A long way back in this thread, MBSLynne spoke about doing a Tarot reading and saying things intuitively which provoke the "how did you know that?" reaction.

Philosophically, I am a complete materialist. I don't believe in Angels, luck, spirit messages or that the future is in any way determined.

However, when times were hard, because I have the happy talent of being able to remember what I have read, I learned the formulae for Tarot and Palmistry. Because I knew the rules and can devise stories, people were happy to have readings done at fortune telling parties.

I had an agent who arranged them for me.

It was the phenomenon that Lynne described that led to my giving up.

It was getting too good, too accurate and too - I have to use the word- inspired.

I preferred to live in a world where science is king. I was shaken in my rationalist beliefs.But since I believe in empirical evidence, how can I reconcile the evidence of my own experience with the hypothesis that is it impossible? Scientific method requires me to re-examine the hypothesis.

BillD- think again- you can't base a scientific argument on the blind faith that something cannot happen, when there is evidence that it does. That is going back to the days of Galileo!

Cheers

Dave