The Morality of Colding Reading, NLP, Derren Brown type stuff.

[Cain]

I just got back from a magic shop (the Magic Apple). I'm friends with the guy who works there on Sunday, and so I'll hang out regularly. He gets an urgent call from a magicain/friend-of-the-store who says two people are coming in and their names are Scott and Galadrial (sp). "They're interested in mentalism; she's French, tall, a model type, and you can't miss them."

They come in, say they're interested in mentalism and NLP, and demonstrates a card trick. I guess they're slightly impressed, and Scott goes to introduce himself. "Ah- stop. Don't tell me your names." He focuses on her, he's getting a "strong impression" blah blah blah. I mean, he milks the hell out of it before spitting out her name, and they're completely blown away. When they come over to me by the bookshelf the guy starts talking about Derren Brown paying for things in stores with blank paper and Criss Angel hynpotizing people on the street. He says he knows it's real because sometimes Brown doesn't get away with it. She's apparently in marketing and those dumb business books are loaded down with these techniques, so she's already a believer.

Moments later we're all sitting around the card table, he's asking questions. The two books flagged were Prism by Max Maven and Something from Nothing by some other dude (I'm a card guy). Scot explains that he's a composer and he meets clients and... and what? I'm not sure what his aims are -- what he wants to do. They've been to the Magic Castle. He mentions The Game, a book about picking up chicks. He's meandering.

Now here's where I feel dirty. I slightly contributed to the B.S. by offering a patina of scientific credibility. I mentioned newspapers articles discussing a study that suggests a doctor who prominently displays her degrees will have patients who are more likely to follow advice (take medication etc.) I talked about evolutionary psychology in general terms (as it relate to things discussed by the "pick up artist" crowd). I mentioned one about a professor who hands a coffee to a student while fumbling through his bag. The professor who has the student hold a hot coffee is more likely to be regarded as having a "warm" personality. What he really wanted to know, of course, is how my friend could possibly know her name, and I naturally tried to run interference whenever the subject was brought up, first feigning obliviousness to the reading: "You read her name?" Scott enthusiastically recounts the experience.

They walked out blown away. They didn't buy anything, thankfully, but they wanted to have coffee, talk it over, and definitely return.

We had explained that Van Pragh, Browne and Edward all use cold reading techniques, which also left the impression that that's what he used. Still, it felt dirty because you're leaving people with the impression that these scientific sounding techniques are practically indistinguishable from real magic.

After the stunned couple left another magician walked in and the episode was again recounted in gory detail.
"Did you tell them what happened."
"F*** no! I fried them!!" was his response.
He was on an incredible high.

[Jeff Corey]

I'm getting a one, and another and a three...and a nine and a zero, and a c or a v and "enteba" or "entera".
Am I close?

[Mick Houlahan]

Yeah, amazing how some magicians will gladly run down cold readers, explaining that it's a scam, if not exposing methods used - until they manage to pull off a cheap trick like the one you've described. Frying the gullible isn't really all that much of a challenge.