My step daughter believes she has the ability to sense things. Numbers for the lottery are one of her many gifts. Never all of the numbers to win. Darn it.

This seems to be a female thing. Do you have this gift also?

I believe that a lot of people have gifts to sense things. It's not limited by gender or age.

Until your step-daughter hits a 100% accuracy on her predictions I would keep her far, far away from anything resembling a casino or lottery ticket. Hopeful, wishful thinking such as this has made many millionaires of casino owners and their ilk. My mother died in abject poverty after spending nearly every quarter that passed through her hands on those damned scratcher lottery tickets and the quarter slots in Nevada. But no way could you convince her she didn't have "the gift."

"Sensing things" is one of life's gifts that prevents most of us from getting hit by cars when crossing the street, but does us little good when sitting in front of a slot machine where winning is a function of chance.

On the way to visit family friend in Reno, Nevada, USA (an American gambling destination) I spied a billboard for a casino heralding a whopping NINETY-SEVEN PERCENT return on your gambling dollar! Oh boy! An industry high!

- Which of course means for every time you plunk in $100 into their machines, they keep three bucks. Which means now you're playing with $97, then $94.09, then..... What a deal! Which means you keep winning, and winning, and winning.......until you're dead a$$ broke. BUT! before they've taken your last dollar, you're "sixth sense" that you're about to win some money is validated over, and over again.

I don't know how old your step-daughter is, though she sounds somewhat young-ish. Hopefully she'll cultivate her many gifts to activities that have a historically higher rate of return for the average person than lottery numbers.

putting on my chauvinist TBM hat --- hmmm? let's see. Ellen White started Seventh-Day Adventist, Mary Baker Eddy started Christian Scientist. They were contemporaries of J.S. so if he could have visions and reveal truths from God; why not them also??? To be honest it was Emma Smith who held out and helped organize the RLDS for her son.

Now in Modern times we had John Edward, but it's mostly been women on the "cold call" scams Jean Dixon, Sylvia Brown, Theresa Caputo (Long Island Medium), now Rosie Cepero (Angels Amongst Us) and there's even a newer one on TLC... So when it comes to prophets, psychics, mediums, fortune tellers, etc... Women are just a well represented and there is no glass ceiling. In fact it appears that the fairer sex is over-represented; but not in the established religions like Catholicism and Mormonism.

Maybe the answer is Conchita Wurst who proves that you can fill the role as needed, no matter the genitalia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myrI682KZ2Q

Years ago I could sense right before someone was going to enter a room and who it was going to be. Or when a person was going to walk past me. I could also see dark shadows and sometimes orbs wandering around.

My perceptions are not as good lately.

Some people can self-bamboozle. It's not that difficult. See General Conference, or your Ward F&T meeting.

No, but I do believe the female of the species is more prone to commune emotionally.

Nope I don't. I think people who think this way just ignore all the times they thought something was going to happen and then it didn't.

annieg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nope I don't. I think people who think this way
> just ignore all the times they thought something
> was going to happen and then it didn't.

Exactly. I've had a few hits which were incredible, but I'm intelligent enough to notice that on most things, I'm mistaken. So I put no stock into the few times that I was right on.

I think that some people just have really good instincts. They're good at reading the signs around them, such as the body language of others, or recognizing trends, etc.

This supports the notion that there are endless scams out there, Mormonism being only one. As soon as we quit Mormonism, we head right into the others.

I mean, how can we agree that JS was a scam artist, charlatan, and then believe someone else has some supernatural gift?


The problem isn't Mormonism. The problem is we don't know how to think critically, and use logic to determine what is and is not BS.

If all we're going to go on is our feelings, and the claims of others, we'll forever be ripped off. Endless are the ways to take your time and money. Parasites are everywhere.

and both men and women have it. I used to not listen to my intuition if it didn't go along with Mormon teachings.

commune spiritually ?


can you translate this nonsense into English ?

I believe that gender has nothing whatsoever to do with the ability of a human being to commune spiritually.

Perhaps a definition of the term "commune spiritually",by the poster,is in order here

I have a relative who claims to see spirits daily, talk with the other side to help others, and even sees herself evolved to Christs' level. She is big into energy and energy healing. She is a licensed councilor and I fear for her clients.

When I was in church leadership I took the position that women did not need the priesthood because they were naturally more spiritual. This was a personal conclusion and I shared it whenever the opportunity arose.

In my business I never interview ANYONE without my personnel manager who is female and almost 60 years old. I have to do 100 or more mental cartwheels to go against her "feelings."

So in my life experience, women are more in tune spiritually (or whatever you want to call correct decision making).

You posters aren't just being skeptical, you're being vicious. Stop.
There is a good deal of science to back up what the poster is trying to say to us. My daughter and I often know what the other is thinking and she is four states away. There was a time, before skeptics got hold of me, that I could lay a deck of cards face down and be able to match them. I did it 100% of the time. Then a preacher's boy told me it was evil. I never did it again.
To the poster I would say: Maybe the only thing between those last numbers and getting them right is lack of skepticism. Tough way to make a living though. But your choice, not ours.

???

It is not at all vicious to be skeptical. It is vicious to attempt to coerce others to believe nonsense.

You must know there are large rewards for anyone who can prove they have an actual psychic ability. And of course, there is always the lottery. No proof necessary.

I can't speak to whether or not you were able to successfully match 26 pair of playing cards every time as I was not witness to your pre-skeptic destroyed ability. However, it is far from cruel to express doubt to the odd's defying feat without reliable outside confirmation.

It was interesting that you placed a blanket demand upon all of us to behave in such a way as to keep you within your comfort zone by insisting that non-believers "stop" expressing their personal views in matters falling easily into the category of magical thinking spoken often here in many threads over the years.

I have a blind friend, and a color blind friend, both of whom I have shared a beautiful warm sun setting into the horizon over the blue-green ocean waters amid a brilliant haze of red, orange and fading yellows streaking across the skies. On each occasion both expressed wonderment at what it was I found so awe inspiring. In spite of their profound doubt and outright disbelief of those around me did I once lose my natural ability, or "gift" if you will, to see, experience and enjoy the splendor before my eyes.

My point is I do doubt true ability is easily affected by the skepticism of others. And the freedom to express our doubts and concerns over destructive beliefs and ways of thinking that have destroyed the well being of a great many of us here is the very reason so many come to Recovery From Mormonism in the first place.

Lastly, I honestly don't believe anyone was being deliberately mean to the OP, they were just expressing their candid thoughts on the subject.

"On each occasion both expressed wonderment at what it was I found so awe inspiring. In spite of the profound doubt and outright disbelief of those around me I did NOT once lose my natural ability, or "gift" if you will, to see, experience and enjoy the splendor before my eyes."

"You can guess, of course—and a guess is either right or wrong. If it is right you call it an intuition. If it is wrong you usually do not speak of it again. But what is often called an intuition is really an impression based on logical deduction or experience. When an expert feels that there is something wrong about a picture or a piece of furniture or the signature on a cheque, he is really basing that feeling on a host of small signs and details. He has no need to go into them minutely—his experience obviates that—the net result is the definite impression that something is wrong. But it is not a guess, it is an impression based on experience.”--Dame Agatha Christie, 'The A.B.C. Murders'

Nice quote. It's not only for experts. This applies to most of us. Our brains take time to get all immediate sensations gathered into a coherent picture, resulting in our experience lagging about half a second behind reality. To compensate for this our brains actually process incoming sensations by predicting the world about half a second in to the future. And our brains are really, really good at this.

This leads to all kinds of weird ways to fool us, pretty much every magic trick is about taking advantage of this. It is the very reason misdirection not only works but is more efficient the older and more experienced we are. It also makes computer animation a tedious buisness. Unless every particle in the scene is percieved behaving in a way consistent with our normal every day physics intuition we'll sense it's not real.

I have a friend who I've known for 43 years. We often finished each others sentences. When were younger, some people said we were more like one person, rather than two. I'm not sure how I felt about that last statement, but that's what they said.

This can be even more intense between mothers and their children. Emotions carry with them certain chemicals. Who knows which emotions a fetus can feel from their mothers?

This connection between friends and family members comes from the familiarity that you have with one another. It wouldn't likely happen with a stranger. You can know each other so well that it isn't so difficult to complete each others sentences.

It's all about being extremely observant and intuitive towards your surroundings.

Umm... I know you are not a mother...
So yeah, MY mother insists she has a magical "bond" with me, that she knows what I'm thinking and why. But whenever I hear her version of my experiences and thoughts, they are tainted with the darkest motivations you could imagine. All because she always has a dark feeling about me, but cannot own that they are HER feelings about me. She does not realize how her mere opinion of me colors everything she thinks about me. And no matter how I explain myself, in the moment she will praise me for having apparently remarkable good motivations, but within five minutes she will be back to ascribing meanness and evil to everything I do.

So I am skeptical even of this "bond" of mothers, because of my own experience. No, I am not a mother either. I had my absolute fill of the so called "bond" to progeny, and there is nothing that would convince me to try to "do it better" myself.

I have had friends in the past who I could "sync up" with, to put it in magic-speak. It comes from shared experiences and repetition, lots of talking and relating, and goodwill from both parties sharing in life.
I have also had my fill of "friends" becoming more and more like my mother, both appearing to ascribe negative motivations to me and appearing to be more and more maliciously motivated during social interactions.

Some people really know how to take advantage of magical thinkers, and some people are just so out of touch with themselves that they project their own emotions onto others. This can turn out okay if their own emotions are positive, but positive people are generally in touch with themselves and their emotions, so I run into a lot more of the negative kind of projection.

http://skepdic.com/randi.html

Oh, for classes in critical thinking from the 5th grade up! That would give mysticism a good ki- no, I can't say it. Must be polite.

There is plenty of evidence that people have a sense of intuition or a "gut" feeling. It's a kind of "knowing" that we experience, some more so than others. It appears to be the result of paying attention, being very observant, and intuitive and then learning when it's valid and when it's not.We take in a lot more minute information that we consciously recognize.

I know I experience a kind of knowing with my children, and with many friends. Many times I sense who is calling when the phone rings. Others have told me they do the same thing. Sometimes I do an experiment and send a mental message to a relative or friend to call me. Almost always, that person will call. I've even written it down on the calendar, and a day or two they call. Many of my impressions about someone are shown to be true. If I have an uncomfortable feeling, I know to pay close attention and get out of an area or whatever is going on as it is not safe, for some reason.
I think we all experience that kind of knowing but don't pay attention to it. It's normal to human beings.

Human beings are capable of intuitive thoughts that sometimes result in useful predictions and projections of events to come.

Unfortunately, the OP title brings to mind a group of robed women holding hands around a small campfire and chanting, "So mode it be."

Your daughter is almost certainly suffering from confirmation bias. She remembers as "hits" the things she "senses" correctly, and ignores all the times (much more numerous) that she "senses" things incorrectly.

She can show *herself* that she has no magical ability. All she has to do is keep records. Every time she thinks she "senses" something, write it down in a notebook. Then when there are "results" from the things she "sensed," compare what actually occurred to what she "sensed."
If she actually and honestly does this, she'll convince herself in a week or two that she has no such 'ability.' Because she doesn't.

my best friend and I have been able to do this for over half-a-century.

Back in the 8th grade, we were on a field trip to the local City Hall. We were standing at the very front of a line of kids squashed together in a narrow hallway. Just behind us, a witch-kitty of a girl we didn't like was doing her best to elbow her way to the front. When we sensed her going between us, without so much as a syllable or a word, we took a half-step toward each other, so we ended up forming a solid wall through which The Pushy One could not move. We'd had the same impulse in the same moment, and we STILL look back on that one and laugh.

Over the years, there have been innumerable times - when we lived in different states - when we just felt like talking, and we didn't care if our husbands bitched about long-distance calls. And so many times, the person receiving the call would say, "That is so funny! I was just about to call YOU!" We just felt the need to connect.

The need to communicate with each other has been such a frequent and ongoing thing with us, we just view it as part of who we are.

I guess. As much as any man can. Of course I don't believe in such things.

I'm sorry but I am just so GD sick and f****ing tired of the blatant, ugl;y, stupid, ignorant, misinformed misogyny on this board.

Just the subject line is so sexist, I feel like smashing things.

Can a woman commune spiritually? What the bloody fuck are you talking about? Why is this a gendered question? What does a person's gender have to do with spirituality?

STOP IT. Just. Please. Fucking. Stop.

+1

Well they're ex- Mormons, so what did you expect?
they were Raised that way

Sarcasm or truism, your decision

Re posters on this board: it must be the victim in me that makes me read, not believe, read. No where else do I find this kind of contempt directed at women- except this board, and somewhere in the distant past.

How could you possibly be offended?????

Yes. Some _people_ are very gifted that way.

Most people can demonstrate precognition out to about three seconds. In other words, they statistically "know" the outcome of a random event up to 3 seconds before it happens. Experiments have proven this. Children who haven't been taught to disbelieve in their own experiences may be able to reach much further. In your daughter's case, her higher self intervenes to prevent access to all of the lottery numbers.

Do you know what that word means?

Have you ever notice how people who think they can sense things, or have special gifts, etc, tend to live in hovels and have no car insurance?

A demonstration of the efficacy of their "powers." Jesus was an unemployed rabbi with no address but plenty of attitude. He had an awful lot of advice for people who had better things to do than listen to his nonsense. He went to other peoples' homes to be fed, and then he judged and criticized. It's doubtful that he actually existed, but if he did, what an asshole.

My ex bil convinced my sister that he could sense when danger was approaching, or when something bad was going to happen. He was also a child molester. Do I believe he know when the cops were closing in? Yes. True story. People believe what they want to believe.

I ride motorcycles. I have 4 and ride them regularly, street and dirt. I think I have developed a sixth sense for recognizing danger and dangerous situations an instant or two before it is clear to everyone else. Gives me an additional 2 seconds or so to respond. Saved my skin more than a few times. I might have been road kill by now without it.