Psychic abilities can be helpful tools. However, just like any other tool, there is a right way and a wrong way to use them. Used correctly, psychic abilities can be a ghost-hunting asset. If ghost hunters do not understand the nature of psychic abilities and use psychics incorrectly, the process tends to be a waste of important time. The information gathered from a true psychic can be extremely valuable or utterly worthless depending solely on how the ability is utilized.

There are many dos and don'ts when using a psychic. Psychics should always be used in a separate control group on any ghost hunt. A separate person should stay with them to take notes and record what the psychic experiences. Psychics should enter a ghost hunt with only their own abilities. No one should provide the psychic with any information. Unlike regular ghost hunters, it is important for a psychic to know as little information as possible about a location before going on a ghost hunt. Ghost hunters should know everything possible about a location. For psychics, too much information can contaminate thoughts or lead them to false judgments. No one should answer specific questions that the psychic may have about a location. The psychic should not use magical rituals before or during the ghost hunts or ask other people to control energy or concentrate.

It is not a good idea to have psychics close to scientific equipment like EMF detectors because such devices tend to make audio sounds while picking up data. The visual and audio effects of the equipment and the people using the equipment can be misleading to a psychic. In the back of the psychic's mind, they may think the alarm went off on the ghost hunting equipment because something supernatural is happening. Obviously, that is not always the case, but it can be a guiding factor in the mind of a psychic. Jumping to a rash conclusion too quickly happens all of the time, even to veteran ghost hunters. Psychics are not immune to having the same type of outside interference distort their rational reasoning.

Psychics do have limitations that ghost hunters and the psychics themselves should know about and keep in mind. Psychics rarely ever crack the fifty percent ratio. This means that in any controlled test using the psychic's own ability (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychometric, etc.) the psychic is incorrect more than half of the time. However, true psychics do tend to have a higher percentage than someone who is guessing, which is an important fact to note because it shows that there is increased accuracy beyond the average percentage.

Many psychic abilities tend not to work in confusing environments. They appear to be inherently connected to the emotions of the psychic. Scientific experiments done at the world's leading parapsychology organizations have shown that heightened human emotions decrease the accuracy of psychic abilities. Nervousness, excitement, depression, anxiety, and fear all have negative results on psychic abilities. Heightened emotional states happen to everyone, psychic and non-psychic, on a ghost hunt. For a psychic, the key to success is to remain in full control of their emotions on a ghost hunt, which in many cases could be an impossible task.

There is also a chance of misidentifying the emotions a psychic feels at a location. A psychic can be at a murder scene and experience feelings of anger, hatred, rage, and violence. Often, there is then a misinterpretation that the ghost haunting this location is the one filled with these dark feelings of rage. However, the ghost can be one of the innocent murdered victims and is in no way malicious toward the living. The problem is that the psychic is picking up the residual energy imprints that were left behind from the murder itself and not the emotions of the ghost. When a psychic says that they feel anger or hatred, it does not necessarily mean that the ghosts feel this way. The psychic could be reading the leftover energy from a past event

Another limitation with psychics is that many of them do not understand their own psychic abilities. Psychics usually do not see an exact mental image of a person, place, or event. Their visions tend to occur in an abstract manner. They will see colors and shapes or feel emotions. Then their mind will interpret these random psychic flashes to mean something other than what they actually are based on the psychic's personal assumptions. The interpretation is where the problem lies. Personal interpretation leaves an enormous amount of room for error.

Here is an example of a real psychic test that shows that normal human presumptions can play a large role in a psychic's final interpretation:

A psychic is asked to sit in a room while another person, the subject in this experiment, travels around outside of the room. The psychic is not given any information about where the subject is going. They are asked to use their psychic ability to determine where the subject is traveling and what is happening around them.

The subject decides to go downtown to a local dog show. The psychic feels that the subject is walking on a hard surface like a sidewalk, which the subject is at the time. The psychic then sees a vision of bright colors and giant words on a large banner at the same time that the subject is approaching the dog show. The building has large colorful banners draped across the front. The psychic senses the presence of animals simultaneously as the subject is walking next to the dogs. When the subject orders some food, the psychic says that they can taste food. Then the subject leaves the dog show and buys some roses from a street vendor to give to his wife. The psychic says that they can smell fresh flowers. At this point, it would seem that the psychic was incredib1ey accurate. However, the experiment is not over yet.

The psychic is given a folder with twenty-five photographs. The photographs are random places throughout the city. The psychic is told that one of the photographs is the location where the subject has been. The psychic is asked to pick out the correct photograph from the group. A photograph of the building where the dog show took place is in the group. The photograph is of the plain looking building without the fancy advertising banners and dogs. After reflection, the psychic chooses a photograph taken at the local zoo.

The psychic did not select the correct photograph because they were not using their psychic ability. Instead, they relied on their interpretations of the psychic images. The psychic felt the subject walk on concrete, look at a colorful banner, enter the presence of animals, eat food, and smell flowers. The psychic then determined, as anyone else would, that all of those experiences could be found at the zoo. The psychic did not consider any of the other photographs because they did not seem to meet the criteria of their psychic visions. Remember, the psychic did not see an absolute picture, but abstract glimpses and small pieces of a larger puzzle. The final photograph choice had nothing to do with psychic abilities and everything to do with the natural preconceptions of the psychic. Psychics can see different visions at a single location then misinterpret those images and end up with an absolutely wrong conclusion.

There are things that ghost hunters should not expect from a psychic. Ghost hunters should not expect psychics to enter a location and automatically have visions come to them. That is not how psychic abilities work, except in Hollywood movies. No one should rush the psychic through the process. The psychic should be given whatever time needed to complete the connection. No one should try to force the psychic to have experiences. If the psychic experiences something that is too disturbing for them to handle, someone should escort the psychic from the location before continuing the investigation. The safety and feelings of the living should always come first during any ghost hunt.

After a ghost hunt, the psychic should give the team leader a complete account of everything they felt, saw, heard, and experienced on the investigation and exactly where everything was experienced. The team leader should then evaluate the information provided by the psychic and try to match it up to other known facts about the location or ghost. Ghost hunters should be looking for a correlation or a link between the psychic data and the known facts. If the facts of a case are that a seventeen-year-old girl's jealous boyfriend murdered her inside her bedroom thirty-five years ago and her ghost has been reportedly seen by passersby standing in the front yard in a white nightgown crying; that case has a lot of good factual information that can be verified by a psychic, but the psychic should not know about any of that information before or during their visit to the location. The psychic must rely on his or her own uncontaminated psychic abilities to uncover knowledge about the case, which can be later verified through historical information or an eyewitness testimony.

After the team leader has had time to evaluate the information provided by the psychic, they should interview (not interrogate) the psychic. The interviews should be recorded on audio or video for future reference. If a psychic reports details that cannot be verified at the time, that does not necessarily mean that they are incorrect. These details may prove to be accurate and valuable at a future date when more information becomes available. It is extremely important for ghost hunters to understand the psychic process. By understanding psychic abilities and the psychics that use them, a ghost hunter will develop their own intuition about when and how to use psychics to aid the ghost hunting process.

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