Psychic Mediums
and Their Techniques
Presentation by Cameron Mount
Personal experiences
Only some of that is true
And it wasn't the stuff about being psychic
I can't say that all
psychics are fake.
But I can tell you how to replicate exactly what they do.
Psychics use a technique called
Cold Reading
There are even books
where you can teach
yourself the skills
that psychics employ
in their trades.
This is a skill nearly anyone can learn with just a bit of practice.
I own this one.
Cold reading basically comes down to:
gleaning information on the sly
and
feeding that same information back to the client
The typical procedure
Establish Credentials
The first thing most psychics do at the start of a session, whether individual or group, is explain their history, even if only briefly.
This frequently involves documents, often framed ones that hang on walls, and almost always come with a story of the first or most important psychic encounter.
But documents are
easily forged.
And even those that are legitimate, are often provided by so-called schools that offer certificates for a substantial fee.
And who is to say that their psychic encounters are either true or untrue?
There are some true believers.
But that doesn't change the techniques
The next thing most psychics do is
Express their own fallibility
This allows them to sidestep any mistakes later, and creates sympathy from the client.
There are several ways they do this:
Couched explanation
The art/science is interpretation
Things I say may make more sense to you than to me
I'm only human, and the signs are not always clear or obvious
Predictions are not certainties
This is all about rapport
The friendlier a psychic seems, the more eager to please the client is.
Salespeople work very hard to establish rapport
And, ultimately, psychics are salespeople.
Psychics rely on repeat clients
Just like other people in the sales industry.
Now the reading begins
Rainbow Ruse
Telling someone they have both a quality and its opposite
Examples
Flattery
Telling someone something they would like to hear about themselves
But it can't be obvious flattery.
That makes us suspicious.
Examples
A sub-point of this is
Psychic Credit
Barnum Statements
Generalized, usually vague statements about a client's character
Most often these apply equally to everyone
Also known in psychology as the Forer Effect
Examples
Fuzzy fact
A statement of fact that is fuzzy, such that when a client remembers it later, they ascribe more detail than was presented
Examples
Good Chance Guess
What it says on the tin
Examples
Lucky Guess
Yup. For real.
There are dozens
of other specific techniques.