Intuition or ESP?

Growing up I was a big X-files fan, but I always sided with Agent Scully. She was a scientist, a rational thinker, a believer in the empirical above all else. When I was a teenager I attended church, and after the suicide of a close friend I was called into my Pastor's office. He offered me comfort and council, but reminded me that suicide was the kind of sin for which there is no forgiveness. My friend, he assured me, was condemned to hell.

I remember feeling the same way I usually felt about working out a new calculus formula or understanding a new literary concept. The rush of exhilarating understanding filled me as I realized that the man speaking to me, and the adults milling about after the service in the lobby outside all really believed in Hell. On some subconscious level I'd always imagined this to be a version of Santa Clause, a myth maintained by all to encourage good behavior in children. Sure, we all went along with it and pretended, but no one ACTUALLY thought that Hell was real, right?

I've pretty much been done with organized religion since that day. But as much as I self-describe as a fiercely rational person, I treasured small superstitions and fanciful beliefs quietly inside. Salt is still thrown over my shoulder. Crows mean luck-particularly in threes. Dreams are telling me something, even if I don't know what. Trades with the univers might be made, small physical or existential offerings for protection, to avert disaster or usher in reluctant good fortune. Speaking too well or too certainly of anything invites mayhem, destruction and surprise. The full moon changes things and people and fates.

Today I saw a young man walk out of the textbook department with a messenger bag that looked full. He might have brought books in for a failed attempt at buyback, he might have purchased books and filled his bag before leaving. Nothing about him was familiar, nothing about him was out of the ordinary. But looking at him, I felt sure he'd taken something. I radioed my coworker, we reviewed security footage, sure enough, he had several hundred dollars worth of stolen books in that bag. By this time he was long gone. But, for no reason at all, I'd been right.

This isn't a particularly rare thing. My coworkers get senses about people all the time, often (and critically) before they steal or at least early enough for us to stop them. My boss seems sometimes to read intention in every gesture a person makes. I've had feelings like this before, and the sudden, unsettling certainty of something I can't prove or explain always takes me by surprise.

Are we psychic? Are we rapidly processing observations that our conscious mind can't recognize? I don't know. I'm not sure if I really believe I just knew this guy was stealing, or if I really believe that lighting candles can ease heartbreak and ward off ill fates. I know there are few things as dangerous as absolute certainty. If listening to the insistent pull of whatever part of me senses these things makes me crazy, it also makes me better at what I do. I don't think Agent Scully would disapprove.