Psychic cold reading is one of the techniques where showmen and mediums deduce the audience’s information and other details. They make people believe that they have the gift of foretelling and foreseeing due to these details.

In reality, psychic cold reading is where the audience is persuaded to tell details about themselves without them realizing they are divulging it on their own. Through the information that can be obtained through a person’s body language, clothing, appearance, manners, a medium can do psychic cold reading. They would employ high probability guesses about the subject and they would try to pick up on the subject’s reactions to determine if their guess hits a spot or they are grappling at straws.

There are different kinds of technique when it comes to psychic cold reading. One type of this can be accomplished by delivering a prepared spiel. Using the latest surveys and polls and checking for the stereotypes in an audience can be the subject of a written spiel. By using the data and theatrics, they persuade the audience that information is gathered through paranormal ways.

Another technique is the shotgun approach where questions are asked rapidly and hopefully one of the projectiles would illicit a reaction from the audience. The medium would just keenly observed the reactions from the audience and he can pinpoint who is mostly affected by his questions. He would then specify his questions to suit the audience. The method called when making a personal connection through a series of questions asked by the medium is the Forer Effect. This technique relies on the Barnum statements, where the statements seem apt only to one but in reality it is for everyone.

Psychic cold reading is just like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes version of deductive reasoning. Mediums and seers would convince you that it’s a phenomenon but in truth it’s all in the details.