The other day I came across a website that tells you about your personality based on the month you were born (sound familiar?)Naturally I went to the month I was born (July), read the listing, and thought, "Jeez, these guys have me pegged. I'm just like that!" This just goes to show how robust and powerful these cold reading techniques and psychology really are: even a guy who's been doing this stuff for years can still be taken off guard.
Years ago I was showing a friend how one famous cold reader (who has gotten rich by communicating with strangers' dead relatives) uses a method called cold reading. And how it's just a psychological trick. I put my hand on his shoulder, closed my eyes for a second and told him, "When you were younger, you had a fight with your brother over something that broke and you stopped talking to each other for over a week."
He started shaking and looked at me like I was the devil himself. "How could you possibly know that?!" (Obviously a hit.) Telling him it was just a trick didn't help.
So, many times even when people know it's cold reading they think you're looking into their souls.
Back to that aforementioned website... I looked up another month (September), read it and thought, "Jeez, these guys really have me pegged. I'm just like that!"
Here's the site I'm talking about:
(What Your Birth Month Means...)
[Photo by Steven Damron]
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