talkmagic.co.uk

Well here goes my first review, and of something that doesn’t appear to have been reviewed.

I was surfing the Internet to see if there was anything it had to offer on this subject and I came across trickshop.com

They had a downloadable booklet called the Art and Science of Cold Reading, for $17.95 – about £12.00. You can purchase a printed book version for about twice the price. But a PDF was good enough for me so I clicked away.

The booklet is 52 pages and is best described as a ‘bluffers guide’ to cold reading. It starts with basic explanations of what cold reading is and the ethics involved. The next chapter is a very brief summary of personality types coupled with some basic psychology. It expands on this and talks about the similar stages that we all reach in life.

The third chapter has a whole series of (American) demographic data. The fourth chapter gives some very simple information on the ‘warmer’ side of a reading – appearance, demeanour etc.

Chapter five takes you through how to put together the information learnt so far and chapter six gives you a whole series of sample statements to use in a reading. The final chapter gives you some tips on how to deal with difficult questions.

I would say that it’s a mixed bag. It is certainly not an authoritive work, 52 pages can’t be, but it still has some information that I have not seen in many bigger and better books.

Chapter two on how to read basic personality types and the stock generalisations about people I found especially useful. Whilst the demographic data in chapter three was from the USA, I still found it very useful for me though I am based in the UK, its easy to tell what will still be true and what needs research elsewhere.

This book alone won’t make you into an expert cold reader, indeed on its own it would probably be quite misleading. However as part of a collection on the subject this book is an excellent supplement to help get you started and fill in the odd gap.

Enjoy,

Roland