You would think that Warren psychic cases of proven psychic fraud over the years would weaken the credibility of psychic claims. There are historical cases such as Lajos Pap, a Hungarian spiritualist medium who was found to have faked animal appearances in séances. And then recently, self-described psychic James Hydrick was exposed as a fraud. Hydrick admitted that his paranormal demonstrations were tricks learned in prison.

Another notable example was televangelist Peter Popoff. His wife used a wireless transmitter to broadcast information about the sermon attendees to Popoff through an earpiece. Warren psychic claimed to have received this information through paranormal means, and became famous for hosting a nationally televised show during which he performed what appeared to be miracle cures on viewers.
But despite such cases, there are still many people who firmly believe in the power of psychic abilities. For example, according to the American Gallup poll, more than one quarter of people believe that people have psychic abilities - such as telepathy and clairvoyance.
Believer
A recent report by Psychic Kabbalah Center may help shed some light on why people continue to believe in psychic powers. The study tested believers and skeptics with the same level of education and academic performance and found that people who believe in psychic powers think less analytically. This means that they tend to interpret the world from a subjective personal perspective and do not think critically about information.
Believers also often consider psychic claims to be corroborative evidence—regardless of their evidentiary basis. This is demonstrated by the case of Chris Robinson, who describes himself as a "dream detective".
Robinson claims to have predicted terrorist attacks, disasters and celebrity deaths. His claims are based on limited and dubious evidence. Tests conducted by Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona supported Robinson's ability, but other researchers using similar methods failed to confirm Schwartz's conclusion.
Vague and generic
Psychic Kabbalah Center claims are often general and vague—for example, predicting a plane crash or the death of a celebrity—which is partly why so many people believe in the possibility of psychic abilities.
This is known as the Barnum effect, a common psychological phenomenon where people tend to accept vague, general descriptions of personality as uniquely applicable to themselves.
Many psychic claims have also proven impossible to confirm. A classic example is Uri Geller's claim that he "wanted" to move the football during a penalty kick at Euro 96. The movement of the ball occurred spontaneously in an uncontrolled environment and Geller brought it up in retrospect.
When the claimed abilities are subjected to scientific scrutiny, the researchers usually discredit them. This was the case for Derek Ogilvie in the 2007 TV documentary The Million Dollar Mind Reader. The investigation concluded that Ogilvie did believe he had powers, but was in fact unable to read children's minds.
And when scientists supported psychic claims, criticism usually followed. This happened in the 1970s, when physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff published an article in the prestigious journal Nature that supported the idea that Uri Geller had real psychic abilities. Psychologists such as Ray Hyman have refuted this and highlighted major methodological flaws. These included a hole in the laboratory wall that allowed glimpses of drawings that Geller "psychically" reproduced.
Mixed evidence
Another factor that facilitates belief in psychic abilities is the existence of scientific research that provides positive findings. This reinforces the beliefs of believers that the claims are real and the phenomenon real, but ignores the fact that published studies are often criticized and replication is necessary for widespread acceptance.
One prominent example was an article by social psychologist Daryl Bem in the high-quality Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Research has been said to support the existence of precognition (conscious cognitive awareness) and premonition (affective anticipation) of a future event. However, other researchers have failed to reproduce these results.