about body language, visual cues, and some good old-fashioned fishing. The basic premise is this: People who want a psychic reading are highly motivated to have it be successful, particularly if they’re trying to connect with someone who’s passed. They crave information as much as I want to be able to provide it. This is why a good cold reading says way more about the client than about the swamp witch performing it. I can throw out a whole stream of non sequiturs:
Aunt, the Spring, water-related, an S sound, Sarah or maybe Sally, and there’s something about education? Books? Writing?
Chances are my client will react to at least one item in that list, trying desperately to make it significant to herself. The only supernatural power at work here is the ability of the average person to find meaning in random details. We are a race that sees the Virgin Mary in the cut stump of a tree, that can find God in the twist of a rainbow, that hears
Paulisdead
when a Beatles song is played backward. The same intricate human mind that makes sense of the nonsensical is the human mind that can believe a fake psychic.
So how do I play the game? Good swamp witches are good detectives. I pay attention to how the things I say affect the client—a dilation of pupils, an intake of breath. I plant clues with the words I choose. For example, I might say to Mrs. Langham, “Today I’m going to present a memory you’re thinking of …,” and then I start talking abouta holiday, and lo and behold, that turns out to be
exactly
what she’s thinking about. The word
present
is already lurking in the back of her mind, so whether or not she realizes it, I’ve just cued her to think about a time she received a gift, which means she’s remembering a birthday, or maybe Christmas. Just like that, it looks like I’ve read her mind.
I take note of flickers of disappointment when I say something that doesn’t make sense to her, so I know to back off and head in another direction. I look at how she is dressed and how she speaks, and I make assumptions about her upbringing. I ask questions, and half the time, the client gives me the answer I’m looking for:
I’m getting a B … Did your grandfather’s name begin with that letter?
No … Could it be a P? My grandfather’s name was Paul
.
And bingo.
If I don’t get enough information from the client, I have two options. Either I can Go Positive—create a message from someone dead that anyone in their right mind would want to hear, such as
Your grandfather wants you to know that he’s at peace, and he wants you to be at peace, too
. Or I can “Barnum” the client, with a comment that would apply to 99 percent of the population but that she is bound to interpret personally:
Your grandfather knows you like to make decisions carefully, but feels that occasionally you rush to judgment
. Then I sit back and let the client feed me more rope I can run with. You’d be surprised how people feel the need to fill in all the gaps in the conversation.
Does this make me a con man? I guess that’s one way to look at it. I prefer to think of myself as Darwinian: I’m adapting, so that I can survive.
Today, however, has been an absolute disaster. I lost a good client, my grandmother’s scrying bowl, and my composure—all within the past hour—thanks to a scrawny kid and her rusty bicycle. Jenna Metcalf was not, as she said, older than she looked—Christ, she probably still believed in the tooth fairy—but she was as powerful as a giant black hole, sucking me back into the nightmare of the McCoy scandal.
I don’t do missing people
, I told her, and I meant it. It’s one thing to fake a message from a deceased husband; it’s another thing entirely to give false hope to someone who needs closure. You know where thatkind of behavior gets you? Living above a bar in Crapville, NH, and spending every Thursday collecting unemployment benefits.
I like being a fraud. It’s safer to make up what
Aunt, the Spring, water-related, an S sound, Sarah or maybe Sally, and there’s something about education? Books? Writing?
Chances are my client will react to at least one item in that list, trying desperately to make it significant to herself. The only supernatural power at work here is the ability of the average person to find meaning in random details. We are a race that sees the Virgin Mary in the cut stump of a tree, that can find God in the twist of a rainbow, that hears
Paulisdead
when a Beatles song is played backward. The same intricate human mind that makes sense of the nonsensical is the human mind that can believe a fake psychic.
So how do I play the game? Good swamp witches are good detectives. I pay attention to how the things I say affect the client—a dilation of pupils, an intake of breath. I plant clues with the words I choose. For example, I might say to Mrs. Langham, “Today I’m going to present a memory you’re thinking of …,” and then I start talking abouta holiday, and lo and behold, that turns out to be
exactly
what she’s thinking about. The word
present
is already lurking in the back of her mind, so whether or not she realizes it, I’ve just cued her to think about a time she received a gift, which means she’s remembering a birthday, or maybe Christmas. Just like that, it looks like I’ve read her mind.
I take note of flickers of disappointment when I say something that doesn’t make sense to her, so I know to back off and head in another direction. I look at how she is dressed and how she speaks, and I make assumptions about her upbringing. I ask questions, and half the time, the client gives me the answer I’m looking for:
I’m getting a B … Did your grandfather’s name begin with that letter?
No … Could it be a P? My grandfather’s name was Paul
.
And bingo.
If I don’t get enough information from the client, I have two options. Either I can Go Positive—create a message from someone dead that anyone in their right mind would want to hear, such as
Your grandfather wants you to know that he’s at peace, and he wants you to be at peace, too
. Or I can “Barnum” the client, with a comment that would apply to 99 percent of the population but that she is bound to interpret personally:
Your grandfather knows you like to make decisions carefully, but feels that occasionally you rush to judgment
. Then I sit back and let the client feed me more rope I can run with. You’d be surprised how people feel the need to fill in all the gaps in the conversation.
Does this make me a con man? I guess that’s one way to look at it. I prefer to think of myself as Darwinian: I’m adapting, so that I can survive.
Today, however, has been an absolute disaster. I lost a good client, my grandmother’s scrying bowl, and my composure—all within the past hour—thanks to a scrawny kid and her rusty bicycle. Jenna Metcalf was not, as she said, older than she looked—Christ, she probably still believed in the tooth fairy—but she was as powerful as a giant black hole, sucking me back into the nightmare of the McCoy scandal.
I don’t do missing people
, I told her, and I meant it. It’s one thing to fake a message from a deceased husband; it’s another thing entirely to give false hope to someone who needs closure. You know where thatkind of behavior gets you? Living above a bar in Crapville, NH, and spending every Thursday collecting unemployment benefits.
I like being a fraud. It’s safer to make up what
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