Cult Smashers: Part Nineteen

Sally sent Nate Kunstler an email asking him to be available for an “excursion” at 7:00 in the evening on Friday. She told him to dress “nice”---but not too formal---and meet him at the entrance of the community. She said he should have a meal at the regular time.

He was there at the time required. She drove up to him in a very conventional Toyota sedan. He got in the car and asked the obvious question. “No Jag?”

“Nah. That’s just for training or ‘showtime’. This is my regular ride. We’re just tourists tonight. I’m taking you to a magic show. Think of it as a field trip. Tonight you get your first lesson in how to be a psychic!”

Nate could see from the side of her face she was smirking. She added a question, “Do you remember in the martial arts class where Kelly told us about ‘circus tricks’?”

“Yeah, they are things that ‘qi Masters’ and teachers of ‘bullshido’ do to wow naive students. They are either out-and-out trickery, or, the use of simple physical laws to do things that most folk think are impossible.”

“Exactly. Well tonight we’re off to see a type of magician known as a ‘mentalist’. He’ll give you an example of a ‘cold reading’ getting done. It’s important to understand how they do this because this is often how ‘charismatic influencers’ convince their followers that they have some sort of secret powers or a direct pipeline to the divine.”

“You’ve mentioned a ‘cold reading’ before. What are they? How do they work?”

Sally took the time to double-check where they were on the GPS to ensure she didn’t miss a turn-off, decided it was safe to talk for a while, and, launched into a mini-lecture.

“A cold reading is a specific type of manipulative conversation where a person sets out to convince another person that they have some sort of psychic ability that either allows them to read minds, or, converse with some sort of metaphysical entity that has super-human knowledge. They do this by using the following techniques:

1. Confidence speak

2. Deduction

3. Choosing the right person

4. ‘Barnum’ statements

5. Recap and regurgitation

6. Changing their meaning

7. Guaranteed statements

8. Never taking full responsibility”

Nate could see that Sally’s face was taking on special look, as if she was accessing some sort of special ability.

“You sound like you’ve memorized that list, are you an expert yourself?”

She smiled “No, I’ve read up on the subject and been schooled in the science of memory. It allows me to remember large amounts of information using techniques that stretch way back into antiquity. It’s a useful skill to have in the sort of work I do for the Elders. Now back to cold readings---.”

“Confidence speak is something like the ‘Voice’ from Dune or ‘Jedi mind tricks’ from Star Wars. It’s simply the ability to always project total confidence in what you say. It’s based on the idea that great deal of our everyday judgement of whether or not someone knows what they are talking about comes down to how confident they are about what they are saying. People who’ve managed confidence speak never have the ‘nerves’ or look to others for validation. They speak as if they know with absolute certainty whatever lie or half-truth they are selling to someone else.”

“There’s nothing magical about confidence speak, it’s something that lots of salespeople and politicians have mastered in order to be successful at their jobs.”

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