What is cold reading?

Cold reading is a technique used by psyche and mentalists around the world. It allows one to use personal perception and observation to derive information about another person. This information seemingly from nowhere, often leads others to believe that the cold reader is psychological or has other special abilities. If a person agrees, the reader will ask a number of extremely vague questions. Depending on how this person reacts to these questions and careful analysis of other factors, such as body language, the reader can make the cold estimates that may be surprisingly close to the truth. When cold readers find a successful line of conversation, they will stick to it. Through this method, Persyn seems to know all sorts of information about the subject. In fact, most of the information comes from the subject of a cold reading session and the reader only gives small details.

There are several different methods of carrying out coldreading. During a cold reading for the whole audience, the reader will use a method called shot. A common, extremely vague statement is made. Cold readers then pay attention to the reaction of the audience. After someone appears to "bit" the question, the reader of the cold will focus on this particular person. The term acquires its name from real shotguns, which shoot a large number of small pellets, which increases the chance that the target is hit from a distance.

Another cold reading method is to use Barnum commands. When using this method, the cold reader receives extremely general statements and then works from there. Statement may include: "You are nervous around those you don't know" or "You were afraid of darkness as a child."

Rainbow ruse, another form of cold reading of the audience, is similar to the shotgun method. By creating a statement that applies to most people in the audience, but also offers the opposite of this statement, the reader of cold statements can make statements that are more or less accurate. WITHThus, the reader, who says, "Most of you are happy with your lives, but that has not always been," uses rainbow Russian technique.

Although naturally seemingly deceptive, cold reading is often allowed as an entertainment medium, if the reader informs the audience that information is just for fun and that there should be no main life decisions based on a meeting. Those who claim to be psyche, but in fact they are just cold reading can find themselves in legal problems.