Bizarre things my mind conjures up

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Your atheist psychic was doing something known as ‘leading’. It’s a common practice among charlatans of this sort.

You saw something unusual when you were high? Ok, I’m convinced.

People who use their ‘psychic powers’ for criminal purposes are known as ‘criminals’. There is no such thing as psychic powers. Grow up.

Boru

Well the bicycle part thing was kind of specific, wasn't it?

Not at all. What these confidence tricksters do is start with generalities and let the victim fill in the specifics. Here's how these things tend to go:

Madame Zelda: 'I'm getting something to do with a bicycle. Does that mean anything to you?'

Pigeon: 'Why yes - I have a bicycle that I'm repairing!'

Madame Zelda: 'That why I'm seeing bicycle parts.'

If the pigeon wasn't repairing a bicycle, he had some memory  or experience with a bicycle and the con artist would have played off of that. And if Madam Zelda was truly psychic, she would have opened with, 'I see a disassembled Raleigh MK-2 Chopper 5-speed. The third gear sprocket has a chipped tooth.'

But this sort of thing isn't unique to psychics. People who pray on the gullibility of idiots have always used the same techniques.

Boru