Bob Cassidy - The Real Work Of Cold Reading.pdf - Bob Cassidy - mcgregor2001

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been neutered, and are used for convenience and readability only, although he does use "she" once in a while just to be fair.

Table of Contents

The Forer Effect

The General Consensus

Cold Reading and How it is Done

The General Consensus Reviewed

The Why of Cold Reading

The Ethics of Cold Reading

The Importance of Belief

What People Really Want (The Primary Directive)

The Basics of Body Language

Lying

Mimicking

Involuntary Facial Expressions

The Real Work of Cold Reading

The Bacheldor Effect

Cold Reading and Mentalism

I’ve Got your Number

The Coin Toss

The Psychometry Bag

Selected Bibliography

Appendix A

A Numerological System and Framework

Appendix B

NOTICE: What follows is a book within a book. Do not skim. There will be a quiz.

The Worst Kept Secret in Mentalism

“Disinformation campaign a resounding success.”

-Dr. Bob, re: NBC’s Secrets of the Psychics

____________________________________________________________

(Moldavia) 07:30 - According to the latest research figures , the basic principles of Cold Reading are

known to 37% of the general public, 20% of the news media, 97.4% of skeptics groups, and all of the

87,274 members and affiliates of the “The Speed-Seduction and Sado-Masochistic Technoporn Web

Ring®” as “The way those fake psychics manipulate people, steal their money, and keep them on

hold.”

Dr. Robert Delacroix, President of the Moldavian Research Council, advises that these figures

are subject to an error margin of +/- 2%.

NOTE: I have been unable to obtain verification of the above statistics from the Moldavian

Research Council because they told me it was none of my business what goes on in Moldavia. It

is, therefore, provided for informational purposes only.

I did, however, receive the following note from a member of the council who has asked to remain

anonymous:

“The research figures are actually much higher!”

I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking , but what good

would that do?

-J. Dimowitz, President, Moldavian Skeptics Society

The Forer Effect

Enter the words cold reading into your favorite Internet search engine and you will be directed to

several hundred websites, books, articles and other resources. You will have access to more cold

reading materials than mentalists who died before 1975 had seen in their entire lifetimes.

Once you start reading through them, however, you will discover that they are all pretty much alike,

and, for the most part, based on the same three or four sources. (Not counting one of Julius Fast’s old

press releases from the 1970’s announcing the release of his pop-science hit Body Language. )

The works of Robert Nelson, George Anderson, William Larsen Sr., C.L.Boarde, et al - the stuff the

pre-1975 dead mentalists used to read - are rarely, if ever, mentioned, despite the fact that they were

once considered essential reading in the field.

It is an omission for which all mentalists should be grateful. At least some things have remained

relatively secret.

Most of the modern explanations and “exposures” of cold reading are based on “The Forer Effect,”

demonstrated in 1948 by psychologist Bernard Forer. To test the “Fallacy of Personal Validation” he

assembled an all-purpose personality analysis from readings he had snipped from newspaper astrology

columns. If you are not familiar with the Forer reading, here are a few excerpts, which illustrate the

types of statements he used:

Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. At times, you are

extroverted, affable and sociable, while at other times you are

introverted, wary and reserved. Disciplined and self-controlled outside,

you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times, you have

serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done

the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and

become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.

He proceeded to give his class a personality test consisting of five multiple-choice questions. Ignoring

their answers, Forer distributed copies of the previously prepared reading to the students, representing

them to be individually prepared profiles. The students gave the spurious interpretations an average

rating of 4.26 out of a possible high score of 5.0.

In other words, the profiles were viewed as highly accurate by the students who thought they were

uniquely prepared.

The generally accepted explanation for the Forer effect is the existence of a human tendency to find

meaning where none exists, especially when accompanied by wishful thinking, and the belief that the

information was specifically prepared for them.

Forer himself was a bit more direct in his interpretation of the effect. He simply saw it as proof of

human gullibility.

The phenomena later came to be known as the “The Barnum Effect.” Two quotations of the famous

19 th Century showman have been cited as inspiring the name change:

a) “A circus should have something for everyone”

b) “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Which one do you think is most appropriate?

Your answer reveals a good deal about you and your attitude toward mentalism, cold reading,

parapsychology and the meaning in life in general.

Think about it before you answer. If your answer was “b”, you are likely to have some difficulty with

the material in this book.

___________________________________

The types of statements Forer used are sometimes referred to as “specific generalities.” Most

experienced readers know that you can ascribe any personality trait and its opposite to an individual

and he or she will generally agree with you, provided that you present both sides of the trait in positive

terms.

Here is an example of Forer type statements written off the top of my head:

While you normally are reserved or introspective, you have no problem

taking center-stage when you feel very strongly about an issue. You

speak what’s on your mind, but only when you feel that it is necessary

to do so. While you sometimes like to argue with friends just for the

sake of arguing, you normally keep your opinions to yourself. You have

a lot of acquaintance and friends but very few of them can say they

know the real you… etc., etc.,

With a little practice you will find that you can “stream of conscious” these things ad infinitum . While

I don’t recommend too much of this in a one-on-one reading, it is an excellent technique to use if you

need to do a series of rapid-fire readings for an audience, or if you are doing readings of people in

photographs that members of the audience show you as you walk around the room.

Basically, all you have to do is describe the first impression you have about a particular personality

trait of the sitter, describe it and follow with “But at other times you…” and then describe the exact

opposite of what you just said.

The ‘opposites approach’ also works quite well if you want to describe a female sitter’s ‘close friend’.

(Don’t say ‘best friend’ because then she won’t be able to selectively pick and choose among her

friends to find the one you are talking about.) Just describe a person who is physically the EXACT

OPPOSITE of the sitter. If the sitter is thin, the chances are good that her good friend is a bit

overweight. If she is a dark-eyed brunette, I would describe the friend as a blue-eyed blond.

Years ago Herb Dewey did just that before a roomful of experienced mentalists, many of whom were

absolutely dumbfounded at the amount of seemingly accurate information he could spew out at a

phenomenal rate. This is not apocrypha. I was there among the dumbfounded.

The General Consensus

If we combine the psychology of subjective validation, as demonstrated by Forer, with a description of

cold reading techniques published in 1977 by skeptical psychologist Ray Hyman, the result is a

general outline of most modern cold reading systems.

Since Hyman’s “13 Point Guide” to cold reading has been accepted as authoritative by

parapsychologists and skeptics as well as a large number of magicians and mentalists, I have

incorporated his point headings in the discussion of published cold reading techniques which follows.

Hyman’s descriptions can be found in “'Cold Reading': How to Convince Strangers that You Know

All About Them." 1977. The Zetetic Vol. I, No. 2: 18-37. (Just type the title into your search engine

and you will find it all over the place.)

There would have been no point in writing this book if I felt that the field had already been adequately

and accurately portrayed. Therefore, I have highlighted all of the statements with which I disagree as

well as those that I feel need clarification. As you may have guessed, there’s going to be a lot of

highlighting. There are two reasons for this:

1. Very few of the “authorities” cited actually perform cold reading for strangers, except when

their intent is to expose the technique.

2. Almost without exception, explanations of cold reading are written by individuals who have

an a priori belief that all psychic readers are conscious or unconscious frauds and that their clients

are “shut-eyes.” For those not familiar with the term, “shut eye” has at least four different

definitions, depending on whom you ask. It refers to:

a) Someone unacquainted with the methods of deception employed by fraudulent

psychics and con artists, or

b) An individual who engages in psychic cold reading while sincerely believing in his or

her own paranormal powers.

c) Someone who lives in a New Age Lala Land where reality is just a matter of opinion

and where Shirley MacLaine, Ramtha and John Edward are right up there with the Dalai

Lama, Mother Theresa and Ghandi when it comes to being spiritual, or

d) Anyone who doesn’t see things the way you do.

Cold Reading and How it is Done

(according to the authorities)

Bob Cassidy - The Real Work Of Cold Reading.pdf

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