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Thought I would throw another resource in the ring by Herb Dewey:

Red Hot Cold Reading.

Best to all-

Steve

I can't get overly excited about Herb Dewey's work and I am not sure I understand why.
I want to like it but I can't.

Michael Jay wrote:

SidoonMan wrote:I still haven't found any info about Barnam Statements, if anyone can help?

You have - you just didn't realize it.

The ten Barnum statements:

• I have a great need for people to like and admire me.
• I have a tendency to be critical of myself.
• I have a great deal of unused capacity which I have not turned to my advantage.
• Disciplined and self-controlled outside, I tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
• At times I have serious doubts as to whether I have made the right decision or done the right thing.
• I prefer a certain amount of change and variety, and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
• I pride myself as an independent thinker, and don’t accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
• I have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing myself to others.
• At times I am extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times I am introverted, wary, reserved.
• Security is one of my major goals in life.

Sorry Micheal - you are correct.

Sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees.


Lord Freddie said:

How I learnt to do this, and I'll give you this for nought, was by studying those who purport to be "genuine" (if there is such a thing) psychics.

I was a practising spiritualist for about 12 years. Yea, i got into it after the death of two close family members and probably had a need to believe. In all that time, i saw alot of charlatans but didn't realise it and i also saw and heard alot i couldn't explain. I know many mediums who believe they are genuine. Maybe they are cold reading without realising it but they are genuine never the less. I know i was. A magician/mentalist can watch a medium and ,maybe, replicate the method to gain the same result but that doesn't mean that the method is the same used by the medium. There's alot we don't understand or know yet.
I stand in between and keep an open mind.

Don't mean to hijack the thread but i had to put the spiritualist side of things for balance.

Back on topic:

If you gave a paid reading to someone and purported to debunk it later (even to one of their friends down the pub for eg.) I can see a whole world of **** coming down. This would really be something you would have to do as a "constant gig". As said earlier, People love the mystery and want to believe in something. Let them.

Just my 2 pence.

Jason

Blapsing_Beard wrote:I don;t want to read them and tell them their future...

I want to read them and tell them their past!

and I believe that that makes all the difference.

I prefer to do that too. It's very satisfying. I like to guide people into nice memories they've forgotten about. Much nicer than pretending to see the future. The past might be a foreign country as they say, but at least it exists in the mind of the spec.

I also think Abrxus is right. Surely the real thing wouldn't use some rigid, artificial system. It'd be a dynamic, intuitive thing.

And I'd love to know which magic book contains all this so-called "psycho-dribble".

If you are doing serious readings you can't tell them about their past and ignore the future. The future is what they want to know about. That is why they have come to you. They already know the past. No point telling it to them again.

Incidentally if some sceptic irritates me by asking a silly question such as "can you tell me the name of my cat?" to test me I simply say, "You know the name of your cat already so there is no point in me telling you what it is. Psychics only tell you what you don't know. They never tell you what you do know."

mark lewis wrote:If you are doing serious readings you can't tell them about their past and ignore the future. The future is what they want to know about. That is why they have come to you. They already know the past. No point telling it to them again.

Beardy's not doing serious readings, though is he. He's doing an effect where he pulls out a memory, and simply wants resources to help him develop it.

I prefer to do that too. It's very satisfying. I like to guide people into nice memories they've forgotten about. Much nicer than pretending to see the future. The past might be a foreign country as they say, but at least it exists in the mind of the spec.

I couldn't agree more, this is how cold reading is best used within the field of mentalism. If you can extract genuine memories you're moving into the realm of miracle worker. I perform an L&D test which merges into the realms of a seance, within this I give memories and details regarding the deceased (always positive memories, crying spectators at the table is not a good thing). This for me is the most satisfying area of cold reading that leaves the spectator thinking you've genuinly picked up their memories without making any oulandish, exploitative claims.

Got to agree with that, Ed.

Earlier this year, round at someone's house, I had a spec go very quiet and deeply introspective after being led vividly into a lost memory, after which she excused herself, phoned her sister and apologised profusely for something, then gave me a big hug and thanked me. It's nonsense to say that people won't pay to hear things they already know. In many cases, their memories are suppressed as a coping strategy, and helping them to remember can lead to a big emotional release of related thoughts and feelings. I spend a lot of my time when I'm out just listening to people and letting them talk in ways they can't to friends and family. It's what I've always done since way before I ever heard of mentalism. People love it. They love exploring their own pasts. They can't get enough of them. The past tells us how we came to be, and who we are is the best indicator of what our futures hold. The ancient Greeks implored us to "Know Thyself". I reckon they knew a thing or two, those old Greeks.

Tomo wrote:The ancient Greeks implored us to "Know Thyself". I reckon they knew a thing or two, those old Greeks.

Yeah... too right.

Old Ken down our local Greek kebab house is a diamond... always calls me by my first name AND knows that I'm hungry!

Joking aside... I think we may have deviated just a tad from Beardy's first post... perhaps at the point where Craig became over-verbose (or 'helpful' as we like to call it).

Any chance of someone in-the-know translating the above mesh of namesdropping/knowledge/banter into a concise and layperson-ledgibe post???

mark lewis wrote:I can't get overly excited about Herb Dewey's work and I am not sure I understand why.
I want to like it but I can't.

See, we do agree on more than one thing

The only Dewey book I really push is "King of the Cold Readers" in that it offers more "technique" and subtle cheat methods vs. the stock Readings we see in his other books. Red Hot and Psycho-Babble offer some interesting back-up material or even foundation material around which to build a legit Reading, but I can't fathom anyone attempting to memorize all that stuff.

The ten Barnum statements:

* I have a great need for people to like and admire me.
* I have a tendency to be critical of myself.
* I have a great deal of unused capacity which I have not turned to my advantage.
* Disciplined and self-controlled outside, I tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
* At times I have serious doubts as to whether I have made the right decision or done the right thing.
* I prefer a certain amount of change and variety, and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
* I pride myself as an independent thinker, and don’t accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
* I have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing myself to others.
* At times I am extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times I am introverted, wary, reserved.
* Security is one of my major goals in life.

As I understand things, these are much more akin to Forer type lines than Barnum statements (I could be wrong but) as I understand things, the term "Barnum Statement" comes from the fact that you are making a very bold, almost boastful comment; typically as part of the future-cast of the sitter. These are very grand statements and oft time strong (overly done) terms of flattery and ego-boosting.

A master of the Barnum statement in today's commercial psychic world would be Sylvia Brown. Especially when she leers out at people correcting them by stating, "I'm the psychic, I'm right."

But hey, the magic world has changed the meaning of everything else, why not this?

Craig Browning wrote:As I understand things, these are much more akin to Forer type lines than Barnum statements (I could be wrong but) as I understand things, the term "Barnum Statement" comes from the fact that you are making a very bold, almost boastful comment; typically as part of the future-cast of the sitter. These are very grand statements and oft time strong (overly done) terms of flattery and ego-boosting.

A master of the Barnum statement in today's commercial psychic world would be Sylvia Brown. Especially when she leers out at people correcting them by stating, "I'm the psychic, I'm right."

But hey, the magic world has changed the meaning of everything else, why not this?

No offence, but that's completely wrong. Prepare, as Jeff Lint would say, to learn...

Point 1:
They became known as Barnum statements after P.T Barnum's maxim that his show had something for everyone. Like that maxim, Barnum statements describe positive personality traits everyone believes themselves to be endowed with, as demonstrated by experimental psychologist Bertram Forer in 1948. Barnum statements are not "part of the future-cast of the sitter" nor have they ever been. There are better mechanisms for that. Barnum statements are simply personality statements designed to demonstrate how we validate or reject criticism and praise. That's what they were engineered specifically to demonstrate. Nothing else. The classic experiment shows that Barnum statements have a tendency to invoke the personal validation fallacy, also known informally as the Forer effect. The sitter believes you're describing their own personality, when in fact the statements could be about practically anyone. That's what the Forer effect is.

Point 2:
If anyone's changing definitions, it's not "the magic world". It's not the Barnum principle, the Barnum technique, the Forer principle, the Barnum ploy, the Barnum effect, or Forer type lines, or any other "magic-biz psycho-babble horse pucky" terms you've previously used. It is the Forer effect, or more formally, Personal Validation Fallacy. Barnum statements are simply a rather crude way of invoking it, but without much personal resonance for the sitter, which surprisingly, you've mentioned before yourself.

Point 3:
Now you know the difference between a Barnum statement and the Forer effect, here's a short list of other stuff you need to know about:

Confirmation Bias
Subjective validation
The Lake Wobegone Effect
Information bias

That's just for starters. There are many other psychological quirks you can exploit. You can learn all about these things perfectly well for free online. Start with Wikipedia, follow the links, then spread out to follow the external links into more involved stuff. Think about how you might put these effects, tendencies and biases to use in making the reading you present, and you yourself, absolutely real, accurate, and above all, worth the massive amount of money you can charge if you have the intellect to pull it all off. It's up to you.

These Craig-style rants are very theraputic.

Having a system for reading things like the tarot or the palm doesn't mean that you're inflexible or unable to act "on the hoof". I find that having a system is simply another good tool at my disposal to help the reading go along nicely. For example, I might use cold reading to judge what the person is all about, I may use several techniques to disclose memories and/or events from her past and her present, I may make some safe assumptions for her future, and take a punt on a 10:1 statement regarding her past or present just to try to add the "wow" factor. But by having a system in place I will know that (for example) the Fool card is all about exciting new challenges but the need to keep one's feet on the ground and not to get too carried away. So I'll say to myself "Ah, that's what the cards want to talk about" and will also add this element into the reading. So I can be as intiuitive and organic as I want, but I also have the recognised and age old meanings of the cards (or the palm or the tea leaves) at my disposal as an added tool.

It also means that I'm continuing a tradition that is at least a couple of centuries old (and perhaps even a millenia or two), and I like the idea of keeping that old knowledge alive and in service in the 21st Century.

Exactly. You stay fluid and adapt to the situation as it unfolds and you learn more about the sitter. You don't just apply a system.

Tomo is not a professional psychic in the way that Reverend Browning and I happen to be. He therefore should not correct the teachers. I have no idea what he is arguing with Craig about since the discussion seems to be terribly long winded and too full of big words for me to follow. However since Craig is the professional and Tomo is not then I think he should bow down to the wisdom of the master.

I do appreciate that Blapsing Beard is doing some sort of trick and I have no idea what. I never combine tricks with cold reading since I have enough of that stuff when I minister to individual members of my congregation. Since it is enough trouble collecting money for my ministry I am hardly going to do it for nothing. I prefer to have some fun when performing and anything to do with readings is not fun for me.

As for the silly notion that people will pay for what they already know I am afraid that won't work if you do readings longer than 10 minutes. People want to know the future and if you don't tell them they will want their money back or alternatively will tell people you are a lousy psychic and you will lose business.

I am always astonished at how magicians and particularly mentalists waffle about the psychic business and pretend they are experts when they know absolutely nothing about it. The only experts on the subject are people who do thousands upon thousands of readings day in and day out.

It is this frame of mind that makes the uninformed spout about how wondrous Ian Rowland is when not a single psychic of my acquaintance crooked or otherwise uses a single technique in his book. Alas I detect here and elsewhere the blind leading the blind.

well, my final comments are this - as a recognised reverend of the cloth, from a family of alledgedly real psychics and have partaken from the holy dvds of mr. lewis, and learnt a fair bit...i have this to say...

take everything with a pinch of salt
learn by doing
do as thy whilt
love under law...no..hang on, got carried away there..
yeah, learn by doing
trust your intuition/gut feelings
be moral
accept a no as a no
read books/watch dvds from both sides of the fence, ted andrews, richard webster, ian rowland, mark lewis, jon riggs, kenton knepper's mind reading, enrique enriquez's invisible readings, and then suit yourself..
your audience will tell you if you are doing ok
you can guage that by the booing, the cheering, the punch in the eye or a kiss on the cheek...

as long as you're charming, non-sleazy, polite, moral, you'll be ok - so that's you screwed from the get go beard-face!