But here's the problem - there is very little evidence that psychics are real. There is very little evidence that their claimed abilities are real. So it's disgusting to think that there are self-proclaimed psychics out there who are charging people money by claiming that they can connect them to their deceased loved ones.
In 1964, the scientific skeptic James Randi offered a prize of $1000 to anyone who could demonstrate a paranormal or supernatural ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. The prize was increased to $10,000 then $100,000 and then in 1996, the prize was increased to a whooping $1,000,000. That's a million bucks to be given, no strings attached, to anyone who can provide proof that he/she has a supernatural or paranormal ability. It became known as the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. Over a thousand people (many of whom are self-proclaimed psychics) confidently took on the challenge. Not one of them was successful. The prize was terminated in 2015.
I wish the challenge is still active today so that Rudy Baldwin can be asked to give it a shot. I'm 100% confident that she'll miserably fail the challenge. Baldwin is a self-proclaimed Filipino psychic. A quick visit to her Facebook page will tell you several things about her:
1. She calls herself a "psychic reader" and a "dream translator".
2. Her page has more than 4 million followers.
3. Updates in her page usually consists of her predictions and supposedly proof of her predictions coming true.
Below is what she says about who is giving her the visions and the extent of such visions. It's in Tagalog so if you don't understand the language, find someone who can translate it for you.
"Muli po, ang aking mga visions ay ipinagkaloob lamang sa akin ng poong maykapal at akin itong ipinopost upang magsilbing warning para makapag-ingat at dasal ang mga tao at baka sakaling hindi ito matuloy kung iaadya ng diyos na hindi matuloy.
Hindi po ako nagca-claim na malalaman ko ang lahat ng mangyayari. Kung ano lamang po ang ipakita sa akin ng itaas ay yun lamang po ang ipinagkakaloob na ma-vision ko sa mga dahilang tanging si god lamang ang may alam."
Let's revisit the statement. She claims that god is providing her these visions. She also claims that she is posting these visions on Facebook to warn people as well as to encourage them to pray and hope that her visions don't come true. These types of claims are very common among psychics. Basically, they are saying that god is using them as instruments to warn people of bad things (i.e. natural disasters) that are going to occur in the near future.
These claims raise many further questions. Why did god chose Rudy Baldwin as the instrument for the visions? How exactly do these visions occur? Do the visions occur when she's asleep or when she's wide awake? Why can't god provide more specific visions? Why are the visions always vague? If god wants to warn people of impending disasters, why doesn't he warn everyone by giving everyone visions? Why does he focus only on Rudy Baldwin?
Let's try a little thought experiment. Let's say god is truly giving Baldwin a vision and that in the vision, an earthquake is going to happen in a place called Little Manila. People can potentially die. If god really cares about the safety of the people in Little Manila and that he wants to warn them of the impending tragedy, what is he going to do?
1. Send a vision to Rudy Baldwin who will in turn warn the people by posting his visions on Facebook.
2. Warn the people by sending them visions directly. It's more efficient, takes less time, and more importantly, more people will be reached and warned.
1. Send a vision to Rudy Baldwin who will in turn warn the people by posting his visions on Facebook.
2. Warn the people by sending them visions directly. It's more efficient, takes less time, and more importantly, more people will be reached and warned.
What is more likely?
If I'm god, I know what I'd do. I'd directly warn the people instead of wasting precious time on a self-proclaimed psychic. Keep in mind that Baldwin's presence is on social media. So if you are on social media, you can save yourself because her visionary warnings will reach you. How about the people who have very little or zero presence on social media? How about the people who don't have access to-- the internet? They will be unaware of Baldwin's visions and warnings. This means they will be in danger of being harmed in the upcoming earthquake. All because they weren't aware of Baldwin's warnings since they don't have access to the internet. Apparently, god favors those with internet connections.
Are Rudy Baldwin's predictions coming true?
The bread and butter of psychics is vagueness. Most of the time, their predictions are vague and utterly lacking of details. There are two good reasons why psychics don't go into details in their predictions. One, a vague prediction is much easier to twist and massage to make it look like it came true. For example, a psychic can say a natural disaster is going to occur or a well-known celebrity is going to die. Natural disasters occurring and celebrities dying are very common events. If psychics can truly see the future, why not name the disaster, where it's going to happen, and when. Or provide the name of the celebrity who is going to die.
The second reason why psychics are always vague in their predictions is that it's much easier to backtrack when their predictions miss. It's easier for the psychic to wiggle his/her way out in the instance that he/she is called out on a missed prediction.
Being vague is basically a defense mechanism by psychics. Some psychics will use real names of places and natural disasters in their predictions to make these look legit. However, upon closer inspection, the predictions are still vague and easy to manipulate.
I scanned through Rudy Baldwin's Facebook page and looked at her most recent predictions. These predictions include the following. Her prediction posts are often long and redundant so I shortened them to the meat of her predictions.
1. There will be fires in Valenzuela, Makati, Tutuban, Cavite, Bacoor, and Pasig. - She made these predictions in a single Facebook post. She's basically throwing a ton of predictions to increase her chances of getting a hit. And there's a reason why she is predicting fires. Fires happen all the time. Just watch the evening news. These happen almost every week. And of course, the places where these fires will supposedly occur happen to be heavily-populated urban areas.
In her predictions for these fires, Baldwin also added details such as the fire will supposedly happen near a barangay hall, or a hotel, or a pharmacy, or a public market. I bet you that every fire that occurs within an urban center especially in the Metro Manila area is near a barangay hall, a hotel, a pharmacy, or a market.
Let's say a fire happens right now in Valenzuela. I'm pretty sure that if you take a walk around the fire's location, you are going to come across one or two of the following - a hotel, a barangay hall, pharmacy, a market.
2. She also has predictions for countries outside the Philippines. Here are her predictions for Indonesia. There will be three earthquakes. One place in the country will nearly sink. There will be two accidents in the air. There will be disastrous flooding. She made these predictions four days ago to the day I'm writing this. So far, none of her predictions had come true. Of all the countries she can choose from for earthquake predictions, she went with Indonesia. Indonesia is rocked by thousands of earthquakes every year. In 2018 alone, the country was rocked by at least 11,000 earthquakes. Yes, you heard that right. Predicting that 3 earthquakes are going to occur in Indonesia is like predicting that it's going to rain several times in the months of June and July.
She has literally dozens of predictions on her Facebook page. The ones I mentioned here are just a drop in the bucket. This brings me to something very obvious. Majority of her predictions are misses. But of course, because she makes a lot of predictions, some will eventually look like a hit. A fire will happen. An earthquake will happen. A celebrity will die. And like clockwork, Baldwin will happily take the opportunity to make it look like her predictions came true.
This is what psychics do. They make tons of predictions. If one has a semblance of being a hit, they'll claim it as proof for their ability to see the future. As to the other predictions they made that did not come true, they simply brush them off, forget about them, then rinse and repeat.
