Cold Reading Versus ESP

Second sight, ESP, anomalous cognition, the gift, the curse, intuition, these things are very real. The sixth sense is, in fact, a sense that everyone has to varying degrees. It's like hearing, how much you are affected by it really depends on how solid your earplugs are. In animals they call this sixth sense instinct.

It's an unreliable sense, it comes when it wants to and says what it wants to, often regarding things that you don't care about or want to know. It flashes something before your inner eye for a brief moment, and then goes on its merry way leaving you to figure out what happened.

On the flip-side of this you have cold readers. Sylvia Browne, John Edwards, and other shysters who make their living giving people who actually have the curse a bad name. No one who actually has future-memory can set up shop and offer their services for profit. It simply doesn't work that way. It's not a dog that comes on command and sits at your feet.

No one can talk to your dead relatives at will, even if they see or sense ghosts/leftover energies from time to time. It seems wrong to me to take advantage of someone in mourning in that way. Though, some people would say they're doing a service by giving people closure, real or imagined. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

If you couldn't tell, these people irritate me and I really should reject these feelings as being unnecessary and negative. That said, anyone can learn to do this as a fun party game, and teach others to spot con artists.

This video tells you how it's done. It's a long one, but very informative.