Excerpt from Full Fact book of cold reading:

Five popular misconceptions
There are many misconceptions about cold reading. Here are five
of the most common, which we may as well get out of the way
before we study the actual workings. Each of these may play a
part in cold reading, but they are far from the whole story.

1. Body language
Some people suggest that psychics base their readings on the so called
'body language' of the client. In case you have been
spared exposure to this 'science', body language is a popular
term for the study of non-verbal communication, such as stance,
facial expression, mannerisms and gestures.
Body language may play a part in cold reading, as we will see
later, but it usually plays only a minor role. It plainly cannot help
with remote readings (e.g. readings by phone or by post).
Moreover, the body language theory cannot account for psychics
coming up with names, dates, or details about the past.
At the risk of seeming sceptical about everything (which I am
not), I might add that in my view body language is a very
dubious 'science'. It seems to me that those aspects of body
language which hold true tend to be obvious, while those which
are not obvious are far from demonstrably true. However, this is
not the place for a fuller discussion.

2. Shrewd observation
Some sceptics suggest that psychics rely on shrewd observation of
the client to derive clues about character, career and interests. I
feel this notion may owe a great deal to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
Sherlock Holmes stories. In these justly famous tales, the
flamboyant detective sometimes demonstrates his ability to
deduce many specific details about a person purely by shrewd
observation.
This technique is indeed one factor in cold reading. Most cold
readers have their own favourite tale of achieving an outstanding
'hit' through shrewd observation (I have mine, and we will get to
it later). However, this method clearly does not offer a
comprehensive mechanism for psychic readings. Some psychics
give readings to clients over the radio, by phone, or by post.
Others frequently produce information which could not feasibly
be attributed to such clues.
I would like to add that in my experience, the potential for
deducing information in this way is far more limited in real life
than it is made to seem in fiction, or in sceptical literature about
cold reading. However, even accepting that deductive
observation can sometimes work very well, this is in some ways
an irrelevance.

3. Fishing for clues
Another popular theory holds that cold reading is all about
'fishing' for clues, which is to say trying to elucidate information
from the client without this being obvious. There is an element of
truth to this. Cold reading can involve subtle ruses to obtain
information (as well as some which are as subtle as a dropped
piano).
However, 'fishing' is simply one small part of the complete
explanation. What is more, it is simply too bald a description for
what is actually involved. The deception lies in the details of how
the fishing is accomplished, and how the information obtained is
then used in the context of the reading.

4. Vagueness and generalisation
Some people suggest psychic readings consist solely of vague and
generalised statements that could mean almost anything. I am
surprised how often this misleading theory is offered by people
who should know better, including supposedly well-informed
sceptics.
The 'vagueness' theory only holds good for the most trite and
superficial aspects of the psychic industry. A perfect (and perfectly
inane) example would be the horoscopes printed by newspapers
which (a) cannot find anything better to print and (B) are content
to treat their readers as superstitious idiots.
In all other cases, this theory does not hold water. Many cold
readers give their clients very specific information, such as names,
dates and detailed descriptions of people and places.
Later on this book, you will hear about a psychic who told a
client the exact name of her brother - without guesswork, clues or
prior information. In another case, a psychic accurately described
the rather unusual job a client did 26 years previously. In both
cases, I was the 'psychic' involved. How was I able to produce
such 'amazingly' specific information? All will be revealed later.

5. Stupid, credulous and gullible?
There are those who suggest that anyone who consults a psychic,
or believes in psychic readings, must be stupid, credulous or
gullible. This is quite plainly at odds with the facts. There are
countless clients who, by any criteria, are highly intelligent and
perceptive people.
If you have a good grasp of how cold reading works, and how to
block it, then it cannot be used on you. Otherwise, it can. It
makes no difference how smart, highly-qualified or intellectually
brilliant you may be. None of these qualities present any difficulty
to a good cold reader.
Incidentally, the same is true of any kind of skilled deception. If
you know how the deception works, then you cannot be
deceived by it. If you do not know, then you can. A rocket scientist
can be fooled by a deceiver, because she knows about
rocket science and not deception. Expertise in one field does not
automatically transfer to another.

What is more, deception itself is an extremely vast and complex
field. It can easily occupy a lifetime of study, and embraces many
specialised arenas. Experts in one area (such as card
manipulation or gambling scams) may know next to nothing
about other areas (such as metal-bending and cold reading).

Wanna know more???

Hi Forrest Lim,

Thanks for the valauble info. Our sifu (Rainking or Mr. Burger in this forum here) surely delight to read this. :P

Andrew

Heard that Ian Rowland's book is the Must Read book for cold reading...

thanks Forrest, for the excerpt.

Yup, I've got the Ian Rowland book... it was really an expensive investment but I really enjoyed reading it- worth every penny spent! You learn so many things from him and it's easily digestable too ^_^

yowza!!! :!!:

just saw Ning's new avatar...

Ning's HOT!!!


ok...back to the subject, the price is heckuva steep...but I'm sure its worth it.

Can anyone give a review about Kenton Knepper's "Completely Cold"?

Wow! Ning not only hot, also very preety, stunning and looks like she reminds me of a Japanese actress. :wub:


Ok ok, now where we are talking to??? Oh, yeah, Ms Ning, is the Ian Roland book that you are

mentioned here contained mental magic??? Or just discussing about cold reading only??


Wow rainking, you are now very actively into cold reading stuffs, looking forward of your

performance next time dude.


Cheers,
Andrew

I am a happily married man with 2 children ... (need to make this clear first :D before I attempt some mind reading ...

I think that there will be a few hot blooded young men who might be smitten :wub: after seeing NING's avatar :lol:

For those are interested on this book please PM me. It's all about cold reading. Or shall I say encyclopedia of cold reading. Everything you want to know about cold reading, it's here in FFBOC.

Ning yes you got the right book. As far as i know only female can be very successful on this field. Ever notice that why Ian used she but not he?

:P - Hahaha yeah!

True, True! ;)

Andrew

On sunday as i was having breakfast at a coffee shop in sunway, a guy attempted to read my fortune ...he walked up behind me and started a barrage of statements in hokkien....i didnt even bother to turn to him yet the statements continued...normally if you let him continue, he would start telling you how you can avoid misfortune by selling you some talisman...so i told him i wasnt the least interested.

that was such a poor attempt at cold reading...how could he try to read my fortune when he never saw my face or my palms ? maybe he is from a new school of fortune telling...hairstyle reading :D

I reckonised most of the statements he used...and have noted some for my own use in the future. ;)

hahaha...really funny... :)

lol..you should ask him to sit down and do some magic tricks for him like fork bending... tell him you have psychic power or something...lol :lol: :lol:

I did have the same kind of experience as well. Instead of pissing off the fortuneteller I let him sit down and had some chat with him. He’s from India, Bombay, well before he started any reading about me. I did tell some interesting thing about him. I talk him: “ You’re a very clever guy and know well everything you should do next. I know that you’re married, isn’t it? Well, you do have children as well. It’s hard for you to find a decent job in Bombay even you did though the salary just can’t satisfy you.” The India fortuneteller seemed pretty impress by my reading.

I wished to continue though I know he just “ cari makan” so I paid him RM2 for being a good listener. :D And I asked did he know anything about cold reading, he seems know nothing about it. Well, his reading is simple and far mediocre than the cold reading that mentalism used to apply. Simply start from flattery statement and end up with so-called Peter pan prediction. Of cause he will never forget to give you 4 digits number. Well, my advice here is Bet it and you’ll be rich very soon. ^_^

more amusing anecdotes :

i sometimes do some mind-reading effects for my officemates. some of them truly believe in magic, so there are some ppl who actually think i'm a true psychic (hah!)

one day this dude came up to me and "mintak nombor". i was kinda fooling around with my other officemates so i just jokingly said to him "7..........umm....2....1........hmmm......1" . (i like to maintain the magic image, hence the act. haha)...

he went out and bought the number, and won around 600 bucks the following week (or something like that.)

he keeps bugging me for numbers now, and i tell him that was a one-off thing...it put too much strain on my mind, and i dont want to try it often for fear of getting a brain aneurysm or something.

sekian terima kasih.

that was cool baalan...lol..... :D

oh my gawd !!!! baalan....give me 4D numbers too !!!!!!
i wanna retire tomorrow.

conrida,

cool story. :) thanks for sharing

hmm lemme think...

(concentrating).......

.....1....

2.....

3....

and...






4.

there.

haha.

9725, 4D. RM100 big and RM100 small, saturday. For those who won please kindly send 10% of your prize to me. ^_^

LOL, this thread rocks! :D

To those who are not familiar with cold reading, this is a refreshing read.

http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/cold%20reading.html