In some cases, the PDs have more experience with certain types of crimes than the cops they work with. Communal reinforcement often plays a large role in the reputation of psychic detectives. The PDs influence the media and the cops, and the cops influence each other and influence the media, ad nauseam, until what starts out as lies, frauds, guesses, trivial information, unsound reasoning, etc., snowballs into a grand case of belief in the Psychic Detective. Most of the evidence in favor of the psychic detective being really psychic comes from the psychic himself or herself. Another reason for the successes of some psychic detectives is that they commit fraud.
Some psychics use accomplices to accomplish their frauds and deceptions.
Some cops use psychics, or even pretend they themselves are psychic, to psyche out superstitious criminals. Some psychics bribe informants, including police officers, for information they pass off as acquired by psychic means. The authors document each one of the above explanations with numerous case studies and copious references. Yet, these same authors divide the world of psychics into psychics and pseudo-psychics . To support their notion that at least some of the PDs may truly be psychic, Lyons and Truzzi note that Some people have an unusually acute sense of vision, hearing, or smell, what psychologists call hyperesthesia .