Personally, I do not think that such a thing as 'ESP' or 'reading with a blindfold' is scientifically possible. There is no scientific proof that such a phenomenon is possible, neither is there any confirmed recording of such an 'event' taking place in the world. Most of these 'events', 'sightings', or 'readings' are cases of exaggerated news, misdirections, or evidence that has turned around in the favour of 'ESP', as a result of gossip among the unaware communities.
Let us take the 'blindfold reading' as an example. It is a very basic scientific concept that a blindfold is opaque, hence no light can pass through it to let us see what is in front of us. There is no evidence that any human living (or has lived) in this world can 'sense' the text with their 'sixth sense'. Some people make it even more far-fetched; they claim that an 'alpha wave' or even a 'beta wave' is letting the children see the text with their mind.
It should now be appropriate to touch on the scientific concepts of an 'alpha' or 'beta wave', and related 'waves'.
Scientists use 4 different 'waves' to describe different levels of consciousness of the mind; (going from the most awake to the least) they are the Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. Your brain waves operate at the Beta wave when they mainly oscillate between 14 to 30 cycles per second. This is when you are fully awake/alert (like I am, when typing this reply right now).
As your mind relaxes and somehow 'disconnects' from the external material world - like when you're daydreaming, meditating, or watching a calm movie - you enter a more 'focused' or 'expanded' state of awareness where brain wave patterns are mainly composed of Alpha brain waves oscillating at between 8 and 13 cycles per second. When relaxing even more, your mind enters a region that correlates with a large relative quantity of brain wave patterns of 4 to 7 cycles per second. This is the Theta zone of the mind.
The Beta level corresponds to a focus of concentration by the mind upon the outside or perceptually separated world, and the Alpha and Theta levels correspond to a more internally focused, self-reflective state (as mentioned, such as those of meditation).
Each human being experiences the Theta level for a fleeting moment every night before the mind dips down from the Beta level of awareness (awake state), to the Delta state (brain waves of less than 4 cycles per second, or deep sleep), and passes rapidly through the Alpha and Theta states to enter the profound sleep level, where consciousness of ourselves is totally lost, and where even dreams do not occur. This is because when dreaming, a sense of self is necessary and the mind has to go back up to the Theta or Alpha state.
Delta is the level of the mysterious universal mind. It is the level at which the differentiated self (ego) expands to become undifferentiated and operates outside of the confines of linear time/space. This is also the state in which many 'psychics' claim to operate at. However, this is also the state at which the mind goes through a 'deep sleep' state, and therefore (without the presence of REM sleep; which I'll leave you to read about on your own), no recollections/memories happen at that stage, and therefore scientists cannot really get a good 'sample' of this stage in the average human.
To understand more about the sleep cycle, you can go to this link: http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/a/SleepStages.htm (because this post is really getting long). Hopefully, after this post (and that website), you will have a better understanding on this so-called 'blindfold reading' and why it is scientifically not possible (at least in the region of sleep, or even 'hypnotism').
OMG this post is really long, now that I look back at it :oops: :!: