Right now I’m fighting a nasty cold. I’m feeling a little loopy and I’m terribly bored. So to pass the time, I decided to try to find out if my son is psychic. I’m telling you, it may be the cold medicine or it may be that days of aches and pains are taking a toll on my rationality, but I think my baby might have a touch of the 6th sense! Of course, it’s a bit early to be sure, but if he’s showing signs at 9 months old, he’s totally the next John Edward… but like for serious for real.
I went to Lifted – the brand new magazine… and went through this questionnaire:
How can you tell if your own son or daughter is a ‘child of the light?’
They may exhibit one or more of the following:
1. Photographs show them surrounded by unusual lights, mists or orbs
2. They interact with unseen people, spirits, angels or animals
3. They often talk vey early – sometimes speaking words of wisdom far beyond their age
4. Or very late because they rely on telepathy to communicate
5. They show abilities of natural healing
6. They are happiest when out in nature
7. They are generally very peaceful and loving children – attracting others around them
8. They are very drawn to natural objects – like crystals and plants
9. They have paranormal abilities
10. Paranormal activies is seen around them
May exhibit one or more? So anyone exhibiting 0 – 10 “symptoms” could be a child of the light! My son exhibits way more than 0! Someone call Randi! I’m abouts to wins me some million dollars!
While you’re clicking to read more after the fold, I’m going to give a big kiss to mommy’s little money train.
In the interest of honesty, I’m not sure what a “child of the light” is. All I know is that it means my kid is extraordinary, he has super powers of the psychic variety and he’s going to win me one MILLION dollars!
Since #1 calls for photographic evidence, and is the most compelling, I’ve decided to end with #1. (also I’m sick and bored and feel like being all unpredictable and mixing it up crazy-style by starting with #2)
2. They interact with unseen people, spirits, angels or animals
He does this! No question. He sits on the floor and reads books all by himself for 20-30 minutes at a time. Only he holds the books upside-down and he doesn’t know how to read yet. The only explanation I can come up with is that he holds them open so spiritghosts can read the book to him. He holds the books upside down because that makes it easier to read while floating overhead.
BTW, every psychic knows ghosts prefer to read upside down books when floating. It’s just a ghostly spirit thing they do on the other side. It’s probably why it’s so difficult to accurately communicate the initials of loved ones during a psychic reading.
3. They often talk vey early – sometimes speaking words of wisdom far beyond their age
4. Or very late because they rely on telepathy to communicate
If by “early” they mean 4am, then yes. If by “late” they mean 4am, then yes. He loves to wake up in the middle of the night and he only talks in words the spiritghosts can understand.
And lots of times he relies on telepathy. Sometimes he’ll just cry until I figure it out but he never says a word. Lots of times he sends psychic signals to my nose telling me that he needs his diaper changed… I can pick up on these from across the room.
5. They show abilities of natural healing
Remember how I said I have a cold? Well he had the same cold yesterday. I’ve been sick for 3 days. He was only sick for one day… with NO medicine (except for some Tylenol for a fever, but that doesn’t count). He healed himself naturally!
6. They are happiest when out in nature
If I don’t keep an eye on him, he’ll follow the dogs out the back door. And all his favorite toys are animals!
I took him to the zoo once and he was kind of fussy when we were looking at the monkeys. I think he knew they monkeys were sad because they were inside and away from their natural habitat. He’s very sensitive to the needs of animals.
He’s such an animal empath sometimes he tries to eat dog food.
7. They are generally very peaceful and loving children – attracting others around them
OMG he totally loves me! More than any other baby I’ve ever met! A million points for #7. I don’t even need to go over any other questions because this one proves his psychicness 100 million percent!
8. They are very drawn to natural objects – like crystals and plants
I don’t know about this one. Since I’m fond of my crystal, I tend to keep it away from the baby. And I’m not a green-thumb kinda girl so I have no plants.
He does like to put dirt and leaves into his mouth if he finds them on the ground, so that counts, right?
9. They have paranormal abilities
I think we’ve already established that. I mean dude he talks to ghosts, psychically connects with animals, and talks to me through telepathy.
10. Paranormal activies is seen around them
This happens all the time. Every time my back is turned something paranormal happens around him. He’ll be sitting near the dogs’ water bowl, I’ll turn around for a second and it will flip, spilling water all over the floor. Sometimes everything on the coffee table will come crashing to the ground when I walk out of the room. Drink coasters end up under the couch. And every time he drops cereal onto the floor, it disappears forever!
Now if you’re still not 100% convinced (I don’t understand how you could still question it but I know you skeptics, you don’t believe anything), here is photographic proof that he is psychic and spirits are around him always:
1. Photographs show them surrounded by unusual lights, mists or orbs
At first I thought I was SOL when I went through all my son’s pictures. His photos are suspiciously lacking any orbs, unusual lights or mists. But then I came across this photo:
So what’s the big deal with this fuzzy photograph? Well, for starters, it looks nothing like him…. and it’s fuzzy. The only reason I know this is a picture of my son because I took the picture myself. This can only mean one thing: a spirit is interfering with this photo!
If that weren’t enough, there’s ectoplasm all over his face!
To compare, here is a normal picture of him two shots later:
See? They look nothing alike! My baby is normally smiley and in focus. And the ectoplasm is still there!
I know you may think that the alleged ectoplasm looks suspiciously like strawberry yogurt. While it is true that I was, in fact, feeding him strawberry yogurt just moments before taking these pictures, the first fuzzy picture looks nothing like my child so that indicates this is more likely to be ectoplasm and the work of a spiritghost. (If you think that’s a non sequitur, you obviously know nothing about proving the existence of the paranormal.)
And for you strawman-building skeptics who say this substance has to be yogurt because it’s white-ish like yogurt and not green like ectoplasm, nice try but real ectoplasm looks very similar to yogurt. Ghostbusters took some creative license making it green for dramatic effect. Until you can find a single instance of real-life green ectoplasm, you have no case.
Since I’m now a true believer in the paranormal and am about to win your cherished million dollar prize, I guess this is my last post on Skepchick. See you in hell, suckers! I’ll be the one with all the money laughing at you while surrounded by heavenly ghost orb protection!
(But I’d appreciate if Rebecca would not revoke my blogging privileges just in case IÂ change my mind once the cold medicine wears off)
One thing is for certain, that little punk is supernaturally adorable. He’s bound to win the million bucks!
ditto to above comment,but also: ROFL.
I just wasted the last hour perusing a website all about how retarded Waldorf schools are and hey,wait, maybe this little psychic guy would be a great fit. Did I say retarded? I meant “creative”.
Yeah, I need to write a book about psychic children. I could make million. I’ll put a short “test” on the back cover full of question any believer will almost automatically answer yes to, and I’m set.
1: Do you think your child is cute?
Human infants are ugly little half-formed monsters, so if you think yours is cute, that’s the natural psychic powers influencing your feeble adult mind.
2: Is your child smart?
Most children (and people in general) are colossally stupid. If your child is even semi-sapient at this age, he or she is decades ahead of most of humanity on the learning curve.
3: Are you willing to pay $35 for my book?
Parents of unenlightened, non-psychic children would never do something like this, because all children are inherently psychic, and it is only the doubt of adults around them that stifles their powers.
But…with all these supernat abilities how does one know if bub is a ‘Child of the light’ or ‘Spawn of Satan’?
True, any 360 degree head rotation, levitating aorund the roof, or glowing red eyes would be a dead giveaway, but evil green vomit as opposed to ‘ordinary green vomit’ is difficult to distinguish with babies. Ditto with evil smells and speaking in strange tongues.
But in any case you forgot the basic paranormal’ abilities of ‘astral projection’ and telekensis…
* Where did he go, he was he just a second ago…he must be projecting!
* He said he didn’t smear chocolate on the walls, it must have been telekensis!
Dude, your kid is *so* psychic!
I bet he totally knew Ted Kennedy was going to get cancer. Wait, I bet he totally knew my dad was going to get cancer.
Wow, that’s freaky.
Rystefn,heh heh we here should start an entire publishing house. We could all get rich beyond our wildest (psychic) dreams. Too bad so many of us godless heathens have somehow developed a weird affinity for ethics.
Seriously, I spent a couple of hours today checking out Waldorf stuff and Steiner in general (because a friend just told me she works at a W. school and I wanted to see just how much of teh crazy is involved). Do y’all think that these people – Steiner, Sylvia Browne, et al – really believe their own crap or do (did) they go home after the seance and go “bwahahaha!”?
Luckily, I have no ethics, so I’m golden. Guess it’s time for me to get to writing.
Whitebird-
I don’t really know anything about Waldorf schools. I’ll start looking into it though to see if it’s a good skeptical topic to write about. If you see anything worth noting, send it to me in using the comment form.
As for Sylvia and the like, no, they do not believe their own BS. There are plenty of “normal” people who believe they have powers but the big names know full well what they are doing, that it’s a show and that they are bilking people out of hard earned cash. 100% no question they know it’s a scam. I can only assume that the size of a person’s paycheck is directly proportional to his ability to face himself in the mirror every day.
This can only mean one thing: your child’s father is an alien with supernatural powers!
I hadn’t heard of Waldorf schools until one near my town was shut down because of a pertussis epidemic cause by lack of vaccination. So apparently Waldorf schools are where anti-vaccinationists send their kids to infect each other with infectious diseases. Cool!
My kids are _so_ Children of the Dark!
They’re all classic “Barnum Statements” that could pretty much mean anything.
1. Thats just the ocasional bad photo
2. Kids often have imaginary friends AND I have heard of a stage of developement whereby small children give a running commentry of what they are currently doing
3. Talking early or parents attributing meaning to “meaningless” (obviously a crying indicates distress etc) noise. As for words of wisdom, kids often repeat things they heard adults say to much comic effect.
4. This is the exact opposite of number 3! To cover those kids who are a bit late in speach development.
5. They heal? We all have natural abilities of healing.
6. They are happiest when out in nature. Show me a kid who doesnt like playing out
7. They are generally very peaceful and loving children. Show me a small child who isnt “generally” loving (the caveat is in the word “generally”)
8. They are very drawn to natural objects – like crystals and plants. You mean like interesting stuff?
9. They have paranormal abilities. This could mean ANYTHING, allowing the reader to impose their own definition of what is paranormal and what amazing thing their child can do.
10. Paranormal activies is seen around them. Firstly, the conjugated plural set inclusion form of “to be” is “are” rather than “is” how this got published in a magazine is, frankly, amazing. Secondly without specifying what they are, these paranormal activites could mean anything.
Its all BS, but it’s canny BS as it takes advantage of our tendency to see children, especially our own children, as special, talented or gifted in someway. The paradigm here is paranormal, so sceptics are more attuned to locating flaws in paranormal arguments
I suspect that the tendency to see our own kids as special is cross cultural and if the paradigm where changed to a sceptical one, whereby the “gift” was rationality rather than supernaturality, then even sceptics would fall for it, e.g. “How you can tell you child is a sceptic”
There’s an interesting study for someone.
russelsugden beat me to the punch!
A child who manages to exhibit all 10 symptoms must tear the universe apart since they necessarily create a temporal paradox.
Then again, I suppose it might not be an exclusive or.
It might be that if they start talking early, and keep talking till “late” the or still evaluates true since there’s nothing defnining it as exclusive.
Of course, there’s no such thing as early or late, since it’s all a matter of karma and destiny as to when the child will speak.
I went to check out a Waldorf school when I was shopping around for a school for my kids. It emphasized imagination and fostering creativity and art and such which was an understandable if misguided response to the industrial, students listen, teachers lecture educational model that was dominant (and in many places still is). On the upside, the puppet show they had for the kids was fabulous.
I started them in Montessori instead since it has a much more hands on, figure it out yourself approach though you sometimes find Montessori teachers that are quite rigid in their approach.
So if you want a psychic – enroll your kid in Waldor, if you want a scientist, try Montessori.
PS Rystefn, my kids are cute. I’ll cite as supporting evidence the number of times they’ve been photographed and the number of women who would absolutely never talk to me if I didn’t have a cute kid holding my hand. If, however, you’d like to money on it, we could randomly select a room full of adults not related to them and see if they can psychically convince others of their cuteness. I should warn you though, my younger daughter likes dancing to Bollywood music and which is strong in the ways of cuteness.
PPS My younger daughter also psychically knows exactly when my tv shows are on, because thats when she walks up with a Disney dvd and shouts WATCH.
Hang on, Elyse– You wrote this ENTIRE post JUST SO YOU COULD HAVE AN EXCUSE TO POST YER WEAN”S PICTURE???
…He is aggressively cute, though.
Bwahaha! My child just defeated yours in PSYCHIC COMBAT! Sure, he’s cute, but he’s WEAK! Only the ectoplasm prevented him from being utterly DESTROYED! Tremble in fear, lest I unleash her powers against your cat!
If you don’t have a cat, then the psychic ghost image of a cat that she senses is living in your house. Or apartment.
Mine are both children of the light. Esp. my four-year-old, who talked early but has recently taken to NOT talking when trying to communicate — she’s got both words of wisdom AND telepathic attempts going on…
A pretty good skeptic-related blog, written by a former student at a Waldorf school:
http://zooey.wordpress.com
I’m not self-blog-whoring, either, it’s one I found once and liked.
Psychic combat? How about just some a good old throw down? My daughter will use her supersize to crush, crush, crush –
Okay, it just got weird.
Okay, I guess I don’t know how to include an image – for Katiezilla see, http://www.chai-mulkerin.com/katiezilla.com
Make that http://www.chai-mulkerin.com/katiezilla.html – my children are psychically destroying me – help!?!
In addition to all the praise heaped above (to which I add my voice wholeheartedly), I would like to congratulating you on coining the term “spiritghosts.” That is my new official term for ethereal beings of any type.
Mark-
No fair! Moose is tiny, there’s no way he could throw down against a baby the size of a sky scraper… I fear he can only compete against 6 month olds. They are probably still bigger than him but he has the added advantage of mad mobility skillz.
I have hopes of sending Moose to Montessori school in a few years, but with the price of gas right now it looks like he’s going to be home schooled since that’s the only place I can afford to drive him every day.
Rav-
I wrote the entire post to totally brag that my kid is psychic. I’m the only blogger on Skepchick with a psychic kid!
sean-
And here my husband was just glad the kid came out white.
Does anyone know any marriage counselors that deal with intergalactic infidelity?
w_nightshade–
They prefer spiritghosts over being called “supernatural americans” since they’re not all american.
Elyse –
There are some books out there about how to do Montessori type lessons at home. It could be worth looking into since the price of oil isn’t ever coming down (my kids are friends with the kids of an oil trader and he doesn’t believe we will see below $80 a barrell ever again – the magic number for the Canadian tar sands to be viable).
Also, how do you know my daughter didn’t psychically make the buildings smaller? No worries, mine are 2 and 4 now and know that their father will put them in time out if they use their powers for evil.
For more recent (shameless plug) pictures of them, you can go to http://www.chai-mulkerin.com/newphotos.htm. Cheers.
PS Moose? Is that a family name or a genus … still cute though. And yoghurt facials are good for his skin.
Are those red eyebrows on your ectoplasm-covered psychic baby? I might just fall over from teh cute.
Hey, I’ve been away “on special assignment” so I just read this today.
Great post , Elyse! Very funny!
You almost made me use abbreviated textspeak and smilies and crap like that in this comment. Plus the cuteness factor of your little psychic is off the chart.
Elyse Does anyone know any marriage counselors that deal with intergalactic infidelity?
Come on! As if the guests on Jerry Springer are really human!
Well, you can see what the proponents say:
http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/
and then the what the people who think that kids should read earlier than age 8 and aren’t Anthroposophists say:
http://www.waldorfcritics.org/index.html
if you go to the “personal stories” section and click the “unenlightened” story, you can link up to this one guy who went to a Waldorf school in the early ’60’s…and how it took him a long time to get woo-free. Anthroposophy (think I’m spelling it correctly) is like basically the woo-iest thing going. Not only does it have elements of teh jeebus, Steiner said that man comes from …….yep, Atlantis.
He had ideas about everything from schools to agriculture. The farming style is called “biodynamic”. Oh, and medicine, of course.
My roommate claims to be Rosicrucian, but he’s very well versed in this crap, too. I was once told about Goethian color theory and was like “no, that’s just false” and he claimed that such things can’t be known.
this is the same guy who, in an argument (started because I was scoffing at the Mormon belief that Native Americans are from Israel) said “well how do you know the world is round?” None of my answers satisfied – “how do you know that you were flying around a globe” was my favorite response to “well, I flew to Asia”.
First – Sweet. I also dance to Bollywood music, and can verify the cuteness factor. Is she a Daler fan?
Second – A room full of adults thinking the kid isn’t an ugly little monster is not evidence that the child is actually cute, merely evidence of early-onset psychic powers, as I have already stated. If you’d like the full explanation, please purchase my book after it is published.
Mark-
His name is Maximus. One night, when he was probably a week old or so, we were watching gladiator and they were chanting Maximus! Maximus! and it sounded like Max-e-moose… so we called him Max-e-moose for a while then it got shortened to Moose. Now he only answers to Moose.
Now I have to apologize to everyone, Sam especially, who was forced to endure my TXTSPK;) inspiring post.
crap… ignore the italics after “Maximus! Maximus!”
I’m an idiot.
Yeah, because it’s Latin, and you pronounce Maximus “Macks-ee-moos” in Latin. Interestingly, you also pronouce Caesar the German way (Kaiser) in Latin, not the “seize ‘er” way English speakers tend to.
Latin is a fun language that way.
And here I was hoping for some secret connection to Rocky and Bullwinkle. Have you tried the mushed banana ectoplasm? Quite spooky.
I’m surprised that the pronunciation of Caesar would be like “kaiser”, seeing as Spanish and French pronounce it Seh-ZAR. I wonder what the contemporary Italian pronounciation is. Or is Seh-ZAR just the name and not the title?
In Italian, it is pronounced with a hard C (like cat), I think using an s or z sound in it is regional, but I’m not totally certain, since Italian is is one of my worse languages. I barely even dabble in that one, tending to rely on my Latins, Spanish, and French to bulldoze my way through a conversation.
Hey Elyse,
Waldorf schools and their founder are fruit, nuts all tossed together in a big vat of woo. Check out Quack Watch…
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/steiner.html
http://www.quackwatch.com/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=waldorf
well, all right! I went to the source, an I-talian, and asked, just to have it cleared up.
“”Caesar” is actually Latin and, in the so-called “noble period”, it was pronounced as “Ka-esar”.
Later, during the decadence of the empire, it was pronounced with a ch- sound, like in the Enlish “Chester”.
Hope it can help!
saluti,
–
Marco
—from our friend Marco of Italy’s Jennifer Gentle (If you like Syd Barrett, check ’em out!)