by Paul Schingle

Created on: May 23, 2009   Last Updated: May 26, 2009

I should start this off by saying that I do believe that anything is possible. I have no doubt that there are people who are particularly sensitive to facial tics or tells or just sensitive to how others emote. They could probably give you a pretty accurate account of what's going on in your mind. After several minutes with people like this, it would not be hard to convince some people that they can read minds. And, to a degree, it may even be true. The reason I voted for and am writing for this side of the debate is, there are a number of people who try to make a living off of this supposed "gift." It is because of these charlatans that I say mind-reading, as a whole, is a fake.

You could go back in time and find some examples of people who had a sort of gift for seeing the future. Part of what can go along with this is the art of reading minds. Two of the more prominent names in history would be Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce. I believe these two make a great comparison/contrast to one another and help demonstrate my point. We'll start with Nostradamus.

Nostradamus was a "seer" in the middle part of the 16th century. While he may never have laid caim to being able to read minds, he did make some bold predictions-many of which have come "true." I put the true in quotations to allow for interpretation and the fact that human beings have a tendency to believe what they want to believe. In other words, Nostradamus made some statements about the future (which is now part of our past) which, by some interpretations, have come true. I'll admit that, some of them were pretty spooky. He foresaw both Napolean and Hitler, even getting very close on their names (predicting Napolaron and Hister, respectively). Not too bad, but again, I leave room for doubt. People who believe in Nostradamus have a way of making his predictions a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. What Nostradamus really did was predict that two greedy characters from the future would both try to take all of Europe in brutal fashion between three hundred and four hundred fifty years into his (Nostradamus') future. Impressive, except when you take into account the way the feudalism of his times was carrying on-his predictions were not that far of a stretch. Though, I must admit to being a little spooked at how close he was on the names. A lot of this is beside the point, though.

The part about Nostradamus I don't like is, he was actually commissioned by the French royalty of the time. He was getting rich

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