Psychic abilities definitely exist...
...I once knew a guy back in the 70's who could read minds - and he was very good at it. No, it wasn't a parlor trick - he really could do it.
My best friend is also rather talented in the psychic arena, but in a different way. The weekend prior to 9/11 - whether it was Saturday or Sunday evening, I don't recall for certain - we were sitting in her motorhome talking, and she kept saying, "Don't you feel the earth just trembling? Something really big is about to happen - I can just feel it." I couldn't feel anything of the sort. She wasn't certain what it was, but she did mention the possibility of a terrorist attack. Later that same evening, we were standing in her kitchen and I could smell the distinct odor of licorice very strongly, but she couldn't. There was no licorice anywhere in the house. We both knew then that something was up, but she was agitated enough to take her daughter and grandson (who also happen to be my daughter-in-law and grandson) to a town about 4 hours north of where we live. I didn't even know that she had left until the morning of 9/11 when I called her to let her know what happened, and her husband answered and told me that she had left town the day before. Not that leaving town helped one way or another, since we live in California - but she was tuned in enough to know that something really dreadful was about to happen. I'm not sure why I got the odor of licorice, but I'm guessing that the terrorists might have sat around drinking Ouzo the weekend prior to 9/11 (which is basically a licorice liquor that seems to be a favorite among Arab men).
Also, 14 months before 9/11, I had a dream that was almost exactly like what happened. I remember it was 14 months before, because I had the dream a couple of days before the Concorde crashed back in July of 2000, and at that time wondered if there was some sort of connection. In my dream, I was watching a plane that had apparently just taken off, because of the angle at which it was moving. It was still almost close enough for me to see the name of the airline written on the side of the plane - but not quite. As I watched it though, it did nearly a 180 degree turn, and started heading downward. At first I was horrified, thinking that the plane was going to crash; but as I watched, the plane morphed into a missile, and I was even more horrified as I began to realize that this was some sort of attack on our country. Then I looked up in the sky and saw a number of missiles, and fully understood at that point that our country was under attack. At the end of the dream, I heard everyone around me screaming, and then I woke up.
I have had many such psychic moments and dreams throughout my life, but it isn't something I typically call up at will, nor would I want to turn it into a side show even if I could. My friend is much better at calling it up at will than I am, but she doesn't make a side show out of it either. Psychic gifts are of a spiritual nature, and that's something you just don't prostitute - and if you did, it would probably leave you anyway. At any rate, it would be a tough thing to prove to skeptics, since it's something that has to be personally experienced to be believed and it is unlikely that a skeptic will ever experience it (since they aren't open to such an experience in the first place).