Psychics: Real, fake or just fucking useless?

Let's assume for the purposes of this post that psychics are real. More particularly let's assume that those psychics who claim to be able to talk to the dead really can do what they claim. Let's assume that they are not just people who are usually (but not always) good at cold, warm and hot reading. Let's assume that people like Sylvia Browne, James Van Praagh and John Edwards (not the US politician) are actually able to talk with the dead and are not just fakes who prey on the grieving, gullible and vulnerable. Let's assume that there is an afterlife and that it is possible for a tiny minority of people to communicate with those who reside in it. Let's assume that when someone says they are talking to your dead relative and all they get is "I have a male relative who may have, possibly, died, or been ill, with something, probably, to do with the chest, or stomach, area and whose first name begins with J. Or M. Or S. They want to say they love you and that [insert common household object or personal possession that is commonly misplaced] is [in a place where these things are commonly found, eventually]" they are actually talking to a dead relative and that is all they have to say.

Let's assume all this and then ask ourselves one question: What fucking use are psychics really?


Consider this: psychic powers just might be one of the greatest and most important developments in the evolution of the human race, and the ability to talk to people who have died is something that should be of incalculable benefit to the human race. But what we have instead are little more than circus entertainers appearing on Montel and Larry King to talk to housewives who watch drek like "The View" about dead relatives and predictions that no-one ever follows up on. Really, all the dead have is meaningless platitudes and the predictably and sickly sentimental?

Where are the psychic conference calls that link Curie, Darwin, Pasteur, Fleming, Gould, Sagan, Archimedes, Galileo, Copernicus, Boyle, Newton, Einstein, Edison, Bell, Ampère, Faraday, Maxwell, Poincaré, Planck, Schrödinger, Abū Alī Sīnā, Hubble and Rutherford (to name but a few of thousands) with modern scientists and modern discoveries and technology? What might some of the giants of science past be able to achieve now with technology and advances they never even dreamed of?

Think about why psychics never speak to these long dead scientists for just a little while and it should be obvious why they don't.

Why aren't long dead classical composers finishing symphonies or writing new ones through their psychic proxies?

Why aren't there philosophical discussions between Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire, Hume, Russell and Wittgenstein, hosted through their psychic proxies?

Why aren't the great inventors, innovators and engineers of our past suggesting solutions to our energy and climate problems through our erstwhile 'talkers to the dead'?

Why aren't historians talking to the players of history and finding out what really happened and why, perhaps solving many of the disputes that plague us to this day?

Why aren't murder victims naming their killer or providing in depth descriptions of them and what happened?

Why aren't Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Martin Luther King Jr, Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Lloyd George, Marcus Aurelius, Alexander the Great, Wellington, Nelson advising our current leaders?

Why aren't psychics talking to people who we really need?

With all the challanges which we face today, with all the problems humanity has to deal with, why aren't psychics actually speaking to people who could help us advance human civilisation, thought and science further and faster than it has ever gone before? Why is it that the best they can bring from their incredible ability is to talk to dead relatives of everyday people who have nothing useful to offer?

Why is it that when the dead just happen to get in touch with one of the tiny minority of people who can speak to them, at the exact time that the person they want to speak to is there, they have nothing useful to say? "I love you and I'm happy here." is all my dead relative wants to tell me? Nothing a bit more, well, important?

I'll be impressed when a psychic can tell someone something specific that only the dead person can know. I'll be impressed when a psychic can tell me my grandad's service number, or what happened the last time I saw him when only the two of us were there. I'm not impressed with "An older male relative, whose name begins with an E, or R, or maybe T who died from lack of oxygen to the brain."

Why aren't psychics talking to people who can help us right now?

In the end should we be more concerned with whether or not psychics are real or whether or not they can actually contribute anything worthwhile and meaningful? Doesn't the fact that psychics aren't doing the things highlighted suggest something else? Do they have this gift only to use it for personal gain rather than benefitting all of us? Why is it that they charge so much for their 'skills'? What does that say about psychics if their claimed abilities really exist?

Why aren't psychics using their skills to benefit all of humanity? If they can but won't, then they are unimaginably selfish. If they can't because their abilities are limited or don't exist, they're irrelevant at best and fradulent hucksters at worst.

If their abilities are real, then why aren't psychics doing more for the human race? The answer seems to me to be one of a few possibilities:

1. Psychics are lying and can't do any of the supernatural things they claim.
2. Psychics are selfish bastards who use their abilities for personal gain rather than to help all of humanity.
3. Psychic skills are real but basically useless.

The evidence points me to option 1 - psychics are fake - but I'm still open to evidence that shows either of the other two. The absolute best that I could be willing to say about psychics, assuming that their abilities are real, is that they are fucking useless.