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Communicating With the Dead

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Since ancient times, psychics have existed in our society and even respected by part of people. These groups of people think the psychics have the power of the gods; they also believe the psychics can talk to the people past away and help the dead people to achieve their unfinished wish. For instance, in ancient Korea, there is a job for psychics who can match boys and girls who died young as couples, and then have peace in other side. Ancient emperors also hired psychics to communicate with their ancestors when the emperors made decisions like starting the war. The emperors also thought that through this way they could get the blessing from their ancestors. In modern times, people ask psychics about love, money, fortune and so on. They think the psychics can talk to the dead and bring luck to them. However, the psychics have no supernatural ability to communicate with the dead, they just use tricks such as hot reading, cold reading, the shotgun approach and inflated hit/forgotten misses to make people believe them. Actually, in Eastern countries, psychics are not well known, but in western countries, psychics are very popular. These people who believe in mediums said that the psychics have power to make impossible things possible, and they can communicate with their dead relatives. For instance, there is a story that I heard from my friend, she said that her neighbor's grandmother passed away last week. Her neighbor's mother goes to psychics to ask if her mother had some wishes left. When they went to see the psychics, she looked like an outsider. However, she can speak the native dialect which is difficult to speak and she can't be supposed to know. Furthermore, the psychics can tell out her mother's nickname. After that, the psychics can also tell about the conditions after the grandmother's death; the voice of this psychic also sounds like the grandmother's voice. It really scared her neighbor. After that experience, her neighbor believes that the psychics can really talk to the dead. Although, this story sounds like the truth, however, there also exists a group of people who don't believe these kinds of claims. They think the claims of spirits aren't credible. What the psychics said is not reliable and if they can only make achievements by efforts and sometimes by luck. They claim the psychics just use some of skills to make people think they can talk to the dead and make profits from that. The first skill they use is cold reading. Jonathan C. Smith, an international expert on stress, relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness, elaborates in his book "Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit.  that "A cold reading is a prophecy,

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