Why Do the Cards Always Tell Me the Same Thing? (Forays in Cold Reading)

Perhaps out of curiosity or sheer boredom, I decided to play my own psychic several years ago.  Although I eschewed a crystal ball and the loose, flowing, tie-dyed garb typically sold in head shops, I did invest in several sets of tarot cards.  I couldn’t be bothered by reading the how-to manuals, so I dove straight into a spread (the description of which promised to reveal the current circumstances and greater themes of my life).

Three different decks later, the most I could extrapolate from the jibber jabber was:  If I don’t change my life, my life won’t change.  Deep man, really deep.

That’s not really what any of the books or decks said, not literally.  That’s the boiled down version of seven swords, the Hanged Man, and an ominous grim reaper appearing as Sauron the All-Searing Eye.  Can I credit this brilliant revelation to the cards or to my own intuition?  Or better yet, maybe it wasn’t even my subconscious at work but my actual conscious, fully aware of such a blatant fact.

A few years later, I was approached by a woman resembling the cliché gypsum-clad gypsy of some very cheesy ‘80’s TV programming.  She gladly read my girlfriend’s palm and did a spread right on our Café Tu Tu Tango table.  But when she looked at me, she simply recoiled, “You don’t believe in this sort of thing.”

Perhaps that was her way of demonstrating her real psychic abilities or perhaps she was astute enough to realize that I was only going to shell out $10 for my girlfriend and wouldn’t fork out $20.

However, the best cold reading I have seen was at Penn and Teller’s show at the Rio in Las Vegas.

The thinking man’s magical duo contends that psychic powers are nothing more than cow chips.  During the trick, multiple joke books were passed among the audience much like musical chairs.  When the music stopped, three audience members found themselves in possession of several different books.  Penn then instructed each person to select one book.  In that book the person was to select a joke based on certain instructions, such as, “Find a joke that personally resonates with you.”

Penn was then able to determine which joke each person had selected based on hot reading and then cold reading.  What was even more impressive is that, customary to their act, Penn explained how the trick was done and that it was no trick at all.

How did he do it?  His brain has a large capacity for storing information.  Not only is he adroit at cold reading, he has created a literal flow chart of every joke in his brain, eliminating whole groups of jokes by subject matter based on each audience members individual demographic:  their age, sex, hair style, clothing, build, and personal mannerisms.

While most people rely on verbal communication, the well-paid psychic has mastered the integration of visual cues (not dissimilar to stereotyping) with the shrewd interpretation of body language.  While there is nothing supernatural about it, perhaps the skill is worth a few Benjamins.