Cold Reading Demos at TAM2

[Interesting Ian]

However, do a search on "Banachek alpha" (or just look here: http://www.banachek.org/Articles/Project Alpha.htm ) for a fine example of why parapsychological testing is not entirely reliable...

(Apologies if everyone already knows about this)

This was over 20 years ago, and note that if the conjurors had have been detected we would never have heard of it! Maybe the skeptics are persistantly trying to fool parapsychological researchers, using conjurors or whatever, but they always get exposed. Would CSICOP and Randi et al shout this from the roof tops? I somewhat suspect not! LOL

No scientific testing whatsoever is entirely reliable. The pro-psychic bias is a problem, but a bias exists in all other areas of science as researchers always wish their experiments to be successful! It's a problem intrinsic to science. Why does parapsychology get attacked more than any other area of science then? Well we know the answer to that! Emotionally and psychologically, the skeptics cannot countenance the idea that the world doesn't operate along the principles they think it does. This has always been a problem with any major discovery about the world. The skeptics do their damn best to try and put the breaks on the progress of human knowledge Anyway, this certainly doesn't justify the lack of funding! Indeed such a suggestion is absurd. More money could be used to make the research even more rigorous than it presently is, and could be used to fund very promising areas such as apparent anomalous cognition during dreaming etc. But what else but a complete non-sequitur could you expect from a guy like Randi? Anyway, with parapsychology, at least we know the experimental protocols are tighter than any other area of science and are being tightened all the time. But even with parapsycholgical research, and especially over 20 years ago, not all of it is going to be absolutely watertight. Maybe none of it is. Even so I really don't understand the purpose of your link.

 

[Jeff Corey]

But I can’t believe that no one at TAM2 made any notes! A couple of examples of the things he said would be nice.
Unless, of course, you’re saving those notes for some big article thing later, in which case, you could at least let us know such notes exist.

Notes could be attacked as subjective and unreliable. John Edward's fans provide ample evidence of that.
However, there is a continuous video record of every presentation at the meeting. When everyone recovers from the tremendous effort expended to run the meeting, we could ask for a clip of the readings.

 

[CFLarsen]

This was over 20 years ago, and note that if the conjurors had have been detected we would never have heard of it!

Do some more studying. The Alpha kids blew the whistle themselves, they were never "detected".

 

[Clancie]

Posted by Jeff Corey

we could ask for a clip of the readings.

That sounds reasonable, but unlikely to happen. (I'm remembering Ian's feelings about people not posting his photograph from the Cal Tech demo, re: copyright. I doubt he would agree with this idea.)

As for notes...well, something is better than nothing. I'm very surprised, too, that apparently no one took any notes of the cold reading demonstration. Perhaps NoZed Avenger remembers some specific details of the reading he had......

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
This was over 20 years ago, and note that if the conjurors had have been detected we would never have heard of it!



Do some more studying. The Alpha kids blew the whistle themselves, they were never "detected". [/B]

Please pay attention Claus. This is why we are hearing about it. If they had have been detected we wouldn't have heard of it.

 

[voidx]

You have a point. However, not everyone has the knack for this kind of thing to begin with. Even if they do, they may not have the time or resources to match someone that does this for a living.

Speaking for myself, I have a day job and a family. In order to become what I would consider an effective cold reader, I would want to take a fair amount of time and study up on demographics and technique, purchase other books, talk to some others in the business, and give some readings in order to hone the skill (I think actually doing it for people probably is the biggest help here).

If someone would like to give me a grant so that I can leave my job for a bit, I might consider it. But as it is, I would have to essentially cut off the majority of my extra time - so time with friends, family, magic, and reading would all suffer.

Sorry, but I am not willing to make that kind of commitment in order to emulate mediums -- especially when my efforts would be immediately and steadfastly ignored by 90-plus-percent of the fans out there.

N/A

Edited to remove the most egregious typing errors

Oh I agree completely. Its precisely because of examples of cold reading like you and Ersby have provided us, as well as Rowland, that I think if someone where to put in that time, they could exactly emulate his style. By showing us what you were able to accomplish with a minimum of effort, it makes it much easier to believe that you could reach a JE level of skill given enough time and effort. Especially telling are the fact that JE's LKL readings would likely be quite indistinguishable from say your's or Ersby's in quality. The only thing people have to pick it blindly from a list is JE's style of presentation. If you can match JE's lackluster performances on LKL with only a little practice, I think that's very telling. Its probably the main reason for myself that I don't think its necessary to have a direct cold-reader comparison to JE, to me the possiblity seems very likely.

But as this all relates to say Shermers statement, you aren't going around claiming you can currently best JE performance wise. Rather you say given your experiences so far, you could quite easily see that with enough practice you could, and you have your transcripted readings to help back that up.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Unlike magic tricks, cold-reading demos are not impressive if you already know that the person is cold-reading.

It's like telling a person that you are telling a lie, and then asking if you sounded truthful while telling the lie. The subject is already aware and biased.

The people most impressed by cold-readings are the ones that don't know what cold-reading is.

In short, Clancie will never be impressed by a cold-reader, unless that cold-reader is John Edward. JE has never admitted to cold-reading and therefore Clancie is impressed by his "ability".

There is no objective standard for determining who really is a "medium" and who is not, when it comes to believers.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Unlike magic tricks, cold-reading demos are not impressive if you already know that the person is cold-reading.

It's like telling a person that you are telling a lie, and then asking if you sounded truthful while telling the lie. The subject is already aware and biased.

The people most impressed by cold-readings are the ones that don't know what cold-reading is.

In short, Clancie will never be impressed by a cold-reader, unless that cold-reader is John Edward. JE has never admitted to cold-reading and therefore Clancie is impressed by his "ability".

There is no objective standard for determining who really is a "medium" and who is not, when it comes to believers.

Don't be absurd, you can't generalise like that. A lot of believers might be like this, but to say all believers are, is to overstate the case, and at the same time your utterances lose credibility in the eyes of non-skeptics.

Another thing I'm unhappy about is why does only JE as a putative medium only ever get discussed? I have no idea if JE is a genuine medium or not. But what I'm very unhappy about is concentrating on an individual who is no doubt making a great deal of money out of his alleged abilities. I tend to be extremely cautious where there's such vested interests in convincing people he's really talking to the dead.

And this begs another question. Why do skeptics concentrate on this particular individual? Surely by far the best policy would be to concentrate on a medium who is regarded as being very good, but is not making a colossal amount of money out of his alleged abilities? If it could be shown that a good cold reader could duplicate this individuals results, then this might lend a little bit of support to the idea that mediums do not have any anomalous abilities. But even if JE was exposed as a fraud, well that wouldn't really mean a great deal would it?
Skeptics are simply adopting their normal tactics of attacking easy targets. It might impress fellow skeptics, but it does nothing to persaude those of a more rational objective disposition.

They are kinda like saying, look this old decrepit person can't run a 100 metres in less than 10 seconds, therefore no human being whatsoever can.

Not an impressive line of reasoning I'm afraid.

 

[BillHoyt]

Please pay attention Claus. This is why we are hearing about it. If they had have been detected we wouldn't have heard of it.

He's drunk again. Serve some salt with that pretzel logic and I might break open a pint of wee heavy.

 

[voidx]

Don't be absurd, you can't generalise like that. A lot of believers might be like this, but to say all believers are, is to overstate the case, and at the same time your utterances lose credibility in the eyes of non-skeptics.

Another thing I'm unhappy about is why does only JE as a putative medium only ever get discussed? I have no idea if JE is a genuine medium or not. But what I'm very unhappy about is concentrating on an individual who is no doubt making a great deal of money out of his alleged abilities. I tend to be extremely cautious where there's such vested interests in convincing people he's really talking to the dead.

And this begs another question. Why do skeptics concentrate on this particular individual? Surely by far the best policy would be to concentrate on a medium who is regarded as being very good, but is not making a colossal amount of money out of his alleged abilities? If it could be shown that a good cold reader could duplicate this individuals results, then this might lend a little bit of support to the idea that mediums do not have any anomalous abilities. But even if JE was exposed as a fraud, well that wouldn't really mean a great deal would it?
Skeptics are simply adopting their normal tactics of attacking easy targets. It might impress fellow skeptics, but it does nothing to persaude those of a more rational objective disposition.

They are kinda like saying, look this old decrepit person can't run a 100 metres in less than 10 seconds, therefore no human being whatsoever can.

Not an impressive line of reasoning I'm afraid.

You certainly do have a point here. But most times he's the example that your average believer in mediumship will bring up, and so he ends up getting discussed. The other point is, is that while not really very impressive to most skeptics, he does have a quite large amount of work which we can observe and critique, and test the claims and assumptions of those that believe in mediumship, unlike most less well known mediums. I myself do not have a vested enough interest in this to go out and personally research individual mediums to find the best possible and then go about emulating and debunking them, I've enough expensive hobbies as it is . For the most part I would assume most people on here are armchair skeptics and so JE is a readily available source of transcripts and content which we can criticize objectively. While showing JE as a fraud would not be a decisive blow against the theory of ADC or telepathy or what have you, it would show that the majority of people believing in mediumship as it pertains to JE didn't really have a very sound framework by which to judge what is actually "mediumship", and would probably result in your average believer having to swallow most of their words. Those that have a more in depth knowledge would still have their arguements and examples of quality mediums though.

Edited to add: Also remember that while those with perhaps more in depth knowledge of mediums and its process might not consider JE very skilled or impressive, there are a large number of people that do consider him to be very good. So I think on some level we're more than justified trying to point out to them that he's not.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Another thing I'm unhappy about is why does only JE as a putative medium only ever get discussed?.

It's because Clancie believes in JE and she's the believer most often debated with about mediumship. JE is only more successful than most mediums, however, his tricks are the same. Clancie fails to apply critical thinking and logic to her belief in JE but yet she does apply it to other "mediums". This is why JE is discussed most of the time. If Clancie's favorite "medium" was someone else, we'd be discussing that person instead. The point is, Clancie has subjective reasons for believing JE is real, not objective reasons.

Clancie can feel free to prove me wrong about that by providing the objective criteria for determining real mediumship or not.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by voidx

But most times he's (JE) the example that your average believer in mediumship will bring up, and so he ends up getting discussed.

Hi voidx,

Just skimming the thread (still haven't had much time to post about some of the detailed things), but I have to completely and totally and unequivocally (am I emphasizing this enough) disagree with this!

In terms of this forum, JE is discussed so much because he seems to be the only example that most skeptics are familiar with.

I have brought up other mediums several times...I also started a thread about Arthur Ford (very famous, fairly recent) and it went absolutely nowhere.

I know that Mike D. and dharlow have mentioned SPR research...Piper...Palladino...Home...etc. with very little response around here. Not only do skeptics hardly seem acquainted with the "going beyond JE" areas of mediumship, but very few even seem interested!

As far as mediums go, it's "JE, JE" from you guys. JE and cold reading seem to be about as far as most people with strong opinions about mediumship here have looked into this subject (and, for many, that apparently is enough!)

 

[Clancie]

Posted by thaiboxerken

If Clancie's favorite "medium" was someone else, we'd be discussing that person instead

It's all about me! I can't help but be touched!

Seriously, tbk, this ranks as one of the most silly statements I've read from you. JE isn't my "favorite" medium. The two mediums I had my best readings are people that I'm sure you've never heard of.

As for the famous ones, well, which would you like to discuss with me? Piper? Home? Palladino? I'd prefer Piper, since her work is the best documented and researched. But, if you have another preference, please, by all means, don't hold back!

 

[Barkhorn1x]

In terms of this forum, JE is discussed so much because he seems to be the only example that most skeptics are familiar with.

Wrong - I am VERY familiar w/ those other 2 frauds Sylvia Brown and James VP - as are many others.

I have brought up other mediums several times...I also started a thread about Arthur Ford (very famous, fairly recent) and it went absolutely nowhere.

Errr...he is...oh how do I say this? DEAD!! (perhaps he talks to himself, he, he ) Ya got video that is available on-line?

I know that Mike D. and dharlow have mentioned SPR research...Piper...Palladino...Home...etc. with very little response around here.

Ya got transcripts for these people, video?? Do they appear on TV, do they do arena tours??

Not only do skeptics hardly seem acquainted with the "going beyond JE" areas of mediumship, but very few even seem interested!

It's like this Clancie - really it is;
1. JE, SB and JVP appear on LKL time and time again. LKL can be seen by most of us, LKL had transcripts that we can study. LKL provides evidence about the supposed abilities of these poeple.
2. Ford died in 1971. Unless you can point us to video that shows him in action, all we have to go on are others descriptions of his supposed gifts. Can't you see why this isn't enough???
3. Finally, andf for the last time, the burden of proof is on you!!!!!!! Do not expect the skeptic to fall all over himself/herself trying to disprove your odd name drop. GIVE us evidence.

As far as mediums go, it's "JE, JE" from you guys. JE and cold reading seem to be about as far as most people with strong opinions about mediumship here have looked into this subject (and, for many, that apparently is enough!)

Hmmm...this is an odd statement, coming from JE's strongest supporter. Really, you show yourself to be quite foolish here.

Barkhorn.

 

[Mercutio]

He's drunk again. Serve some salt with that pretzel logic and I might break open a pint of wee heavy.

Sorry, Hoyt, but you owe Ian an apology for this one. He makes perfect sense here.

He is saying that we, the skeptical community, know about the alpha project because it was successful. Had the researchers discovered the boys, we would not have heard about it. We can never know this, of course, but it is not an altogether unreasonable assumption. Your comment

Do some more studying. The Alpha kids blew the whistle themselves, they were never "detected".

does not blow a hole in Ian's argument; it reinforces it. It is because they were not detected that they are such a story in the skeptical community.

Now, have the decency to apologize to Ian.

 

[Barkhorn1x]

I'd prefer Piper, since her work is the best documented and researched. But, if you have another preference, please, by all means, don't hold back!

She did most of her "work" around the turn of the LAST century and died in 1950!!! Once again, we have no way to prove that she had any powers at all, we simply have ancedotal tales of her ability to perform.

Finally;

"To upset the conclusion that all crows are black, there is no need to seek demonstration that no crows are black; it is sufficient to produce one white crow; a single one is sufficient."

Yea, and I'm still waiting for sufficient proof of that one white crow.

Barkhorn.

 

[voidx]

Hi voidx,

Just skimming the thread (still haven't had much time to post about some of the detailed things), but I have to completely and totally and unequivocally (am I emphasizing this enough) disagree with this!

In terms of this forum, JE is discussed so much because he seems to be the only example that most skeptics are familiar with.

And why would the majority of skeptics be familiar with him? I'm not denying that this board is JE centric in most of its discussions of mediumship, but then the majority of conversation about this type of mediumship uses JE as an example. Do you figure there are more forums and sites dedicated to JE, or to any other example of less known mediums? I admitted that most skeptics are likely armchair skeptics, and so JE would likely be the one medium they were familiar with because he's so successful. Now please do me the service of admitting that this is probably overwhelmingly true of the believer crowd as well.

I have brought up other mediums several times...I also started a thread about Arthur Ford (very famous, fairly recent) and it went absolutely nowhere.

Do you consider yourself average in your knowledge of mediumship? My post clearly makes a distinction between the majority of normal believers not knowing anything besides the JE's and Van Praaghs. Yes you've given these examples so you likely fall into my category of those with more in-depth knowledge, but I'm most certain most people that believe in JE don't know anymore about Piper et al than the average skeptic. As for it going nowhere barkhorn makes a good point, we have discussed these other mediums to a certain extent, but many of them are either dead, or do not have transcripts or video footage of their skills and performance so conversation is stunted because of a lack of quality information.

I know that Mike D. and dharlow have mentioned SPR research...Piper...Palladino...Home...etc. with very little response around here. Not only do skeptics hardly seem acquainted with the "going beyond JE" areas of mediumship, but very few even seem interested!

But there has been discussion of SPR and some of the others to a certain extent. As for the last sentence most average believers would fit into that category as well. My intial experiences here in getting into the conversations of mediumship were strictly JE based. There was no mention of Piper et al until after hard questions were put to the process of what JE does, then out comes Piper and the others. I personally have questioned many different aspects of mediumship, trying to get at the actual process, rather than the artist because in my mind, the process itself doesn't seem to work, or is at best inconsistent depending who you talk to.

As far as mediums go, it's "JE, JE" from you guys. JE and cold reading seem to be about as far as most people with strong opinions about mediumship here have looked into this subject (and, for many, that apparently is enough!)

But obviously we didn't start having bitter discussions about JE by ourselves. Its just as likely that discussions began initially here about JE because of his exposure and success. Most skeptics after having reviewed him probably thought that, well if this is supposed to be a good example of mediumship, and I find it this unimpressive, I'm not very inclined to find out more. I was almost tempted the same way myself, but since certain other mediums started to be mentioned, then well I decided to do some extra looking around. I'm not an expert by any means on those other mediums listed, but the information I found was so vague and old it was hard to get an objective idea of just how good they might have been.

No offense either but whenever someone on here makes a crack about JE (justified or not) your usually quick as lightning to jump in to his defense. Why not comment that while you think JE does some things that can't potentially be explained by mundane reasons you actually think this list of mediums (complete with links) provides a far superior example of mediumship and recommend people go read those instead. IF they don't its not your fault, but at least you've laid the information at their feet. If you continue to go over the JE arguement alone then its just as much your fault as anyones wouldn't you agree?

 

[CFLarsen]

Please pay attention Claus. This is why we are hearing about it. If they had have been detected we wouldn't have heard of it.

I stand corrected. I did not read properly. Can I use jetlag as an excuse? (It really hits me dang hard....)

In terms of this forum, JE is discussed so much because he seems to be the only example that most skeptics are familiar with.

That is so untrue, and you know it. JVP and Sylvia have been discussed at length here.

I have brought up other mediums several times...I also started a thread about Arthur Ford (very famous, fairly recent) and it went absolutely nowhere.

Perhaps that is because there was nothing - aside from AF being a fake - to discuss? He is dead, Clancie. And he sure hasn't come across with any messages since.

I know that Mike D. and dharlow have mentioned SPR research...Piper...Palladino...Home...etc. with very little response around here. Not only do skeptics hardly seem acquainted with the "going beyond JE" areas of mediumship, but very few even seem interested!

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊! If you have real evidence of any paranormal phenomenon, you bring it on and we will discuss it.

As far as mediums go, it's "JE, JE" from you guys. JE and cold reading seem to be about as far as most people with strong opinions about mediumship here have looked into this subject (and, for many, that apparently is enough!)

A lie. Pure and simple. Yes, it is a lie, because you know better.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Perhaps NoZed Avenger remembers some specific details of the reading he had......

I would prefer to finish discussion on my last points before moving to a new topic.

N/A

 

[Clancie]

Posted by voidx

Now please do me the service of admitting that this is probably overwhelmingly true of the believer crowd as well.

Okay, but "too" wasn't included in the remark I was addressing. (The only caveat would be if believers were familiar with other mediums because they would be more likely to seek out a mediumship reading of their own). But overall, I agree with you.

I'm most certain most people that believe in JE don't know anymore about Piper et al than the average skeptic.

I don't know. Maybe, like me, they'd be more curious. This combination--interest, curiosity and doubt--could very well lead people to being motivated to learn more about the subject and other mediums. Just a thought. Neither of us have statistics to back up a view, one way or the other.

But there has been discussion of SPR and some of the others to a certain extent.

Very minimal content-discussion, imo. (I'm not talking about posts bashing Keen or Fry personally).

I personally have questioned many different aspects of mediumship, trying to get at the actual process, rather than the artist because in my mind, the process itself doesn't seem to work, or is at best inconsistent depending who you talk to.

Yes, but, as with politics, the frame of reference (assumptions) one starts with seem to make a big difference. But, I've enjoyed reading your thoughts about "the process".

But obviously we didn't start having bitter discussions about JE by ourselves.

Hard to say. If I went away, and JE was still on the air, I'm sure an appearance on LKL would elicit some "Biggest douchebag in the universe" comments from someone here...along with the colorful invective you can see in xouper's thread in Community about the fans rallying behind the show. Imo, people here seem to like to take shots at him, whether a "believer's" around or not.

No offense either but whenever someone on here makes a crack about JE (justified or not) your usually quick as lightning to jump in to his defense.

Its the Libra in me. (Just kidding, please! No threads from the usual group!)

Why not comment that while you think JE does some things that can't potentially be explained by mundane reasons you actually think this list of mediums (complete with links) provides a far superior example of mediumship and recommend people go read those instead.

Well, Steve posted the link to SPR online which is a huge and useful database that I bet no one here ever pursued.

IF they don't its not your fault, but at least you've laid the information at their feet.

Other than SPR most information is in books, not online. dharlow already recommended quite a few good ones. Did anyone purchase them? I bought three.

Steve gave the best online resource and it was seemingly ignored. Beyond that, there are books ("most of them about mediums who are dead...worthless!")...more books ("self serving auto-biographies of the living mediums detailing how good they are...the phonies!")...more books about sitters' experiences ("gullible believers telling anecdotes about pink unicorns") and only one contemporary researcher who's published his studies (yep, Schwartz..."sloppy, sloppy, etc.")

What kinds of references did you have in mind?

If you continue to go over the JE arguement alone then its just as much your fault as anyones wouldn't you agree?

You, like Barkhorn1x, make an excellent point!