Have you ever wondered how psychics seem to know so much about you, even when they've just met you? The secret lies in a technique called "cold reading." Cold reading combines observations, high probability guesses, and broad statements to create the appearance of psychic abilities. It’s called a “cold” reading because, unlike a “hot” reading, it involves no prior knowledge of the person being read.
Cold reading is a set of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, and mediums. Without prior knowledge, a practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. during a line of questioning.
Some psychics have gotten quite famous wowing audiences with their abilities. Allow me to convince you otherwise… by teaching you to be a psychic.
How Cold Reading Works
Cold readings are more successful when the subject cooperates. One of the most crucial elements of a convincing cold reading is a subject eager to make connections or reinterpret vague statements in any way that will help the reader appear to make specific predictions or intuitions. Cold readings commonly employ high-probability guesses, quickly picking up on signals as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not.
The reader then emphasizes and reinforces any accurate connections while quickly moving on from missed guesses. Subtle cues such as changes in facial expression or body language can indicate whether a particular line of questioning is effective or not. After determining that the subject is cooperative, the reader will make a number of probing statements or questions, typically using variations of the methods noted below.
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Before starting the actual reading, the reader will typically try to elicit cooperation from the subject, saying something such as, "I often see images that are a bit unclear and which may sometimes mean more to you than to me; if you help, we can together uncover new things about you." The subject will then reveal further information with their replies (whether verbal or non-verbal) and the cold reader can continue from there, pursuing promising lines of inquiry and quickly abandoning or avoiding unproductive ones.
Establishing Authority and Using Props
Establish yourself as an expert psychic by looking official. Appear authoritative. If possible, surround yourself with props, such as new age books, pendulums, or crystal balls. Choose a system for your craft, like tarot cards, natal charts, or palm reading.
Setting Expectations
Explain to the subject that the success of the reading depends on them. Warn them in advance that your messages are going to be vague and it’s up to them to connect the dots and understand what it means.
Techniques Used in Cold Reading
Here are some of the key techniques used in cold reading:Stereotyping and Educated Guesses
Don’t be afraid to stereotype! Use your observations and educated inferences to guess what their concerns are likely to be. For example, saying “I’m feeling a close friend or relative has recently passed.” You have a general sense of the subject and have primed them to do most of the work.
Shotgunning
"Shotgunning" is a commonly used cold reading technique. The cold reader slowly offers a huge quantity of very general information, often to an entire audience (some of which is very likely to be correct, near correct or, at the very least, provocative or evocative to someone present), observes their subjects' reactions (especially their body language), and then narrows the scope, acknowledging particular people or concepts and refining the original statements according to those reactions to promote an emotional response.
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Vague Statements and Probability
Now start throwing out large numbers of vague statements until something sticks. Make sure to use probability to your advantage. For example, the most common male names begin with a “J” and most common female names begin with an “M.” And the most common causes of death are heart disease and cancer. Brain conditions, such as dementia and stroke, are also common. “I’m getting a ‘J’ sound.
Barnum Statements
Another technique is to use Barnum statements, which seem personal, but actually apply to most people. (Named after P.T. Barnum, they produce what’s called the Barnum effect, in which individuals believe the statements uniquely apply to them.) Barnum statements can be incredibly useful in convincing people of your psychic abilities, and therefore are often the backbone of psychic readings, including the one at the beginning of this article!
"Barnum statements", named after P. T. Barnum, the American showman, are statements that seem personal, yet apply to many people. And while seemingly specific, such statements are often open-ended or give the reader the maximum amount of "wiggle room" in a reading. They are designed to elicit identifying responses from people. The statements can then be developed into longer and more sophisticated paragraphs and seem to reveal great amounts of detail about a person. When these psychological tricks are used properly, the statements give the impression that the mentalist, or psychic scam artist, is intuitively perceptive and psychically gifted.
Here are some examples of Barnum statements:
- You have a need for other people to like and admire you.
- You can be quite critical of yourself.
- You have a great deal of untapped capacity.
- You pride yourself on being an independent thinker.
- You're disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, but tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside.
Rainbow Ruse
The other trick used in the “psychic reading” above was the rainbow ruse, which simultaneously attributes two opposite personality traits to the same person. With such a phrase, a cold reader can "cover all possibilities" and appear to have made an accurate deduction in the mind of the subject, despite the fact that a rainbow ruse statement is vague and contradictory. So basically, by covering all of your bases, you can’t be wrong!
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Michael Shermer gives the example of jewelry worn by those in mourning. The rainbow ruse is a crafted statement which simultaneously awards the subject a specific personality trait, as well as the opposite of that trait.
Examples of the rainbow ruse include statements like:
- "You are generally patient and calm, but sometimes you have to hold back your anger to avoid saying something you’ll regret."
- "At times, you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved."
Capitalizing on Hits and Minimizing Misses
You want the subject to feel like their reading is a success. If there’s a “hit,” dig in: Make it look like you were certain, and you knew all along. If there’s a “miss,” find an out: You’re bound to get something wrong… but how you handle your misses is what sets apart the good psychics! Thankfully, there are a lot of tricks to put up your sleeve.
One is to minimize it so they don’t notice (or won’t remember). You could also turn it into a prediction, in that you’re right… just not yet. Or you could extend the reference to include other possibilities until you get a hit. And finally, pass blame. “If it wasn’t him, maybe it was someone in the family? “The spirits are all talking at once.
Regurgitating Information and Using Flattery
If you want to look like a rock star psychic, pay attention to the details the subject offers during the reading. It’s shockingly easy to regurgitate information and pass it off as a hit, as subjects simply don’t remember what they’ve told you. Most people who go to psychics want to talk about love, health, money, career, and travel. So be sure to oblige. Also, use flattery and compliments.
Cold Reading in Media
Cold reading has been depicted in various forms of media, showcasing its use and exposing its techniques. Here are some examples:
- Nightmare Alley (1947): Depicted ex-carny and aspiring cult leader Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) using cold reading and other mentalist techniques to convince people he can communicate with the dead.
- "The Biggest Douche in the Universe" (South Park episode, 2002): Stan Marsh uses cold reading to expose John Edward as a fake psychic.
- The Mentalist (2008): The main character uses cold reading to assist him in solving criminal cases.
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2019): Comedian John Oliver addressed the topic, criticizing the media for enabling psychics who prey on grieving families and explaining the techniques of cold reading and hot reading.
How to Read Anyone: 10 Cold Reading Techniques to Master
The Skeptical Perspective
It’s important to note that there’s no good scientific evidence for psychic abilities. For decades the James Randi Educational Foundation offered a prize (up to a million dollars) for anyone who could demonstrate psychic abilities under controlled conditions. Even more, magicians and mentalists are able to reproduce “psychic abilities” using plain old tricks and deceit. If you don’t want to be fooled, it’s important to be skeptical.
Combining the techniques of cold reading with information obtained covertly (also called "hot reading") can leave a strong impression that the reader knows or has access to a great deal of information about the subject.
James Underdown from Center for Inquiry and Independent Investigations Group said, "In the context of a studio audience full of people, cold reading is not very impressive." Underdown explains cold reading from a mathematical viewpoint. A typical studio audience consists of approximately 200 people, divided up into three sections. A conservative estimate assumes each person knows 150 people. This means that when John Edward or James Van Praagh asks the question "Who's Margaret?" he is hoping there is a Margaret in the 10,000 people in the database of that section. If there is no answer, they open the question up to the whole audience's database of over 30,000 people!
Mentalist Mark Edward relates from personal experience as a "psychic performer" how powerful a hit can be when someone in a large audience "claims" a phrase such as a "clown in a graveyard" statement. Edward describes a mental image of a clown placing flowers on graves and adds, "Does that mean anything to someone?" whereupon a woman stands up and claims that he is speaking directly to her. She remembers it as Edward specifically stating that she knew a man who dressed as a clown and placed flowers on graves in her hometown. Edward reports that it took some convincing to get her to understand that he was not directly talking to her, but had thrown the statement out to the entire audience of 300 people.
Former New Age practitioner Karla McLaren has spoken of the importance of reducing the appearance of unusual expertise that might create a power differential; posing observations as questions rather than facts.
The bottom line is that psychic abilities, like being able to predict the future or speak to the dead, are extraordinary claims, which require extraordinary evidence.
One final note: The premise of this article is based in inoculation theory, which applies the logic of vaccines to misinformation. Essentially, by exposing people to smaller bits of misinformation, and how misinformation works, we can inoculate them against it. This article uses what’s called active inoculation, as readers were encouraged to create the misinformation. In effect, instead of debunking pseudoscience, we were prebunking, or debunking in advance.