 Well, the last lecture we were introduced to the psychic reading and I want to recap again Some of what we went over to make sure the points came across well so First thing and I want to talk about was how do you remember that Alan Alder? Was interviewing the client. I like to whom I gave a pond reading Okay now Well, I put that up there was that the Seemingly perplexing you know Alan who's a rational person was obviously perplexed by this Lady's reaction He actually had brought her that talked her into coming to my house And he picked her to be the person for me to get the reading to he landed in Eugene on a I forgot what I said on weekday night, and then he spent the next three days With us and we did several things But the first day he landed in Eugene. He went to a restaurant local restaurant the Ambrosia and she was a she was a waitress there and he got talking with her and Told him what he was doing With this program and she she said oh, that's one because she's a skeptic and she says she doesn't believe in any of this crap So he thought that would be a good person to have me give up pond reading to So he talked her into driving. So that's when you see her drive up drive up my little cul-de-sac and knock on my door and enter and then I give it give it me better palm and And and he interviews her afterwards as you call and Says how did he do? She's well. He was very very good because he told me things that no one could have known You know and he was right on and told me things about Actually, I didn't put any that way and stuff like that So he says so you've changed your mind now about this just no no, I don't believe this at all So you said you said she don't believe there's anything to this. She said no, I don't He kept pressing her and we get a lot most of them not all of it But most you get the flavor of it on the show that they So she kept insisting that she doesn't believe it But she believed that what I told her was things that I couldn't know and no one else could know about it But true so you can get these inconsistencies and what it means is that many times you're on a cross well, I've never met a strong Believer in the paranormal who didn't immediately begin by saying I'm a skeptic, too I don't feel the methods people but almost all the ones I haven't yet involved with they they say I'm a skeptic, too Because some of them are clever or think they're clever by saying I'm skeptical about skepticism They think that up as well But these people are skeptics as well and also some people can be consistently thinking that They don't believe in a paranormal, but if you question them what they do believe in is what we would call paranormal So what seems a contradiction to us and make and town I guess it was maybe not a contradiction That's one reason it brought that up so You can get this he's the interesting Things that come out of doing readings The other thing I want to remember want to remind you of was the On the program called superpowers There's this radio psychic Now he's on on the web because all kinds of other stuff Christian dying on and One reason they brought me to London basically was they wanted me and you see me in the control room there of the radio station a few times taking notes and While he's giving his reading he came by the way he came to the radio station in a Rolls Royce He wasn't driving his chauffeur drives it. It's a quite a show. He comes in. I thought he was from Aladdin and the 40 thieves or something like that because he comes in wearing silk And I'm leaving the whole thing is a quite a miss the radio program They you saw that receptions there takes the calls and screams them She told me that when Christian downs on they was on once a week, I guess for a few hours, and he's on Trying to get in get their meeting on it is the biggest audit to that time of any kind of program in British Isles So he was quite popular then he's I thought I'd go to the web you can see he's do I know he still Has his radio program But that show is also a source of revenue for him in the sense that this is good advertising for Did advertise on the show? We've got permission To go to one of the people who totally gave a reading member this lady I went to her house. She did in West London and we drove out to her house and It's interesting. I guess the whole street Though she did everyone's hanging out the windows watching this as we drove up the street Drew before I don't know and then they had me go to the door knock and she gets me in and Believe it or not. We did ten takes of that. They want to get just right side of walking knock on the door She go out but I say hello You leave on and and so on we did this several times then we went out to her Back And that's right in the future and you see me interviewing her and one of the things I begin with remember I said you go on How do you how was that meeting you got she said always wonderful was like that's it, you know, and then I say I pin her down. I said, okay What exactly was that told you that made it such a wonderful meeting and she had heads of date But then she said he told me I lost my spark No, that's I hope I can use that in the future But as as DJ was saying that has actually no content at all right almost And by the way, he was it could sound negative even but she was that impressed her You know the wall of things she said that was a great reading and everything else. I wall of things He said to her that I pressed her some more and then she said well, he also told me about He told us he said something I see something about property matters she translated that property matters to cover all kinds of things Manuscript that you try to sell to the publisher. You know cover everything. She said well My husband and I have talked about maybe selling our house in the future. So he was right on that So That wasn't just today. I just want to let you know that it doesn't take much to get Impressed and that's impressive. It can be very surprising Especially if it's the sparkle Now the other thing is I wanted What we saw Randy do this demonstration We're and I want to talk about that because the guy that The 80s basing his demonstration on his man named in for a f o r e r and so and What happened was we've been over cried her right the man 1944 the psychologist who studied this right character Her to his class and had to give a reading to each of his students and 96% of the statements were made by the students as accurate of themselves. Okay, he thought that was tremendous and psychology gotta rethink about Psychic phenomena and everything else like that as a result. Well Benjamin for having to read some years later read this paper by brighter and He was a little dubious about this In a sense that You looked at those a sample Readings I gave you one right you saw it and that says This doesn't make any sense. I mean, he didn't do it right anyways And so for did a clever variation of it for this experiment for actually got his statements he went to He said he went to newsstand Astrology magazines back and forth for you skipped out said as his friend and made a set of statements which I Wish I had a car with me of his set And I put in the I did a manuscript for a cold reading which We handed out every time I give a workshop on it and J ref The James Randi education foundation is thinking of Putting it out that I'm making it available art in some form or other it's an 85-page document which The way I put the thing is you see everything you know about cold reading Yes, oh good, okay, he's gonna print out the four statements The first statements consist of a set of I think about 24 Statements which he picked out of us in storage magazine in 1944. And here's what he did with it he had a class he's a professor and Those days you can do things and he wanted with your classes, so He gave him what he said was a new personality's test. He's working on basically And he gave him the test and next week he handed every student in the class a printed paragraph He said this is the reading and this is the Analysis that we got from the test of you based on your responses to the test And he said I want you to do three things with this I want you to look at read over and rate our skill from one to five five being perfect one being not so good So he gave me just a skill one to five. I want you to rate on a skill of one to five How good do you think the test is on the basis of the reading you got from it or the description? personnel description got for on yourself and Roughly I won't give you exact statistics but I'm saying put it in five if you put a four and I think only one or two men down to a three So everyone thought this was a great test based on what they got Second thing he did is and now I want you to give an overall rating and how well the description got fits you Using the same skill one to five again most people gave it five some gave it four and she gave it three Then he said I Want you to go through each of them. Oh, thank you. Why don't you go through each of the statements and Okay, this is the whole thing It was each Have a separate out of separate sentences. I want you to This is the thing he put it we had each sentence was just a separate My This is what each student got To make this is what you're reading. Then he hadn't made each of the statements separately As to whether it's true or false or themselves. Okay, and get the overwhelming they were true and Of course, as you can know everyone got the statement that I'm knowing it. This is the point of his thing This is the this is the part that Cryed or missed Many people miss by the way and this one reason cold meetings were to suffer that is that people Dislike and it's the same reason I brought up to point about the dog that didn't bark in the night people focus on what is and not on alternatives So what try to miss was How well he got 96% of the statements that we give them to the students Except by them But the question is how how much what percentage would be accepted by people for whom the statements weren't meant No, if you gave me same statements for each student to someone else and so when this is meant for you How many a good day except? You need that as a baseline as a proper comparison So everyone gets this one they all think you're getting personalized and given that you get it's higher rating a very spiky I mean high rating as people accept this is true themselves But many did his thing was had people in hand here Reading to the person behind them so everyone I guess and then people suddenly thought the same thing they got before And you can see what kind of things his is the most sophisticated and Then riders because kind of had a lot of statements you remember that were things like your digestal organs and normal you have two feet Almost that that played and stuff like that. So it's quite obvious But this one is luma subtle, but still it works very well now the interesting thing was Randy used in his demonstration He's doing many many years later over This okay. Yeah He sees me over 50 years How is that from 40 to yeah, I thought 50 years later Half a century later the same statements still worked just as well And I just I know I've done in classes and stuff like that. You can use that same same statements even today And they work You know the cultures changing stuff like that I Was telling DJ this morning Also by demanding we all who's a Magician mentalist he also markets materials for other magicians and he marketed a System for doing cold readings Which you had to be a lot of money for And this is that he gave me And he said I'm from money But if you give me it for groups of people like here several people are people coming into your booth at a fair They're gonna go out and talk to other people you it's gonna sound bad if they remember a lot of what they said And you tell your friend they can't say well. He told me I'm disciplined and self-control on the outside You can't be worrisome and insecure inside. He told me at times. I have sick serious doubts So if they remember some of that it's not gonna sound good. They won't realize it was getting the same message, right? So he tells you that what way you handle this is that you give I take different samples like a four Let's say one Two three four the first four unit to the first person Next person you're the next four next person and if you got even more you take You take the sampling from actually the top line and the second one you go to alternate one So everyone's getting a different combination of these things and that will hide it But in fact that's actually pretty good advice is it when I tell you about how Christian I own works, okay? Recently I was asked to give a class of college freshmen a chance to evaluate one of the oldest systems of fortune-telling Astrology, you know I started life as a as a magician. I still am a magician. I guess I think it's in the DNA. I'm not too sure but I'm an actor playing the part of a wizard. I know how people are deceived I know how they deceive themselves and many magicians most magicians Really allow people to deceive themselves. Would you like to see me fool you? Who's wearing a wristwatch here a regular ordinary wristwatch? You've been a good girl, haven't you? Yes That's just a go. I thought it was a Rolex for a minute. Oh, well Now what time does it say on your watch it says nine minutes before three and it says it's the second of October, right? Very good. Open up your hand for me flat like that the clean one Almost change, you know that almost change now I'm gonna put the watch face down your head put your finger of your other hand on the back of the watch, okay? There be good now my watch says nine minutes to three so we disagree slightly but not enough for any never mind Okay, watch what happens now? I'm really concentrating on I think I hurt myself Don't laugh there's a science Let me see now holding it only but this oh, would you tell the folks what time it says on your watch now, please? It says 340, but 340 how time flies when you're having fun Wonderful now, let me show you something. This is such a little tiny itty-bitty watch her hold it tightly in your hand Don't lose oh The gentleman was carrying it over here behind his waist and he didn't even know it there you go The trickster never works alone it did happen his audience assists him But I did it if he does his job. Well, they want to be fooled Sherlock Did you pass that back? Wendy For the astrology test each student was given a detailed horoscope Robin They were told it was drawn up by a professional based on information They had supplied about when and where they were born Actually these horoscopes were not quite what they appeared to be I Like you to share something with me if you'd be so kind just with the show I asked the students to grade them for accuracy on a scale of 1 to 5 5 being the most accurate. How many gave it a 1. Let's see a show of hands 2 3 4 and 5 Okay, so we scored pretty highly with this Let's do a little experiment. You've got your horoscopes right in front of you Take them in your hand like this and hand them over your shoulder to the person behind you Okay, everybody and the guy at the end down there You'll have to come up to the front because these people in the front don't have one now okay Everybody change them around everybody's got a heart open up somebody else's horoscope and read it carefully, please I'm surprised They had all received the same horoscope The personality descriptions were generally true of everyone like recently you have had to recover from a disappointment Some of them seem specific because they were so personal your sexual adjustment has presented some problems for you And there were others that anyone might hope would be true You have a great deal of unused capacity People like to believe certain things are true They like to fall for very specific Absolutely Enormously accurate horoscopes right of course they are you have a question so why do people persist in Ascribing to these systems That's the big question of course and psychologically that is the most interesting question I think that people are trying to get some control over their lives by knowing more about themselves Of course they get control over their lives, but that's what we're doing all of us each and every day of our lives Whether it's financial whether it's emotional whether it's a love interest whether it's health We're trying to get control of our lives We're looking for power and astrology offers you apparently a very old and a very easy formula Whereby you can do that sort of thing what you've presented me today is Evidence that this can be misuse or abuse, but you have not convinced me that there is nothing to this Oh, no, no, I didn't intend to do that Okay, and and I feel that your exercise today was kind of cynical and one-sided and somehow it is wise to be Unbelieving I can't prove it doesn't work I've never proved it I've seen it a lot of times where intellectuals have had have wanted to disprove Mystical things because since it didn't fit into their framework of beliefs, that's true They wouldn't allow it, but I can't prove you that Santa Claus doesn't exist. I really can't Can't disprove anything. I can't prove a negative, but I can show you that it's not very likely to be true That's the best I can do This best best fellow is Discussing things some of us after the lectures yesterday we had a dinner and Ed was not here, but it asked us to ask the question of me You know this principal charity Told you we should be using principal charity. That's part of our framework Something else's claim you remember that principle is that comes from philosophy is if you're Attacking a dealing with someone's claim try to rephrase it so that it's in its strongest Statement you want to attack someone's argument if you're gonna attack it at its best not at its worst and And said well, what are you dealing with an outright charlatan? Well, what are you doing with you know certain kinds of people and This is an interesting question. I Forget I want to argue with Gellar and I've been with them several times. I would I wouldn't use principal charity I'm because it's useless Right. I just you don't argue with them. It's not it's not gonna get you anywhere anyway So I'm not sure but I'm not sure I would try to use any kind of rationality on this gentleman He's not there's not no way I can figure out how you're gonna Disabuse him right and And then in that is an ethical question. Maybe he's happy with his weird system of belief listen and You might want to think okay. It's not ethical It may be set to go you to disabuse them because this is not consistent with science and everyone in our government and address In our country had this approach to the world our already abysmal science Education would be zero I guess by now But maybe on the other hand maybe as an ethical thing we should think of ways of getting to that person But we have the ethical right to change that's not just and I don't know. I don't try to think of that too much because it makes me unhappy Oh Yes, they do but not for the right reasons. Yeah, but not for the right reasons I always run the fast a ever since I came into the world of Skepticism stuff. I've always been a skeptic so I've never had the pleasure of having first been leaving all this stuff I've never had a belief in my life, you know Spurs But many of the people who do come to my workshops in any step as I work I Say majority of these have come from the other world. In other words, they have had a epiphany that something has told me Hey, this is all crazy. They grew up in a Very fundamentalist environment, and they believe all kinds of things and we've about the that no one Not only had the art that was on a few years ago in that kind of business And they said me being Something came along and I changed and they now became skeptical. I know only a few cases very few case I know all of a few cases of people going the other way And it was one person he's gone to the magic castle His good friend Jerry Anderson But he was a militant atheist and I'm saying the opportunity he had every excuse he would get And you don't make a target against religion and all kinds of stuff. So he was really don't know that One day I was back here visiting in Los Angeles And we got together I won't tell you his name And he got back together in fact he took me to lunch at the magic castle And he wasn't done whole militant. He seemed very very mild about Person he seemed to be okay with his life And it turned out that he now is dating a lady from the Salvation Army And then then he mentioned they married And now he has very little maybe still comes in the magic gas, I don't know, but No longer discusses religion I know he's gone the other side, but he's certainly not militantly against it And I don't know a few other people who also run only a few other cases they've gone From being a skeptic to being a believer I would like to be able to do they would do some kind of survey scientific that you could be Sounded to find out who get the people a lot of people who converted To skepticism and see if you can find a hundred people Go on the other way and do some start trying to figure out. What is it that did it? By the way, I don't think the conversions I know of either way it was necessarily a rational change. It seemed to be almost a flip-flop And the ones I know especially I had a colleague Bob for though who shared the office. He unfortunately died of Alzheimer's recently But Bob was a very good psychologist But but he came from a new all means and he grew up as a very developed Catholic And Monday apparently he had this epiphany and suddenly became an anti-catholic But he wasn't just dropped catholicism. He was a militant Anti-catholic and every time he thought he had an excuse he could even in the middle of a scientific conversation He'd get up and make a tirade against Catholicism And I met a lot of you right out of flipped from being catholics to being militant a anti-catholics So when people switched to being skeptics or being Onside other it isn't always obvious that some for good reasons rational reasons This is something it's an I know it's inside that but They did so that it's okay. I can take off that. Let's go on now with this through the thing here because I want to make a point about this as well Needless to say my message isn't always popular My friend Ray Hyman is a psychologist and he has an idea why We seem to be taken as we're taking something away and not giving something in return And these people want something they're looking for something and I think we have to understand what is it they're searching for and what they're seeking Ray has an insider's perspective on these questions. He once worked as a professional palm reader On a recent visit to florida. He allowed me to observe while he gave readings to two volunteers Now I want to look at a few other things before we go very far. I look at your thumb It's the most important Ray started reading palms to help put himself through college It was a little narrowing of the second joint here. That's that's tacked. That suggests tactfulness At the time he was convinced there was nothing to it. This is the spiritual mental I had no belief that it would work But to be convincing I did read the books and I did study the lines the way and told it as it's supposed to be told And to my surprise it worked And then it became a very rapid believer in palm reading There is a break in your lifeline. This is your lifeline right here So you've had some physical problems. You still may have some problems here some medical problems of some sort He was right about that That I had has some health problems Is there anything there about my mother about your mother? The one thing that the the thing is clear is that uh right from the beginning You didn't want to be dominated by her. You want to make your own mind about what your life is going to be like and so on I have been very headstrong when it comes to my mother She has kind of tried to dominate me sometimes and I've rebelled against it At the same time you want to be you want to be on your own terms and stuff like that He was pretty run on the money with a lot of things Maybe he's got some part to himself that others are not in touch with and he knows these things Turned about the relationship between your mother and yourself as a palm reader ray was quite successful I was saying then a college friend bet him that he would do just as well If he told his subjects the opposite of what he read in their palms He decided to give it a try And I did this on my first client and she didn't say a word She had no reaction at all, which was very spooky to me because I'm used to feedback Um, I thought it was because I bombed But it turned out because she was so stunned. I was so accurate And this was really a shock to me because I had done everything wrong So I did it the next client wrong then I realized it doesn't make a difference what you tell them It's more what you convince them how good you are and what you get them to believe As a professional psychologist ray is very much aware of the role that careful observation can play in a reading You're living in a strange world. It'd be better if you're living Maybe 50 40 years ago in some ways I've always said that I should have been born a long time ago. This present world is Presents problems for you and you're not too happy with it You'd be much from the way she was dressed and so I could say that she'd rather be living in an earlier time Then today in fact she was dressed for an earlier time anyway There's a change. There's been a different why I look like you had two jobs or two careers. I'm not sure And uh, very recently you have switched. In fact, there's been a major career change Um, I've been in the same career for six years Next year I'm thinking about changing careers, but I haven't done it yet. So he could just be a little off in his timing If you set people up right you can tell them most anything if they really got creative and intelligent mind They can make sense out of no matter how crazy it seems to be they can find a way of of reinterpreting it So that really fits them like a glove This person wants me to succeed. I should work out some accommodation Are you assuring assuring you this is that because uh Since I stopped doing professional palm reading of getting people pay for it Most of my readings have been a lot have been in public forums like on television or on radio We're playing a part of the psychic and uh, if you think about it It's a different area, you know When I'm let's go before to talk about I'll make that point Let's go to the very first one that the one under surely show. What year was that by the way? Uh, okay. This was uh, surely this is in canada surely at the same time is filled down to you in this country We had sort of a talk show type of thing and surely was the equivalent of canada. She was the big talk show person there and that's her and just to surely show she decided she was going to have a on her show one time a One of Canada's premier astrologers But what was special about this premier is Roger. He specialized in horses He was an astrologer to horses It was a good living because you know, uh, there are a lot of rich people And can't not too many rich people but the ones that are rich have a lot of money And they own these horses for racing and stuff like that. It's very important that They know that they the horse is compatible with the jockey. It's going to ride them and the horse is going to be Uh, we know that kind of thing and So, uh, he made his first time living doing horoscopes for horses. That was his specialty Now he isn't the first animal Astrologer that I knew of when I was growing up used to be something called the uh Saturday evening post magazine It's gonna be if you don't know if you remember that you're very old, okay There was a weekly and uh, it had cartoons and I knew I I used to get it because I was trying to also be a cartoonist. I would send cartoons into them Hope they would print my cartoons Uh, and be a pay me from of course But no, there's one issue that said the evening post No, this is not setting post. See I got a little bit wrong. It was life magazine, which also doesn't exist anymore It was an issue of life magazine. I think I still saved the clipping. It was a guy named I remember his name. I was spec. His name was last name was back anyway And he was featured as the astrologer. He specialized in dogs Uh, so the first person I knew was there and he was in Hollywood and he was making a fantastic living because Whenever a Hollywood star wanted to get a dog or something like that, he would do the horoscope for the dog and the and the Star or the person going to buy the dog and see whether they're going to be compatible and stuff like that And this was good. Anyways, so this is a horse astrologer And this is the so She had me on here and I'm not sure how I was going whether she's going to have me give a cold reading to a horse Because she wanted to bear me with the cold reading with what the astrologer does First I didn't have to we didn't do it have to do with horses But anyways, this is the context of how I got flown there to do this program. Go ahead Who believe in it are wasting their time and wasting their money Ray hyman is an international authority on astrology Robin armstrong is a professional astrologer Bob garrison also studies the stars, but he's not an astrologer. He's actually an astronomer Mark pakora is an astrologer who casts the charts for the powerful and famous And david gower has been the editor of an astrology magazine as well as an astrology column So we have a fantastic Panel here for you and we're going to start off We're going to meet some people because uh, let me begin by telling you that That with ray and robin a ray and robin have are different. They all have different styles of astrologers Some are kind of on the spot. There you go I've got it for you and people like robin take hours and hours pouring over charts You know so they can tell us what they have to tell us So we have chosen in this audience a few people We gave you robin some background information not very much But we'll begin with ray because you are on an on the spot kind of guy Let me introduce you to our first person. Okay. This is janine faucet. Now. What do you need to know from janine? When she was born January 16 1954, do you know what time of day? It was between 5 30 and 6 a.m uh January right okay and um Okay, where were you born? That's the only other thing I need to know keswick, ontario. Okay now I uh, I obviously Haven't cast a horoscope or anything and so I have to make some adjustments And that's what I'm trying to do in my head like a lightning calculator in a sense And trying to anticipate some things. First of all, you surprised me. You weren't what I expected From the birth date. I would predict it quite a different ones. I'll be honest with you uh, what I do get is um I get this feeling that there's Two separate things going on within you from from my my anticipation Two separate things in a sense You are trying to deal. You basically are a conservative person uh, you basically uh Would like to be oriented towards and acknowledge your maternal nutrient um Even feminine aspect and the other hand, uh, you're in a different world today It's a world where there's a challenges there and the challenges are to um Be something else to let me stop you there and ask you jenny how accurate ray has been so far Oh, he's pretty accurate. It's well good good stuff. Okay. Let's let let me go on now to ron and uh ron If I could just ask you to sit down from on jenny. Okay now This is ron and uh, what do you need to know the same same birthday when he was born november 5th 1969 Okay, and I was born in auto ontario auto ontario. Do you know what time of day you were born? Uh between 6 and 7 a.m. In the morning. Okay, you do fit a little bit. Uh The term term that comes to me is rebel. I know if you remember the movie rebel without a cause Yeah, I've heard of it. I'm a film student. Okay, good You know by being okay and reason curse to me is is in a sense that I get the impression that your problem is Your problem was and maybe still is that uh, how to cope with your parents? Very early on there was this constraints and you were you were chafing at the constraints with your parents Uh, that's true. Well, maybe when I was really young. Yeah, okay under six. I think Anyway, the the real problem for you now is uh career-wise unfortunately you did tell me your career, but uh for you, uh Maybe it's a good career that you're choosing I would have anticipated that uh, your problem today would be Whether to settle in In a conventional type of career and stay with it Whether to be what is in your nature to be on the outside and challenging and questioning What is going on there? Okay now, how is he doing? Close I'm I'm thinking a lot now a lot of thinking Did they want to make any comments so far in this by the way, you were cool Not letting him shake you at all. I've had a long experience there But remember this this is not this is not the same thing though is doing private readings when I'm doing private readings I'm alone with that person and the host the host the whole That person is everything the food to make the reason reading so powerful That person is the center of attention. The whole reading is the unapp person remember I told you about uh, tom waters who wrote about uh a party where at stanford where uh Jerry angers did this wonderful magic and then I followed up by doing some palm reading So it has to do it and everyone just talked about the palm reading and jerry's great magic was Was was was secondary and he wanted to make the point was that Doing cold readings Is fabulous night? You can't you can't beat it with magic or anything else because you're doing the person This is them Whereas when you're doing magic you the magician's a center of attention And these people are out there being fooled or something like that, but they're not so Uh, so when you're doing private readings The person's a center of attention now public readings are You know it dawned on me. Um, I'm giving you I've been giving you and if you uh, people take my workshops on cold reading They get lots of plays lots of how to set the client up How to you know what you do before the meeting is very Is even more important than what you do during the reading and uh, and then during the reading how to do it and but in the script and how to do the scan that we taught you that time and um Then after the meeting there's several things that I teach you And that I that that that a good ploy is that a good cold reading can use to make the reading even more powerful Most of that is Not available when you're sitting and doing this on a public A podium when you do it on the radio as you saw me do on the, um opposite christian imitating Trying to duplicate what christian ione was doing and you see me on things like that First of all, I can't use I don't have the time to set up. I can't do the scan Like you pay people had I didn't have that time to do that You know, I suddenly she picks a person For me and suddenly I just have to go right? And it's always amazing to me that I go And it works most of the time Like the others have time to Benefit from your oh, yeah That's true. And but anyway, so it's a different thing I've gotten in and was reading I compared to the way I consider the real private reading the real one is where you got the person you are known It's between you and the and the and the client this situation there's a Sort of a poll between should you be trying to convince that person we begin reading to that That you're so great that you're hitting them on Do you do what john edward and other people do Don't even worry about the person you've been reading to you're trying to convince the other people Yes, so so john edward, you know when he's on larry king live and so forth. It's very frustrating Most of the time they do you and ask the ask the piece who got person got the reading Was that a good reading or something like that? They just switch because they don't do a damn about that They want their interest the trying to interest all the other people are watching Uh, so there's an interesting conflict. They're the who do you go for what you shoot for? Sometimes they they're not Compatible well But yet despite all that I don't you don't have the chance to you don't know what you're gonna Come across despite all that I've never bombed I did one time There was a lady. Uh, I know she still does it Her name is worthy And she had a long production tv production company that made independent films that they would try to sell at the pbs and on to other Stations, that's how she made a living. She and her actually a daughter and a Work in san francisco Little stuff and she got this idea one time that to do a Program where she would get five Psychics the top psychics in the bay area And each time you give a reading to that same person she'd get one person Each each psychic in turn give a half hour read which is a long reading by the way That's a long one And half hour reading and then she'd get me To give a reading as well And the idea was she was hoping for that my reading would be the best one to show up these Psychics right the real psych is the phony one gets just gets the better hit Well that one in one sense I bombed and maybe that's why she I don't know what she was doing with the program but What happened was she Already this lady and she only had one client which is Risky, you know because she's just putting all your eggs in basket with just one person getting a reading So when I came down She was wonderful because she put it up in the nice little hotel right next to the theater in In the theater district of uh, san francisco and the phantom of the opera was playing And she hadn't gave me a front row seat to this phantom of the opera was fantastic And so I was feeling very well. I was there And uh, she also Interestingly as a side effect because I mentioned condor already And in previous things she Maybe it's still there. I think maybe it probably is she was responsible for setting up a Arthur condor a short homes room In the top floor of the hip motel in san francisco. I made it still there If you go up to the top floor there, there was a room To uh be like a shell cones room in baker street with the The outer artifacts and stuff like that that he would have in his room This was supposed to be a simulation that it's called shell cones room And so she was the responsible class we go in europe every year in her own time her own money and time I guess and collect new stuff to put into that room um The violin that shore home used to play when we talked in some of his uh drug paraphernalia and that kind of stuff Anyway, I just this is background to this So my job was when she got me They got me onto the studio Was this lady that had been given now a reading by four others five other psychics and now i'm giving her the last one to give her a reading And again at the basis of interesting questions Will you get to meet me in the middle or should I meet you before that, you know These are the interesting questions, which you can second guess But uh, I'm also gonna have i'm going to have to give her a half hour reading and she didn't want me to use pound This one you sit there and just look at her and copy which is also map. I stand it way. Okay So that was out then Then I then I had to make my own mind. Uh, how should I play this? No, it was just one person And if you pick the person at random, I would say well, it's probably some and I should not And the other people are being psychics and you psychic type stuff. Woo-woo stuff. I'm going to come across as non woo-woo So I spent the first 50 minutes and then he stopped it For a break because they didn't change the the tapes and so on and then he came back and did When he did many 15 minutes Uh, I did the 15 minutes talked about things I Tried to assess her. She was very well dressed. She had expensive jewelry. No question about this was someone who had a lot of money But she looked about she could have been about 30, but I guess I was all that money she probably was much older and and Used money to make sure she was going to be forever looking young With this cosmetic surgery and that kind of business And by the way, I'm writing all that it turns out I don't tell it but I use that to I just I did my scan, you know, it's over that So she's attractive. She's older than she looks She uh, so I know some things about her just by doing that And I told her a lot about the stuff so it seems to me. I didn't have much trouble doing this um, and then we had to break and uh Willow her name is willow wereby willow Come to grasp me during the break and takes me to science is way you're bombing the terrible I said, what do you mean? She says This gal now she tells me for the first time this lady she's into the psychic But she's she's heavily into psyching Things everything else all the other psychics, you know Use special language. They get you stuff, you know with psychics And the dressed part you're dressed in a suit And with a tie, you don't look like a psychic And and you're not talking like a sight you're talking like a psychologist. I said well, I am a psychologist She says But but you gotta change during the set so the second half, uh, okay, I now Did my boo boo stuff Did my best imitation I could of a of a psychic a true psychic. I got 10 minutes. Okay, so I uh Did my thing and uh, well, and I think it the second half I did I was very good and that that was compelling But as a whole she picked the first very first psychic as the best And it turned out, uh, by the way the crew now knew knew all about her Anyone else and and they and they were also making their own judgments about what was going on They picked me as the most accurate the only one who was even close to being accurate all those were way off Turns out she was very she was about 40 40 or something. Uh, maybe a little more older But had was very well healed had lots of money And uh, but had was in a depression. That's why she got into the psychic world She was looking for somehow because she Uh, was told she never could have children And this was really a big thing with her The others told her in the psychic that she picked actually told us she could have children She was going to have children so I lost the children and all that kind of stuff and um The others also took her as as young as what she was trying to portray herself the others took her that way And I was I I was quite accurate. I actually Everything was right right. So in one sense I was more accurate. Everyone agreed. I was the only one who was even close to being accurate I was the most accurate of all the psychics, but she picked the first one was the best Because he was dressed in all black I've also I do that door and he was wearing into your rings and you know all this thing He was and she was into that kind of stuff I didn't have the right that's that's another thing to bring up So that was my only quote failure, but it wasn't failure because I was uh lack of psychic powers Okay, so I think I've said enough for now. I think I just have a question. Sure. Um We have about uh eight minutes remaining. Can you tease out the difference between personal validation and subjective? Yes, I will. Thank you. Okay. Uh, the question I got was the difference between personal validation and subjective validation Uh, the word personal validation comes from the work of forward That's what he titled his paper the fallacy of personal validation And it was a simple concept. I want to say is that If you depend upon the person who's getting the reading or getting the personality test result Their reaction for your measure of the accuracy of the instrument or how the instrument's working That is wrong at completely wrong and that his demonstration says that And by if you think about it When we say does this work? It doesn't does psychic readings work And the personality test work Almost all the evidence we use is the reaction of the person getting the reading, right? So that's so if you depending on personal validation for these things this is why both Psychic readings and unfortunately personality test results Uh, probably not for the most part very useful Things it's very hard to get to get accurate personality testing. Anyways Uh, they're getting better at it, but still uh to the extent that most psychologists and most people believe in readings The personality gets working and readings especially uh projective tests And and they uh people believe in psychic readings. They depend upon personal validation That's a no nom yet That's that that's wrong And the reason it's wrong is because of one of the things is subjective validation subjective validation is used Not to describe The process of I mean who you ask the source of your validity validation, but Uh, the psychological factors that get into when you're subjectively evaluating something And we saw this with tar and we saw this with other things when people Uh Subjectly try to evaluate how good a reading was that it got all kinds of interesting psychological things get involved and uh All of the psychological things we're talking about how people Uh, assimilate to what they already know and how they can fit it to what they're looking for and that kind of thing Uh, so that's the different subjective validations throughout subscribing as a psychological process personality personal validation simply is Uh describing the way you went to get for your source of validation I'm sorry. Can you repeat that last one? Yeah, personal validation simply is the same when instead of uh Going to some other source like some judges stuff like that to judge whether a personality result Is accurate or not you don't go to the person who was saying that you asked him did that fit you a lot so psychics Themselves get a lot of validation and they can believe that they're real because their clients That's true. They say wow, that was amazing. That's true. Now even if it wasn't that's right And now I've been and I used to be a member of the psychic entertainers association And a lot of people do mentalism. They also like to think they can do cold readings as well and Each one who does cold reading thinks he or she Is a guru of some sort because when they do their readings you get these wonderful reactions from people And when people in the psychic entertainers association learned that I was also a member of psych art and a skeptic They got very paranoid about me And they began attacking me and saying that I was a spy or I was a mold out to expose them Now the first thing that that I have to tell you is that Doing psychic readings has nothing to do with mentalism Mentals like to think they they know something about psychic readings are somehow good to them. It has nothing to do with it Doing psychic readings is is is competitive is people competing with Uh psychologists And it's a claim of fire. We're dealing and it has nothing to do with entertainment Believe me if you if someone's coming to you suicidal and wants to get a reading This is not entertainment So mentis who are very confused people, okay, and um so We will go And now we we will get to the next lecture where we're going to get into again How people go wrong and then the final lecture which will wrap everything up