52. Skeptic Lynne Kelly on Cold Reading Techniques (Podcast)

[alextsakiris]

Guest: Lynne Kelly, author of The Skeptic?s Guide to the Paranormal , discusses using ?cold Reading? techniques in psychic medium readings.

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[David Bailey]

Alex,

I had the feeling that Lynne Kelly should have read the details of the relevant papers ahead of time. As it was, a lot of the conversation seemed to be confused

Can I clarify the protocol slightly. Are you saying that the only information that the psychic receives is the name of the deceased person (and perhaps the sitter?) and the various questions that the psychic should answer?

Is there any risk that the nature of the questions could give anything away?

David

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Is there any risk that the nature of the questions could give anything away?

I can't see how they could, as they're being compared to another reading when rated. The only potential leakage I can see is in giving away the first name, and I think that should be controlled for by using (randomly determined) nicknames or numbers.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Alex,

I had the feeling that Lynne Kelly should have read the details of the relevant papers ahead of time. As it was, a lot of the conversation seemed to be confused

- I sent her a link to the paper more than a week before the interview.

- We exchanged several emails in which I specifically said we'd be digging into the details of the protocol.

- This work should be well known to anyone who claims expertise in the field.

Can I clarify the protocol slightly. Are you saying that the only information that the psychic receives is the name of the deceased person (and perhaps the sitter?) and the various questions that the psychic should answer?

- medium is only given the name of the deceased

Is there any risk that the nature of the questions could give anything away?

- no, the questions are exactly the same for the control reading the and target

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Larry Boy

I can't see how they could, as they're being compared to another reading when rated. The only potential leakage I can see is in giving away the first name, and I think that should be controlled for by using (randomly determined) nicknames or numbers.

- I agree, but I'd also like to explore how we might give the medium more to work with and still maintain adequate controls... e.g.
--- birth month and day (not year)
--- recording of the sitter reading a canned statement
--- non-descriptive objects that the deceased owned (e.g. jewelry, clothing)

Thoughts?

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

--- birth month and day (not year)

I think there's a danger here as the season of the year when a child is born may influence its development to some degree (I can imagine that children born in spring run a greater risk of contracting hay fever, for instance, because of their early exposition to pollen).

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

--- recording of the sitter reading a canned statement

Perhaps you could play it even without canning as the medium is supposed to give information about the deceased, not the sitter. (I wouldn't recommend providing the medium with a recording of the deceased though, however canned.)

Originally Posted by alextsakiris

--- non-descriptive objects that the deceased owned (e.g. jewelry, clothing)

This is an interesting suggestion as many mediums claim that ojects help them "tune in" to the deceased, and also because psychometry in and of itself has produced good evidence for psi ability (in people that do not claim to have mediumistic abilities as well as in mediums). I do not think clothing can be used though, as it may give clues as to height, weight (and sex, if we're controlling for that as well) of the deceased.

Of these three, I would think the third has by far the most potential, as there is a long history of claims of psychometry, both in connection to mediums and to regular psychics.

[Mizzark]

Maybe this girl is a slow reader, like me, or maybe she just gave priority to the other paper she was working on. (Although, she probably shouldn't have agreed to be on Skeptiko and talk about the study if either of those two options were correct...) Oh well, she seemed reasonable enough. Then again, I might have said the same thing about Radford before I read and posted what he wrote. Some of these skeptics can be two-faced, so you have to be cautious. It would not be out of the realm of reasonable possibility for her to have purposely failed to read the paper (or did read it and lied) in order to be able to get Alex bogged down in explaining something that she thought that he would not be able to explain adequately. Sometimes skeptics pursue this type of tactic when they are afraid that they won't be able to have an adequate rebuttal to the arguments of the believer.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Larry Boy

Of these three, I would think the third has by far the most potential, as there is a long history of claims of psychometry, both in connection to mediums and to regular psychics.

I should have added that these would depend on the medium... I mean I would only provide additional info if they thought it would improve their reading.

Also, for the personal item, I think we could make sure they didn't convey anything.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Mizzark

Maybe this girl is a slow reader, like me, or maybe she just gave priority to the other paper she was working on. (Although, she probably shouldn't have agreed to be on Skeptiko and talk about the study if either of those two options were correct...) Oh well, she seemed reasonable enough. Then again, I might have said the same thing about Radford before I read and posted what he wrote. Some of these skeptics can be two-faced, so you have to be cautious. It would not be out of the realm of reasonable possibility for her to have purposely failed to read the paper (or did read it and lied) in order to be able to get Alex bogged down in explaining something that she thought that he would not be able to explain adequately. Sometimes skeptics pursue this type of tactic when they are afraid that they won't be able to have an adequate rebuttal to the arguments of the believer.

I think it may be more subtle than that... think of something you really don't believe in and imagine someone giving you a paper that presents the other side... it's hard to read!

[Mizzark]

That's definitely another possibility. I know that there are some skeptics that don't read papers for consciously understood strategic reasons, but there are also some that have more subtle, psychologically subconscious reasons like the one you mentioned.