Covert Metaphor

You have a pleasant personality and are generally liked by others.

Who is going to argue with that statement? Sure, there probably are a few out there, but if you were cold reading in person, you’d have no problem spotting the type who would tell you how terrible and unliked they are. The word pleasant is rather mild and impersonal, so you’re less likely to raise any flags. The word generally opens the path to many vague possibilities, but it is nothing definite. It is in a way similar to an open-ended suggestion.

You can be easily hurt at times…

Well, unless you are a robot this can apply to you at least once.

…and as a result are more careful with displaying your feelings than you used to be. 

Children display their feelings outwardly in any setting until eventually they learn that it is not appropriate to cry for trivial reasons. People get their feelings hurt over and over, lose loved ones, and get bounced around in relationships, making them a bit more cynical than they used to be. This statement basically applies to everyone, except maybe younger children.

I sense a period early on in your life, teenage years perhaps, when you felt misunderstood as if you couldn’t really get close to anyone.

We’ve all felt misunderstood at one point or another, and just wanted to keep to ourselves. It is part of being human. This is a common feeling as a teenager, so using perhaps gives you this option.

You pay attention to health and physical fitness at times.

I didn’t say that you’re spending hours in the gym every day. You may have at times been concerned about what you ate or bought some exercise machine in the heat of the moment after watching an absolutely mesmerizing infomercial. You get the idea.

You have had a few worries recently concerning money…

Rich or poor, this applies to you. And how recently? Yesterday or last year? The effect is similar to nomilizations, allowing the subject to fill in the meaning, not you.

Your progress in this world has not always been as fast as you would like…

How many people have you met that are completely content with their achievements? Unless you are a successful Buddhist monk, you most likely want more of what you don’t have. Now once I buy that Porsche, then I’ll be happy. Riiiiight…

You have sometimes wondered if you have made the right decisions at times..

Yesterday I had to decide between tea or coffee. I wasn’t really sure if I made the right decision. We’re all forced to make decisions every day which aren’t necessarily that substantial. Did we make the right decision by going to see Transformers instead of The Bourne Ultimatum? Oh the pressure.

Romantically it hasn’t always been easy, and your outlook on life has changed because of this. 

Yeah, show me the perfect relationship. And you’ve changed even if you married your high school sweatheart in the Mormon temple with Jesus at your side.

Shortly you will receive some pleasant news.

Will it be in the fortune cookie at lunch or maybe you can go home early from work? It could be anything!

I see some travel in your future and several new horizons beckoning.

First of all this statement is appealing to most, so there won’t be any argument here. Since it is sometime in the future, there are many possibilities. And travel could mean across town, but not necessarily across the world.

I can see you happy and productive in your old age, surrounded by friends and family.

You’re not likely to hear the response, “No, I’ll die young, alone and unhappy!” So it fits.

As you can see all these statements have no meat. They really don’t mean anything, and yet they still apply to the majority of people.

admin :: Aug.09.2007 :: cold reading :: 1 Comment »

The Internet is supposedly anonymous, but I know quite a bit about you, my dear reader.

You have a pleasant personality and are generally liked by others. You can be easily hurt at times and as a result are more careful with displaying your feelings than you used to be. You are above average intelligence and will keep on learning all the way through life.

I sense a period early on in your life, teenage years perhaps, when you felt misunderstood as if you couldn’t really get close to anyone, as if you were walking on the outside of life. These feelings very occasionally reoccur.

You pay attention to health and physical fitness at times.

You have had a few worries recently concerning money, but you know you have the power to solve them.

Your progress in this world has not always been as fast as you would like, but I can see significant growth in the future.

You have sometimes wondered if you have made the right decisions at times, and it looks as if you have. You work best when you make up your own mind on things. Although it is useful to ask others for advice before making your own mind up.

Romantically it hasn’t always been easy, and your outlook on life has changed because of this. The future is much easier in this regard than the past.

Shortly you will receive some pleasant news. It won’t be anything momentous, but it will be sufficient enough to raise your sights and hopes. It is good news.

I see some travel in your future and several new horizons beckoning.

I can see you happy and productive in your old age, surrounded by friends and family.

Golly, that just might apply to anyone. Stay tuned tomorrow as I work out why each statement is a potential match (most of the time).

admin :: Aug.08.2007 :: cold reading :: No Comments »

 I’ve decided to add cold reading to this site’s categories. I think cold reading skills, psychological illusions and mentalism can only enhance the skills of someone studying conversational hypnosis, metaphor and persuasion.

Talk of cold reading has been mostly limited to the psychic underground. Recently magician turned psychological illusionist / mentalist Derren Brown made the term Cold Reading more accessible to the masses, but there has been a lot of really good material available for years to those that travel in magic and mentalism circles. Cold Reading is a technique which allows someone to covertly collect all kinds of information from a stranger. It’s mostly used in psychic and tarot readings, but I’m sure you can see the potential here.

The best introduction to Cold Reading, which is fairly new, is an online book offered by trickshop.com that allows you to create the impression you can read minds. There are many possibilities using Cold Reading in a persuasion setting. The better you can read people, the easier it’s going to be to calibrate.

So, the question is why does Cold Reading work? In psychological terms the answer is subjective validation or selective memory. When you throw out a handful of vague declarations about a person, they’ll usually attach significance to the things which they identify with, and tend to forget those things that didn’t really resonate with them.

John Wingert has produced an excellent audio product called Fake Psychic which goes deeply into the psychological aspects of Cold Reading, allowing the reader to adapt to anyone, as opposed to using canned scripts; which can be helpful in the beginning to learn, but it has its severe limitations.

 The truth of the reality is most people fail miserably when required to appraise their own individual personalities. Very few people make a study of their own lives. Learn basic psychology and the methods of differentiating personality types and you’ll have most people you cross think you’re a genuine psychic. So many want to believe!

admin :: Jul.01.2007 :: cold reading :: 1 Comment »