Learn to be a psychic with these 7 tricks

Would you like a psychic reading? For free?

I pride myself on being a bit of a clairvoyant. So let me give it a go, and you can tell me how accurate I was.

You have a need for others to like and admire you. You can be quite critical of yourself, and at times wonder if you’ve made the right decision or done the right thing. Sometimes you can be very outgoing and social, but at other times you’re a bit shy and quiet. You have a great deal of untapped capacity, and don’t always live up to your potential. You pride yourself on being an independent thinker, and don’t accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. You’re disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, but tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. You’ve been hurt in the past and have learned to protect yourself by keeping people at bay until they’ve really earned your trust. Security is one of your main goals in life. 

So… How did I do? On a scale from 1 to 5, how accurate was I? 

I start every semester with this exercise, and the vast majority of students rate the accuracy of their reading as a 4.4 or higher. Many of them can’t believe “how well I know them.”

What they don’t know (at least at first) is that they all received the same reading. Yes, it’s a bit devious, and I don’t enjoy lying to them (especially the first week of class!). But the best way to show people how easy they are to fool is to actually fool them. Plus, at least I did it for free.

[This experiment was first done by Bertram Forer in the 1950s and famously repeated later by James Randi.]

The point is, it’s easy to fake psychic powers. And the best protection against being manipulated and scammed is critical thinking.

Psychics 101: Introduction to Cold Reading

Psychics claim to have supernatural abilities, such as knowing the future, reading people’s minds, or even communicating with the dead. Some psychics have gotten quite famous wowing audiences with their abilities. It seems impossible that they could know such details about complete strangers unless they were truly psychic. 

Allow me to convince you otherwise… by teaching you to be a psychic. Just promise me you’ll only use your “power” for good!

The key to being a psychic is to learn the art of cold reading.

Cold reading combines observations, high probability guesses, and broad statements to create the appearance of psychic abilities. It’s called a “cold” reading because, unlike a “hot” reading, it involves no prior knowledge of the person being read. No Googling involved.

Trick #1: Set the scene

Cold readings are more successful when the subject cooperates. Get them into a receptive mood by dimming the lights, lighting a few candles, turning on soothing music, and maybe even burning some incense. 

Establish yourself as an expert psychic by looking official. If possible, surround yourself with props, such as new age books, pendulums, or crystal balls. Choose a system for your craft, like tarot cards, natal charts, or palm reading. Appear authoritative. Remember, the “con” in “con man” stands for confidence.

Trick #2: Make the subject do all of the work

Explain to the subject that the success of the reading depends on them. Warn them in advance that your messages are going to be vague and it’s up to them to connect the dots and understand what it means. For example, you might say:

• “The spirits speak in mysterious ways, so you will need to help me understand what they’re trying to say.” 
• “My visions tend to be unclear, so you’ll have to help me make sense out of them.”

Also consider concealing the statements as questions, which forces the subject to search their memory for something that fits….but makes it seem like you’re giving them information, not the other way around. 

Trick #3: Channel your inner Sherlock

Observe the subject carefully, and take note of important characteristics, such as:

• Sex
• Age
• Race
• Health issues: Weight, evidence of smoking or drug use, disabilities, or injuries
• Style: Clothing, hair, jewelry, tattoos
• Voice: Accent, vocabulary

Based on your observations, make educated inferences regarding their:

• Religion
• Relationship status
• Interests
• Affluence
• Educational level

And don’t be afraid to stereotype! Use your observations and educated inferences to guess what their concerns are likely to be. For example:

• “I’m feeling a close friend or relative has recently passed. And have you had trouble with your back as well?” (Image: CT Behavioral Health)

• “I’m sensing you’re having problems with your marriage, and you’re struggling with where to go from here.  And you’ve been having career issues as well?” (Image: Mirror UK)

Trick #4: Give vague information that could apply to most people

You have a general sense of the subject and have primed them to do most of the work. Now start throwing out large numbers of vague statements until something sticks. This technique, known as shotgunning, works even better in front of a large audience, where something is bound to resonate with someone. 

• “I’m sensing the number five is important… This could mean the fifth month, the fifth of the month, the fifth day of the week… Maybe five children, or a five year marriage.”
• “I’m hearing someone’s father had a heart problem… Could be a grandfather or uncle… or father figure.”

Make sure to use probability to your advantage. For example, the most common male names begin with a “J” and most common female names begin with an “M.”  And the most common causes of death are heart disease and cancer. Brain conditions, such as dementia and stroke, are also common. So for example: 

• “I’m getting a ‘J’ sound. Who here knows someone with the name John, Jim, Jerry, Jeff…”
• “I’m feeling a pain in the chest.”

Another technique is to use Barnum statements, which seem personal, but actually apply to most people. (Named after P.T. Barnum, they produce what’s called the Barnum effect, in which individuals believe the statements uniquely apply to them.)  Barnum statements can be incredibly useful in convincing people of your psychic abilities, and therefore are often the backbone of psychic readings, including the one at the beginning of this article! Additional examples would include:

• “You have a scar on your leg or knee from an accident when you were younger.”
• “You have old photos unsorted in boxes at home.”
• “You’ve kept jewelry from a deceased loved one.”
• “You have books or supplies from a hobby you no longer pursue.”

If you get really good at cold reading, you’ll develop your own Barnum statements you can use for the different groups of people you’ve stereotyped.

The other trick used in the “psychic reading” above was the rainbow ruse, which simultaneously attributes two opposite personality traits to the same person. So basically, by covering all of your bases, you can’t be wrong! Additional examples include:

• “Most of the time you’re positive and cheerful, but there’s been a time in the past when you were very upset.”
• “You can be spontaneous, but in your private life you tend to stick to a routine.”

Trick #5: Pay attention to the “hits” and “misses”  

You want the subject to feel like their reading is a success. Make sure you continually observe their reactions, such as body language or facial expressions, to gauge the accuracy of your statements, and respond accordingly. The key is to rely on confirmation bias: People are more likely to remember the things you got right… and forget what you got wrong.

If there’s a “hit,” dig in: Make it look like you were certain, and you knew all along. Reinforce the hit by saying “yes,” and expanding upon what’s been said. 

• You: “He must’ve gone rather quickly?”
• Subject: “Yes he did – very.”
• You: “Yes, that’s right. Because he says he was here one minute and gone the next.”

If there’s a “miss,” find an out: You’re bound to get something wrong… but how you handle your misses is what sets apart the good psychics! Thankfully, there are a lot of tricks to put up your sleeve. One is to minimize it so they don’t notice (or won’t remember). You could also turn it into a prediction, in that you’re right… just not yet. Or you could extend the reference to include other possibilities until you get a hit. And finally, pass blame. Blame negative energy, the spirits, or even the subject for not working hard enough to make sense of what you’re saying. 

• “If it wasn’t him, maybe it was someone in the family? Family friend?”
• “You may not remember, because it happened a long time ago.”
• “The spirits are all talking at once. If you can’t make sense of it, I go on to the next spirit.”

Trick #6: Be a good listener

If you want to look like a rock star psychic, pay attention to the details the subject offers during the reading. It’s shockingly easy to regurgitate information and pass it off as a hit, as subjects simply don’t remember what they’ve told you. Pretend you’re that good, and take the win.

Along those lines, near the end be sure to summarize key hits from your reading, as it helps to reinforce how accurate you were.

Trick #7: Tell people what they want to hear 

Most people who go to psychics want to talk about love, health, money, career, and travel. So be sure to oblige. Also, use flattery and compliments. No one wants to hear that they, or the dead loved ones they’ve come to connect with, were terrible people. 

• “He had a lovely sense of humor, didn’t he?”
• “She doesn’t want you to remember her that way.”
• “She wants you to know she’s with her loved ones, and that you should move on and be happy.”

The take-home message

It’s understandable why people would go to psychics and mediums. There’s something awe-inspiring about psychic powers. And some are comforted by the thought of contacting deceased loved ones. 

Is it possible that there are real psychics? Sure. But I hope you’ve learned just how easy it is to fake psychic powers and fool people. (Although I hope you won’t!)

It’s important to note that there’s no good scientific evidence for psychic abilities. For decades the James Randi Educational Foundation offered a prize (up to a million dollars) for anyone who could demonstrate psychic abilities under controlled conditions. (I don’t know about you, but if I was a psychic I’d be rich.) And whenever mediums have been investigated, they’ve been found to be frauds, sometimes after having taken exorbitant amounts of money from people.

Even more, magicians and mentalists are able to reproduce “psychic abilities” using plain old tricks and deceit. They use our believing brain against us: We want to believe, so we are easily tricked. 

The bottom line is that psychic abilities, like being able to predict the future or speak to the dead, are extraordinary claims, which require extraordinary evidence. And as demonstrated above, we can explain most psychic readings with simple cold reading techniques.  So before assuming someone has supernatural abilities, see if there’s a natural explanation first.

If you don’t want to be fooled, it’s important to be skeptical. Think critically and demand evidence.

One final note: The premise of this article is based in inoculation theory, which applies the logic of vaccines to misinformation. Essentially, by exposing people to smaller bits of misinformation, and how misinformation works, we can inoculate them against it. This article uses what’s called active inoculation, as readers were encouraged to create the misinformation. In effect, instead of debunking pseudoscience, we were prebunking, or debunking in advance. Just make sure you use your “powers” for good, and not for fooling people!

For more information

Holy Koolaid: Psychic methods exposed: Cold reading tricks (Part 1)
Holy Koolaid: Psychic methods exposed: Cold reading tricks (Part 2)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Psychics
Derren Brown Investigates: The man who contacts the dead
Skeptics Society: Learn to be psychic in 10 easy lessons
Vanishing, Inc. Magic: How does cold reading work?

Thanks to Lynnie Bruce and John Cook for their feedback.