Note to new readers: this post is about the pretend-psychic
and cold reader John Edward (pictured right), and not anyone with a similar
name who is currently running for President of The United States. It’s also about James van Praagh (pictured
below left). This coming Friday November 16,
the credulous Larry
King (CNN) is featuring “psychics (sic) John Edward and James van Praagh”. No doubt they will be playing their usual
guessing game with callers.
My ID
Creationist Bingo card proved popular, so I decided to produce a John
Edward / James van Praagh Bingo card. It’s based on the numerous times I’ve seen Edward perform his lame cold
reading act, as well as my
detailed analysis of the transcript of an earlier Edward appearance on
Larry King. Although it’s based on
Edward’s technique, most of the bingo squares will apply to van Praagh
too. If you want an analysis of Edward’s
cold reading technique, then read my earlier post John
Edward Re-revisited. That’s a long
post, so I’ve summarized below, the meanings behind the different bingo
squares. If you have any friends or
family members who believe in this nonsense, I suggest you watch the show with
them and play the bingo game. It will
help if you explain in advance what the squares mean, and how Edward and van
Praagh will manipulate the callers to believe they are really talking to dead people. From personal experience in doing this, I can
say that saying in advance what
Edward and van Praagh are going to do, is a powerful persuader. Playing Bingo just adds to the fun. Here’s the Bingo Card:
Edited to
add: I replaced the original card with the new randomized bingo
card – have a cold reader bingo party with your friends.
Both Edward and van Praagh use a technique called Cold Reading – where the
“psychic” makes a series of guesses and the caller tries to make them fit his
or her situation. The following is an
explanation of the different squares, and a summary of the main cold reading techniques:
J, M, R and S
names
Why the dead can only remember their initials, and
not their full names, is never adequately explained. Anyway, guessing initials is the bread and
butter of the cold reader. J, M, R and S
are common initials in America. (For
crying out loud, both these
cold-readers’ names are “J” names.) And
they’re flexible - for example R includes Bob as well as Robert. A “G” will count as a hit for the “J” guess,
and so on . M is common especially among
older women. Also Mike is a fairly
common male name. “M” can also be
“Mom”. Notice how often (ie not very
often) they guess other initials.
“Yes You Do!”
or “Write This Down” or "Keep That"
"Yes you do" is a specific Edward technique. When he guesses wrong, he will insist the
caller, not he (Edward), is wrong. The caller just doesn’t realize he had the
older brother that Edward incorrectly guessed he had. Edward’s technique is to be
very aggressive and supremely confident – so much so that the callers often
think their knowledge of their own family is incorrect.
The instruction to “Write This Down” will also give
the impression that Edward is right and the caller wrong, since Edward is
obviously so sure he is right, he wants the caller to write it down to verify
it later. Of course, no one ever follows
up to see if what the caller wrote down was actually true.
Van Praagh version of this will be to say "Keep That" - to imply the caller will eventually recall what van Praagh has guessed. Again, no one can check to see if the missing connection is ever recalled.
The thing to note is that “Yes You Do!”, “Write This Down” and "Keep That" are just techniques to recover from the completely wrong guess.
Father Figure
/ Older Male and Mother Figure / Older Female
This is sufficiently vague that it covers a
multitude of possible dead people, including older brothers/sisters,
aunts/uncles as well as parents and grandparents. The caller will supply the actual answer that
Edward can then pretend he got. This approach
is so much more likely to produce a hit than, say, “I can see your Father” (who
might not actually be dead).
Larry King
goes “Wow!”
Not strictly an cold reading technique – but notice
how Larry will credulously accept even bad guesses as a hit. It’ll happen at least once during the one
hour show, and serves as additional validation.
Chest Area /
Head Area / Cancer
Most deaths can be assigned to either the “head
area” or the “chest area”, so either of these guesses has good chance of being
correct for somebody the caller
knows. “Chest area” covers all heart disease as well
as lung cancer. Either head or chest
could include car accidents and the like. Also asking about "Breathing Trouble" will usually result in a hit - what person didn't have "breathing trouble" when they were dying?
Also, there will be several guesses of “Cancer”,
because who doesn’t know someone who died from cancer?
Birthday /
Wedding / Dog or Cat / Child / Toys
Questions such as “who had a birthday recently”
will usually result in a hit – who doesn’t know someone who recently had (or
soon will have) a birthday? Likewise,
“Wedding” is likely to be a correct guess for someone the caller knows.
Most families had a loved pet that died, sometime,
and so asking about the dog is a reliable standby.
Asking about a dead “Child” may be less reliable,
but will be an strongly emotional hit if the guess is correct. If not, Edward may claim he is right anyway
(see “Yes You Do!”, above).
Van Praagh often asks about "Toys". This is really the same as asking about the child, but is in my view much more emotionally manipulative in that it conjures up an image of a child "on the other side" still playing with her toys. It also allows him to pretend he knows more that he initially did, as in this example:
VAN PRAAGH: Did she have a toy that she loved so much, she nearly wore it out?
CALLER: Yes! She had a stuffed Pink Panther that she carried with her everywhere!
VAN PRAAGH: Because she's showing me a Pink Panther.
Boxes
Edward or van Praagh will ask, is someone moving? And lets face it, who doesn’t know someone
who just moved or is about to? (Think
about your own friends. I moved recently
and two of my friends did also.) If
this is a good guess, Edward will always say something like “I thought so
because they’re showing me boxes”. It’s
his way of claiming this rather obvious guess was told to him by the dead
people. "Boxes can also be a hit for any other kind of gift, such as a birthday (coming soon or just gone).
Wild-Ass
Guess
Occasionally Edward will make an outlandish guess –
who died in a plane or car crash? / who has a leg or arm missing? / suicide? /
shot in a robbery? – you name it. It’s always presented as a question, so when
no one fits the bill he can quickly move on to the next guess. And the mark will rarely remember the wrong
guess. But on the rare occasions he is
correct it will look as though he must be the real deal. “How could he know my grandfather lost his
arm in the war?” Of course, you need to
carefully count the number of guesses he gets wrong that the callers
forget. Which can be difficult at the
speed that Edward spits out guesses.
Numbers from
1 to 12
As well as initials, they will at some point guess
a number. The number chosen will usually
be from 1 to 12. That way, if the number
is (say) the actual date the relative died, (or was born, graduated – anything
will do), he can claim a great hit – he got the date right. If not, then someone will have a birthday, death (etc) in the numbered month. So when the number guessed is between 1 and 12, there is always the
fallback to claim it relates to a month. The guess is therefore much more likely to be a “hit” than a number over
12. In fact, see if either of them ever
guess a number over 12. And see how many
times they guess a number from 1 to 12.
Jewelry
Van Praagh will often ask about "Jewelry" - because most elderly relatives will have left some jewelry, or perhaps a watch to their children or grandchildren. The caller will supply the details. This is, of course very manipulative, emotionally, to remind the caller of precious items their dead relatives left them.
Caller
Accepts a Miss as a Hit
These can sometimes be hard to spot at the time,
and frequently they only become clear when looking at the transcript. For example, see this exchange from the
reading I linked above:
EDWARD:
OK, Linda, the first thing I want talk about is, I know you're looking for your
mom but I'm getting an older male who's also there on the other side. I feel
like this is somebody who would be above you, which means it's like a
father-figure, or an uncle, and he passes from either lung cancer or emphysema,
tuberculosis; it's all problems in the chest area. OK, that's the first thing.
And I feel like there's a J or a G-sounding name attached to this.
CALLER:
That's my mother.
EDWARD:
She's got a very dominant personality.
CALLER:
That's my mother. Her first name starts with G and she had emphysema.
Edward had said the “chest area” person was the
“older male”. Caller recollects this
ailment is her Mother. The caller has
accepted this obvious (wrong) guess as a “hit”.
This one is more obvious:
EDWARD:
Is there a Katherine or Kathleen connected to you?
CALLER:
My brother's name was Keith.
This is a big part of the psychology of cold
reading – the caller feels it is his or her fault if Edward guesses wrong and
so the caller, if possible, will try to turn Edward’s miss into a hit.
Multiple
Fishing Questions
Edward especially relies on speaking very quickly
and on multiple rapid-fire fishing questions. From the transcript again:
What
is coming through is a younger male figure, who is passed over, and I feel like
he passes because of a car accident, or because of an impact to his
body-something that impacts his body. He's telling me, "He's connected to
R"-like Rich or Richie or Robbie; and he's connected to somebody beneath you.
So I don't know if you have a son, and this is a son's friend who's trying to
come through to his family. But there's somebody younger coming through like
this; and it's in your area, it's not out-of-state. It's not far away-
It’s hard from just reading the above, to
appreciate the speed that Edward can get through something like that. I’m pretty sure the idea is that with enough
guesses, something is likely to be right, and with the speed that Edward
whizzes through them, the caller will forget all the wrong guesses.
Complete Miss
on All Guesses
Despite all the above techniques, Edward or van
Praagh will sometimes miss completely on every guess for a caller. When this happens, they will simply say that
the reading (ie the dead person he was talking to) was for a different
caller. It’s the perfect “out” – when
he’s right he’s right; when he’s wrong he’s still right (but for a different
caller). Of course, this result is indistinguishable
from someone just making guesses.
Badge / Flag
Edward will sometimes ask about the “Badge”. This is an over riding guess that can work
for a dead relative in the military, police force, fire department, etc. It will normally go along these lines:
EDWARD: I see a badge. Who wore a badge?
CALLER: My Dad was in the police!
EDWARD: Yes, because they’re telling me he was in
the police.
Edward claims specific knowledge although his guess
was initially much more vague. The
caller supplied the details that Edward pretended he got.
A similar guess is “Flag”. Edward sees them waving a flag – that can
mean someone patriotic (in the military), or someone born (or died, etc) around the fourth of July, or a warning sign – the caller
supplies the answer.
Dead Relative
is “OK”
The sum total of most of these validating guesses
is usually that the dead relative is “OK”. There’s never any useful actual information given – “the gold coins are
buried _________”, or “the number of the Swiss bank account that you didn't
know I had is ____________”, or “the name and address of the
person who murdered me is __________”. Instead
we always hear that the dead people are “OK”. Worthless. And, most importantly, totally
unverifiable.
Do you
understand?
Edward’s favorite. After a series of guesses that are clearly wrong (the caller hasn’t agreed
with any), Edward will ask, aggressively “do you understand?” The caller will usually reply “yes” – ie they
do understand what Edward is saying. But
“I understand” is not the same as “you are correct”. It can appear that even just a nod here can mean verification.
That covers all the squares. If anyone knows any of van Praagh’s specials,
please add them to the comments. And
have fun playing bingo. Usually the game
is to get a straight line marked out. With these two bozos I think it should be possible to get the whole card
marked off.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to The Amazing Randi for supplying the van Praagh techniques I included above . Also thanks to members of the JREF Forum, and especially Rob Lancaster for the "Pink Panther" example. And a huge thanks to Brett who built the randomized bingo card you see above.
Update - Friday November 16, 2007
The show was a total let down - no cold reading despite the promise that the psychics would "take your calls" - just a load of vapid claims from a bunch of dopes that included Shirley MacLaine. I'll leave the post up so that it's there for the next time they actually do have Edward doing his cold reading act.
26 November 07 - Edited to add:
I just posted about the actual program (which was not as advertised) - From The Sublime to The Ridiculous.
I also correctly predicted Christina Aguilera’s pregnancy:
I correctly predicted that Lady Bird Johnson would
die of natural causes.
I wasn’t going to comment on the Criss Angel /
Phenomenon videos, since it seems almost everyone else already has. But Randi is hosting the videos on his site
and, now I’ve seen them, I had to post briefly on this.
So it must be true. Today, 
Several skeptical bloggers have commented on the story
of Oscar the nursing-home cat who can apparently 
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