Post #7 Clairvoyant Analysis

Here is my interpretation of what the clairvoyant told me:

Except for ‘fingerless gloves’ he didn’t tell me anything original. I was the youngest person there – most were old enough to have grandchildren – so it was an easy hit to mention a dead person much older than myself. When he said they were on my “grandmother’s side” I immediately thought, which grandmother?

He also made pithy statements, each requiring a response. Although I was conscious of this, it was difficult to not respond. This is something that psychics and believers don’t seem to notice. If psychic powers exists, why does it need so much prompting and questioning? Why do the dead only know their own initials and seem to communicate by playing charades?

“Fingerless gloves” was a hit. But why did my great-grandmother mention something that, as my mother later revealed to me, she never actually made for me? It was her daughter that made them for me when I was a child. My mother said it might have originally been her knitting pattern. I can think of several other things that undeniably could have been attributed to my great-grandmother, why were they not mentioned?

But “fingerless gloves” sounds pretty damn specific, I hear you say. Well, yes it is supposed to sound specific. I would suggest he saw my beanie, and his thinking lead him along a path of knitting and attributing it to older people. Also note what he did not say. He did not say anything about the fingerless gloves. This means that he would have had a hit if I could attribute fingerless gloves to anyone or anything close to my grandmother. According to Wikipedia, woollen ones became popular during the eighties, coincidently that’s when I was a child.

While he went through his routine, I sat with my arms and my legs crossed, I answered with maybes and kindas and clearly wasn’t opening up. Also, keep in mind I’m a twenty-two year old male. He then finished with the brilliantly insightful claim that I have an emotional blockage - apparently my great-grandmother speaks in metaphors and I have to open up my hands. How many young males have some kind of inability to express emotions and would therefore be able to attribute this statement to themselves?

I think a great way for determining the validity of psychics is how specific their statements really are. Are they as specific as a doctor with your test results, or as specific as an astrology chart? Are you an introverted person but sometimes you can be the life of the party? Was there a family illness or death, possibly in the head or chest area? You don’t like animals do you?

What this clairvoyant did was a ‘cold reading’. In a cold reading the ‘psychic’ draws on what they know about the majority. From the person’s gender and age, broad assumptions can be made. Once they start responding, the psychic is able to make more specific claims. Hits will be accentuated and misses will go unnoticed as the psychic corrects them and moves right along. It also helps when the person being read only seems to remember the hits.

Maybe if I was not a skeptic and was unaware of the cold-reading techniques I would have believed what he said was true. With the virtue of hindsight I can make estimates on how much of what he said can only be attributed to me.

As a side note, my mother pointed out that he usually does readings for people who are new, perhaps to keep them coming.