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Examples of Skeptics Cold Reading?

UnTrickaBLe

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I was reading Paul Sandoval's lengthy breakdown of JE's cold reading techniques here:

http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/jelkl.htm

I got to wondering. Are there any good examples of skeptics -- having mastered the basics of cold reading -- successfully doing it themselves? Maybe as a hoax? Or maybe even for profit, once they figure out how basic it is! I'm interested in getting some links I can read.

Has anyone here given cold reading a try? :D
 
UnTrickaBLe said:
I was reading Paul Sandoval's lengthy breakdown of JE's cold reading techniques here:

http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/jelkl.htm
Click to expand...

Such a nice site, isn't it? ;)

UnTrickaBLe said:
I got to wondering. Are there any good examples of skeptics -- having mastered the basics of cold reading -- successfully doing it themselves? Maybe as a hoax? Or maybe even for profit, once they figure out how basic it is! I'm interested in getting some links I can read.

Has anyone here given cold reading a try? :D
Click to expand...

Plenty. The easiest would be to ask T'ai Chi. He asked people to send him examples of readings some weeks ago for a botched experiment. I doubt you'll be successful, though: For some reason, he has refused to share them with others.
 
CFLarsen, do any famous examples come to mind?

How difficult would it be for a skeptic to apply what we know about cold reading techniques and actually be successful at it themselves. I know Randi has tried this, though I don't have any links.

I imagine much of the answer comes down to the individual skeptic, their showmanship, savvy, and of course their natural talent at "speaking to the dead." ;)
 
There's a link on the JREF site (I'm trying unsuccessfully to find it) about a woman who did cold readings for a P&T Bullsh*t episode, and she goes into detail on how she 'practiced' at one of the casinos (in costume) and then later did it for the show. (Plus how she prepped, etc.)

As far as being able to do it for profit, sure someone could do so as a self-proclaimed psychic if they were morally bankrupt. To do so as a labeled 'cold reader' would probably be much more difficult as you don't have audience belief to prop you up. Even with audience belief, many people walk out unimpressed from big name mediums. (As was shown on exit interviews from a John Edward's show)

A good example in one respect would be in psychology. Many therapists can have 'amazing insights', but they're not considered that amazing because there's no smoke and mirrors. Patients are giving them data from which they can make reasonable inferences, and then the patient themselves can confirm them.
 
It's actually frightening just how easy it is to fool people in to believing all manner of crap.

I had my sister - intelligent, grounded, no interest in the paranormal - believing I had supernatural powers a few months ago with a simple 'suggestion' trick.

Did the same with an ex-girlfriend.

Those are just two examples of me, complete amateur, idly testing out a theory for a laugh.

Humans are so easy to fool. One of the main reasons being, that people believe they're too intelligent to be fooled, thus, it must be true.

Raw intelligence has no bearing on how people can be conned.
 
HenDralux said:
It's actually frightening just how easy it is to fool people in to believing all manner of crap.

I had my sister - intelligent, grounded, no interest in the paranormal - believing I had supernatural powers a few months ago with a simple 'suggestion' trick.

Did the same with an ex-girlfriend.
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So was she an ex-girlfriend before you tricked her? :p
 
HenDralux - would you share your 'suggestion' trick with us?
I would love to give it a go myself!
 
Ah, was an incredibly simple psychosomatic job I guess.

Firstly I'd shown her a 'matchstick trick', which is very hard to detect how it's actually done - basically it looks like I can make a matchstick 'jump' via focusing energy through my fingers.

So, there was the suggestion dealt with - that I could direct and focus energy through the tips of my fingers.

Then came the second part...

I told her she could 'feel' this energy coming from my fingers if she held her palm out. I then circled my index finger round her palm (withouth actually touching it) suggesting that I'm concentrating the energy via the tip of my finger.

As she watched the area I was focusing on, simple psychosomatic reasons and the initial suggestion had her 'feeling' this energy.

All quite simple.
 
Ah, ok - thanks.
I have tried it (sans the jumping matchstick - cos I am magically challenged) on myself - and I can almost feel a circle of tingles on my palm... eerie :)
This reminds me of a child's trick; they scratch your palm with their fingers for a long time and then pretend to "draw" and "pull" an energy out of your hand - you can actually feel something leaving your palm like lines of fine tissue - it's a wonderful illusion.
 
soon as you put a blindfold on them, and they have no idea what part of the skin you're 'focusing energy' on, it fails as you can imagine. :)
 
You might find these of interest:

Michael Shermer, “Psychic For A Day, Or How I Learned Tarot Cards, Palm Reading, Astrology, and Mediumship in 24 Hours", by Michael Shermer Skeptic, Vol 10. No.1 2003

The Cold Reading/Psychic Medium Challenge

Cold Reading Puzzles

However, as Ian Rowland himself says, (The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading, p. 21), "If you have a good grasp of how cold reading works, and how to block it, then it cannot be used on you."

So, by all means, learn all you can about it. But if you do, and you continue to explore this for yourself, you may find (as I have), that not -everything- will be adequately explained away as simply "cold...hot...warm reading, plus sitter buy-in".
 
I don't come here too often Clancie but I've seen some of your posts here and there - not enough to get a full grasp on where you stand on this issue though.

Do you believe that mediums are in contact with dead people?
 
Clancie said:
So, by all means, learn all you can about it. But if you do, and you continue to explore this for yourself, you may find (as I have), that not -everything- will be adequately explained away as simply "cold...hot...warm reading, plus sitter buy-in".
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But the articles you quote and Sandaval's list more techniques than those, not to mention selective recall by the sitter, confirmation bias, variations of the file drawer effect,and so forth.
 
Posted by HenDralux

I don't come here too often Clancie but I've seen some of your posts here and there - not enough to get a full grasp on where you stand on this issue though.

Do you believe that mediums are in contact with dead people?
Click to expand...
Hi HenDralux,

My view is, "There might be something to it." There's no doubt that you can explain away much of readings I've seen, read, and had, as "cold/warm/hot reading plus sitter buy in". And there's also always some "junk" included, stuff that makes no sense.

Nevertheless, I've concluded that when you discount all of that, you're often left with apparently evidential information that cannot be explained away using any of the above reasons.

Does that mean there isn't a "natural" explanation? Of course not. But, imo, I haven't found it yet and I haven't seen anyone else who has either.

(And, fyi, I'm not alone in this. Mark Edward, a CSICOP board member and mentalist, considers himself "both a skeptic and a believer" from his experience in actually doing psychic readings and feeling there are things he "gets" that even he is unable to explain away as one of the "usual suspects". Even a skeptic like Mark Edward thinks "there's something to it"...so...not quite as simplistic, imo, as some people here make it seem..... :) ).
 
Thanks Clancie.

Can you tell me what kind of evidential information you feel hasn't yet been explained? I've never yet come across something that I don't feel could have a natural explanation myself, so I'd be interested to hear.
 
Well, I'm not out to convince anyone (aside from which, if anything's impossible around here, that is. :) ). So I'm not going to debate this, "yes/no/maybe" in this thread since most people (myself included) are pretty set in their ways on it.

However, you asked for an example, so I'll provide one (caveat: it's not intended to persuade you of anything. It's an example of information in a reading that I see as the kind of thing I was talking about).

I had a phone reading with a medium who asked me if the deceased and I had taken a trip to San Luis Obispo, here in California (And, yes, she could have already easily known I lived in Ca., but nowhere near SLO). The answer was "Yes".
Medium: "Did a snake come out on that trip?"

Me: A snake? No, no snake.

Medium: "You didn't see a snake on that trip? Because he's showing me a snake."

Me: Oh. We went to visit his son. He goes by the nickname of 'Snake'.
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Coincidence? Lucky guess? Maybe to you. But it is hits like that that keep me so interested in this process.
 
I see...

Thanks for that Clancie.

I won't debate it with you seeing as you don't wish to, but thanks for the example. :)

Dave
 
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