There have been many famous psychics. Edgar Cayce is probably the most famous, but there were others. There was a Dr. David Hoy who was born in Evanston, Indiana around 1930. One of the main differences between Cayce and Dr. Hoy was that Cayce went into a trance to access his psychic abilities, and Dr. Hoy had his abilities readily available at all times. These two psychics show us that psychic abilities can be extremely accurate and reliable, and that each person has a unique method of accessing them.

Here's the first question, why does this matter? What benefit can we gain from this information? A lot of people feel that anything psychic is too "out there" to be of any real use, that the whole subject is one for those who are "a little off". But is it? Don't we all trust our "gut instinct" about certain matters? When we meet someone for the first time, don't we trust our "first impression"? What is a first impression, anyways? Science tells us that the first impression is the subconscious reaction to a wide variety of subtle clues including a person's body posture, tone of voice, facial expressions, fluidity of motion, and factors such as how they wear their clothes.

What if there are other clues, even subtler? Have you ever met someone who seemed completely confident, well dressed, and in complete control of the situation, yet had an uneasy feeling about him/her? Where did that feeling come from? And what about the feelings we get about things and places? Yes, it could be simply a resemblance to something in memory, which brings up forgotten feelings associated with whatever we are remembering on the subconscious level.

But here's the catch. The ability to know things totally unavailable to physical sense has been proven, scientifically. Whether we want to believe in psychic abilities or not, they have been proven to be real. So the question comes back to what benefit can we get from this information?

In our information age (some are saying that we've past the information age and entered the communication age) we generally agree that more information gives us more choices, more power in a situation. If you know that the confident person in front of you who's offering you a fabulous high-paying job will fail in the next year, then you can save yourself the trouble and say no to the job offer. If you know that the business opportunity in your email inbox will make millions in the next several months, then you can jump on it before it's too late.

Or, along another line, if you know that that sexy person you just met will become the person of your dreams, but only after having some rough times, you can choose to stick with them and receive the rewards of a satisfying relationship. Actually, the benefits of knowing more information (physically or psychically obtained) is always the availability of more choices, and the ability to make wiser decisions.

Okay, so how can we develop our ability to use the psychic senses reliably. That's the trick, isn't it? While there have been those who were famous for their psychic abilities, they have been famous because they were unique. For most people, it seems that psychic abilities are far from reliable. Even the psychics working on the 900 lines, and those who make predictions for the papers give inaccurate information. Is the development of psychic abilities possible, or do we get what we get?

When I first started working with psychic abilities, my accuracy rate was a flat zero. Nothing outside of chance. If the ability could not be developed, I would not have been able to improve that. Yet I did improve my accuracy rate. It wasn't easy, mainly because I couldn't find any good information on developing these abilities. Most of what I found were tests and games. And while simple exercise of an ability may make it improve, it didn't work well. So I went back to basics and started working on my own techniques of development.

To make a long story short(er), I found that working on the physical senses (trying to focus my sight, hearing, and other senses to pick up every detail around me), a different type of meditation, and some light hypnosis worked amazingly well. I also found that if I tried too hard I blocked myself off from whatever I needed to make contact with to get the psychic information.

I also found that I could use that same connection to make changes in the world around me. The power of prayer and stories of spiritual healing also intrigued me. This is probably why I experimented with using the psychic connection in this way.

So the bottom line is that psychic abilities can be developed, and the abilities manifest in different ways for different people. Also, psychic abilities can be used for more than gathering information, but can be used to create changes in the world around you.