Psychic fairs frequently take place in cities around the country. Persons claiming to have special powers of the mind call themselves psychics, clairvoyants, master minds, and even international psychics. Psychics promise to read minds, to help you discover such powers of your own, to promote healing, to see the future, to bring out your "sixth sense", to read your character, to meet your guardian angel, and most recently (Cincinnati Enquirer, 7 Dec. 1995 p. B-1) to read the mind of your pet.
To the skeptics of the Cincinnati Association for Rational Thought, the mildest comment on such claims is "unproven". Let the psychic demonstrate and prove his or her powers under mutually agreed conditions. Such conditions need to satisfy scientific experimental protocol, as well as prevent cheating and cold reading of character.
Unfortunately the claims of psychics have not held up under scrutiny or when tested. The information provided is often so vague and general that it could refer to any future event, any change in the body, or any feeling so that no verification is possible. Some psychic claims by their very nature will prove almost impossible to verify. Who is going to confirm the thoughts of your dog or cat? How can we check a prediction of the future unless it is very specific and will occur soon? The psychic may look at events in general and then claim that something among happenings was predicted by his or her psychic powers. Psychics have been known to acquire information on a client surreptitiously and then claim the information came to them through their "psychic powers."
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