A year ago a fortune teller came to see me and predicted several events. Some of them have already happened, but I'm not sure whether they were actually predicted accurately or if I'm just noticing coincidences. How do I tell the difference between a real prediction coming true and just a coincidence?
The problem is that predictions are almost always worded so vaguely that you can fit a ton of events into them. Say a fortune teller told you "your life will go through changes" - did it come true? Well, of course it did, changes happen all the time, whether it's losing a job or getting a new haircut, running into an old acquaintance or moving to a different neighborhood. But if the prediction was really specific - like "in December 2024 you'll get a job offer from a company called Horns and Hooves" - then yeah, either that exact thing happened or it didn't, coincidences won't help here.
Try to remember yourself exactly what the fortune teller said, without any additions or interpretations. Was it a specific date, a person's name, the name of a place? Or were they phrases like "you'll meet an interesting person" or "money will come from somewhere unexpected"? The more specific it was - the less room there is for coincidences. But honestly, even in that case it's worth remembering that a lot of things can just happen over the course of a year by pure probability, without any prophetic abilities involved.
When that happened to me, I simply wrote down all the predictions on paper right after the visit, literally word for word. Then six months or a year later I reread it and realized: half the predictions were so vague that they basically match any life. And the other half - I'd forgotten them, and when I "remembered" some event, it didn't match what was actually said.
So here's what helps tell real coincidence from illusion. Get a record of the predictions (or write down what you remember now) and assess how specific it actually was. "A new person will come" - that means nothing, people come all the time. But "in August 2026 you'll get a cat" - that's actually verifiable. Second thing: did you remember this prediction when the event happened, or did you remember it after the fact? If you remembered it only after the event, that's a textbook case of false memory. Third - check whether any of the things the psychic predicted accurately and specifically came true, but you forgot about. If not, then probably the coincidences aren't real at all.
The main thing is don't rate the psychic based on two or three matches with vague phrases. If one out of ten predictions came true, that's just the statistics of random chance.
Write it down - that's the key thing. Right after you leave the fortune teller, write down word for word what she said, no paraphrasing and no "as far as I remember." Then a month or two later you'll read it back and immediately see how specific it actually was or if it was just a bunch of phrases like "changes in your personal life."
My friend used to do this after she'd go see some advisor. Later we'd laugh reading it back - there were all these vague things like "someone close to you will be happy" and "an unexpected surprise awaits you." Well of course that'll come true - unexpected things and happiness happen constantly in life. But when I'd ask her to remember what exactly was said, she couldn't recall it precisely and would unconsciously fill in the gaps. Having it written down would've helped her tell what was a real match and where she was just reading into it.
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