The brain is essentially a pattern recognition machine, constantly making predictions. Our perception is a combination of our prior expectations—expressed in the form of these automatic predictions—and actual sensory perception. As long as the sensory information matches the predictions, the brain hums along. When there is dissonance, the brain steps into make a correction. But when we are around people we believe to have special powers or abilities—when we have made an implicit decision that we can trust them—we seem to unconsciously down-regulate our analytical thinking.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!