Cold Reading

I am interested in people's reactions to this

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/THE-TALKING-T...ryZ19271QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

My own reaction was to say 'ugh!!!!!!'


Aerin

"Cold Readings." Sounds like circus tricks...not tarot reading...and the kind of thing that gives serious students of tarot a bad name.

I agree. Ugh.

The following is an opinion, and should not be construed as a statement of fact.

Much of our competition (neon readers), are cold readers. The folks that upsell the curse curing candle, the karmic cleansing…cold readers all.

Read the product description and you’ll find “OUR BOOKS IMPRESSED RICHARD WEBSTER!”

So they impressed the big cold reader himself…that’s right…the man that keeps Llewellyn’s going is and always has been a Cold Reader. Do some good searches and you’ll find he writes for two markets, and does not believe in ‘Tarot’ or anything else he writes about. He believes in being a good and gentle con man.

But here’s the kicker. Do you have 78 memorized bits that you drag out for readings? I’ve sat next to readers who recited entire pages of Pollack & Greer. Guess what. That’s Cold Reading (also called Stock Reading).

Well – that’s our completion. Welcome to the big show.

http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/cold-reading-and-tarot-part-1/
http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/cold-reading-and-tarot-part-2/
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10772


Here's a brilliant vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cEadctJdwM

Thanks Umbrae.

I think it's the manipulation part that bothers me, not people reading into words what they need to hear at the time but rather being manipulated into thinking something that isn't 'right' for them. If what they hear puts the 'reader' in a more powerful and more beneficial position than the 'sitter' then I feel twitchy.

78 memorised bits? Aaaargh. That would surely sound, well, fake.

Interesting links, thanks.

Aerin

Um ... before I came to this forum, the only time anyone ever used the expression "cold readings", it meant readings where you know nothing of the person at all. So without any prior knowledge of th eperson you're reading cold, as opposed to warm readings, where you're "warmed up" by knowing what kind of work they do, whether they have children etc. Personally, I read a lot better cold than I do warm - if I know too much about a person, a warm reading will have me wondering if what I'm saying is from my own assumptions about them rather than what the cards are trying to say, while if I'm doing a cold reading I know it's 100% from the cards, because ... well, ... I simply don't know anything about them to make assumptions *from*!

That's what I thought it meant, too, but I guess we live and learn, huh?

I think knowing something about the person makes it easier for me to make the reading more helpful and relevant to the sitter's situation. Not knowing anything beforehand may make it possible for me to amaze the sitter with what I get from the cards alone, but I find that when I've read the cards alone and then the sitter says, "Oh, that card looks like Grampa Louie and he has a bearing on this situation because...." and then I get the aha moment myself, the reading becomes a three-way dialogue between me, the sitter, and the Universe through the cards. I find that to be awesome. If that's cold reading, then I guess I'm a fraud.

There's a cold reader (neon reader -- I like that term) a few cities over. Been in business since the late '60s. She's been arrested so many times but she's still around with her "Sally's Palm Readings" neon sign glowing.

Besides cold reading she's a real artist. One con I heard about was her egg ploy -- she gives you an egg that you keep for a few days and the egg sucks out your bad woo woo. You return it to her and she shows you a growth inside by holding it up to a candle. She cracks it open and sure enough you get to see there's bad woo woo grossness inside. These eggs are very expensive.

She uses fertilized eggs so of COURSE there's grossness inside. Her use of the candle is actually called candling and chicken farmers used to use this method to separate ferts from unferts. Many people have never seen the inside of a fertilized egg so they fall for it.

Shoot. Shouldn't have told you this. Could have sold this "genuine" evil woo woo cleanser on ebay ...

Ya couldn't have sold it to me because I grew up on a chicken farm.

I'd heard the term 'cold reading' outside this form quite a lot, applied mainly to mediums/ psychics trying to scam people into thinking they knew stuff that they didn't. So this made sense to me. What shocked me was also the blatent marketing of dishonesty (my pov).

Aerin

2 weeks ago my young cousin called me CRAZED! Her gf went to a few readers (neon) and the last one took her for $1000! So she called me for help - like I am the authority on psychics!

I was so furious with this girl!!! I was young and naive once too but I don't get it. If I was closer I would have paid that reader a visit myself!

She wanted to know what she should do with the candles that she got for her $1K!!! I told her to throw them out! She couldn't believe that would be ok! Oh brother! I ranted on for about an hour with her about not giving her power away to anyone! Not giving her magic away and how that woman cold read her and that I have met readers like this before that tried to sell me all sorts of snake oil treatments etc and that it is all garbage! She said the woman did the whole you are cursed spiel and you need cleansing. I told her that was Nonsense and that she can cleanse herself if she feels she needs it and I told her how.... and I told her she wasn't cursed. She was in tears and quite frantic she thought this woman cursed her!!! I told her to go to the police and make them have her arrested!

But yes - memorizing book meanings and regurgitating them is also cold reading.... any reading where you don't use your intuitive/psychic abilities and stretch your mind to me is rote and cold.