cold reading

Hi all, I've recently become quite interested in the dissection of so-called 'psychic abilities'. I have always been an atheist, and never believed in the supernatural, but only recently (mainly thanks to Robert Lancaster's excellent site) I have become more passionate about seeing psychics...

Good article on the "science" of criminal profiling. Apparently, it works better in the movies. But most things work better with Jodi Foster. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/12/071112fa_fact_gladwell

This coming Friday (Nov 16), Larry King is hosting another hour of credulous guessing games with cold readers John Edward and James van Praagh. To make the show less painful, I developed a John Edward / James van Praagh Bingo card - check off a square for every lame cold-reading trick you note...

I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to give their responses to my plea for guidance on the ethics of doing palm readings to raise money for charities; your comments were all appreciated. In fact, I have to hand it to you; you put your fingers right on the mark. I'm glad that no one...

I hope that forum members can help me resolve an ethical dilemma. When I was a teenager, many years ago, I looked around for something distinctive I could do to break the ice at parties and make friends. I hit on palm reading, mainly because no one else I knew was doing it and it sounded...

I got in and saw Sylvia Browne. It's the episode where she hawks her new book about psychic children and it'll air in about two weeks. No, I didn't get to ask her a question cause there wasn't time but I got so much else to tell you. I gotta run now but I'll tell you all all about it as...

Here's an article about an investigation I did into telephone/online psychics back in 2004/2005. Using cold reading techniques I was offered a job as a psychic! http://www.bad-language.com/psychicskeptic The company is now trying to get me to remove the article, so I want to spread the (bad)...

I was thinking about who I'd want to contact if I believed in mediums and seeing as the only people to have died in my immediate family in the past twenty years are my grandfathers, I think it would be them I'd like to talk to. Thing is, John Edward could not have guessed my grandfather's name...

This lady writes a really funny, smart blog. She doesn't normally write about skepticism, but this was really good: http://www.violentacres.com/archives/104/how-to-amaze-you-friends-and-family-with-your-eerily-accurate-psychic-readings A sample: :D

Some thoughts on cold reading: Forgive them; for they know not what they do?

Hey all, I was at a recent local friend-party, and ran into a friend who has some problems. Spouse drug/mental illness=suicide and this is the widow. Grief, etc. all the usual but she was adamant about the phone reading she had recently received. "The name of my mother's first horse" and...

Here's a link to a complete transcript of a Sylvia Browne reading. Be warned that it contains graphic details of a horrible murder: http://www.enddeathpenaltyforbretthartmann.com/sylvia.html For those who dont' want to click on the link, here's some background information. It seems there...

(Note: Okay, first off, while I believe in reincarnation, I do not believe in psychics, or the ability to predict the future. After all, if one could predict the future, then why wait until then?) Back to the topic: I am taking care of my mother (she has surgery not long ago), and she likes...

I am in the process of trying to open someone's eyes to the techniques of cold reading on another forum and was thinking what would be really useful is a video clip of a psychic/mentalist in action doing a convincing reading, and then be able to provide the transcript (with analysis) of that...

Here we go again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZLzycYZrng

Hi folks, I'm a regular reader of a column on NFL.com called "tuesday morning quaterback", written by Gregg Easterbrook. One thing I enjoy is that he regularly talks about non-football related things. Today, he skewers a pychic named Char Margolis, who appeared on Larry King in July. He...

What is the best cold reading demo? That is, among people not claiming to be mediums. Can anyone point me towards a video of it? Transcripts?

Yesterday (January 30, 2004) I was unfortunate enough to catch Larry King Live on CNN International, where Mr. King conducted an inteveiw with "medium" James van Praagh under the title "Speaking to Heaven?". The interview featured some upsettingly cheesy cold reading of callers eager to...

I realize that picking apart John Edward is like hunting dairy cows with ..................... oh, never mind. Anyway, I was channel surfing last week and watched his show for a few minutes. He was addressing a family, and talking in particular to a father. First, JE made the stab that the...

Has James Randi or anyone else went through one of the Crossing Over shows and pointed out all the mistakes? There was a commentary a couple months ago that did this with another cold reader which I thought was pretty interesting. But I would like to see one for one of Edward's readings.