SECTION TWO: COLD READING COLD READING CRASH COURSE

Cold Reading is the art of making vague generalizations and then gauging the responses of the volunteer in order to make more specific statements that apply directly to that volunteer. Please note that I have labeled Cold Reading as an art and not as a science. There will rarely be scientific data present for you to look at when doing a Cold Reading. Instead, there will be a person in front of you who wants to know something about the past, present, and/or future. Normally, the volunteer wants to know what is in their future; however you can prove to be just as “psychic” when relating things about the past or present to the volunteer. How do you know what things the volunteer is thinking, feeling, etc.? In most cases, you simply wait for the volunteer to tell you—either verbally or non-verbally. Providing accurate information to a volunteer through cold reading is

called getting a “hit”. When you have to recover from giving the wrong information, this is known as a “miss”.

There are three major areas people are typically interested in when they seek a psychic Reading. These areas are: Health, Wealth, and Love. The major area that encompasses the previous three areas, as well as everything else, is Life.

Some charlatans use Cold Reading skills to pretend to speak with the dead. You will be doing nothing of that sort with the system provided in this book. You will not diagnose anyone. You will not tell anyone to invest in certain items. You will not tell a person to stay married or get a divorce. And yet, you will let them answer all their own questions by themselves, while still leaving them better off than before they met you.

THE META MODEL AND THE MILTON MODEL

According to the Meta Model in Neurolinguistic Programming, language is a translation of mental states into words. During this translation there is an unconscious process of deletion, distortion, and generalization. Deletion means that not everything thought is said. Distortion is defined as assumptions and structural inaccuracies. Generalization is a shift towards absolute statements.18

Using the Meta Model, you can get people to go from generalized statements to specific experiences where changes can then be made that will result in behavioral change.19 You can also elicit specific information from the volunteer, which you then feed back to the volunteer as part of your Cold Reading.

Generally, the Meta Model has been used to challenge the distortions, deletions, and generalizations of a person. However, you can use it in Cold Reading by eliciting more specific information from a volunteer and then feeding that information back to the volunteer using different words in similar phrases.

For example, if in a Cold Reading a person said “That news makes me angry,” then you might respond with “If it weren’t for that news, you would not be angry?”20 You can now elicit more information from the volunteer, yet you don’t really guide them to a decision. You let them use the resources they already have inside themselves to generate positive change. When you ask Meta Model questions, you appear to be genuinely interested in the person in front of you (and you SHOULD BE genuinely interested for the best results). It is a little bit like Reflective Listening, except you get the person to be very clear on what they mean when they say things, and what they feel about those things.

Just as useful for the Cold Reader is the Milton Model from Neurolinguistic

Programming. The Milton Model is a collection of artfully vague language patterns

18 _{“Meta Model (NLP)” Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_model%28NL:%29} 19 _IBIS

elicited from the work of Milton H. Erickson. [“Meta Model (NLP)” article in Wikipedia].21 Hmmm, that sounds an awful lot like Cold Reading, now doesn’t it?

THE BARNUM EFFECT / FORER EFFECT

Psychologist Bertram Forer invented a fake character profile that was the same for everyone who took the profile test. This is the origin for the commonly used Horoscope Hoax, where every participant is given the same general horoscope and they all rate it as having a high level of accuracy. On a scale of 1 to 5, the participants ranked the

character profile as 4.2 and above during independent studies of this phenomenon. Psychologist Paul Meehl first described this phenomenon and named it after P. T. Barnum, calling it “The Barnum Effect”. The key is to be vague, and to concentrate attention on when you get something right, in order to minimize the misses.

SHOTGUNNING

“Shotgunning” is a particularly powerful concept, made even more powerful when used with a group of people at the same time. You simply express a bunch of statements that could easily apply to anyone, until someone raises their hand, as they are convinced that what you just said relates to them. You can also use this technique with just one person, although it loses some of its power because not all the statements you throw out will apply to the volunteer in front of you, whereas when you have a group, any general statement you make is bound to apply to someone in the group. Once you have found someone who agrees with the general statement, it is a simple matter to use more “Shotgunning” techniques to get more specific information.

For example, in a group, you might say “I see someone whose father has heart problems” (Which you would NEVER say while performing Cubed Roots). You will then most likely get a hit in a large enough group. Now, you go on to reveal a letter of the name of the father, but you reveal it using the “Shotgun” method by saying something like “I see a b or a d, it might be a p…I’m not sure”. The person will then provide you with the name! They might say “His name is Paul” or they might offer additional information. If the name doesn’t fit the father, then you say something to the effect of “I’m still getting a strong impression on this. Did one of his close friends or a relative have one of those letters in their name?” You will then usually get a hit.

Misses are soon forgotten and can even add credibility. Remember, the spirit world is very murky and it is hard to see definite things in people’s futures!

4 MAGICKAL KEY WORDS: AND, BUT, OR, YET

There are four key words that will help you become a better Cold Reader. These words are: “And’, “But”, “Or”, and “Yet”. The first word we will discuss is “And”.

The use of the word “And” often lets you get multiple hits. The word “And” lets you link two or more statements together. “I see you are thinking about a male AND he is a lover.” At this point, the volunteer may shake their head yes, in which case you have got a hit. If they say no, or nonverbally cue you as to the fact this male is not their lover, you can use the word “BUT” to get out of the situation.

You simply say, “BUT he is not your lover, he is the lover of someone else.” The word “BUT” cancels out everything before it in the mind of a person you are talking with and lets you move forward with the reading, while still appearing highly accurate. The word “But” negates everything said before the word “But” in a sentence. The word “However” will also provide the same function.

The word “Or” lets you correct a miss into a hit. For example, if you think somebody might be worried about the price of something, you might say “I can see you’re

concerned about price.” If they give a non-verbal or verbal objection, you then say “Or maybe you are the type of person for who price is no object.”22 This is most powerful when done swiftly after gauging a non-verbal objection; that is, before they can verbalize said objection. You then appear to be reading their mind.

The word “Yet” allows you to get two hits or more for the price of one, because you cover all bases of a Cold Reading statement. For example, “Most of the time you like to be the center of attention, yet sometimes you like to keep to yourself for a private

moment.” The word “Yet” allows you to say two opposite things and still maintain credibility.

TWO POWERFUL WORDS: FOR YOU

When you say things like “In your experience”, or “For you” you relate those things directly to the volunteer that you are Cold Reading. The level of believability goes up when these words are interspersed into a reading. The volunteer’s perception of your accuracy also goes up and misses are not remembered as easily.

SOME KEY PHRASES: TEND TO, SOMETIMES, OTHER TIMES, GENERALLY, MOST OF THE TIME

Using phrases like “Tend to”, “Sometimes”, “Other times”, “Generally” and “Most of the time”, will let you make statements that seem true because of the temporal factor. By temporal factor I mean that the person will agree that sometimes they do things. If they say they don’t EVER do something, you can then use the words “But” and/or “Or” to cover yourself. Most people do have a tendency to think of the one instance they did something and then they apply what you said to that situation, thus improving your hit rate.

THE MORE…THE MORE

There is a language pattern in Neurolinguistic Programming known as “The More…The More”. This is a “command” or “trigger” phrase that tells people the more they do one thing, the more they will do another thing. The volunteer then associates the two things together and when they do the first thing it tends to make them want to do the second thing.

“The more you think about these things, the more you realize how you can apply these ideas in your own life.”

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LANGUAGE PATTERNS

There are many other useful patterns of language, that you can find in books and audio programs that will let you become a better Cold Reader. There is, however, no

replacement for actually going out and doing some Cold Reading in the real world. With these few tips on Cold Reading, you should be able to handle quite a few different

situations that you might encounter. Please note that I gave no stock lines. The lines I did give were merely for an example and I don’t expect you to (or even want you to) go out and just repeat those lines verbatim to people. I have one final advice regarding the art of Cold Reading.

FOLLOW YOUR HUNCHES / GUT FEELINGS / INTUITIONS

You should follow your hunches when doing Cold Reading. You can call them hunches, gut feelings, or even intuitions. You will be surprised at how many things you pick up on an unconscious level about a person. The more you Cold Read, the more you will tend to gain unconscious information on people you come into contact with which will let you make conscious statements that prove to be highly accurate in a very eerie manner.

WHY THIS IS QUANTUM LEAPS AND BOUNDS AHEAD OF MOST READING