The Emperor

Psychics

I have to say while I respect the magician's art and finding out how they do their tricks tends to increase my appreciation for their skill and ingenuity (except for David Blaine who cheats with camera tricks which really isn't on) I feel rather differently about Psychics (similar techniques are used by fortune tellers and astrologers too but seem, at least to me, to be less sinister).

Essentially they deal with people who are suffering from the loss of a loved one and/or worried about things like the afterlife. Their entire routine is based on the premise that they ar really contacting the dead and often are used to extort large amounts of money from them.

They use a range of tricks which range from the crude (like using researchers to get information on you that they later feed back) to the more sophisticated:

Barnum Statements

Basically a statement specific enough so that people think it is aimed at them while being vague enough to apply to everyone.

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Resources:

http://www.geocities.com/omegaman_uk/astrolgy.html

http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/astrolog.html

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000081.html

http://www.geocities.com/Omegaman_UK/frauds.html

http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-07/rorschach.html

How come TV psychics seem so convincing?

The Cold Reading Technique

cold reading entry in the Skeptics Dictionary

http://skepdic.com/refuge/funk33.html

Books on persuasion:

http://skepdic.com/refuge/persuaders.html

There is a book The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland which covers the variety of techniques. Some reviews:

http://www.tarotpassages.com/coldreading.htm

http://www.magicweek.co.uk/magic_reviews/review_book_cold_reading_ian_rowland.htm

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