Both cases are quite different. In the first case we have an observation. The cousin can know the name of a card without looking at the card. The observer has no explanation about how the cousin knows. The observer therefore reasons says that cousin has a property P that causes him to know the card.

The moment you call P "being psychic" you add a lot of connotations that have nothing to do with what the observer knows about the process. That added baggage is meaningless.

Case two is about metaphors. The observer engages into an acitivity A to get goal B. Goal B is about having a change in his own belief system that the oberver now believes C. C being that the partner loves her. So the person assumes that there's a clear causal relationship between A and B. Some form of meditation could feel like the observer engages in A and allow him to reach B. There are two struggles: Firstly, the semantics of naming A. Naming A can plausibly help with doing A successfully. Members of this community will probably more comfortable with naming A differently. Secondly there the issue of whether a belief change in my own mind can be "real". That category of claims didn't get yet discussed in this sequence, but I think it makes sense to speak of belief changes as real.

There another issue about this koan. If you ask a buddhist whether they belief that the universe is a connected fabric of causes and effects, they'll answer: "Of course I believe in karma". You don't need to believe in a reductionist worldview to say that the world is made up of cause and effect.