Cold Reading Techniques

[Barleywine]

My use of the phrase "performance art" in association with tarot reading has always been a little tongue-in-cheek in the same way I use the phrase "theater of tarot" to describe some of the inconsequential rituals we conduct as part of the process. But in truth I view the tarot reader in the same light as I see a public story-teller, with the difference that we have an audience of one. So it is most certainly a type of personal performance (and hopefully not stand-up comedy).

[iofthebeholder]

perhaps "sit down comedy" @Barleywine lol.

 

@fire cat pickles certainly true "performance art" thus vaguely defined could include almost anything, i do believe we're touching here on a sort of broader crisis of identity as to what art is or what value it proposes to society. nonetheless insofar as one might consequently conceive potentially any act as "art" if approached with a creative intent, i personally feel applying this term to tarot readings inspires me to consciously approach them with a spirit of spontaneous poetic adaptiveness that helps root me in the present and focus my attention on opportunities to draw meaningful associations in a more open ended way than if I did not consider it an overtly creative, subjective act. insofar as some methods of contacting the spiritual realm rely on supplying a carrier signal of white noise for spiritual agencies to act upon, perhaps applying the "anything goes!" ethos of modern "art" offers a similar utility?

[fire cat pickles]

13 minutes ago, iofthebeholder said:

insofar as some methods of contacting the spiritual realm rely on supplying a carrier signal of white noise for spiritual agencies to act upon, perhaps applying the "anything goes!" ethos of modern "art" offers a similar utility?

 

God I hope not. 

 

There have been attempts to standardize tarot reading in the past. Maybe by defining the different methods we use and labelling them into different schools has the effect of lending credibility to the art of tarot reading. I'm all for that. There will always be charlatans that cheapen it and make us all look bad.

[iofthebeholder]

definitely understand where you're coming from, although we have to admit even those codified systems that have accumulated an aura of legitimacy remain a mix of cobbled together ideas from other disciplines and perhaps in larger part and more importantly, pure invention. to the extent the cultural context in which we operate continually evolves and tarot offers a linguistic syntax that can be recombined and employed in an endless variety of ways i feel balancing tradition with some creative license to seems like a positive thing.

[Barleywine]

3 hours ago, iofthebeholder said:

definitely understand where you're coming from, although we have to admit even those codified systems that have accumulated an aura of legitimacy remain a mix of cobbled together ideas from other disciplines and perhaps in larger part and more importantly, pure invention. to the extent the cultural context in which we operate continually evolves and tarot offers a linguistic syntax that can be recombined and employed in an endless variety of ways i feel balancing tradition with some creative license to seems like a positive thing.

I have no problem with "pure invention" as long as there is some credible way to prove its effectiveness. "It just feels right" isn't good enough for me, and it really shouldn't be good enough for my clients. I use tarot in a predictive rather than a psycho-therapeutic way (self-focused or otherwise), so I'm always looking for testimony showing that my methods are capable of legitimate insights. Unfortunately, most of what has passed for evidence in the past has been anecdotal rather than empirical. Part of it is the nature of the beast: a sitter walks in and walks out, never to be seen again, so we don't have any real closure on our forecasts. I'm just cynical enough to say "Good luck with that" and take the money, but there is definitely a philosophical disconnect between what we're trying to do and what we can demonstrate that we actually did.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Barleywine

[katrinka]

Maybe "showmanship" is a better - or at least less loaded - term than "performance art" in the case of Tarot?

[Grizabella]

On 8/4/2019 at 7:52 PM, katrinka said:

It's used several times in William Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare Alley (published in 1946), and it means exactly what we're talking about ITT:

https://books.google.com/books?id=S34GAQAAIAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q="cold+reading"

 

I don't know how old the usage/term actually is, though. It appears to be a carny term...or maybe it started in the 1800's when those crazy seances with floating trumpets and the like were big business?

Actually that would kind of make some crazy sense about the seances. People seem to always say when spirits or ghosts are around, there's a sudden coldness in the room. Probably has nothing to do with it but it just occurred to me that it might.

[Barleywine]

1 hour ago, katrinka said:

Maybe "showmanship" is a better - or at least less loaded - term than "performance art" in the case of Tarot?

I wouldn't say that the act of reading is necessarily showmanship, but any intentional mystique surrounding it would qualify. I think I'll stick with my "story-teller" analogy and just consider it performance art. (In my simplistic perspective, it's "art" because it isn't "science.")

Edited August 6, 2019 by Barleywine

[Barleywine]

Well, there is Art and there is art. "Capital A" art is what some of us are talking about here: "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."

 

What we're doing with tarot reading is "small a" art: "a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice."

 

I'm by no means a showman, but I would submit that my story-telling with the cards occasionally approaches "art."

Edited August 7, 2019 by Barleywine

[Barleywine]

15 minutes ago, Ruby Jewel said:

Empirical? Isn't that rather passe now that science has advanced into astro physics...we no longer can rely on what we see.....or even what we "know." However, intuition remains unassailable. Like I said earlier, I think most psychics are phoney but I would never say "all" simply b/c I have no way of knowing it for certain. And as far as the cards are concerned, the client is the only one who knows or can know. Thus, I tell my client the cards do not predict anything. They pick up on the energy and offer scenarios and opportunities....but you, the client, are in charge of your life.

No argument here on that last point. But the "empirical" I'm talking about is simply testimony from the client confirming that my predictions were accurate, not some kind of global scientific demonstration of absolute truth. Most of what we get now is what I call "feel-good" feedback at the time of the reading; it's entirely anecdotal and subjective..

Edited August 7, 2019 by Barleywine

[Barleywine]

2 minutes ago, Ruby Jewel said:

I'm not much of a believer in The Absolute. It seems to me that everything under the sun is not only relative, but also arbitrary. We get lost in semantics.....and generalities.....this is why I believe in simplicity. But simplicity is hard to achieve....for many, impossible it seems.  Sometimes I never know specifically what rings true for the client b/c they don't always say and I don't ask....but I can tell by their actions that the reading as a whole "hit home." And, yes, that feels good.

There were really two phases to the public "fortune-telling" readings I've done. I've had sitters tell me "That exactly describes what I went through and where I am right now." Wonderful, but - while that may give me confidence in the predictive aspects of the reading - it doesn't offer any hard evidence that the eventual outcome was as forecast. I've only ever seen one of my paying clients a second time over the years (she came back because the first reading was accurate), so the rest of those readings were left open-ended. As Aristotle said "One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day."

[Barleywine]

22 minutes ago, Ruby Jewel said:

I recently had a client return a third time. Each time she brings one of her children with her for a reading....usually b/c they need help with an issue. But, like I say I don't "predict" so there's really nothing to verify. All I know is what I see in the faces of my clients' immediate responses to their readings.....which is that the "energy" of the situation is accurate.

 

But, Barleywine, the real truth is in the cards....one MUST believe in the cards.....have confidence they speak to the client. I feel the cards are the language of the spirit world through which the message is conveyed......I really cannot take any credit for whether the reading is right or wrong. Anyway, the element of time renders any future elusive.....what can we actually "know" after all? This is why I have to have faith in the cards. Without that faith, I'm just a charlatan. In which case I wouldn't bother with the cards.

In my experience, there seem to be two main classes of seekers who sit for a tarot reading (I'm not counting the idly curious): those who want reinforcement of something they would like to believe is true, and those who are looking for insights into challenging circumstances that can have real consequences for their future status. It's the latter that I'm most interested in reading for because I think the cards speak most eloquently and provocatively at that level of significance. I try not to bring any philosophical assumptions or preconceptions to the table, and just "read the cards." If it gives the client something useful to ponder, I've done my job; if it doesn't, we go back to the well. I try not to leave anyone hanging.

 

It's probably worth noting that my aim in reading is to give my clients the ammunition and help them find the range in order to hit their target (aka "empowerment").  I'm not too interested in psychological hand-holding.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Barleywine

[Barleywine]

12 minutes ago, Ruby Jewel said:

Absolutely.....those are the reasons we read the cards.....and I can see the client's outlook on their situation change and improve b/c they leave happier than when they walked in. People need to "understand" their situation, and the cards actually "show" them through those wonderful pictures. Even if it is not what they want to hear, just understanding their situation is the real value of a reading.

Yes, the "Aha!" moment when it all becomes clear (or at least clearer). Unless the sitter is totally unresponsive, I don't let up until we reach something approaching that kind of epiphany.

[Barleywine]

39 minutes ago, Ruby Jewel said:

And also, the element of choice is what I consider the "magic" in the cards.....the client must choose......not me. That makes the future totally unpredictable. The choice is really about change.....does one change or just keep repeating the same pattern? The client has to choose b/c there is no alternative. Even "not choosing" is choosing. The hub of the tarot for me is The Wheel of Fortune.....will that couple continue to ride it or "choose" to get off? I can't make that decision, nor can I predict what they will do. Whether they wind up with the World card or the Tower......they still must choose b/c there are no guarantees and nothing is "fixed" in the future. The only thing fixed is the past and the present and we see that in the first 4 cards of the CC.....the "truth" of the situation. Therein lies the only thing we can know....whether it is true or not....and the client is the one who knows. The outcome is relative and arbitrary..

Rather than unpredictable, I like to think the future is "conformable" to the will of the seeker, as long as they choose wisely in deciding what to do with the insights delivered by the cards. I have these words in my "Cartomancer's Creed," which I make available to my sitters:

 

"To unfold as shown, a prediction often requires deliberate action or inaction by the seeker: conscious effort to pursue an agreeable outcome or willing neglect to permit an unpleasant one. Wishful thinking in the first case and good intentions in the second aren’t enough to make a difference."

[Barleywine]

To bring this back on topic, I'm really puzzled by the fixation on the mechanics of "cold reading" as a key arrow in the debunker's quiver. Why not go after "intuition," which is a target-rich environment for the skeptic bent on discrediting the practice of divination? In these eclectic times, the clues one might glean from a sitter's appearance are highly suspect. A rich socialite might be "slumming," wearing jeans with her shirttail out and her hair tied back, while a working-class client (yes, I know I'm stereotyping here) may "dress up" for the occasion. And with the widespread use of Botox and hair dye, the sitter's age is anyone's guess. Readers who make much of this misleading melange of impressions are wasting their time. In my own case, while I agree that acquiring some subtle subconscious hints is unavoidable, after the initial pleasantries I bury my head in the cards and there is very little visual exchange - we're both looking at the table and talking about the reading. Trying to equate my approach to cold-reading methods is almost laughable.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Barleywine

[Barleywine]

4 minutes ago, Ruby Jewel said:

It seems to me we are saying pretty much the same thing....I say the cards show one the energy and the client chooses what to do with that energy.....and you are saying the seeker must choose to make the outcome of the cards manifest. You know, everyone has their own method they believe in that works for them. They also have their own way of interpreting each card that works for them.....there is really something magic in those cards imo. That is so much like life....and how a painting happens...like a big surprise!!! One takes a chance on coming up with something significant and when it does, magically, you get that great feeling you mentioned earlier. It always feel like something from another world to me. I could never see it as mundane b/c it is almost like a miracle that just keeps on keepin on.....and so one eventually acquires that everlasting "faith" in the cards. I no longer question the cards on any level. If I don't understand the answer at that moment, I have faith it will materialize when the time is right......I don't expect myself to know the intent of the spirit realm. The conversation is between the seeker and their guardian angel....I'm just listening in.

I also call it the "magic" in the cards, although it resides mainly in the reader's connection with the cards. I wrote a blog post on the subject:

 

https://parsifalswheeldivination.com/2018/07/29/cardboard-ink-and-magic/

[Barleywine]

2 minutes ago, Ruby Jewel said:

I think Enrique is actually a "magician" rather than a "reader"...... he is manipulating the entire "act", and it seems to be his main purpose.....a big ego trip ...... the intellectual's delight and nothing of substance. Yes, I also see what he calls "cold-reading" as laughable. It is certainly transparent if one doesn't put him on a pedestal.

I wasn't aware that Enrique is on the "cold-reading bandwagon." He should really know better. I thought it was only people like James Randi who were pushing it. I don't recall seeing it mentioned in his Tarology documentary, and I haven't read any of his written material.

[devin]

21 hours ago, katrinka said:

Diego Rivera would agree. 🙂

Spot on! 👍

14 hours ago, Barleywine said:

In my simplistic perspective, it's "art" because it isn't "science."

Thanks! I think you've hit on something here.

 

If science thrives on reduction, the grinding out of general principles, laws, etc. and the setting of defined (somewhat artificial) limits for the purpose of facilitating experiment and explanation, then maybe we could say that the arts are a complementary mode of knowing and investigation - one that resists precise explanation and does not have nearly as clearly defined limits, tending more toward the individuation and expansion of its subjects as opposed to their reduction.

 

In other words, unlike the sciences, the arts resist reduction and neat explanation (this is probably what makes art so bloody hard to talk about).

 

I mean, I'm thinking here, if you read an interpretation or explanation of a Shakespearean play, have you come even slightly close to the experience of reading him or watching his work live? I very much doubt it. The only way to experience Shakespeare is to experience Shakespeare - nothing else will do.

 

I think art's resistance to reduction and explanation has real parallels in life: Does the taxonomy of an animal give you a real sense of its being? Can we really tell who someone is exactly and precisely by knowing their biology, their job, and their bank balance? I'd like to think that, no, we can't. So, in this way, art can be defined as a manufactured (only in the sense that it is made, it is artifice) means of bringing us into contact with the irreducibility of life. And, in doing so, it can instruct and guide us in how to deal with problems or endeavors that resist easy explanation and reduction. For example: How to make a marriage, how to live in a landscape, how to make a community, a society, what is a good life, how to love, how to empathize, how to pay attention, etc.

 

Of course, we should probably also be careful not to draw too hard a line between the arts and the sciences - or to imply that they can't be of use to each other. After all, it's hard to imagine Dante without astronomy and it's worth remembering just how many pioneering scientists have had lifelong relationships and conversations with art.

 

And it's for the above reasons that I dislike the phrase art for art's sake. I have too much respect for the arts to accept this motto of implied uselessness. 

 

So, like you, I definitely do feel okay in calling tarot an art. Then the question becomes, how do we differentiate between the so called 'fine' arts and their 'low' cousins? What's the difference between prose and poetry? Tricky. And probably a topic for another day.

 

17 hours ago, Barleywine said:

I have no problem with "pure invention" as long as there is some credible way to prove its effectiveness. "It just feels right" isn't good enough for me, and it really shouldn't be good enough for my clients. I use tarot in a predictive rather than a psycho-therapeutic way (self-focused or otherwise), so I'm always looking for testimony showing that my methods are capable of legitimate insights. Unfortunately, most of what has passed for evidence in the past has been anecdotal rather than empirical.

This reminds me of a book I read a while back detailing the lives and activities of various American Indian medicine men/women. It makes it quite clear that Indians are not a people particularly inclined to taking claims of spiritual power at face value. Each time a member of the community would claim to have received a power through a dream or a vision, the tribe would go, "Okay, cool, now prove it, show us, do something, make something happen." I like this dedication to results and it strikes me as a kind of loose empiricism.

 

If anyone's interested, the book is The World We Used to Live In by Vine Deloria Jr.

8 hours ago, Ruby Jewel said:

It seems to me that everything under the sun is not only relative, but also arbitrary.

Wait, and you don't like post-modernism?

19 hours ago, iofthebeholder said:

an interesting turn in the conversation. considering how through most of recorded history in most parts of the world, "art" has nearly always involved the patronage of the dominant political class and overtly served to advance narratives about the centrality of political institutions and personalities in the life of the people, the way we think of it now as being about "personal expression" is surely a historical anomaly.

If historical art is merely an expression of class politics, how do we explain the ways in which countless and successive generations have drawn value from said art/class politics? Any ideas?

Edited August 7, 2019 by devin

[Barleywine]

2 hours ago, devin said:

 

If science thrives on reduction, the grinding out of general principles, laws, etc. and the setting of defined (somewhat artificial) limits for the purpose of facilitating experiment and explanation, then maybe we could say that the arts are a complementary mode of knowing and investigation - one that resists precise explanation and does not have nearly as clearly defined limits, tending more toward the individuation and expansion of its subjects as opposed to their reduction.

 

In other words, unlike the sciences, the arts resist reduction and neat explanation (this is probably what makes art so bloody hard to talk about).

 

Regarding the philosophical side of our pursuit, I have for a long time drawn inspiration from Aleister Crowley's maxim "The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion." (Here we might substitute "Art" for "Religion.") I found this essay by Rodney Orpheus enlightening.

 

http://rodneyorpheus.com/writings/occult/the-method-of-science-the-aim-of-religion/

[_R_]

For those interested in what exactly is meant by "cold reading", I recommend the following two pieces by Ray Hyman:

https://www.skeptics.com.au/resources/articles/guide-to-cold-reading-ray-hyman/

http://skepdic.com/Hyman_cold_reading.htm

[Barleywine]

I have almost no academic appreciation of post-modernism, but the impression I get is that it's considered a bankrupt paradigm, more reactionary than legitimate movement in its own right. I certainly agree that the Enlightenment did no favors for those of us with a more elastic sense of human potential, but rejecting its legitimate advances outright seems to be just as grievous an error. Brian Williams certainly made plenty of fun over the result in his Post-Modern (aka PoMo) Tarot, one of my all-time favorite decks for sociopolitical readings. He produced one of the best visual expressions of narcissism I've ever seen:

 

https://parsifalswheeldivination.com/2017/08/11/who-you-callin-a/

Edited August 8, 2019 by Barleywine

[Barleywine]

Here's one that involves a narcissist, although it's "old news" now. The majority of the images in the deck are based on famous paintings. It's almost impossible to avoid cold-reading techniques with public figures, but I tried not to let it influence my interpretation of the cards (which did a pretty good job on their own).

 

https://parsifalswheeldivination.com/2018/01/26/trumps-showdown/

[katrinka]

2 hours ago, Barleywine said:

It's almost impossible to avoid cold-reading techniques with public figures, but I tried not to let it influence my interpretation of the cards

Could you elaborate on what you mean by that?
It takes some effort to avoid hot/warm reading, since a good deal of information gets reported. Did you mean hot reading? It would be impossible to coax information out of a person you've never interacted with, cold reading would be impossible in these situations, I would think.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cold_reading
 

[devin]

@Ruby Jewel 

 

Thanks for another interesting reply.

 

For the sake of head-space (yours and mine) I will try and keep this brief.

 

My problem is that replying to criticisms of traditional artistic values by proclaiming 'art for the sake of art' is letting the opposition set the terms of engagement and buying into their assumptions. So, if someone said to me, "Forget beauty, goodness, truth ... art should be of use," my reply would be simple: "F**k off, it already is of use." Point being that beauty, goodness, and truth are, at heart, practical values. To claim that art should exist for its own sake and need not be useful is buying into the assumption that traditional artistic values are not innately useful and practical.

 

Does that make sense?

 

As for endless loops of pedantic argument: I get this. Still, despite appearances, I'm actually arguing with myself (maybe this is selfish). It's a process of trying to figure out why thing A is of lasting value and thing B is not. Of exactly how beauty, goodness and truth are so valuable. This, maybe owing to my limitations, inevitably degenerates into a log-jam of wordy thickets. However, experience has taught me that this period of complication and inarticulate struggle eventually leads to a sudden dawning of realisation in which one emerges from the thicket and catches a glimpse of something on the horizon, something simple and useful.

 

For the sake of respect to the rules of this forum, I'm going to leave your political points hanging..... and just say that I too am something of a social democrat by temperament and disposition.

 

Good luck with the book and I hope you're planning on exhibiting soon!

 

Devin.

Edited August 8, 2019 by devin

[Barleywine]

6 hours ago, katrinka said:

Could you elaborate on what you mean by that?
It takes some effort to avoid hot/warm reading, since a good deal of information gets reported. Did you mean hot reading? It would be impossible to coax information out of a person you've never interacted with, cold reading would be impossible in these situations, I would think.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cold_reading
 

As I understand its use in a more modern sense, cold-reading involves drawing conclusions from a person's appearance and comportment and passing them off as psychic insights derived from whatever method of divination one is using. (Personally, I have never seen the value of this approach but apparently some charlatans use it.) Highly-visible political figures often telegraph their personal values with every gesture, both sincere and phony, so it is tempting to make ad hominem judgments about them on that basis alone (caricaturists going back at least to Thomas Nast do it all the time) which could certainly be augmented with the cards. Television makes it possible for anyone to apply this con. I tend to stay away from the opinions of so-called debunkers and rationalists because they are almost certainly self-serving; the ridicule of James Randi turned me off right away (and I'm a lapsed Mensan and recovering Ayn Rand fan). But maybe I should learn something about the "enemy," huh?

Edited August 8, 2019 by Barleywine