Posted on 10/30/2002 2:19:55 AM PST by kattracks
NewsMax rarely discusses paranormal things, and we give short shrift to such out-of-this-world wisdom -- even if CNN’s Larry King has mainstreamed psychics.
True, most psychics are quacks or frauds who like to make big after-the-fact claims and cash in on their fame.
But one apparently isn’t.
Her name is Elizabeth Baron.
A self-described "spiritualist" from Charleston, S.C., Baron offered a series of stunning insights into the recent sniper attacks around Washington.
Some of them were recorded on radio before the snipers were captured, making her claims more than credible.
Soon after the spree killings began on Oct. 2, Baron claimed that there was indeed an Islamic connection to the killings.
She also said – contrary to the many "profilers" spouting off – that the killings were being conducted by more than one individual.
She stated that a group of as many as five individuals were involved, although all did not do the killings themselves.
Baron also insists that an unidentified woman is involved.
Interestingly, Baron may have had a premonition of the attacks in April of this year. At that time she faxed a letter to a friend close to the FBI, indicating that Maryland was in danger and needed to be protected.
Days before the shooting of the man at the Ponderosa steak house in Ashland, Va., Baron said she had received the message "They will surrender in Richmond."
Ashland is a suburb of Richmond. According to press reports police have said that they almost captured Muhammad and Malvo at a pay phone in Richmond soon after the Ashland shooting.
Baron believes that the shooting in the Richmond area gave the police the evidence and clues they needed to help solve the case.
On Oct. 21, Baron said she began intense prayer to help her define the killer. She penciled a sketch of a very young man she believed was black or Hispanic.
She received another message: The man is with another man and they are driving a blue car.
All of that sounds rather fantastic and fabricated.
It might have been dismissed as such had it not been recorded for posterity on a national radio program.
On Tuesday, Oct. 22, Baron was an early morning guest on Phil Paleologos’ morning talk radio show "American Breakfast," broadcast on Cable Radio Network.
Paleologos told NewsMax he remains in awe of Baron’s prediction and revelations two days before the arrest of Muhammad and Malvo, before anyone even knew who was doing these killings.
"She came on my show and said, 'The Feds are on a wild goose chase; there is no white van involved, there is a blue car,'" Paleologos recalled, adding that Baron also made clear the killings involved a group and not one person.
"But she was really emphatic about this blue vehicle," Paleologos said, who noted that the only talk at the time had been of a white van.
When news broke late Wednesday night into Thursday morning that Muhammad and Malvo were suspects and may be driving a blue Caprice -- one they were later captured in – Paleologos was stunned.
The next day, he called Baron and played her on-air interview from days before, and congratulated her.
Paleologos says in all of his years on radio, Baron is the only person he has interviewed who he believes has true spiritual, psychic abilities.
"She has a gift. It's a blessing to have this, to help solve these cases and right wrongs," Paleologos told NewsMax. He said she is different in many ways from other psychics, and that she is not motivated by fame or fortune.
Baron, the mother of seven children, is the widow of a former Chicago-area police chief.
Baron has been issuing warnings about Islamic terrorism for several years. Since 1996, she has been saying that several nations, including Iraq and Iran, were helping to plan a major terrorist attack in lower Manhattan, specifically noting the New York Stock Exchange and the World Trade Center as targets.
In recent months, Baron says she has received some warnings about President Bush and Vice President Cheney, which she has passed on to federal authorities. She wouldn’t disclose the full details of these revelations publicly.
On another matter, asked if Steve Hatfill had anything to do with the anthrax attacks, she said, "It’s an absolute lie." Still, she added, the FBI is trying to find something on him to justify its investigation and actions against him.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Sniper Shootings
"Not a single "psychic" has ever demonstrated any actual abilities under proper testing (where "proper" is defined as testing done carefully enough to exclude the possibility of fraud or wishful thinking on the part of the testers). Period."Wrong.
I stand by my statement. Your cite doesn't do anything to help your case:
CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing At Stanford Research Institute
Oh, puh-leaze... Puthoff is the most gullible "psychic researcher" out there. He declared Uri Gellar's spoonbending and "clairvoyance" genuine and "proven", despite the fact that fact that independent observers witnessed Gellar's "entourage" freely shuttling back and forth between the "projection" room (where they could see the "target" images) and Gellar's "isolation room" (where they could signal him). And let's not bring up the time video cameras caught Gellar manually bending a spoon when he thought that he had distracted everyone's attention (this is what Puthoff calls "rigorous controls").
But aside from Puthoff's credulity and academic sloppiness, the fact remains that one of the people hired by the government to evaluate the results of the CIA testing issued a point-by-point, scathing report on how sloppy the "testing" was. The results of the tests were so poorly handled that they invalidated any possible observations -- it would be impossible to separate the outcomes based on sloppy procedure frmo the outcomes based on "actual" ESP.
As he later wrote:
The recent media frenzy over the Stargate report violated the truth. Sober scientific assessment has little hope of winning in the public forum when pitted against unsubstantiated and unchallenged claims of "psychics" and psychic researchers -- especially when the claimants shamelessly indulge in hyperbole.It's scary that True Believers(tm) still like to fling this one onto the table as one of their "best" proofs of the existence of psychic abilities.[...]
Utts and other parapsychologists also talk about prima facie evidence in connection with the operational stories of the psychics (or remote viewers) employed by the government. Everyone agrees there is no way to evaluate the accounts of these attempts to use input from remote viewers in intelligence activities. This is because the data were collected in haphazard and nonsystematic ways. No consistent records are available; no attempt was made to interrogate the viewers in nonsuggestive ways; no contemporary systematic attempts to evaluate the results are there, etc.
The attempts to evaluate these operational uses after the fact are included in the American Institutes for Research (A.I.R.) report and they do not justify concluding anything about the effectiveness or reality of remote viewing. Some stories, especially those involving cases that occurred long ago and/or that are beyond actual verification, have been put forth as evidence of apparently striking hits. The claim is that these remote viewers are right on -- are actually getting true psychic signals -- about 20 percent of the time.
Call it prima facie or whatever, none of this should be considered as evidence for anything. In situations where we do have some control comparisons, we find the same degree of hitting for wrong targets (when the judge does not realize it is the wrong target) as for the correct targets. A sobering example of this with respect to remote viewing can be found in David Marks and Richard Kammann's book The Psychology of the Psychic (Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 1980).
Psychologists, such as myself, who study subjective validation find nothing striking or surprising in the reported matching of reports against targets in the Stargate data. The overwhelming amount of data generated by the viewers is vague, general, and way off target. The few apparent hits are just what we would expect if nothing other than reasonable guessing and subjective validation are operating.
-- Ray Hyman, "The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality"
I'm sorry, I specifically stated that no positive results had been shown under "proper testing". If this is your (or Puthoff's) idea of "proper testing", then I still have several nice bridges for sale.
BINGO...
The "matches" are "proof" of precognition, the "misses" are "just ordinary dreams".
Heads she wins, tails she doesn't lose. Anyone could accumulate a "scary" track record by those rules, especially someone who tends to dream scenarios about people and situations in her actual life, and who remembers a lot of their dreams (unlike me, I tend to have "what in the hell was *that*?" dreams, not involving day-to-day people/situations, and I seldom remember my dreams for the most part). Such a person would provide a lot of "material" for lucky hits (and the misses don't count).
And don't understimate the effectiveness of ordinary non-paranormal intuition. For example, it's not unlikely that a person would have a dream about a friend having a car crash, starring a friend who is known to drive too fast and carelessly -- and then have it happen, for obvious reasons.
We always remember the striking coincidences, we overlook the thousands of times things don't coincide. Anecdotal evidence is very poor "evidence" for psychic ability, because most people have a poor grasp of how often "amazing" coincidences will happen purely by chance. They also have a tendency to give "matches" a higher score than they deserve (e.g. dreaming someone dies one way, and they die another, and counting that as an actual "omen", despite the fact that dreams about someone dying happen quite often.)
PROPHECIES FOR 2002
The important thing to remember about predictions is that the timing can sometimes go into other years. No medium or psychic can always be correct on timing. Keep this in mind as you read these predictions.
1. Question: Will we catch Osama Bin Laden or is he already dead?
Answer: Osama will be killed and he is on his way to his death now because of very bad health for the last three years. There are certain medications he has to have in order to survive. Right now, he has access to those medications; however, he won’t always have that access. He has been shot on the left side and there have been three shots he has taken. There is man who is not a medical doctor around him and has been taking care of him, but as far as your question is concerned, he will be killed.
2. Question: Will there be any proof of that, so that we, the American people, will know he is dead?
Answer: There will be proof to the American government, however, that proof will be revealed at the government’s discretion (if you know what I mean).
3. Question: Is Saddam Hussein harboring him (Osama Bin Laden) right now?
Answer: No
4. Question: Do you see any assassination of World Leaders in the near future?
Answer: I see an assassination of Arafat, of Saddam Hussein, killed by his own people, and an attempted assassination on the President of the United States. But I do not see that as coming about at this time.
5. Question: Is there any way we can warn our President ?
Answer: He will have many warnings. Regardless of what anyone says about this man, he is very close to God but he does need to be protected at all times. However, he knows that already. There is a great deal of protection around him. The terrorists have not finished terrorizing the President or the Presidential facilities.
They are still trying to take a chance to do away with some of our leaders.
6. Question: What do you see for the economy of America for the year 2002?
Answer: The economy will get worse before it gets better but I would say by April, it could get better. But what people have to realize is what the terrorists want from America. They are trying to take our economy down because they do not wish to destroy America but they wish to take over America. So they will do things to make
our economy go down such as hurting our airlines and our modes of transportation and communication. However, they do not want every city to be blasted apart because they want to live here.
7. Question: Could that ever be possible?
Answer: It is possible; however, there are many of these terrorists who have underestimated the Americans as a whole. They really believed that all Americans were only interested in money, new cars and new homes. They never realized how close Americans could be. How they could strengthen their standards and principles. Bin Laden is running scared, with Saddam Hussein is still directing much of the terrorism. He too is very wrong and has miscalculated the American nation as a whole.
8. Question: Do you see any upheavals in the stock market or a recession?
Answer: The way it looks right now, a depression has been held off; however, there are two major forms of terrorism that could cause the market to hit bottom. However, at this time, it is not possible that these can be done, because both places are being watched carefully.
9. Question: Do you see any major natural disasters in the year 2002?
Answer:
(A) There will be big huge mudslides in California that will destroy many homes because of torrential rains. I’m speaking of hundreds and hundreds of homes.
(B) There will be a natural disaster around the area of Costa Rica.
(C) Six hurricanes on the east coast but I do not see major, major damage.
10. Question: Will the Islamic religion become the number one religion?
Answer: I would say that the Christian church as a whole would have to become far more solid for that not to happen in the future. However, not in the year 2002. As a matter of fact, many people will turn away from the Islamic religion because of the terrorism.
11. Question: Will America be attacked again by any terrorist activity?
Answer: I see two forms of terrorism. I see a building in California, (Los Angeles) such a stadium. It looks like a lot of people could be killed. This definitely can be prevented. If it happened, it wouldn’t be like the World Trade Center but far more people could be killed. The other one, I am very concerned about. There is a man in Minneapolis, Minn. who has a bomb in a suitcase. The suitcase looks like one of those black plastic cases, a hand held drill would ordinarily be carried in. There is some sort of nuclear weapons station or area that belongs to the American government that he wants to set this bomb off in. I believe both of these things could be prevented. At this time, our federal government is doing a marvelous job at preventing these things.
12. Question: Do you feel that our borders are protected adequately.
Answer: No. Our borders are wide open to anyone who wants to come into our country. One of the things these terrorists want to do is to kill many people at one time, such as in a department store. They will find places where people are crowded together.
13. Question: Will there be more hijackings?
Answer: I do see a plane coming from South America to New York City. However that too can be prevented.
The only thing I can see that would be comparable and maybe worse than the World Trade Building would be the Los Angeles stadium and that too can be prevented.
Nope. Pure, 100%, unadulterated quackery. Fraudulent snake oil sold to the gullible.
At least the ones who claim ridiculous abilities like "astral travel" and such are charlatans. There are also a lot of professional "psychics" who honestly believe they have an ability -- they mistake normal intuition and lucky guesses as "evidence" of their "powers", and make a career (literally) out of helping others with their "insights".
Didn't you read and understand your own post?
Demon - 1) An evil supernatural being; a devil
Demons are "evil spirits".
First, send out "psychic" prediction tipsheets free of charge to 64,000 people. Half predict a certain stock will go up; the other half predict the same stock will go down.
The next week, send out a new tipsheet only to those 32,000 people who received the tipsheet from last week with the correct tip.
The week thereafter send out your tipsheet to the 16,000 with two weeks of accurate predictions.
After six weeks of this, ask the 1,000 people left for $1000 dollars for a year's subscription to your tipsheet.
Retire.
I find it very disturbing that someone like you would defend a person who clearly practices witchcraft. Understand this one thing, there is no such thing as GOOD WITCHES and BAD WITCHES, it is all evil.
Once again, which of the verses I listed that clearly state that what this women does is forbidden by God don't you understand?
Er, are you saying that I'm a "True Believer(tm)"? If keeping one's mind open to possibilities that do not conform to the current paradigm equates to being labeled as such, I suppose you could say that I am. You could also call Einstein, Newton, Galieo, and many others "True Believers (tm)", as their thoughts ALSO conflicted with the paradigm of their day...
Incidently, I don't view the link that I gave you as the "ultimate" proof. I simply offered it as an example of some of the work that's been done in this particular field of interest. One has to wonder why the CIA would spend time and money on such a thing. One would ALSO have to wonder if the REAL results would be disclosed if there was any truth to the theory that psychic phenomena actually exists.
If this is your (or Puthoff's) idea of "proper testing", then I still have several nice bridges for sale.
I'll need a loan. I'd be interested if you can finance it for me, and I'll pay you back when I begin collecting on the tolls..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.