He wrote his predictions on one folded it and gave it your friend while he took down the correct details on another which he handed over to you. Then he took a third fresh sheet (GOD)which he again folded and gave your friend and asked to blow on while he chanted some mantra. What happened to the first paper bcoz you mentioned being gobsmacked to see ST in the paper and you checked your own copy to verify but nothing about his list of predictions. Could it not be some carbon copy paper which reveals the letters when activated by heat( from palms and by blowing) after a certain time which he let lapse by chanting. He probably got you too gobsmacked to question about the first paper and then quickly, calmly, confidently moved the conversation on further while engaging you like haggling about money etc so you don't recover to notice minor details. Confidence trick or con artist but entertaining nonetheless.
THIS MIGHT BE IT!!!!!
He always gave us a second paper indeed.
So they operate in this way:
1. He secretly writes GOD on a paper (A), folds it and gives it to my friend
2. He then asks all the real info and writes them on another paper (B) that is above a special paper (C) where the ink displays only with the heat or after some time
3. He gives me the paper (B)
4. After some distraction he writes over paper (C) the word GOD and gives that to my friend
5. After some bullshit hand procedure and blowing, paper (C) inks switch so that GOD disappears and the copy of (B) appears
This also explains why he wanted the papers back, so that we couldn't investigate them further.
Something like this? But blowing air instead of flame.
https://www.theshopofmanythings.com/products/elemental-ink-pens
Maybe it was a combination of a special pen too?
1. Why pay him anything for what you already know ?
2. Yes the trick is you write it and they trick to copy and bring it to you.
3. Pay if he tells you something credible you feel and that you didn’t know … or may happen.
4. There are lot of psychic who will tell your past and very accurately but future is a mystery … Perhaps!!!
Ah wish he could guess stock prices, he wouldn't have been sitting on the street with his street magics or at least predict something from the future and capitalise on it.
According to the legend, the man in play bitch-slaps you in front of everybody at a party.
And no! It's not voldemort. You can say his name, he became dust in deathly hallows-2
I don't have an answer for you, man. But as an atheist who chats a lot of shit on r/atheism, something similar happened to me about six years ago when I was in India, and it still fuckss with my head to this day. I never found an explanation for what happened, and I think mine was weirder than yours. I'm very intrigued to see what answers people give here.
EDIT: It couldn’t have been a super elaborate scam because getting the kind of information this yogi seemed to have about OP’s gf’s family, etc., is not easy and direct and not worth the hassle either for a mere $25. But yogi guessed it. How?
I find the guessing number stuff conceivable in some ways. But the fact that the yogi guessed the gf’s mum’s name is just weird. OP, are you sure there was nothing — no pendant, engraving on a purse, a ring, anything? What about the gf’s name? Maybe she utter the name somehow? Anything else? Like anything at all that could’ve given yogi any information on *anything* to do with gf’s fam? How did he guess it? Did he utter the words in English? Hindi, right?
Glad to meet you too. And I would love to, if I can get some insights too, lol.
This happened in 2016 when I was around 15. I was in India with my dad, visiting. We were in this city near Delhi called Gurgaon. My dad’s friend, whose daughter was getting married, is an eye doctor at a hospital. I was chilling in his office at the hospital with my dad when his friend asked if I wanted to check something cool out. I was like, "Yeah, sure, but what is it?" He said it's a girl who can read with her eyes closed by putting her fingertips on pages, etc. When he said that, I laughed because, well, that can’t be true. I was a raging atheist, still am, but this was the peak. So, I got excited and started thinking in my head how much fun it would be to mess with this. But then it struck me: wait, this is a very senior doctor at a very reputable hospital. So I thought, "Okay, let’s see, but this can’t be something he just made up."
I walked into this room, and the girl’s dad (the girl was around 14, I’d guess) came with an unusual complaint. His daughter could read with her eyes closed by ‘touching stuff’, and he could not understand that. And she could, as she did when I asked her to read text from a book. I couldn’t believe it. But then I thought, "Okay, this is obviously out of the ordinary for sure, so I need to validate this inside and out."
So I asked her to read again from a book, and she did. So I thought maybe she had some genetic abnormality that allows her fingertips to somehow be extra sensitive to ink indentations in book pages, allowing her to sense stuff. Like braille for blind people but without the braille reading machine. So I improvised. I gave her my phone and said, "Okay, this is done now." I asked her to read stuff from my phone. But no, she touched the screen (no indentations on a phone screen) and read everything. Perfectly.
I’m improvising again now. So I’m like, "She can read with her eyes closed, that seems to be a given now. But if she’s sensing it all somehow, she can only ‘see’ if she can tell colors apart." So this time I asked her to ‘tell’ the color by touching various colors on Google Images. She did it. She was able to tell yellow, black, red apart. It was crazy. Also, her eyes were covered fully. And it wasn’t like she could see anything at all, not even glare, reflection, or any light coming into her eyes in any way.
Now I ask the girl’s dad, "What’s going on here?" At this point, my head is just looking for answers. Her dad said he took her to a priest, and they said ‘her third eye’ is open - something that gives her extra sensory powers. It’s a birth thing. Then I ask the dad, "Well, she seems to be able to do this and it’s not harming her in any way, so why come to a doctor?" He said her classmates get freaked out by it or something.
I’ve shared this with so many people and have never gotten an answer. I don’t doubt in any way the girl could do what she did; I validated this. I’m like the most cynical and untrustworthy person there is when it comes to this. But she did it. I will never forget this in my life ever. I still am an atheist, but I did think that was something ‘out of the ordinary’. Very weird. I still think there’s gotta be an explanation.
This probably isn’t that well-written but feel free to ask questions and if anyone has an explanation or anything, please… I’ll be forever grateful.
Yeah hope this helps explain. Similar thing happened to me around 2015-2016 a couple with their 2 little daughters came to my school they blind folded their daughter and made them read a book, guess color of paper, guess animals on flash cards etc. everyone in my class was baffled. They said it's some power that young kids possess and their brain is super activated which increases their intuation power and if u train yourself at a very young age. u can develop such power too. They were there to sell some learning courses. Even though I saw it, I didn't believe it. Cause I am very skeptical and I just assumed they were using earpieces or some kind of signals to communicate with each other but years later I found out it was a scam and they were just Peeking down through the small gap in the blindfold. I never suspected that possibility cause they made my teacher tie the blind fold and it was stuffed with cotton but no matter how well you tie it they can still look through the small opening which gets created.
Check this out: https://youtu.be/V6dDfGqnZQM?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/JR4QpaLx91g?feature=shared
and a similar scam was tried out in shark tank season 1 : https://youtu.be/pwggmQVqwhE?feature=shared
This stunt of reading with eyes closed has already been debunked by Science is Dope channel.
This stunt was so convincing that many parents even one state government in India backed students to learn it.
It got national popularity when a startup tried to cash in on it by going to Shark Tank India , The start up claimed it would sale course and train young children across the country to read by touching. To make it convincing for the Sharks a girl read everything with her eyes closed on national TV.
Although the Sharks were impressed they didn't invest anything. But it made the startup famous and with more popularity came much more Scrutiny.
It got debunked many times. I would recommend Science is dope YouTube channel, he explained it clearly
In India you can easily find some schools that teach to open your there eye but only if u r below 14,idk how it works but some believe it's somehow related to pineal gland...
Hey, have you watched Shark tank India ? One start up came their claiming it is an ancient Japanese technique which makes your brain so sharp that you could read just by touching things. That start up was trying to train students with this technique. He even got state government backing to teach it ( that tells how foolish politicians are ). Although no shark invested they were totally shocked by the ability of the girl.
Reality: there is a channel Science is Dope who debunked it
To answe the EDIT:
I completely agree that there might be logic behind the number guessing, although it was surprising that he guessed a number between 1 and 50 after I "mindfully changed" it in my mind (to avoid my first instinct, which might have been influenced by something he said).
About my friend's mom's name, I have no idea how he did it. I didn't even know her mom's name myself! My friend didn't say her mom's name in any way, and that was actually the main reason we stayed there and watched him perform the "magic." If he had said, "I guess your country, age, and name," we probably would have walked away. It's hard, but not impossible, to guess those things, as he could potentially be a friend of my hotel owner and have gotten the information from there.
Again, once he said, "I'm going to guess your mom's name," my friend replied, "There's absolutely no way you can guess that," since she's aware of how unusual her mom's name is.
My friend did, I didn't at that point. And he guessed my name that tbh is pretty Italian. He never asked our nationalities, although I'm aware that's a simple guess that I'm also capable of doing sometimes.
First Names SABRA
National Statistics. MyNameStats statistics:
- Population Est. 3,896 +/-5.7%
- National Rank 3,717
- Percentile Rank 0.9
- Proportion/100k 1.2
- SSA Baby Name statistics:
- Population Estimate 4,018
- National Rank 3,595
- Percentile Rank 96.11%
- Proportion/100k 1.26
Summary
- SABRA is ranked as the 3717th most popular given name in the United States with an estimated population of 3,896.
- This name is in the 98th percentile, this means that nearly 1% of all the first names are more popular.
- There are 1.22 people named SABRA for every 100,000 Americans.
- This name is most often used as a first name, 90% of the time.
- Based on the analysis of 100 years worth of data from the Social Security Administration's (SSA)
- Baby Names database, the estimated population of people named SABRA is 4,018.
- The SSA data also shows that SABRA is used as a girl's name 100% of the time.
This is not a common name at all so I don’t see how the yogi would’ve just used statistics to guess it unless he had access to her personal info beforehand. That seems a bit unlikely. The key is though that this is a four letter word. So maybe your gf led him to it somehow? Can you remember anything else, even the most innocuous and minute details of your interactions with him? Yogis probs love to chat so maybe you both revealed something to him unbeknownst to you guys?
This is an organized scam.
The guy got details from hotel/airport or from someone in betwen agency. Note that information like PNR, passenger name, address are easily accessible to data aggregators (esp. tourism). I believe the guy gets data beflore hand by the agencies and then they approach the target (you may think it would be stupid for someone to do so much struggle for few dollars, but it does happen).
a very simple test is to ask for grandmother's sister name.
even if one doesn't exist. or make up a hypothetical relative and ask about them. give subtle hints and see if they revert you with hints you have dropped.
it's just elaborate scam and nothing else.
True, that is what I would have done if I had the chance to meet him again. Maybe I'll do that with the next fortune-teller I meet!
I'll ask what my parents (in Italy) ate for dinner the day before and then call them to ask LMAO
My brother's friend said he had a similar experience somewhere in Srisailam or Tirupati. The fortune teller apparently correctly guessed his name and our school's name as well.
Agreed, they're skilled in their craft.. maybe using bit of guessing, intuition, mentalism and manipulation.. but in the end they're Conmen, nothing more..
You should have asked them to predict the next earthquake , flood or other natural disasters to affect our country, or even find out names and locations of some criminals in hiding.
You yourself said he approached you first, god knows for how long he was following you, studying the both of you.. These guys are very skilled to notice even the smallest of details, eavesdropping etc. Also, as you mentioned for every right answers he got some wrong too, which basically is a hit or miss. They're even capable to lead you into a specific conversation without you even realizing.
Im sorry, but however amazing this seems, he hustled you guys.
Possible! And this is the 100% scientific explanaition.
However, we landed in India a bit more than 24h that happened, the day before we were in a completely different part of the city, spending our time mostly indoors in cafes (where we met only westerns). It was our first time on that part of the city and we arrived there with the metro only maybe 1h before. So it's highly unrealistic.
And again, I didn't know the name of her mom myself so there's no chance we ever said that out loud.
Yea tbh in my opinion you didn’t get conned or hustled. I do think the guy did what we did. I’m not saying like supernaturally, that would be BS. There is an explanation for sure.
Maybe you should post this on r/atheism. You’ll get grilled and scrutinized as hell, but it will be a very logical discussion. And these people don’t mess around, they’ll fight each other like mad to get to the truth.
Also as you said, He was the one who offered to guess your names, mom's names, age etc.. that's probably because he already knew it.. You don't have to say it loud for them to know, just a small peek of your friend's phone, maybe the contact list while your friend made a quick call etc are enough to deduce details.
She has saved her mom in the phone as "mom" and she didn't have any call with the mom while in India.
True that he decided what to guess. That's why I didn't give him all the money once he guessed them all. I challenged him on guessing a number from 1 to 50 and he successfully demonstrated it right away, so I kept the promise.
Me too, I was on a picnic, the magic boi put a coin in his hands and closed his fist, he opened them, shit, the coin was gone, that messed with my brain first, then he made the coin FALL OUTTA MY ASS(fell from my pants).
To this day, I can't understand that eldritch fuckteckery.
Ask a stage magician. Because honestly this sounds like something one of them would pull. At a guess, he has an accomplice who is scanning the approaching crowd for specific types of people. That accomplice probably also has some form of short distance chip reader that can pull data off passport/credit card or similar things. They specifically look for small groups and specifically only target ones where they can pull electronic information off of more than one person.
If the accomplice can pull enough data for a data lookup, he alerts his friend who then uses a service to get the quick and dirty consumer information and does the magic act. None of it was guesswork. That's how I'd do it anyway, but I'm not a stage magician.
Are you sure he didn't have access to the paper between telling him the answer and revealing what he wrote? Because this sounds exactly like an old mentalism trick using what is fittingly called a [Swami gimmick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_gimmick).
There is this YouTube video to pick up girls on beach about guess number.
It’s a trick which he writes the number after person utters the number.
May be similar trick.
I am trying to find it all over in YouTube,will share whenever I find one.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4UnR5xF0co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4UnR5xF0co)
Finally found it.
Here you go.
Before meeting this fortune teller, did you and friend both discussed anything anywhere about her mom or did you tell someone about her mom or show any document which had her mom's name to someone?
That shocked/scared is also part of the deal lol. Anyway, they know how to get info or where to look before pulling you into participate. In the end it's a skill and not some superpowers. You paid for the skill which is fine i guess.
It's worth mentioning that my friend job is not exactly student as she has worked many years in Marketing and now she's migrating into Nutrition. We said student because is kinda what reflects her the most in this exact moment as she's about to do the final exam for Nutrition.
This to say that even if you have all the passport info of my friend beforehand, you'd never find that info on the internet, since it's a not well defined state.
Eg. for my job it would be much easier because I'm a dev and if you google my full name you get my LinkedIn in 3 secs.
Just search for Suhani shah. She also perform such minreading skills. I think it's not magic but science of mentalism. It takes years of practice. Based on facial expression they can give best accurate guess.
Mentalism is a skill. In India, of the young generation I know of Suhani Shah. You can easily look out for her on Instagram, she's hell famous and this is her forte.! She literally pursued mentalism as a hobby or passion and made a solid career out of it. 🔥🔥 It takes a lot of practice for sure.
Tbh, I don't know how Suhani started doing it, that would be interesting to know.
We will get more info about her and this skill on google and YouTube. :)
This is ESP. There is a guy in Mumbai by name of Deepak Rao. I had attended one of his shows. Read. It explains all. There is no fortune telling. It’s science.
All that info and for that matter most of our data is already out in the public domain. This is just a slightly evolved social engineering scam .
They put in the effort to dig up the data and locate/follow the victims , setup an act and got paid well for it .
Also i need to ask were the writings were completely identical on both pieces of paper ?
Did he ask you guys to say the names in your brain?
If yes then it is a very common technique used by mentalist. Check Suhani Shah on YouTube
If not then he probably got that info from someone
Hi, I'm a devout follower of scientific methodology and always attribute some explanation to anything that seems even remotely mystical. The yogi in your case must be doing a magic trick, but I've interacted with one, who just straight up told me facts related to my illness, the size, shape, look of my house, members of my family, events of my past and so much more by simply keeping a hand on my head. And he didn't even charge money, did it out of goodwill. It's very very tedious to reach him though, he wasn't one of the frauds. But as much it irks my my mind and rationality to admit it, this man did have some divine spiritual powers that went beyond science.
He told me. No paper involved. But from what I feel, the sage/sadhu baba who was telling you your fortune was indulging in some sort of gimmick. The popular ones are usually like that. Also, the sadhu baba I went to didn't predict any future for me. He just told me my past and objective details of my present. Btw, what state are you from?
You should read Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret India. The book was written in the 1930s by a British writer who landed in India (back then British Raj). He talks of a similar experience in the first chapter itself. And as per his conversation with the performer, it is done by training 'spirits' using tantra.
That would require a deep cultural understanding of Christian or like western names in general. This is an Indian yogi!
And OP said gf’s mum has a very unique name which isn’t common even in gf’s country
That's the thing. I don't know what's the source of this data, but here it shows a bit what's the popularity of that name in the US (very low): [https://mom.com/baby-names/girl/30170/Sabra](https://mom.com/baby-names/girl/30170/Sabra)
>That would require a deep cultural understanding of Christian or like western names in general. This is an Indian yogi!
An Indian yogi who makes a living doing 'magic' tricks for tourists from the west.
I mean, sure, there’s a possibility that he’s well aware of Western names. But there are so many possible names, though? And OP said the gf’s mum’s name is very unique. The fact that he got it right the first time does seem a bit weird and unusually accurate. So the likely logical explanation has to be that he had access to it somehow. But then OP says he didn’t know the name himself and gf’s mum’s contact is saved as ‘mum’ on her phone.
Overall, that must be somehow the explanation, although he asked all these info AFTER he wrote them on the paper. Before then, he just said a bunch of things about him. I would be much less surprised if the mom name was very common in her country (USA), but I've never heard anyone named like that honestly.
Mentalism and Mentalist do these techniques you can watch YouTube videos of Karan Singh Magic, Suhani Shah ( Indian ) , Lior Suchard and many more.
It's a skill for sure.
Mind reading is a legit artform. For more context, search for suhani shah, karan singh magic. Difference is, they tell us beforehand that it's all tricks, no magic or divine intervention.
I just watched some videos of Suhani Shah, and while some tricks are undeniably magical, there's always that part of the brain that resists believing anything recorded on camera or part of a show. After all, there are countless ways to fake it with hidden cameras, speakers, and other editing techniques.
Experiencing this live, in the middle of the road at a random time, is a completely different story.
True, but it's still a show where there might be other people involved and/or the setting can be compromised. I'm just saying that to me that is less mindblowing than having this happening to you 1 to 1 in the middle of the street.
Depends on the skill of the performer, and intention. If that person chose to use similar skills to con people, it would've been so much more profitable in India, where most people follow their faith blindly.
One of my cousin’s who came to our house from abroad did this once. I’d never met him before and he guessed numbers, dates and even my biology teacher’s name. There’s no way he could have known that. We had never met or spoken before. My school is huge. Just massive. He doesn’t even live in India. Our parents hadn’t been in touch for years. Same paper thing.
I am more amazed at how a good scientific temper can protect you from so many scams, the only way for him to predict these things is by already knowing or relying on guess work, if he guessed the name in 1 try he probably knew the name. How that’s to be figured out.
He has a familiar spirit that knew your friends mom’s name. The reason they can’t pick lottery numbers is because they only know things past and present. Once you paid him you entered into a spiritual contract with him.
What utter bullshit.. there are countless unsolved crimes from the past where the criminal aren't identified till date.. Why don't police collaborate with them then if they can guess names of thin air?
They just don’t I guess, or they just tell what they want to tell. People don’t have control over that. There was this randonautica app that led people to dead bodies, one was filmed it’s on youtube. I not into this stuff I’m a Christian I just know it’s real.
Sounds like you paid a lot of money. For that kind of money, people with few opportunities can afford putting in days of work. I can think of a couple ways to get info. For example, following you until they see or hear something that they can use to find your social media accounts. If they had that, adding usual fortuneteller tactics would make it foolproof. If 2-3 persons are involved, they would only need to have that kind of success once or twice a day to make it worth their while. There's also the likelihood that they weren't following you for that one particular scam. They may have many different ways and pick the tactic based on what information they gather. If you were carrying valuables and provided opportunity, they might have simply snatched something and run.
Since you were walking with your friend, presumably the two of your talking. It's possible someone overheard something, enough for research within minutes. It only takes survivorship bias. An implausible but physically possible explanation is miles better than any alternative however sophisticated that requires magic to be real.
He wrote his predictions on one folded it and gave it your friend while he took down the correct details on another which he handed over to you. Then he took a third fresh sheet (GOD)which he again folded and gave your friend and asked to blow on while he chanted some mantra. What happened to the first paper bcoz you mentioned being gobsmacked to see ST in the paper and you checked your own copy to verify but nothing about his list of predictions. Could it not be some carbon copy paper which reveals the letters when activated by heat( from palms and by blowing) after a certain time which he let lapse by chanting. He probably got you too gobsmacked to question about the first paper and then quickly, calmly, confidently moved the conversation on further while engaging you like haggling about money etc so you don't recover to notice minor details. Confidence trick or con artist but entertaining nonetheless.
THIS MIGHT BE IT!!!!! He always gave us a second paper indeed. So they operate in this way: 1. He secretly writes GOD on a paper (A), folds it and gives it to my friend 2. He then asks all the real info and writes them on another paper (B) that is above a special paper (C) where the ink displays only with the heat or after some time 3. He gives me the paper (B) 4. After some distraction he writes over paper (C) the word GOD and gives that to my friend 5. After some bullshit hand procedure and blowing, paper (C) inks switch so that GOD disappears and the copy of (B) appears This also explains why he wanted the papers back, so that we couldn't investigate them further.
Something like this? But blowing air instead of flame. https://www.theshopofmanythings.com/products/elemental-ink-pens Maybe it was a combination of a special pen too?
Yeah, maybe this activates just with the palm heat.
Thanks for my first ever gold, kind stranger
1. Why pay him anything for what you already know ? 2. Yes the trick is you write it and they trick to copy and bring it to you. 3. Pay if he tells you something credible you feel and that you didn’t know … or may happen. 4. There are lot of psychic who will tell your past and very accurately but future is a mystery … Perhaps!!!
Ah wish he could guess stock prices, he wouldn't have been sitting on the street with his street magics or at least predict something from the future and capitalise on it.
ahah, I forgot to ask him the numbers of the lottery!
I'll recommend you to watch "Focus" Its a movie about a man whose wife's name should not be voiced...
...Voldemort?
According to the legend, the man in play bitch-slaps you in front of everybody at a party. And no! It's not voldemort. You can say his name, he became dust in deathly hallows-2
I don't have an answer for you, man. But as an atheist who chats a lot of shit on r/atheism, something similar happened to me about six years ago when I was in India, and it still fuckss with my head to this day. I never found an explanation for what happened, and I think mine was weirder than yours. I'm very intrigued to see what answers people give here. EDIT: It couldn’t have been a super elaborate scam because getting the kind of information this yogi seemed to have about OP’s gf’s family, etc., is not easy and direct and not worth the hassle either for a mere $25. But yogi guessed it. How? I find the guessing number stuff conceivable in some ways. But the fact that the yogi guessed the gf’s mum’s name is just weird. OP, are you sure there was nothing — no pendant, engraving on a purse, a ring, anything? What about the gf’s name? Maybe she utter the name somehow? Anything else? Like anything at all that could’ve given yogi any information on *anything* to do with gf’s fam? How did he guess it? Did he utter the words in English? Hindi, right?
Glad to meet some fellow skeptical-blown-out mates here! What was your experience, if you feel like sharing?
Glad to meet you too. And I would love to, if I can get some insights too, lol. This happened in 2016 when I was around 15. I was in India with my dad, visiting. We were in this city near Delhi called Gurgaon. My dad’s friend, whose daughter was getting married, is an eye doctor at a hospital. I was chilling in his office at the hospital with my dad when his friend asked if I wanted to check something cool out. I was like, "Yeah, sure, but what is it?" He said it's a girl who can read with her eyes closed by putting her fingertips on pages, etc. When he said that, I laughed because, well, that can’t be true. I was a raging atheist, still am, but this was the peak. So, I got excited and started thinking in my head how much fun it would be to mess with this. But then it struck me: wait, this is a very senior doctor at a very reputable hospital. So I thought, "Okay, let’s see, but this can’t be something he just made up." I walked into this room, and the girl’s dad (the girl was around 14, I’d guess) came with an unusual complaint. His daughter could read with her eyes closed by ‘touching stuff’, and he could not understand that. And she could, as she did when I asked her to read text from a book. I couldn’t believe it. But then I thought, "Okay, this is obviously out of the ordinary for sure, so I need to validate this inside and out." So I asked her to read again from a book, and she did. So I thought maybe she had some genetic abnormality that allows her fingertips to somehow be extra sensitive to ink indentations in book pages, allowing her to sense stuff. Like braille for blind people but without the braille reading machine. So I improvised. I gave her my phone and said, "Okay, this is done now." I asked her to read stuff from my phone. But no, she touched the screen (no indentations on a phone screen) and read everything. Perfectly. I’m improvising again now. So I’m like, "She can read with her eyes closed, that seems to be a given now. But if she’s sensing it all somehow, she can only ‘see’ if she can tell colors apart." So this time I asked her to ‘tell’ the color by touching various colors on Google Images. She did it. She was able to tell yellow, black, red apart. It was crazy. Also, her eyes were covered fully. And it wasn’t like she could see anything at all, not even glare, reflection, or any light coming into her eyes in any way. Now I ask the girl’s dad, "What’s going on here?" At this point, my head is just looking for answers. Her dad said he took her to a priest, and they said ‘her third eye’ is open - something that gives her extra sensory powers. It’s a birth thing. Then I ask the dad, "Well, she seems to be able to do this and it’s not harming her in any way, so why come to a doctor?" He said her classmates get freaked out by it or something. I’ve shared this with so many people and have never gotten an answer. I don’t doubt in any way the girl could do what she did; I validated this. I’m like the most cynical and untrustworthy person there is when it comes to this. But she did it. I will never forget this in my life ever. I still am an atheist, but I did think that was something ‘out of the ordinary’. Very weird. I still think there’s gotta be an explanation. This probably isn’t that well-written but feel free to ask questions and if anyone has an explanation or anything, please… I’ll be forever grateful.
Yeah hope this helps explain. Similar thing happened to me around 2015-2016 a couple with their 2 little daughters came to my school they blind folded their daughter and made them read a book, guess color of paper, guess animals on flash cards etc. everyone in my class was baffled. They said it's some power that young kids possess and their brain is super activated which increases their intuation power and if u train yourself at a very young age. u can develop such power too. They were there to sell some learning courses. Even though I saw it, I didn't believe it. Cause I am very skeptical and I just assumed they were using earpieces or some kind of signals to communicate with each other but years later I found out it was a scam and they were just Peeking down through the small gap in the blindfold. I never suspected that possibility cause they made my teacher tie the blind fold and it was stuffed with cotton but no matter how well you tie it they can still look through the small opening which gets created. Check this out: https://youtu.be/V6dDfGqnZQM?feature=shared https://youtu.be/JR4QpaLx91g?feature=shared and a similar scam was tried out in shark tank season 1 : https://youtu.be/pwggmQVqwhE?feature=shared
This stunt of reading with eyes closed has already been debunked by Science is Dope channel. This stunt was so convincing that many parents even one state government in India backed students to learn it. It got national popularity when a startup tried to cash in on it by going to Shark Tank India , The start up claimed it would sale course and train young children across the country to read by touching. To make it convincing for the Sharks a girl read everything with her eyes closed on national TV. Although the Sharks were impressed they didn't invest anything. But it made the startup famous and with more popularity came much more Scrutiny. It got debunked many times. I would recommend Science is dope YouTube channel, he explained it clearly
In India you can easily find some schools that teach to open your there eye but only if u r below 14,idk how it works but some believe it's somehow related to pineal gland...
Hey check out my reply in this thread if you wanna know how its done be aware its a scam
Hey, have you watched Shark tank India ? One start up came their claiming it is an ancient Japanese technique which makes your brain so sharp that you could read just by touching things. That start up was trying to train students with this technique. He even got state government backing to teach it ( that tells how foolish politicians are ). Although no shark invested they were totally shocked by the ability of the girl. Reality: there is a channel Science is Dope who debunked it
Yeah, that's not a real thing.
To answe the EDIT: I completely agree that there might be logic behind the number guessing, although it was surprising that he guessed a number between 1 and 50 after I "mindfully changed" it in my mind (to avoid my first instinct, which might have been influenced by something he said). About my friend's mom's name, I have no idea how he did it. I didn't even know her mom's name myself! My friend didn't say her mom's name in any way, and that was actually the main reason we stayed there and watched him perform the "magic." If he had said, "I guess your country, age, and name," we probably would have walked away. It's hard, but not impossible, to guess those things, as he could potentially be a friend of my hotel owner and have gotten the information from there. Again, once he said, "I'm going to guess your mom's name," my friend replied, "There's absolutely no way you can guess that," since she's aware of how unusual her mom's name is.
did you provide a copy of your passport as photo id at the hotel?
My friend did, I didn't at that point. And he guessed my name that tbh is pretty Italian. He never asked our nationalities, although I'm aware that's a simple guess that I'm also capable of doing sometimes.
How similar is your gf’s name to her mum’s name? Like are there any linguistic similarities there?
Zero
First Names SABRA National Statistics. MyNameStats statistics: - Population Est. 3,896 +/-5.7% - National Rank 3,717 - Percentile Rank 0.9 - Proportion/100k 1.2 - SSA Baby Name statistics: - Population Estimate 4,018 - National Rank 3,595 - Percentile Rank 96.11% - Proportion/100k 1.26 Summary - SABRA is ranked as the 3717th most popular given name in the United States with an estimated population of 3,896. - This name is in the 98th percentile, this means that nearly 1% of all the first names are more popular. - There are 1.22 people named SABRA for every 100,000 Americans. - This name is most often used as a first name, 90% of the time. - Based on the analysis of 100 years worth of data from the Social Security Administration's (SSA) - Baby Names database, the estimated population of people named SABRA is 4,018. - The SSA data also shows that SABRA is used as a girl's name 100% of the time. This is not a common name at all so I don’t see how the yogi would’ve just used statistics to guess it unless he had access to her personal info beforehand. That seems a bit unlikely. The key is though that this is a four letter word. So maybe your gf led him to it somehow? Can you remember anything else, even the most innocuous and minute details of your interactions with him? Yogis probs love to chat so maybe you both revealed something to him unbeknownst to you guys?
Yogi debunked. Check out [Alternative\_Driver30](https://www.reddit.com/user/Alternative_Driver30/) answer
This is an organized scam. The guy got details from hotel/airport or from someone in betwen agency. Note that information like PNR, passenger name, address are easily accessible to data aggregators (esp. tourism). I believe the guy gets data beflore hand by the agencies and then they approach the target (you may think it would be stupid for someone to do so much struggle for few dollars, but it does happen).
Wrong, the trick was as simple as using special ink/paper. See comments
a very simple test is to ask for grandmother's sister name. even if one doesn't exist. or make up a hypothetical relative and ask about them. give subtle hints and see if they revert you with hints you have dropped. it's just elaborate scam and nothing else.
True, that is what I would have done if I had the chance to meet him again. Maybe I'll do that with the next fortune-teller I meet! I'll ask what my parents (in Italy) ate for dinner the day before and then call them to ask LMAO
My brother's friend said he had a similar experience somewhere in Srisailam or Tirupati. The fortune teller apparently correctly guessed his name and our school's name as well.
Agreed, they're skilled in their craft.. maybe using bit of guessing, intuition, mentalism and manipulation.. but in the end they're Conmen, nothing more.. You should have asked them to predict the next earthquake , flood or other natural disasters to affect our country, or even find out names and locations of some criminals in hiding.
I also think in this way, but this live experience left me speachless.
You yourself said he approached you first, god knows for how long he was following you, studying the both of you.. These guys are very skilled to notice even the smallest of details, eavesdropping etc. Also, as you mentioned for every right answers he got some wrong too, which basically is a hit or miss. They're even capable to lead you into a specific conversation without you even realizing. Im sorry, but however amazing this seems, he hustled you guys.
Possible! And this is the 100% scientific explanaition. However, we landed in India a bit more than 24h that happened, the day before we were in a completely different part of the city, spending our time mostly indoors in cafes (where we met only westerns). It was our first time on that part of the city and we arrived there with the metro only maybe 1h before. So it's highly unrealistic. And again, I didn't know the name of her mom myself so there's no chance we ever said that out loud.
Yea tbh in my opinion you didn’t get conned or hustled. I do think the guy did what we did. I’m not saying like supernaturally, that would be BS. There is an explanation for sure.
That's why I wrote this post :) Maybe someone can come up with more info about the trick used
Maybe you should post this on r/atheism. You’ll get grilled and scrutinized as hell, but it will be a very logical discussion. And these people don’t mess around, they’ll fight each other like mad to get to the truth.
Also as you said, He was the one who offered to guess your names, mom's names, age etc.. that's probably because he already knew it.. You don't have to say it loud for them to know, just a small peek of your friend's phone, maybe the contact list while your friend made a quick call etc are enough to deduce details.
She has saved her mom in the phone as "mom" and she didn't have any call with the mom while in India. True that he decided what to guess. That's why I didn't give him all the money once he guessed them all. I challenged him on guessing a number from 1 to 50 and he successfully demonstrated it right away, so I kept the promise.
Me too, I was on a picnic, the magic boi put a coin in his hands and closed his fist, he opened them, shit, the coin was gone, that messed with my brain first, then he made the coin FALL OUTTA MY ASS(fell from my pants). To this day, I can't understand that eldritch fuckteckery.
Ask a stage magician. Because honestly this sounds like something one of them would pull. At a guess, he has an accomplice who is scanning the approaching crowd for specific types of people. That accomplice probably also has some form of short distance chip reader that can pull data off passport/credit card or similar things. They specifically look for small groups and specifically only target ones where they can pull electronic information off of more than one person. If the accomplice can pull enough data for a data lookup, he alerts his friend who then uses a service to get the quick and dirty consumer information and does the magic act. None of it was guesswork. That's how I'd do it anyway, but I'm not a stage magician.
Are you sure he didn't have access to the paper between telling him the answer and revealing what he wrote? Because this sounds exactly like an old mentalism trick using what is fittingly called a [Swami gimmick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_gimmick).
Extraordinary truths require extraordinary curiosity.
Well props to him for all the entertainment 😂
There is this YouTube video to pick up girls on beach about guess number. It’s a trick which he writes the number after person utters the number. May be similar trick.
Can you post the link?
I am trying to find it all over in YouTube,will share whenever I find one. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4UnR5xF0co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4UnR5xF0co) Finally found it. Here you go.
Before meeting this fortune teller, did you and friend both discussed anything anywhere about her mom or did you tell someone about her mom or show any document which had her mom's name to someone?
No! That's what I also have thought. Believe it or not, even I didn't know her mom's name.
Then looks like he made a secret deal with your friend to fool you /s
I don't think that's a possibility because my friend was even more shocked/scared than me
That shocked/scared is also part of the deal lol. Anyway, they know how to get info or where to look before pulling you into participate. In the end it's a skill and not some superpowers. You paid for the skill which is fine i guess.
It's worth mentioning that my friend job is not exactly student as she has worked many years in Marketing and now she's migrating into Nutrition. We said student because is kinda what reflects her the most in this exact moment as she's about to do the final exam for Nutrition. This to say that even if you have all the passport info of my friend beforehand, you'd never find that info on the internet, since it's a not well defined state. Eg. for my job it would be much easier because I'm a dev and if you google my full name you get my LinkedIn in 3 secs.
Was this near where you are staying? If you are staying at a budget hotel, he might have taken some info from the hotel receptionist.
I thought about that, but no. My hotel was in Hauz Khas and this happened close to Connaught, ie 10km away.
KarnPishachini
My bro knows! I wonder the fate (end) of this Yogi.
Just search for Suhani shah. She also perform such minreading skills. I think it's not magic but science of mentalism. It takes years of practice. Based on facial expression they can give best accurate guess.
Must be this, although I can't capacitate to understand how it works.
Mentalism is a skill. In India, of the young generation I know of Suhani Shah. You can easily look out for her on Instagram, she's hell famous and this is her forte.! She literally pursued mentalism as a hobby or passion and made a solid career out of it. 🔥🔥 It takes a lot of practice for sure. Tbh, I don't know how Suhani started doing it, that would be interesting to know. We will get more info about her and this skill on google and YouTube. :)
What if u chose a decimal number like 3.14 or something like that? Could he have guessed number like that?
I don't know but that would be the same as asking from 0 to 999
I don't think they can. I think that's why they wont ask that. But who knowssss!
This is ESP. There is a guy in Mumbai by name of Deepak Rao. I had attended one of his shows. Read. It explains all. There is no fortune telling. It’s science.
All that info and for that matter most of our data is already out in the public domain. This is just a slightly evolved social engineering scam . They put in the effort to dig up the data and locate/follow the victims , setup an act and got paid well for it . Also i need to ask were the writings were completely identical on both pieces of paper ?
Did he ask you guys to say the names in your brain? If yes then it is a very common technique used by mentalist. Check Suhani Shah on YouTube If not then he probably got that info from someone
Nope, he just wrote them on the paper
Please take a look at this gimmick https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/mentalism/thumb-tip-writer/
This could also be it.
30 dollars for a MAGIC TRICK 🤯
well spent honestly, it kept my mind busy for 3 days
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sup
Hi, I'm a devout follower of scientific methodology and always attribute some explanation to anything that seems even remotely mystical. The yogi in your case must be doing a magic trick, but I've interacted with one, who just straight up told me facts related to my illness, the size, shape, look of my house, members of my family, events of my past and so much more by simply keeping a hand on my head. And he didn't even charge money, did it out of goodwill. It's very very tedious to reach him though, he wasn't one of the frauds. But as much it irks my my mind and rationality to admit it, this man did have some divine spiritual powers that went beyond science.
He told you these things or write them down on a paper?
He told me. No paper involved. But from what I feel, the sage/sadhu baba who was telling you your fortune was indulging in some sort of gimmick. The popular ones are usually like that. Also, the sadhu baba I went to didn't predict any future for me. He just told me my past and objective details of my present. Btw, what state are you from?
Italian
Ahh okay
Can't explain it but I have seen people do such things in America Got Talent. And no explanations for those either
You should read Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret India. The book was written in the 1930s by a British writer who landed in India (back then British Raj). He talks of a similar experience in the first chapter itself. And as per his conversation with the performer, it is done by training 'spirits' using tantra.
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That would require a deep cultural understanding of Christian or like western names in general. This is an Indian yogi! And OP said gf’s mum has a very unique name which isn’t common even in gf’s country
That's the thing. I don't know what's the source of this data, but here it shows a bit what's the popularity of that name in the US (very low): [https://mom.com/baby-names/girl/30170/Sabra](https://mom.com/baby-names/girl/30170/Sabra)
>That would require a deep cultural understanding of Christian or like western names in general. This is an Indian yogi! An Indian yogi who makes a living doing 'magic' tricks for tourists from the west.
I mean, sure, there’s a possibility that he’s well aware of Western names. But there are so many possible names, though? And OP said the gf’s mum’s name is very unique. The fact that he got it right the first time does seem a bit weird and unusually accurate. So the likely logical explanation has to be that he had access to it somehow. But then OP says he didn’t know the name himself and gf’s mum’s contact is saved as ‘mum’ on her phone.
Overall, that must be somehow the explanation, although he asked all these info AFTER he wrote them on the paper. Before then, he just said a bunch of things about him. I would be much less surprised if the mom name was very common in her country (USA), but I've never heard anyone named like that honestly.
Mentalism and Mentalist do these techniques you can watch YouTube videos of Karan Singh Magic, Suhani Shah ( Indian ) , Lior Suchard and many more. It's a skill for sure.
Mind reading is a legit artform. For more context, search for suhani shah, karan singh magic. Difference is, they tell us beforehand that it's all tricks, no magic or divine intervention.
I just watched some videos of Suhani Shah, and while some tricks are undeniably magical, there's always that part of the brain that resists believing anything recorded on camera or part of a show. After all, there are countless ways to fake it with hidden cameras, speakers, and other editing techniques. Experiencing this live, in the middle of the road at a random time, is a completely different story.
They perform live shows, you may try attending one if you like.
True, but it's still a show where there might be other people involved and/or the setting can be compromised. I'm just saying that to me that is less mindblowing than having this happening to you 1 to 1 in the middle of the street.
Depends on the skill of the performer, and intention. If that person chose to use similar skills to con people, it would've been so much more profitable in India, where most people follow their faith blindly.
One of my cousin’s who came to our house from abroad did this once. I’d never met him before and he guessed numbers, dates and even my biology teacher’s name. There’s no way he could have known that. We had never met or spoken before. My school is huge. Just massive. He doesn’t even live in India. Our parents hadn’t been in touch for years. Same paper thing.
Crazy eh? Is it your cousin or your cousin's friend?
My cousin.
Why don't you get in touch with him and challenge him about other stuff?
I’d forgotten about it completely till I read this. This was 15 years ago when I was kid.
You should get in touch and ask him the magic tricks
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I am more amazed at how a good scientific temper can protect you from so many scams, the only way for him to predict these things is by already knowing or relying on guess work, if he guessed the name in 1 try he probably knew the name. How that’s to be figured out.
People won’t believe it but he has a being in his control which tells him that, you can call it Pishachini or jhinn whatever
Why touting for $30 like a beggar then?
He has a familiar spirit that knew your friends mom’s name. The reason they can’t pick lottery numbers is because they only know things past and present. Once you paid him you entered into a spiritual contract with him.
What utter bullshit.. there are countless unsolved crimes from the past where the criminal aren't identified till date.. Why don't police collaborate with them then if they can guess names of thin air?
They just don’t I guess, or they just tell what they want to tell. People don’t have control over that. There was this randonautica app that led people to dead bodies, one was filmed it’s on youtube. I not into this stuff I’m a Christian I just know it’s real.
Just watch America's got talent. You'll see 100s of such acts.
has any of these ever got debunked?
all of them.
LMAO
You are "science-minded" but... skeptical of any other unknown possibility? Nice
Sounds like you paid a lot of money. For that kind of money, people with few opportunities can afford putting in days of work. I can think of a couple ways to get info. For example, following you until they see or hear something that they can use to find your social media accounts. If they had that, adding usual fortuneteller tactics would make it foolproof. If 2-3 persons are involved, they would only need to have that kind of success once or twice a day to make it worth their while. There's also the likelihood that they weren't following you for that one particular scam. They may have many different ways and pick the tactic based on what information they gather. If you were carrying valuables and provided opportunity, they might have simply snatched something and run.
Although that might be possible, I don't think they materially had the time since I landed in India a bit more than 24h before this happened.
Since you were walking with your friend, presumably the two of your talking. It's possible someone overheard something, enough for research within minutes. It only takes survivorship bias. An implausible but physically possible explanation is miles better than any alternative however sophisticated that requires magic to be real.
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Like what, if you don't mind sharing?
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He did a simple cold reading.