Hello,

I'd picked up Ian Rowland's Cold Reading book a couple of years ago, read a little bit, but never did anything with it. For some reason it hit me that I wanted to read it again. So I started from the beginning and I'm towards the end now, but I've also been lurking around this forum, watching lots of videos, and reading various articles and what-not on cold reading and mentalism. I have never been able to do slight of hand but I feel comfortable in regards to cold reading.

But then at some point last week it kind of hit me about the slight of hand thing; it's not just the trick, it's the drama.

One of the videos I came across was how to flip a coin and tell if it's heads or tails. So I created a little act where I tell them that I learned how to read people's "tells", blah, blah, blah. And I thought for sure everyone was going to ask, "No, seriously, what's the trick?" But no one has! Everyone believes me and I'm talking about very intelligent business people and engineers. One person did ask me a second time and I just repeated the spiel about years of training and subtle body langue queues and some other made up stuff and he said, "cool."

After doing the trick for about the 5th person I got this crazy idea. I'd seen a video about how to put a quarter into your left hand but you pinch the quarter so it can't be seen then not really put it in the hand. That never works for me.

So on the last person, who I did the mind reading trick on and who knew I had a quarter, I told her I was going to make the quarter disappear. But in a quick moment of misdirection I just slipped the quarter into my pocket.

Then I "showed" her the quarter, did the motion of putting it in my hand, then wiggled my hand like I was adjusting the quarter, and held my right hand like an amateur magician trying to conceal a quarter.

After some blah blah blah I opened my left hand and of course no quarter. And she thought that was quaint and gave a little ha, ha, that's cool. Then I opened my right hand, spread open the fingers on both hands, and showed both their fronts and backs. Then her face changed. She was serious and said, "Wow! I've never seen that before."

So, that was fun but I'm really immersing myself in cold reading and while I've only done it once for someone (which turned out awesome by the way)(and it was under the guise of psychometry), I found that there are side effects to this cold reading knowledge and mindset that are hard to explain.

It's like I listen to and talk to people differently. Like I've realize that the context and framing of the conversation, subject, and direction can be ever so slightly manipulated by subtle changes in the way I say things, ask question, or modify intonation. But this isn't even a good description. I'm hoping someone with more experience can explain this better. Anyone else feel the same way or know what I'm talking about? It's strange, but cool.

This got longer than I thought so thank you for reading.

Z

It looks like you are having fun and doing very well, Z. Keep going!

KJ

As a born again amateur I'm now at the point with a couple of my coin and card routines where I know them well enough to perform them comfortably and confidently. As a result I can now more often concentrate on the reaction of the spectator and have finally found that truly magical place that I have seen other magicians enter over the years, where they seem to be as delighted in the spectators reaction as the spectator is in the magic unfolding before them. I was already hooked on magic for a number of reasons but the reaction to a trick that has gone well is completely addictive. I recently performed one of my well rehearsed card routines to a small group of colleagues and although it all went well I only truly relaxed and began to fully take in the reactions of the spectators when I was performing a really simple but quite brilliant "mind reading trick" that comes built into packs of Phoenix cards. I explained that I would be looking for the tells that each of them had in order to tell when they were lying and know which of five cards was theirs. I ended up doing the same trick twice for each person with the other three sitting beside me pointing out (and agreeing on) the non existent tells that they thought they could see! A truly brilliant experience!

Zaurus I think you have stumbled across your first lesson in magic, and that is magic is more about sizzle you can create during a performance. Keep going, and you will find the magic is more then just a bunch of tricks.

Magically

Aus

Great reading Zaurus

Great for you man! I was thinking about buying Rowland's book, what do you think? Should I buy it? I´m very interested in mentalism and cold reading

I suspect Zaurus won't answer to you "soon". But as someone interested in cold reading too, I recommend you that book very much. I read it some time ago, and I'm reading it again now.

Since this is the only book I've read on this subject I'm not the best person to give a recommendation. I will say that it seems that more people recommend it than don't. However, some say there are better books.

My personal opinion is that if you really study only this one book, i.e. read it several times and take notes, and then practice, practice, practice, then eventually you will be convicing people that you have special insight into their lives.