Cult Smashers: Part Twenty

“The second item on the list is ‘deduction’. The best way to understand this is to think about Sherlock Holmes. He’s the guy everyone knows who uses it to solve his crimes. It’s very simple, really. You just pay attention to all the little details that you can notice about the person you are talking with. Do they have soft, clean hands? Or are they calloused, stained, and hard? If they are former, odds are they don’t do physical labour to make a living---if the latter, they probably do. If you are observent enough, you can often deduce a fair amount of information about a person simply by paying attention and figuring out what they imply. Since most people never do this, it can make you look like you have access to some sort of occult power.”

“Choosing the right person simply means that you try to figure out exactly what sort of person is in front of you and making a quick decision about whether or not they would be succeptible to being cold read. There’s a big difference between cold reading someone with a tendency towards New Age beliefs versus someone who’s a card-carrying member of the American Skeptics society.”

“A good stage mentalist can help sort things out in a variety of ways. It can be as simple as having ‘helpers’ in the audience listen to the conversations of the people around them and recommend people that sound susceptible to go up on the stage. Or they can use deduction and decide based on people’s clothing---someone wearing an New Age symbol---like a Yin Yang---might be assumed to be a ‘soft target’.”

(Nate was suddenly acutely aware of the taiji ring on his left hand.)

“Barnum statements” are vague statements that can apply to most of the human population but get directed to a specific individual. This is where good deduction and choosing the right person can give the mentalist some general ideas about the person in front of them, and then seeing how they respond to a Barnum statement will help then zero in more. Newspaper horoscopes generally consist of Barnum statements such as It could be easy to get offended or take something personally today. Before you react, take a moment to cool off. The issue might not be that serious.”

Sally harumpffed and opined “I don’t know about you, but it’s easy for me to ‘get offended or take something personally’ just about every day. And taking moment to cool off is pretty good advice all the time. And that’s the point, Barnum statements apply to everyone---which means they are of real value to no one. But the naive person can totally miss this fact.”

“The next items in the toolbox are recapitulation and regurgitation. People will often tell you things about themselves and forget that they did it. All you have to do is keep track of what they tell you, and give it back to them later on. Lots of time that’s enough to sound like a psychic to some folks. This is especially true to someone who is used to not being listened to. And let me tell you, that includes a LOT of people, including most women.”

“Ouch!”, Nate visibly winced.

“The next tool is ‘changing your meaning’. That involves making words ‘plastic’ or ‘rubbery’ when necessary. This is dramatically helped when you use ‘weasel words’ on a regular basis. For example, I once read an air-quality brochure for a photocopier that said ‘this machine doesn’t affect air quality for normal usuage with adequate ventilation’. What the heck is ‘normal usuage’ and ‘adequate ventilation’? Pretty much whatever management wants it to mean, I’d suggest. Mentalists doing cold reading use this sort of ‘vague speak’ all the time.”

“It really goes a long way to reinforce the credibility of a cold reading if the mentalist can toss in a ‘guaranteed statement’. This is a dangerous maneuvor, but if he or she is absolutely sure about something and can drop it at the right time, it can pretty much wipe away all skepticism. This is the sort of thing that having helpers doing research ahead of time can really make or break. For example, if someone mentions to the person next to them that they just went to a friend’s funeral, and that person died of a stroke---a helper who overhears can tell the mentalist. Then the mentalist can then ask the question ‘has someone close to you died recently of something like a heart attack---no, maybe a stroke?”

“This leads to the final technique: never taking full responsibility. People doing cold readings are going to have misfires. When this happens they have to have some sort of “out” that will allow them to keep the support of the crowd. The standard way of doing this is to have some sort of ‘wiggle room’. One way of doing this is to say that there is a disturbance in the ‘vibes’ of the audience---which creates a sort of psychic ‘static’ or ‘degraded receptivity’. Another would be to say that the usual spirit who speaks to her is missing, and she’s working with someone new who isn’t as good at communication with the living. That sort of thing. If she makes a mistake, then, it boils down to a communication error. Then she can come up with something on the fly---like ‘oh it’s difficult for spirits to understand the lower dimensions because they live in ‘non-linear time’ or ‘multi-dimensional space’.”

At this point Sally changed lanes. “I want a cup of coffee and a donut. I suggest you have something too. It’s going to be a long night.” She signaled and turned on an En Route. They go out of the car and headed for a local chain restaurant with abysmal coffee and terrible confectionary bombs---but clean toilets.

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Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!