I have no idea.. but I'm interested to find out.
I went to a psychic once about 10 years ago. She was rubbish, came out with a load of rubbish no facts at all.
Some info here:
http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum/inde...pic,200.0.html
I can't give the full answer right now ('working' :D) but will try and get back to this thread soon.
This is a big topic and I'm busy at the moment but we should discuss this one
There's a lot of information on the Britain's Psychic Challenge (Channel 4 programme) commentary here: http://www.ukskeptics.com/commentary...chic_challenge
It illustrates quite well how psychics work. When it comes to psychically locating objects etc. they are no better than anyone else but where they shine is when they're interacting with others.
If the commentary is too long have a look at the conclusion: http://www.ukskeptics.com/commentary...nge#conclusion
There's a few links there too explaining things.
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Actually, I've made a decision. ???
I think I'll do an article/factsheet on this.
We often say that psychics use 'Cold Reading' to do what they do. This is correct but when we're asked, "what is Cold Reading?" it's often difficult to give an answer.
That's because it's not a simple question to answer. Cold Reading is a set of techniques, not one simple thing.
The best way to describe it will to be to do an article on all of the basics involved then at least we'll have something to link to the next time it comes up.
Although I have got about half a dozen half finished things doneI'll work on this next.
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I would be wary of writing all psychic 'success' off to cold-reading. That implies that the psychic is deliberately setting out to mislead. On the contrary, most psychics have no idea they are using cold-reading techniques.
The success of any given reading generally relies on a genuine wish to help on the part of the psychic, and usually a will-to-believe on the part of the sitter.
Many years ago, my interest in psychics and mediums led me to learn tarot and attend a 'development circle' - in order to find out what went on in a medium's or psychic's head. Seemed to me that the best way to find out was to learn to do it myself.
What I learned was that when doing a tarot reading, even without looking up at the sitter I was picking up on their unconscious body-language cues, and so I could tell if my words were ringing true or not. I could then adjust them, if necessary. However, I must stress that it was some time before I realised that this was happening.
Having taught myself to read tarot (a hell of a lot of symbols to memorise!) I sometimes still do readings for fun, for friends. They are all aware that it's down to them to make the connections between what the cards say and what's happening in their own lives. Understood in this way, it's surprising how often a card reading can be helpful in bringing out the real issues or worries in a person's life.
Understood purely on a psychological level, tarot can help someone look properly at issues they have been avoiding. By forcing them to 'put all their cards on the table' perhaps?
When it comes to 'messages from beyond' once again it's down to the sitter to identify the alleged spirit communicator.
Psychic readings rely on more than just Cold Reading. Yes a lot of psychics do Cold Reading without being aware that that's what they're actually doing.
A reading relies on the beliefs of the sitter, confirmation bias, subjective validation, recall bias etc.
It can also rely on the lack of understanding of the sitter too. Many people take an "I cannot be fooled" attitude with regards to psychics (I'll have to see it for myself to believe it) and are stunned when the psychic comes out with information that they couldn't possibly have known.
It's the complexities like these that make it difficult to answer "how do psychic readings work?" quickly and concisely.
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"how do psychic readings work" is also a somework loaded question and position from the public.....
First, let me apologise for the length of this post. I hope that if you plough through it, you will find it entertaining. I welcome any thoughts.
And before I start, I would beg your indulgence and ask you not to assume I am a Woo. I am emphatically not. I believe that people have strange experiences. I do not believe in life-after-death, or that ghosts are the spirits of dead people, or that mediums can talk to my deceased relatives. Period.
So.
If we assume that by ‘psychic’ we mean someone who claims to pass on messages from the dead, i.e. a medium, then in my experience there are basically four types of ‘evidence’ to be considered.
If one attends a sitting with a medium, tapes the reading, transcribes it, separates it into discrete points, and considers each point in turn, many points will be found to be attributable to;
a) Fishing - where the medium has made several suggestions of Christian names, or place-names, or similar information, and waited until the sitter responds (however subtly) to one of them. The sitter usually has a wish to ‘be nice’ and can fall into the trap of helping, by giving the medium a name they appear to be struggling with, at which point the medium will say ‘Yes! That’s exactly what he was trying to say!’ or something similar. It’s remarkable how often a sitter will actually tell the medium a bald fact, and then exclaim excitedly when the medium later repeats that same fact as if the spirits have given her that information.
b) Generalisation – where the medium will say something which, it can later be proven, is said to virtually every sitter. An example is one medium who, in the late 90’s, went through a period of telling just about every sitter that the spirits were saying emigration to New Zealand would be a good move. It turned out that someone had previously told the medium that in the year 2000 the earth would tip on it’s axis, and floods and other terrors would decimate the world’s population, but New Zealand would be a safe country to live in at that time. (Clearly she didn’t know that New Zealand is one of the most geologically unstable countries and not a good place to be in the event of a polar shift.)
c) Cold-reading - where the medium is adept, consciously or unconsciously, at picking up non-verbal clues from the sitter and adjusts her ‘messages’ until they are accepted as correct.
d) Plain error. Sitters are notoriously bad at remembering the ‘misses’ in their readings, and will only recollect the ‘hits’. Transcribing and marking a reading can show this to be true.
If you apply these rules to a transcribed reading and remove all the dross, you may be lucky enough to be left with some information which does look truly remarkable. This is usually trivial information, of a personal nature.
Don't discount this. When one considers people who believe strongly that a medium has given them a message from a deceased relative or friend, in just about every case you’ll find that this ‘trivia’ has provided the most convincing evidence (in the sitter’s opinion).
Unfortunately it’s exactly this aspect of ‘trivia’ which renders it useless as evidence when it comes to convincing anyone else. It is, obviously, not replicable, so medumistic evidence cannot be tested using truly scientific method. It will only convince the sitter. No-one else.
As an example of ‘trivia’, here’s one from my own casebook. Please remember I am not a Woo!
During the second reading I ever had from a medium, it was suggested that my maternal grandmother was trying to convince me of her continued existence. The medium said she was being shown an image of three generations; grandmother, mother and daughter, blackberrying in a country lane. Did I remember doing this with my mum and grandma?
I replied No. (My grandmother broke her hip when I was three and such an excursion would have been unlikely.)
Undismayed, the medium said that the little girl had dark hair – was I dark when I was little?
No. I was blonde. (My hair darkened as I grew up.)
So who was dark-haired when they were little?
Aha! It came to me that my sister had been dark when she was little, not blonde as I had been. And she was ten years older than I. Conceivably, she could have gone blackberrying with mum and grandma, before grandma broke her hip.
The medium continued. I was to ask my mother about this, she should remember the day, as the little girl was wearing a pretty dress and although she had been given a bowl for the berries, had managed to get blackberry juice down her dress. The dress was either ruined, or very badly stained. My mother should remember.
Hurrah! Two sittings in, and already I was being offered the best evidence of all – evidence one must check with a third party! So, next time I saw my mother, I asked her about this event….. and she had absolutely no memory of it whatsoever. Damn.
About three weeks passed before I met with my sister. (As we are ten years apart in age, we love each other, but we have never been particularly close.) By this time I had decided that the medium was simply Wrong about this event, and when I mentioned to my sister that I had been to see a medium, and mentioned the blackberrying anecdote, I fully expected her to deny all knowledge of it. To my surprise, the tale was no sooner out of my mouth than she was insisting that yes, she remembered that event very well – she had loved that dress, and it had been completely ruined.
!!!!!!!!!
Okay. See what I mean about trivia? How trivial can it get?
Something’s going on, but it isn’t survival.
However, I am at a loss to explain where this bit of information came from. The best I can suggest is that it had indeed become a family legend, and at some point I had been told about it (you know, the way these tales are repeated over the years) and had forgotten, and somehow the medium had read my mind and found it there. That seems unlikely, as a) my mother had no recollection of the event and b) what kind of explanation is that anyway?
I have other stories which I would be happy to relate if anyone is interested.
And yes, Dr B, I do understand that they are purely anecdotal. In some ways, that’s the whole point.
Melanie.
(Lost on the island. Someone buy me the DVD’s then I can watch the whole thing right now and stop obsessing about the bloody numbers.)
Melanie
Explanations?
Blackberrying is perhaps a common social activity relating to that time.
Ask yourself the question that despite the fact that they are personal to you are they also common to many?
Following on from that, given such an event, what is the probability of small child getting juice down his/her clothes?
Furthermore, in terms of the ‘memory’ it could be a case of a translatable experience. Remember, you actually mentioned the event to her, so in effect you ‘loaded’ her answer. In effect, you ‘may have’ created the memory for her?
Possible explanations of course
Median
Great post Melanie.
Psychics do indeed rely a lot on trivia and half-made statements (where the sitter has to apply the meaning).
There are other ways of doing things though. One of them is the 'likely guess'. In other words given the sitters age, sex, etc. coming out with something is likely to be true for such a person.
Another technique is to shift focus (which is what seems to have been done in your case). The statement, although likely, wasn't true for you but it was for your older sister (assuming she remembers things exactly as they were). Shifting focus and widening the scope actually increases the likelihood of scoring a hit with a likely prediction.
Another technique occasionally used is to make highly unlikely statements. ??? The rationale behind this is that although they will miss most of the time (and be forgotten by the sitter) every now and then one will turn out to be true simply by chance and of course will seem to be amazing to that particular sitter.
Anyway, yes Melanie, if you have some more like that I'd love to see them.
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The "dross" is as much part of the reading as the "accurate" bits. If a medium throws out enough guesses in the course of a reading (even if they are things falling into the above categories), some are pretty much bound to be considered to be hits. By ignoring "the dross" you run the risk of giving the hits undue prominence, and in effect doing exactly what sitters do when, as you say, they "are notoriously bad at remembering the ‘misses’ in their readings, and will only recollect the ‘hits’."Originally Posted by Melanie
Thanks for your comments! There's a book in all his somewhere, and your input is really valuable in helping me develop a truly unbiased stance on this subject.
I was trying to answer the original question, which was abt the psychology of how a readng works - and IMO they work because of the 'trivia'. I just had a realisation about this;
There's a very subtle effect that occurs when a sitter receives a piece of info like the Blackberry Story. It can trigger a physical sensation of recognition, an emotional thrill. The sitter can easily interpret this as a feeling that their 'loved one is close to them' - and indeed is encouraged by the medium to believe that's what has happened. This in turn can set up a 'need to believe' - because if they deny that their loved one actually was close to them, it feels terribly disloyal. Easier to believe, than feel guilty because you don't believe.
Actually, the anecdotes I quote all came from one medium, who allowed me to investigate her (to the best of my ability).
Over a period of two years, I took about fifty people for readings. They were sometimes friends of mine, sometimes friends of friends, sometimes complete strangers - including a journalist on one occasion.
The sittings were pre-arranged but the medium was only ever told the first name of the sitter, if that, and no other detail at all.
I taped all the sittings, transcribed the tapes, took the transcriptions back to the sitters and 'marked' them for accuracy. I was as scientific as I could be, given that trying to analyse mediumistic readings is like trying to knit fog, but I did find that this medium consistently scored highly. Other mediums to whom I applied the same rule scored very low (although they were convincing at the time of the sitting, due to their aggressive ego).
I'll post some more tales as time permits. Thanks for your responses so far, they're all really valuable. However, I must away and watch Big Brother right now. (Social psychology... well that's my excuse anyway.)
Melanie
One of the main problems with tackling this issue is that there is more than one type of psychic reading and more than one reason that people go to psychics.
There are the psychic phone-lines, internet/remote readers, amateur psychics (your local palm readers etc.), professional psychics (those who charge for their services – Tarot readings etc.), to the ‘top’ end of the market where psychics give personal service to their elite clients (in exchange for a lot of money).
People use psychics for various reasons also: fun, such as at parties, curiosity; but also for specific issues such as personal problems and emotional trauma. The latter group often use a specific type of psychic: the ‘medium’.
So, looking at the psychology of psychic readings requires us to concentrate not so much on everyone who uses psychics (most probably don’t take them too seriously) but on those who:
- Believe in psychic ability to begin with; and
- Those who may not have done but have been convinced of it through experience.
- (Those who use psychics for emotional trauma etc. can be left ‘til later.)
Those who believe in psychic abilities do not need convincing that such abilities exist (obviously) but they may need convincing that any particular psychic is genuine, whereas those who don’t initially believe will always need to be convinced.
So how is this achieved?
I’ll start us off with the initial requirements:
Setting the scene.
Being personable. The psychic who adopts a friendly disposition and puts her client at ease has already begun disarming any negative thoughts or concerns the client may have.
Confidence. Psychics are self-proclaimed, and usually, so is their reputation. In an unregulated field such as this psychics can claim anything they like (look at how many of the media types are Britain’s #1 for example, or see Gordon Smith as a lesson in how to decorate your reputation with superlatives). Claims don’t need to be true, just plentiful. The idea is to act confidently so as to make the client confident in the psychic’s ability too.
The belief system and the props. The psychic may explain that she uses the Tarot (runes, palms, tealeaves, whatever) and that she’s studying the system and go on to explain some of the mysticism behind it (which can also be complete mumbo-jumbo). At this point the idea is to get the client to accept the method used and its mystical nature. This helps to guard against awkward questions also.
Encouraging feedback. Psychics thrive on feedback. To make sure that the client provides it they often use techniques like informing the client that their system (Tarot, say) will provide a lot of information but as the psychic, she won’t know what the information means so it’s up to the client to validate it.
It’s all about being welcoming and encouraging to those who believe and disarming and discouraging of negativity.
I’ve seen many transcripts and heard many readings and this is not something that is always done (some psychics just jump straight in) but there’s often a lot of this going on – and it may even be done subconsciously by the psychic.
It’s all about setting the scene, welcoming the client, trying to impress them with the power of their mystical system, encouraging them to get involved in the reading and (unwittingly) provide feedback.
So, in a nutshell, stage 1 in the psychic reading is to get the client to remove their psychological barriers as much as possible (should they have them of course) and get involved in the experience as much as possible.
Does anyone accept this as a reasonably accurate outline, or are there other, more subtle, techniques used?
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Well, I for one find it difficult to argue against such a cogent description. It avoids generalisation, which is key. There's an assumption that 'psychics' are marginally different from 'mediums' and I agree. I have met a few people whose 'work' is led almost entirely by an honest wish to help, but without exception these people would class themselves as 'mediums'.
Of course, there's a valid argument that there's no difference at all, but maybe that's a different thread...
So what's stage 2?
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Erm....
Coming soon.
I'll do it as I'm planning the article for the website.
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