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Cold Reading Definition from The Skeptic’s Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll

Cold reading refers to a set of techniques used by professional manipulators to get a subject to behave in a certain way or to think that the cold reader has some sort of special ability that allows him to “mysteriously” know things about the subject. Cold reading goes beyond the usual tools of manipulation: suggestion and flattery. In cold reading, salespersons, hypnotists, advertising pros, faith healers, con men, and some therapists bank on their subject’s inclination to find more meaning in a situation than there actually is. (read more)

Mary Greer joins me to talk about Cold Readings and Mentalist techniques with the aim of taking back some of the territory taken over by those with ill intentions.

From Mary’s Blog – Cold Reading and Tarot, Part 2

December 4, 2008

Part 2: Hijacking What It Means to Be Human

(Read Part 1 to learn about mentalists, skeptics and cold reading.)

Imagine my surprise when I discovered there are at least a half-dozen extremely expensive books marketed by mentalists on tarot, of which I’d never heard in my forty-plus years collecting tarot books. And, they were written by and for professional tarot readers that I didn’t even know existed as a self-identified group. Of course, I was aware there are fraudulent tarot readers who deliberately used cold reading techniques to con their marks. Naively, I had assumed, though, that cold reading was used mostly by fake mediums and clairvoyants (as in the 19th century) and by mentalist entertainers. I had no idea that tarot was regularly taught as a scam except among some phone psychics and those storefront psychics who used it to extort money for removing curses, etc.—a whole different, albeit related, enterprise. [Note: some mentalists are also ethical tarot readers, and not all mentalists deny the paranormal. I am also not referring, in most of what follows, to ethical mentalists who are honest about using mental tricks.]

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Mary Greer

Mary K. Greer is an author and teacher specializing in methods of self exploration and transformation. She has practiced tarot for over thirty-eight years, has taught at the Omega Institute for twenty years, and is featured at most Tarot conferences and symposia in the United States and abroad.

Active in Tarot associations and internet discussion groups, she also teaches and writes for the women’s and pagan communities, and is an Arch-Priestess/Hierophant in the Fellowship of Isis. Tools And Rites Of Transformation (T.A.R.O.T.) is a learning center founded and directed by Mary for the study of divination, women’s mysteries, and the transformative arts.

Visit Mary K. Greer’s Tarot Blog

Her most recent book is entitled 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card (May 2006).

Other books include:

1. Understanding the Tarot Court (2004) with Tom Little.
2. The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals (2002)
3. Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for Personal Transformation (1984, 2002)
4. Aromatherapy: Healing for the Body and Soul (1998) with Kathi Keville
5. Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses (1995)
6. The Essence of Magic: Tarot, Ritual, and Aromatherapy (1993)
7. Tarot Mirrors: Reflections of Personal Meaning (1988)
8. Tarot Constellations: Patterns of Personal Destiny (1987)

Mary has an M.A. in English literature and was on the faculty and administration of New College of California (San Francisco) for eleven years. As a world traveler, she has lived in Japan, Germany, England, Mexico, six states in the U.S., and currently leads workshops around the world. She resides in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

Mentalist-Gerry McCambridge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_UDaahAd5o

BBC – History of Magic – Mentalism (1 of 6)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_EjG-Oa3hE

Debunking “Psychics” and other Miracle Workers #1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRAO3dyabvQ

How to Make People Like you in 90 Seconds or Less

Music Credits

• Opening Music & Transition Music: Narcissus by Queenie from Dream of Flight
• Closing Music: I Married a Magician by the Dust Poets from The Podsafe Music Network

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