I think you've phrased the 'talent' about as well as anyone has, usually in much longer sentences.

I've mentioned my experience with one (though the astrology aspect wasn't our only connection, as friends). Backgrounds of such persons are also apt to be as varied as imaginable - Bennett had a math degree and also passed the Bar, but never 'practised'. He bloody-well knew 'the scientific method', what 'evidence is' and is not; yada.

I also think it is [*]near-impossible for us ordinary folk to 'imagine' a talent/capability such as this in others; it demands an acute ability to pay Attention to people's overt and covert expressions, as well as to Listen (as well as any shrink is supposed-to) and then it requires ___ that insight for which the word isn't at all revelatory.

Most puzzling of all (por moi, anyway) was observing that - however we pop-ularly deprecate the 'planetary math' as some sort of crutch or artifice - it appeared to me that the accuracy of birth time and location was essential to making some of the more startlingly-accurate 'deductions'. All I knew was: It Fucking Worked.. byanyname.

We 'Know' fucking-little about our inner machinations, despite all the published ego-exercises. Just look at our infantile 'religions'! purportedly "explaining the universe". In baby-talk.. which many of us Believe.
goo goo google, da da

That notions of 'astrology' would grate against the engrained Puritan, left-over Victorian sensibilities of these reactionary times -- is a hoot needing no Predictive abilities at all.


moi


[*] William Blake said it best,
~as I recall: From possession of a second or a third sense - it is impossible to conceive of a fourth.