most people, but here is something I would like to point out from my personal experiences. When I visited Erin Pavlina’s website (I happened to see her link on Steve Pavlina’s website when I was searching for his raw food blog entries) the first thing that threw me off was her services to ‘train’ people that may or may not have genuine psychic abilities. I personally find this to be very skeptic because since Erin claims to be a ‘mental medium’ herself, she should know that genuine psychic abilities are something your naturally born with not built on teaching them tricks and tools to read people.
I have personally never received a reading from Erin (and never will, in fact don’t planning on getting readings from anyone period) she would know that anyone who is willing to pay a whopping 800 dollars for a session is desperate and ready to believe just about anything she will tell them. Steve Pavlina describes her as a not a money oriented individual but judging from her prices that statement is truly laughable. I do believe that her practice is manipulative. Even famous TV mediums such as Chip Coffey has somewhat more reasonable rates (around 200 last time I checked) so I definitely wouldn’t waste my time or money on her even if she has some genuine abilities.
Thanks for this post, I am not a believer of anything supernatural, superstitious, or religious. I think Erin Pavlina is a complete fraud. As is anybody who is marketing themselves as a psychic. She has already said she will not allow any scientific studies done on her “abilities.” Fucking ridiculous. I cannot believe ANYBODY believes this shit, grow up people! Ghosts aren’t real, psychics aren’t real, alchemy is not real, witches aren’t real, magic isn’t real, grow the fuck up people.
Sincerely,
Somebody working their way towards a PhD. in the medical field.
Dave:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. In all likelihood, Erin knows that she would not be able to convince anyone in the sciences or medicine of the efficacy of her techniques, so she doesn’t even bother trying. And inevitably, she needs to spin this somehow, so that it doesn’t appear that she is just shirking away from actually validating her claims. So she may say something like “my abilities can’t be quantified in the traditional way”, or “modern science doesn’t have the tools to recognise and understand my abilities” or something like that.
It may well be that Erin is doing all this subconsciously – she may in fact believe that she has psychic abilities, and wiggling out of scientific testing like this is her way of rationalizing her lack of actual, proven ability.
And, as always, remember that the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’. Just because several people say they’ve had positive, beneficial readings with Erin does not prove anything (one way or the other).
I google on steve pavlina but it also appear with scam at the end of his name. That is how I came to this website.
I believe there will be another world after our death. That world is a place for the spirit before it goes to heaven or hell.
I believe that some people have the ability to communicate with them. But, from my experience only the bad spirit that want to communicate with us. The good spirit will only appear in our dream and they will just looking at us, silent and not talking.
For Erin Pavlina, please be careful with the abilities that you have. You might get friends from bad spirit to connect you with the dead people.
Wah, wah wah. WAH WAH WAH. Andrew, you are an unfortunate, sad individual. Please get a life.
Thanks for the input Mike. Any specific advice?
I was recently bored at work one day and started searching things like astral projection to try and entertain myself. ( much like why i am posting a blog right now haha). Anyways Erin pavlina came up and her articles seemed to be very interesting and naturally they linked me into steve’s as well. After spending a couple days reading their articles and their views on life I decided to check out some counter articles and other sites like this which share other peoples opinions about them. I found two articles which I feel are worth sharing here. The first one is called steve pavlina is the devil and it pretty much just discredits everything he does and stands for. It’s pretty funny and I suggest you google it. The second article is the one I really thought was exceptional. Personal development for starving Africans.
the first step to personal development is to find a piece of paper or bark and write or scratch a list of words until you find one that makes you emotional. you will need to have a clear head to do this so you will need to forget the fact that you are covered in feces and do not have any food to feed your children or yourself. so once you arent crying about those you should be able to find your true purpose. I am not going to ramble on about how funny it is but I highley suggest you check it out. Church of apathy
I had a reading with with ERin in person when she first began giving them 4 years ago and everything she said came to be true. My boyfriend at the time was beginning to have visions and was very fearful of what was happening to him. ERin was kind enough to meet us and speak to my boyfriend to help calm him and make him understand what was happening. She didn’t charge us a penny and was so compassionate and authentic which is a far cry from what is happening on this site. This can’t feel good to any of you. Go out and create love….and no this is not Erin.
Really man ,in 21st century if we are duped by scam artist like erin, we are doomed for
I have not recieved a reading from erin but I have recieved readings from 4 different pyschics. I dont think I would pay 500$ for any reading from anybody. 3 of the psychics were all extremely accurate. I also had a turkish coffee reading from my friends mom, and a mini one from a pyschic i bumped into in a store and openly started telling me about myself and family members. My friends mom told me among other things that in about a week a bald male from my past who is not in my life now will contact me. I thought in my head it is either my dad or this guy i was seeing that i hadnt seen or heard from in 6 months. the guy I hadnt heard from called me a week later. One pyshic described to me in great detail the exact personality of my father, and my ex boyfriend down to a tee even described how they looked like and the things they would say. All 4 of them told me that I am empathic and when I looked it up (signs you are an empath) the description matched me perfectly. 1 of the pyshics was more general and kind of did more healing work on me (if i were trying to convince someone that pyshics exist i would not have recommended this particular one)… she did tell me about a tramatic experience i had when i was 3 but she kind of dwelled on that for an hour when i had other questions, wheras the other pyshics were very accurate and quick to answer my questions and ready for the next one.
Hey I really liked your site. I was looking for information about astrology when I found your site, (you’d laugh at some of the search results those terms bring up at times) but in this case I’m really glad that I did find it. I run an astrology blog myself, which is why I was doing research on the topic in the first place, I will admit I do get distracted easily, but I try to stay focused. There’s just so much to learn out there. (Can never know too much). Thank you for sharing your knowledge and views with me and everyone else! I look forward to reading more in the future. :-)
With havin so much content and articles do you ever run into any issues of plagorism or copyright violation? My blog has a lot of exclusive content I’ve either written myself or outsourced but it appears a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my agreement. Do you know any methods to help reduce content from being ripped off? I’d certainly appreciate it.
Hello. Will the admin of this site please contact me. I would like to lease some banner space asap. My name is Dave and I work at a CPA Network. You can reach me at dave.kosiba@yahoo.com (please respond, our network can provide much better income for the traffic you are getting than adsense) I have tried reaching the admin via email with no luck (I apologize for the spam)