Cold Reading: How I Made Others Believe I Had Psychic Powers
I’ve always wanted to become a fortune teller’s apprentice. I would have loved to peek behind the velvet curtain to see what people ask, what the psychic tells them, and how these recommendations are really made. Plus, there are great fringe benefits such as getting the upcoming lottery numbers every week.
My career took me down a different path, but I recently seized the opportunity to give psychic sessions myself. I did this using a method called cold reading, a way to make people believe you have psychic powers that includes techniques such as using social cues, making broad statements, and betting on probabilities.
Personally, I don’t believe in psychics but have an interest in social engineering (check out this video of how I owned a Fortune 500 company over the phone). I had read the book The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland and was itching to apply the techniques. Luckily, I work at Veracode, and our HR team didn’t even twitch when I asked if I could do psychic readings as part of our biannual Hackathon (they’ve heard much crazier ideas, believe me).
The cold reading was fun and worked better than I expected, even if not all of my readings turned out to be true. In this blog, I’d like to share the experiment, result and some of the techniques you can try at home and at work (or to start your own psychic business).
My Psychic Experiment
I advertised my services as free psychic readings where people could hear about their career, health, relationship, and money issues — past, present and future, with predictions based on “a conjoint reading of your astrology, hands, and aura” (I made this up). I asked people to either drop by or schedule a slot by email but I didn’t accept people who I knew very well personally to control for previous knowledge tainting the experiment.
I gave a total of eight readings over two days. This was more exhausting than I thought because I had to hold a meaningful conversation while processing what I saw on the other side and making a fast decision of what I would say next. I had the full spectrum of people taking me up on my service, from hardcore skeptics to firm believers.
Giving an elaborate explanation, I had every person draw some lines on an astrological chart I downloaded off Google Image Search and had them trace the outline of their hand before I started giving the reading. At the end, each respondent filled in an online survey (science!) and got a 1:1 debrief on the fact that I am not in fact psychic and that they shouldn’t follow my advice (ethics!). I’m very thankful that everyone took my revelation very positively.
Have you had a Reading Before?
A great way to gauge a “sitter” right from the start is to ask them if they have had a psychic reading before. I stated to everyone that what I see is not a science and not always clear to me and that I would need their help in interpreting the findings. This is a great way to prime them to provide interpretations of my sometimes vague statements.
I divide sitters into three categories: Skeptics, Maybes, and Believers. Skeptics usually have not had any readings before and were the hardest to read because they did not provide much help in terms of body language and verbal confirmations. Maybes may or may not have had readings before and were easiest to impress because they didn’t have a baseline and were open to the idea of psychic powers. The Believers have had many psychic readings before (some for decades) and generally gave the best cues and feedback; one was skeptical that I had real psychic powers but open to the idea, the other one didn’t believe that I had no psychic powers even after I disclosed my methods.
Rainbow Ruses based on Social Cues
I usually started out my readings with so-called rainbow ruses, which are broad statements that basically say “you are one thing but sometimes you are also the exact opposite”. Sitters will usually hear (and remember) the part that is most applicable to them. I then paired this with observations to lean more in a direction that made intuitive sense to me.
For example, one person was in a job that is usually quite formal and requires sticking to the company line. While others in her particular profession would wear a business suit, she appeared in a hoodie and had a tattoo on her forearm. My rainbow ruse for her was:
“There are some people who need rules in their lives to function, and others that are more of a free spirit. I get the the sense that you are more of a free thinker, but that you can stick to the rules in your job when you have to.”
Another sitter was a sales person. Knowing that sales is a role that is compensated partially by commission, sales people are usually more comfortable with risk. My rainbow ruse for this person was:
“You are comfortable assessing and accepting risk in your life. You weigh the pros and cons of risk and then make a decision. However, when you think about other people in your family and social circles, you are more comfortable with risk than most others.”
One person has a technical role and was clearly an introvert. My rainbow ruse for this person was:
“Some people prefer to hash things out in conversations, but I get the sense that you find these tedious and unproductive. While you will get input from others, you’d much rather read up on a topic, find some peace and quiet and figure things out for yourself.”
You get the picture. While this was quite obvious to me as a keen observer, it wasn’t all that obvious to the sitters that they were broadcasting a lot of these signals. If you’d like to give these a try, observe the following and come up with your own rainbow ruses:
- Social harmonizers are soft spoken, friendly, and wear earthy tones
- Job, thinking style, or clothing that suggests scientific or artistic outlook on life
- Optimist/pessimist statements, check also for dimples or frown lines
- Fitness level (does the person look like they work out every day, are overweight, etc.)
- Clothing and jewelry communicate a lot, such as fashion consciousness, status symbols
Especially when giving both extremes of a rainbow ruse in the beginning of the statement, I paid close attention to the body language, particularly nodding, smiling, and micro expressions. These gave me valuable cues that I used to pivot on the spot.
As I chained several of these rainbow ruses, I made sure to touch on several of the following CHARM topics:
- Career
- Health
- Ambitions
- Relationships
- Money
Someone Significant to You Called Jessica
Next I moved on to things that are more specific but based on probabilities. I asked sitters to write their date of birth on the astrological chart, so I knew their year of birth. I had previously looked up the most common names for babies in each decade. For the United States, these are:
• 1960s: Lisa, Mary, Susan, Michael, David, John
• 1970s: Jennifer, Amy, Melissa, Michael, Christopher, Jason
• 1980s: Jessica, Jennifer, Amanda, Michael, Christopher, Matthew
• 1990s: Jessica, Ashley, Jennifer, Michael, Christopher, Matthew
Assuming that most people know more people of the same age and gender, I picked a name of the same gender of the sitter with their birth year decade. Then, I made roughly the following statement:
“I get a strong sense of someone significant in your life. It’s not quite clear, but I see a name starting with a J. It’s someone you know well but haven’t been in touch with for a while. I know you’ve interacted on social occasions. You haven’t been in touch for a while but have thought about reaching out. I see a Jess, or Jessica, or similar. Tell me what relationship this person has to you.”
This worked pretty well with people who were Maybes and Believers. However, I ran into issues with two Skeptics who also grew up outside the United States so my most common names did not apply to their social circles.
One rule with psychic readings is that a fortune teller can never be wrong. For people who adamantly said that there was no Jess or Jessica in their life, I simply did a time shift:
“I get the strong sense that this Jessica has a very important, positive influence on your life. If this person hasn’t come along yet, please look out for her in the future to make sure that you don’t miss her.”
Accidents Involving Water
I took a leap of faith on one cold reading method that suggested that most people have had an accident in their childhood involving water. This sounded oddly specific to me but I tried it out. Here is roughly how I phrased it:
“It’s not quite clear to me, but I see something, probably in your childhood, an accident involving water. What does this mean to you?”
Not expecting much at all, I got a hit about 50% of the time. The first answer I got from a sitter, who turned pale after my statement, was unbelievable and actually sent chills down my spine, to the point that I was not comfortable digging deeper:
“Actually, there was something. During my childhood, one family had a child that drowned in the pool. They took me in to live with them after that.”
Others were less dramatic but still interesting:
- “When I was 2, I fell into a river and almost drowned.”
- “I was on a row boat with my mother once and fell overboard. I had a life preserver on, and my mother pulled me in straight away. I swallowed a lot of water and got quite scared.”
If people insisted that there was no accident involving water, I first tried to broaden (bath tub, slipped on ice) and then pivoted:
“You were very young, so it’s possible that you don’t remember. Make sure to ask your parents about this accident.”
A House with the Digit 2 in the Street Number
One would think that the chance to have the digit 2 in the street number is about one in ten, but it’s actually much more likely. Many streets are short and don’t go much higher than the 30s. If you phrase it vaguely enough, you can expand the search to any house of significance, including the childhood home, current residence, or a friend’s place. Again, I got a hit in about 50% or more of cases with a statement like this one:
“I’m seeing a house. It’s not quite clear to me, but I see the digit 2. Does that mean anything to you? It may be your current residence or where you grew up, or another place of significance.”
When I had a hit, I sometimes expanded with general statements. For example, for a childhood home, I said to one sitter:
“I get the sense that there was some problems with friends or relatives.”
That was spot on — her parents were going through a divorce during this time. If talking about the current home, I may use another general statement:
“I get the sense that somewhere in your home there is a box containing items related to an unusual hobby that you once pursued but that now lays dormant.”
Most people have had a hobby that they no longer pursue, and most people have trouble throwing stuff out that is of sentimental value to them.
Where I Drew the Line
I made sure to draw the line with items that would emotionally hurt people. For example, I never made negative statements about health (e.g., “I see someone close to you who had pain in their chest or abdomen.”) because this could quickly turn into an emotional situation that would be a goldmine for a less scrupulous psychic to exploit but that I feared may hurt people.
Similarly, I did not claim to channel the dead. When I heard about the kid who drowned in the pool, other psychics may have said “This child wants you to know that really appreciate that you came into the family and took their place because it made their mum and dad very happy.” One sitter had lost someone close to them and was actually seeing a medium to talk to them, so I stayed far away from that topic for the same reason.
Psychic Survey: Net Promoter Score of 62.5
After the reading was completed, I asked people to fill in a short survey to tell me how I’d done. First, I started out with a Net Promoter Score, which is a standard measure of how a company is doing. I probably had the bonus of people wanting to be nice, and they received the service for free, but I still got a very respectable score of 62.5, which is good even for a free service.
I also asked for some free text feedback, and here is what I received, from raving endorsers to skeptics:
- “All of his observations were correct. It was as though we spend a lot of time together — the personality points were really spot on, the intuitive thoughts on career and the box of unpacked things in my house were totally right.”
- “Probably the most surprising thing was reminding me of a time in my childhood when I fell out of a boat and swallowed some water. Scary at the time but no long-term consequences.”
- “Chris is excellent at letting his observations flow, has a knack for understanding where there needs to be emphasis and provides a positive way to view areas of your life that may need a little bit of a boost. It’s uncanny how he can see the details and how on point he is.”
- “It was pretty interesting. It seemed like some of the information he was trying to reach was a bit vague and maybe difficult for him but perhaps with more practice it will become easier and clearer.”
In another question, I gave people a slider for how often I was right vs. wrong, with 100% being fully correct. Only one person gave me less than 50%, meaning I was more right than wrong in an overwhelming amount of cases:
Give Cold Reading a Try
I’m not an expert in cold reading — all I did was read a book and prepare for my psychic sessions. You don’t have to give full psychic readings to start with this: simply apply some of the techniques in everyday conversation. If you work in sales, check out my post on how to use cold reading in a sales context.
