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I'm sorry! A terrible joke. Ignore me please!...

It depends on your definition of psychic, you know.

Anyway the greatest exponent of this work in magical history will be lecturing on the subject for International Magic in the Autumn. I know the chap personally and can confirm that he is a genius of the first magnitude. He will not allow me to tell you his name since his modesty is of legendary proportion. Once you listen to him you will not need any of that silly Ian Rowland nonsense.

This will be the REAL stuff.

mark lewis wrote:It depends on your definition of psychic, you know.

Anyway the greatest exponent of this work in magical history will be lecturing on the subject for International Magic in the Autumn. I know the chap personally and can confirm that he is a genius of the first magnitude. He will not allow me to tell you his name since his modesty is of legendary proportion. Once you listen to him you will not need any of that silly Ian Rowland nonsense.

This will be the REAL stuff.

So where are you lecturing Mark?

I have some more information on this matter. Just a little bit anyway. It will take place the first week of October in London. That is all the information I have at the moment. More will be imparted quite soon.

Thank's for advices Craig and Mark. I tought the reputation of Ian Rowland was unanimous, but it seem not. At the moment , the reading part is not the area I'm studying, but I will try myself to this discipline later on and it is always good to get precious comments from experimented people.
Actually I get "Guerilla Q&A" as a first book concerning the subject, and I was thinking if it was useful to go for Mark Elsdon "SRS". Do you think that work could be useful for a beginner in readings ?

Sometimes I wonder if my negative attitude to the Rowland book is because of personal bias. He writes in a very sarcastic manner and the book is clearly a derogatory one about the art of psychic reading and is written in a debunking and sarcastic tone. He also advocates baiting psychics and this does not go over very well in certain quarters. In certain parts of the mentalism community he has raised hackles.

It is hard, therefore, for me to be objective about his book. As for baiting psychics that is fairly useless advice since it could be a very expensive pastime. He seems to think a psychic would return the money and tell the client to get lost. Not me. I am afraid. I always take the money. And many of my psychic colleagues would take exactly the same attitude. If you ruin the reading and don't get your money's worth then it is your own sweet fault. I would definitely not return money to anyone that baited me. I would certain cut the reading short but there would be no refunds.

I am re-reading his book to see if I am just biased in my attitude and if there is any value in it that I didn't see the first time.

Just my four penn'orth but far from baiting psychics, would it be more useful at times to watch and see how they do things? If they're truly awful then we'll know what to avoid but there's a chance that we might learn a trick or two from their presentation. Having said that, and being a well-known tightwad, I have no intention of paying good money to observe but there are several free psychic nights locally which might be useful. If not, they're held in a pub so the evening wouldn't be a total loss !

Good heavens! FREE readings? I have never heard of such a thing. I feel quite faint. Of course if you pay nothing you often find that you get nothing valuable in return.

When I first started I DID take a pile of money and visit several psychics to see what I could learn. I didn't "bait" them but just kept quiet in the interests of research and education. It was a very valuable experiment. I learned something from one lady that I use to this day. It was worth far more than I paid for it.

I shall explain it in my lecture for International Magic. It has been worth thousands of pounds and dollars (and oddly enough Dutch Guilders) for me since I have worked on both sides of the Atlantic doing this stuff.

It may do the same for you.

However, don't expect trickery explained in my lecture. I don't use the sort of unethical practices described by Rowland in his book. I tell you how to do things for REAL!

Sorry to give your wallet a heart attack Mark, let me clarify that entrance to the event is free but the readings are £30 for 30-40 minutes. Headings for those are Mediumship, Tarot, Ribbon Readings, Angel Cards, Psychometry and Dowsing, no mention of palmistry or crystal ball gazing so far. There’s a stall offering ‘spiritual based’ gifts and ‘much more’.

I reckon the casual observer would learn a lot just by watching some of the readers at work although I suspect, as the event is in a pub, the most active spirits will probably be those dispensed via the optic measures…..

Cryder wrote:Thank's for advices Craig and Mark. I tought the reputation of Ian Rowland was unanimous, but it seem not. At the moment , the reading part is not the area I'm studying, but I will try myself to this discipline later on and it is always good to get precious comments from experimented people.
Actually I get "Guerilla Q&A" as a first book concerning the subject, and I was thinking if it was useful to go for Mark Elsdon "SRS". Do you think that work could be useful for a beginner in readings ?

Guerilla Q&A is for ADVANCED workers! Not to mention it's a bloody expensive investment as well as limited edition, so I find it peculiar that you'd have a copy given how it was marketed.

START by learning a basic system such as I mentioned earlier in this thread; Richard Webster's PSYCHOMETRY FROM A-Z is one of the bibles to this skill set BUT, I can't stress enough how important it will be for anyone walking down this direction to actually study and learn at least three esoteric systems based on how they are taught to shut eye students... NO MAGICIAN'S THEORY OR RHETORIC! To me and most of the more credible Readers in our world, every one needs to know the basics of Numerology, Palmistry and at least one other divination tool like tarot. Most will also tell you to know at least the basic information around astrology such as end & start dates, significance of each sign, etc.

From the stage work starts with George Anderson and Robert Nelson... learn their material, especially "Answers to Questions", it will save you tons of headache as things unfold. However, if you have learned the above, you will have the Numerology advantage when it comes to doing your readings from the stage and personalizing what your give them.

If you are going to specialize in stage based Readings then study Asian Face Reading techniques along side the Somatotypes of Dr. William Sheldon (Fred Crouter's books are awesome when it comes to this http://www.mevproshop.com/inner-secrets-of-cold-reading.html)

If you are having guests fill out cards, learn a bit about Graphology so that you can exploit that information as part of your feed back. It is ALWAYS best to work with the legit systems, augmenting them with cold reading elements, than it is to work with straight Cold Reading formulas.

mark lewis wrote:I have some more information on this matter. Just a little bit anyway. It will take place the first week of October in London. That is all the information I have at the moment. More will be imparted quite soon.

Can't wait. I'd love to see you lecture!

Those readings are quite cheap. They wouldn't get 30 to 40 minutes out of me for thirty quid. 20 minutes and then good bye. In fact I think I would be inclined to go for 50 quid. 30 sounds dreadfully cheap. And then I would get the reading over with fast. Let's get the next one in. Of course I have the grafter's mentality.
And they will get more from me in 20 minutes than they will get from other psychics in 40 minutes.

Lack of crystal balls in not unusual. Serious psychics rarely use them. That is for seaside fortune tellers.

There's another reason why you need to learn the rudiments of astrology, numerology, Tarot, graphology, palmistry, crystals, colours, or whatever you might want to touch upon in your routine. You're going to run into people who know these systems inside-out and use them all the time. And they'll spot a bluff and give you nothing but disrespect for it.

It's one thing to explain you've developed your own card layout, or you have a somewhat unorthodox interpretation of such-and-such crystal. But if you can't speak the basic language, you'll be rumbled.

The absolute basics would include:
Astrology: Names and meanings of the planets and signs, dates of the signs, general interpretation of each planet in each sign.
Numerology: Meanings of numbers 1-10, how to calculate the number corresponding to a name or date, interpreting name and birthdate numbers.
Tarot: Meanings of the Major Arcana cards (some cards are controversial, but you should know at least one meaning for each), at least one or two spreads (layouts).
Graphology: Interpretations of size, slope, speed, regularity, and use of space. Pressure is another basic, but not very helpful with modern writing instruments.
Palmistry: Names and meanings of the major lines and mounts, and preferably the general hand shapes.
Crystals: Identify all the crystals you use and describe their meanings and functions. Preferably be able to discuss vibrational auras and how you take care of the stones.
Colours: Traditional colour symbolism, modern colour psychology.

This isn't to say you need to know all of the above. If you never use crystals, for instance, then you don't have to know about them. But anything you're going to mention, be prepared.

Robbie is spot on with that one. I've seen people a couple of times giving a tarot reading when they're obviously taking no notice of what the cards are telling them and instead just rolling out a list of stock phrases. It's fine for people who don't know the cards but when you come across someone who does you could easily come unstuck.

I have never found anyone else's vison of the meaning of the cards to be a particular problem. I have even read for other psychics and tarot readers. You can't be worrying about what they think the cards mean. You just go ahead in a confident matter and they will not question you. They assume that you know what you are doing and that you are the expert. They even think they might be wrong themselves. Besides you can always say that every reader has their own way of doing things if they happen to bring the subject up. But they never do in actual practice.

If all else fails you could use the John Booth business of saying in an authoritive voice, "I am afraid this is the aardvark school of tarot reading"
All nonsens of course but they will take your word for it and just be quiet.

When people are paying you good money for a reading they don't get too questioning, believe me.