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Can anyone recommend a good book on cold reading?

Cecily Cardew

New Blood
C
Joined
Feb 20, 2008
Messages
4
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 (particularly Browne) well and truly debunked.

I have been aware of Browne and others for quite some time, and always saw them as somewhat harmless (John Edwards always seems to tell the grieving family member whatever they want to hear) but stopsylviabrowne.com has really opened my eyes to the deplorable extortion and heartless attitude of certain psychics.

Anyhoo, I want to find out more about cold reading, and am hoping someone can suggest a good book to learn more about the tactics psychics use to convince their victims.

Thanks in anticipation

Cecily :)
 
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Thanks for your replies - I will look into buying that book, and also thanks for the link to the other thread.
Regards
Cecily
 
I'd also say after you read Ian's book you watch a few psychics. It's really sad how very BAD they are. You can really pick up on their tricks.

But honestly, most are quite bad.
 
kittynh said:
I'd also say after you read Ian's book you watch a few psychics. It's really sad how very BAD they are. You can really pick up on their tricks.

But honestly, most are quite bad.
Click to expand...

As a sidenote:

First day of NLP-practicioner-training ( yes, i know unfalsifyable, no sane scientific theory behind it and overall an ecclectic collection of methods ) we played games like having one person think about two different people and detect from minor changes in their expression or from speech-rythm, tonality and other signs when saying random sentences, what person they think about. We also got an assignment to talk to random people about random topics and to adapt our speech rhytm, posture, body language and content to what gave positive responses.

Being artfully vague about the content, so people pick the meaning that makes most sense to them came on a later day.

After some practice you can emulate a psychic very well.

I think the main difference to people who believe that they are psychic is that they do it unconsciously, and are rarely able to tell what clues they picked up, where they made educated guesses and where they allowed the client to choose the meaning of their utterances.

I suspect that the majority of professional psychics knows this very well too. The bad ones simply didn't bother to learn. And of course, as an observer outside of the rapport it is easy to spot, if you know the techniques.
 
I would recommend Mindblowing Psychic Readings by Herb Dewey. This book is more practice than theory. It gives scripts for various types of people (Single Male 30s, Married Female 40s, Gay/Lesbian, Overweight, Asian-Female, etc.) This will have you doing readings faster than any book but is better geared for phone readings than in person unless you want to memorize the scripts. The book does give you specific examples though and you can begin to extract the method by examining the scripts. This book is geared at the "personality" type readings rather than speaking with the dead. The following article is also pretty good:

http://www.insolitology.com/rationally/edward.htm
 
and remember, someone with the letter M is always safe. Mom, Mary, Marie, Mark...

M is the "safe" letter.

And there are always clothes in the closet with tags still on them.
 
If you'd like to try before you buy, hop on down to your local public library. If they don't have copies of what you're looking for, they can usually get them through interlibrary loan.

That's how I read The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading.
 
kittynh said:
and remember, someone with the letter M is always safe. Mom, Mary, Marie, Mark...

M is the "safe" letter.

And there are always clothes in the closet with tags still on them.
Click to expand...

Resolving to this as a fake psychic would mean insulting the art.
 
Cecily, thanks for the kind words regarding SSB.

Rowland's book is the only one I've read so far, but it covers the bases very well.
 
ian rowlands full facts of cold reading, funnily i was thinking of getting it on the internet,but in a moment of divine synchronicity i joined my local library where i found it between the 'big book of british jugs' and 'the bible'.Explain that with your science!Obviously im keeping it,lest it should fall into the wrong hands.But now i have to find another library...........
 
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