talkmagic.co.uk

i think he's only ever picked on people who do it fraudulently didn't it?

these discussions are a little silly really aren't they - like religious ones, everyone has their own beliefs and thats that...neither will change...

abraxus wrote:These discussions are a little silly really aren't they - like religious ones, everyone has their own beliefs and thats that...neither will change...

Yes and no - they're silly if everyone approaches them dead set in their beliefs. But - coming to this kind of discussion with an open mind there's a lot to be learnt.

My beliefs have certainly changed in the past few years.

yeah, but im guessing (or should that be cold reading) that you came to those changes pretty much by yourself after alot of searching and researching...

anyway, let's not hijack the review post eh...pm me if you wanna discuss anymore with me...

though how you can be that bored is beyond me

abraxus wrote:yeah, but im guessing (or should that be cold reading) that you came to those changes pretty much by yourself after alot of searching and researching...

Sure - but a lot of it was sparked by discussions such as these. I don't think any change happens in isolation.

abraxus wrote:anyway, let's not hijack the review post eh...pm me if you wanna discuss anymore with me...

though how you can be that bored is beyond me

Fine by me. I'm busy moving data from one database to another - not exactly an exciting task

taneous wrote:hmm - lets not go there again..

I really don't see the above as being 'sly digs' or assumptions for that matter. It's just giving a more balanced view of the book..

I think it's a good idea to get the facts on this one and have a look back through the archive both here and at The Bunny. Whenever anyone mentions Ian Rowland's name it's the same. I'm sure they're both very experienced performers and excellent value for money, but I'm getting really tired of hearing what's a perfrectly good introductory treatise on cold reading techniques being slagged off with a steady drip drip drip of negative comment from two individuals about someone they plainly don't like.

Having an opinion about a product and saying your piece once in a review is one thing, but these comments and a long list of others seem to me to be made to put people off buying something created by someone they simply don't like, for reasons we'll probably never know. This sort of behaviour certainly wouldn't be tolerated in the mentalists only area, and I can't see for the life of me why it should be tollerated out here.

Besides, personal attacks are banned, aren't they?

Tomo - I don't think they're personal attacks. You'll see these comments about Rowland's book on a number of mentalist forums - by different people. The point being made here isn't a personal one - but rather the fact that the book wasn't written with teaching cold reading in mind - rather exposing it. That's plain from his introduction.

I find it quite ironic that it's become such a recommended book for learning 'cold reading'.

Anyway - looks like this is going to go around in circles - so I'll back off..

taneous wrote:Anyway - looks like this is going to go around in circles - so I'll back off..

Amen to that.

It just got my goat seeing something like, "The trouble with the Rowland book is that Ian has never done a paid reading in his life" going unchallenged as fact when you, I and the poster himself knows it's not true. It certainly felt like a personal attack, but it's time to stop now.

yeah, back to the actual point of the post...

very good book for those who see it "this way" rather than "that way"...

...and as a brucie bonus on Ian Rowland's site, he does recommend those lovely Lewis Jones books...which i'll try and cobble together a 3-in-1 review soon...

Has anyone downloaded the add-ons from Rowland's site for this book? I keep meaning too...

abraxus wrote:Has anyone downloaded the add-ons from Rowland's site for this book? I keep meaning too...

I'm just printing them off now to have a look at this evening.

I am NOT making a personal attack on the Rowland personage. In fact I rather like him. I consider him talented as a mentalist and his book well written. However skill in writing or performing does not equal skill as a psychic reader. All I am saying is that his book should be retitled. It is NOT "the full facts about coldreading" it should be titled instead "A few facts about cold reading" because that is precisely what it is.

It is a useful book but not as comprehensive as it seems. It does not explain how to actually do a reading and I do not know a single psychic (and I know many) either fake or shut-eye genuine who uses a single technique outlined in his book.

I am perfectly entitled to my opinion and it is NOT a personal attack. It is a review. Furthermore it may surprise you all to know that young Ian Rowland sold svengali decks for me at the Bolton Ideal Homes exhibition when he was 13 years old. He insists that he was 11 at the time but he is just as inaccurate there as he is in the contents of his book. He sold rather a lot of cards and his chief selling point was that anyone who bought one was entitled to a free holiday in Northern Ireland. This was at the time of the bombing campaign there.

Furthermore my fellow psychic reverend Craig Browning is not making a personal attack either. Indeed I have seen him vociferously defend the Rowland child on other forums against some of his more rabid critics. Excuse me for calling Rowland a child. The vision of a smiling little 13 year old con man has never left me.

And he has NOT done a paid reading for real clients as far as I am aware. If he has then he is just as unethical as he claims psychic readers are. However he hasn't. Doing an odd reading on TV or for demonstration purposes isn't being a psychic. Neither is doing quick readings at corporate functions. I could teach someone how to do that in half an hour.

Being a psychic is doing readings for MONEY to actual CLIENTS. Rowland has not done this to any extent. The chap is a good bluffer though and I respect him for that. However he knows NOTHING about palmistry. the Tarot or any other divinatory art and he admits this openly.

You can't be a good reader without knowing something about these subject even to a cursory extent.

If you wish to be a psychic then you should read everything available on the subject including the Rowland child's volume. However your first and most essential purchase should be the Mark Lewis Psychic Video course. A mere $50 per video or $200 for the whole course.

Contact me privately if you wish to get your money out.

Tomo wrote:

abraxus wrote:Has anyone downloaded the add-ons from Rowland's site for this book? I keep meaning too...

I'm just printing them off now to have a look at this evening.

I've had a look through them and there's some interesting stuff. Basically, it's a list of suggestions from readers and a long section on CR in sales. One thingthat caught my eye was a report from a dutch reader who gives an easily adaptable method, based on Dutch research, of identifying core personality traits, and what the subject's fears might be about them. Clever stuff.

I'll be nice and not point fingers but there is an odd reality to doing demonstrations of Cold Reading in front of the Tv Camera few ever stop and consider... the fact that the people being read have been screened and, for lack of a better term, "prepped"...

There's been more than one "expert" on the con-artists and fake psychics that have exploited this rather questionable practice so as to create the illusion that they can be just are accurate or better than the Readers that do this kind of thing day in and day out.

I've had the displeasure of watching young magic-buffs walk into a party and attempt to up-stage me by breaking into their best Lee Earle impersonation, employing Lee's rendering of the Forer technique and watching them fall flat on their butts in the process. I've watched more than a couple of know-it-alls slam what I and the Rev. Lewis do for a living only to turn around and use Cold Reading techniques and the ruse of being Psychic so they could get laid (many of these upstanding moralists, being married and with children no less...)

Truth of the matter is, there is a major difference between memorising a few cold reading lines or stock bits of spiel and knowing how to be a Reader. The Critics and outspoken cynics would have you disbelieve anything and everything that might have a spiritual connection or sense of "truth" about it where faith is the key. They live a very dry black & white existence in which hope or even imagination are seemingly condemned and even the idea of beauty, nuetured in a way that removes from it the sense fo things miraculous.

Thank you Reverend Browning for trying to provide divine guidance to the unbelievers among us. Forgive them for they know not what they do.

I note the gentleman from Cheshire's observations concerning the Rowland additions. I sneaked in to the website even though I have never purchased his book. A wicked person who shall go unnamed sent me a photocopy of his work. Naturally I accepted it because ethics and psychics make unworthy bedfellows.

I read all sorts of advice on how physical fitness and eating the right foods would make you a better psychic. Not quite what I was looking for.
There was also all sorts of "advice" from wannabee psychics/magician/mentalist types who were even more lacking in knowledge about the subject than Ian. Truly Ian is a prime example of the blind leading the blind.

I was particularly amused by the chattering by a Dutch gentleman who contrary to Tomo's assertion is not a psychic but a "psychologist". Lots of non real world material which may or may not be valid, the latter being more likely than the former. As Tomo says it is clever stuff. However it is still claptrap.

I don't need that kind of rot to figure out a person's personality and neither does any competent psychic. One look and within 15 seconds I have figured them out. After you have done thousands upon thousands of PAID readings you don't need psychological theories from Holland.

Again the best way to psychic enlightenment is through the Mark Lewis Psychic Course. Not that I am one to advertise of course.

Sigh... ...it's reader, not "Reader", as you very well know.

Look, it's perfectly clear and understandably sad that you're trying to get some kind of angry reaction here. Unfortunately, you're not getting any more out of me, though if I'm the only one to choose to read your comments as your admission of having a pirate copy of Ian Rowland's book, I'll be very surprised. I don't associate with people who claim to be great magicians and yet boast about ripping off other magicians' work.

I see that Tomo is trying to ignore me but can't quite manage it. Truly I am a master manipulator. I shall see if I can make him dance a little more.

I must confess that I do not understand the first sentence of his post. Perhaps he will explain it for us all. I do expect clarity when people respond to me. Let us hope that he will try to improve himself in this regard.

I must say that he has his facts wrong. I have not ripped off Rowland's work. I merely accepted the fruits of someone else ripping it off. It came to me unsolicited. Anyway the chap purchased it himself so presumably he can do what he likes with his own property. He sent it to me for free. Rowland has not lost anything since I would certainly not have purchased the book from him in the first place. And I am adding to his profits since if I hadn't received the book I wouldn't have been able to pontificate about it. My very pontification will increase his sales. I rather think in fact he owes me a commission.

I am always amused when magicians chatter about "ethics". It merely shows to me that they have led sheltered lives. Murray the famous escapologist once said to me "if you go through life never having done business with a crook then you will never get anything done" A great man indeed. You should have seen him short change people in his magic shop. I was very proud to have known him.

Of course Murray was Australian. And we all know what a bunch of blaggards and descendants of convicts they are. I will now make a psychic prediction that two of them will show up here shortly.