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Is there any ideas on how to know someones star sign or if a person is a prefered cat or dog lover. If there is any clues to picking up on a persons 'thoughts' or facts on their life, what are the signs to look out for and tell you these things??

Thanks
Jon

If you want to be able to call someone's Sun sign, study astrology.

No, I am not taking the mickey out of a new person, but commenting on Linda Goodman's apparently extraordinary ability to know someone's sign shortly after meeting them. I think Mark Lewis has mentioned this before and perhaps Craig Browning as well (I'd heard of it before, too).

I've no idea how that could work, by the way, just that she apparently could do it for real.

Of course, there are various tricks that let you find out someone's sign, but I got the impression that this wasn't what you wanted to hear.

In fact, I am going to ask the revered Mr Lewis to pop along and answer the rest of your question.

Astrology is a crock of sh*te. Don't waste your time.
It is easy to tell someone's star sign. You use a technique called progressive anagrams. Google Doug Dyment for a good booklet on the subject. There are others out there too. It's a trick, and not a difficult one.

As I said, if you want tricks, there are plenty of versions. Doing it for real takes something else.

Of course, my subtle point, now blown out of the water, was that perhaps you are better off with the tricks.

Goodman was probably in the main encountering believers, and believers tend to have personalities that match their signs. I think the idea here is that people either intuitively believe in astrology and so embrace their sign's personality (I've seen people do this with their MBTI types, which is really just astrology for business people), or they believe in astrology because on looking into it they found that their personality matches their birth sign.

It's not universal, but it would probably give her enough hits for the purposes of establishing the story, and from a pragmatic point of view gives you reason enough to at least explore what the different signs ought to be like. And "do you believe in astrology" here becomes a pumping question, but doesn't sound like one at all.

Picking signs at random, you have a one in four chance of hitting or being off by one. Higher if you associate the summer signs with outgoing people and the winter signs with more reserved people. Proper science this; there is a genuine personality bias depending on when you were born in the year; just make sure you remember which hemisphere the person was likely to have been born in, because it is literally summer and winter that have the effect.

In terms of downright cunning, progressive anagrams are good, as has been said. You might want to try "dream signs" which doesn't use progressive anagrams, but is a similar system. I didn't get far with it, partly because it needs a bit of tailoring for the UK, and partly because somehow I found myself always trying it on Cancerians. Spookeh!

Linda Goodman used to do this at parties. The host or hostess (who presumably would have had an interest in astrology), would ask her along and as a party piece, she would identify the guests' signs. There's presumably a higher chance of a friend of an astrology fan believing in astrology than a random person. However, the guests were not necessarily believers.

We don't have the full facts about the misses and 'hits' that were just one out. We also don't know what information she got from the party organiser before, or if she did sort out non-believers first.

But as a way of promoting astrology and your knowledge of it, it's an impressive story. This is perhaps what people should actually be taking away from this anecdote.

Tried to keep it pragmatic rather than rabidly skeptical.

Astrology states that the face a person shows to the world depends more on their Ascendant sign than their Sun sign. The Sun sign shows the person's very deep, core life path which is not necessarily visible to outsiders; the Ascendant shows their outer mask and immediate response to the outside world.

Cynically, this means any guess you make about a person's sign has two chances of hitting -- if you don't get the Sun sign, it might be the Ascendant.

Practically, it won't work, because hardly anybody knows their Ascendant sign (or even that they have one).

http://www.deceptionary.com/signlanguage.html

I think you guys are just confusing him with all that talk about "doing it for real"

Berglas used to go to a party with no intention of performing and then read digits and impossible to know codes from peoples cards, drivers licenses and other things whilst they were still in their pockets...

But then of course that's what it sounds like. She tells Star Signs. That's what it sounds like.

Linda Goodman doesn't do this for real. She fishes, just like the rest of us.

For a star sign, search the forum.
For cat or dog lover, look at the clothing. Cat and dog lovers usually have their favorite pet's fur on their clothes...

A simple method would have them write or draw their star sign on something and get a peek at it, using a peek wallet or thought transmitter for example.

That's not the answer you wanted but in the real world that's probably the only way.

For something quick and impromptu, there are several progressive anagrams around, or "Dream Signs" which looks cleaner (anagrams seem so obviously fishing to me) but is harder.

For a real production number, Capricornian Tales has a big effect in which you end up not only divining the star sign but the actual birthday.

There are considerable personality differences between typical dog and cat owners. (Google "cat dog owner personality".) Given a period of observation, it shouldn't be too hard to say which pet somebody would prefer if they had to choose between the two. Putting the question that way would help cut out awkward answers like "I like them both", "I don't much care", "I don't have a pet", "I'd rather have a rabbit", etc.