Folks believe in the supernatural, information concerning which is relayed to them through scripture, revelation, dogma, catechism and the like.
i can tell you how fortune tellers, people that speak whit the dead and similar ones do it.
first they do a cold read
they check your hands for a ring, recant absence of it, your posture, your clothes, your grooming ..... the more the better idea they have what you have gone trough recently.
then they make you fill the gaps while they still read you your speech pattern, posture ...
so if you recently removed a wedding ring they might start i have someone on the other side who wants to talk to you about some problems in your family and you go well my wife died/ i got divorced ..... Depending on your response they make up the story as they go along.
all the others do it in a similar way only on a mass scale.
Edited by frako, : No reason given.