All the famous methods of mind reading or fortune telling (e.g. Palmistry, Astrology, Numerology) are based upon a psychological phenomenon called "Cold reading".
Cold reading is a technique used to convince another person that the reader knows much more about a subject than they actually do. Even without prior knowledge of a person, a practiced cold reader can still quickly obtain a great deal of information about the subject by carefully analyzing the person's body language, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race or ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc.
The most commonly seen Cold reading technique is called "Forer effect". The Forer effect refers to the tendency of people to rate sets of statements as highly accurate for them personally even though the statements could apply to many people. As an example, take a look at the following statements
"You have a very sensitive personality, although you tend to hide it most of the times"
"I sense that you are sometimes insecure, especially with people you don't know very well."
"Most of the time you are positive and cheerful, but there has been a time in the past where you were very upset."
The following article is an eye opener. Read it in detail and evaluate.
http://www.skepdic.com/forer.html
Cold reading has some standard and famous techniques that people have used and mastered over time and we see them practicing those as magicians, psychics, palmists, astrologists, mind readers and what not. The link below will tell you about Darren Brown who is a famous psychic and has done several TV shows exhibiting many of the psychic phenomena. The only difference is that he has an open and honest approach to what he does. He cheerfully reveals that he can't read people's minds or commune with the afterlife - his skill is to make it look like he can.
Here is an interesting and worth reading interview of Derren Brown.
Wikipedia article about Darren
Here you can find some famous techniques of Cold reading
Million dollar paranormal challenge
James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an organization dedicated to falsify claims of paranormals. They have done some good research in the area which is available on their website http://www.randi.org.
At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the "applicant" becomes a "claimant." To date no one has passed the preliminary test.
The list of applicants and the application forms and other details can be downloaded from this link
We humans have a tendency to believe in the super natural. I cannot point out any specific reason for this tendency but it does exist in us. Look around, you will notice more than 80% of the people completely or partially believing in such stuff. Be it in the form of mind reading, horoscope, Palmistry or professionals like Aamil Babas tricking the innocent minds of our people.
Being part of an educated and rational community, it is our responsibility to deny all such claims and confront them with reason.
5 comments:
I really appreciate the research effort my friend made to correct me. What woudl dumb fools like me do without wise and intellectually sound friends. Cheers!
so you are downright denying that parapsychology is actually possible? it may be unbelieveable today but who knows... tomorrow we'll be proving it with examples. maybe in future it wont be so unbelievable...
All I am saying is that we must associate "reasons" with claims made by an ordinary human being. See it is called "PARA" psychology only because, no reason can be associated with it.
In the future, if (and I repeat IF) we can find a reason for a supernatural claim, it won't be supernatural or para psychological anymore. It will be a fact. That would be the time to start believing it. Not now!
I agree with most of what you have said but what did it mean when a fortune teller told me (meeting me for the forst time and this was his first comment), "HEY, what do you want to be the president of Pakistan????" Does that mean he also at some stage of his life dreamt of becoming the president of Pakistan or does it mean *Ahem*, you know, Im too shy to say *giggles*
yeah u can put any ref regarding this text in ur blog. i dont mind. and yeah thnks fr liking it
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