Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there

by Richard Wiseman

  ARE YOU A GOOD JUDGE OF CHARACTER?

  In addition to using the techniques described in this chapter, some cold readers say that they often get an intuitive feeling about a client, and these hunches have an uncanny knack of being accurate. What could account for these strange sensations, and are you a good judge of character?

  A few years ago, psychologists Anthony Little from the University of Stirling and David Perrett from the University of St Andrews carried out a fascinating study into the relationship between people's faces and their personality.13 The researchers had almost 200 people complete a personality questionnaire that measured each of the five dimensions described earlier in this chapter (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism). They then took photographs of those men and women who had the highest and lowest scores in each of the dimensions and used a computer program to blend each group of faces into a single 'composite' male and female image. They ended up with four separate composite images: one representing female low scorers, one representing female high scorers and vice versa for the male high and low scorers. The principle behind this technique is simple. Imagine having photographic portraits of two people. Both have bushy eyebrows and deep-set eyes, but one has a small nose while the other has a much larger nose. To create a composite of their two faces, researchers first scan both photographs into the computer, control for any differences in lighting, and then manipulate the images to ensure that key facial attributes - such as the corners of the mouth and eyes - are in roughly the same position. Next, one image is laid on top of the other, and an average of the two faces calculated. If both of the faces have bushy eyebrows and deep-set eyes, the resulting composite would also have these features. If one face has a small nose and the other has a large nose, the final image would have a medium sized nose.

  The research team then presented these male and female composites to another group of 40 people and asked them to rate each of the faces on the different personality dimensions. Remarkably, their ratings were often highly accurate. For example, the composite image that had been made from the highly outgoing people was judged as especially extroverted, the composite created from the highly conscientious people was seen as particularly reliable, and so on. In short, your personality is, to some extent, written all over your face.

  I have used the female composites created during this research to put together a quick and fun test to help discover whether you are a good judge of character.14 To take part, simply answer the following five questions.

  1. Which of these two composites looks the friendliest?

  2. Which of these two composites looks the most reliable?

  3. Which of these two composites looks the most outgoing?

  4. Which of these two composites looks the most anxious?

  5. Which of these two composites looks the most imaginative?

  The correct answer to all of these questions is 'A'. How did you score? If you answered all of the questions correctly then it might be wise to trust your intuition about others. If you didn't, then you might be better off ignoring your hunches and finding out more about a person before making your mind up.

  As we continue towards the fifth secret technique of psychics, I have a gut feeling that you are the sort of person that lets your heart rule your head, can sometimes be too impulsive for your own good, and have recently come into close contact with a goat. Rest assured you are not the only one.

  5. The Illusion of Uniqueness

  Towards the start of this chapter I asked you to carry out two simple psychological tests. One of them involved digging in a sandpit for buried treasure and the other involved thinking of one geometric shape inside another. Both of these give a vital insight into the fifth principle of cold reading.

  I have asked many people to complete these two tasks. You might expect people to choose random locations in the sandpit. However, as shown in the plot opposite, the vast majority of them dig down in the same areas.

  Similarly, when it comes to choosing two geometric shapes, most people tend to go with a circle inside a triangle, or vice versa.15 However, the same sort of egocentric thinking that causes you to believe that you have an above average sense of humour and are more skilled than the average driver, also causes you to think that you are a unique and special individual. Although you might like to think that you are very different from other people, the truth of the matter is that we are surprisingly similar and therefore remarkably predictable.

  Psychics use this notion to give the impression that they have a paranormal insight into our personalities and past. Mr D explained that many psychics bolster their readings by using specific sounding statements that are likely to be true of many people. They might say that they have an impression of someone with a scar on their left knee (true for around a third of the population), own a copy of Handel’s Water Music (again, about a third), have someone called ‘Jack’ in the family (true for one-fifth of people), have a key despite not knowing what it opens, or have a pair of shoes in the wardrobe that they know they will never wear again.16 Mr D had developed several of his own over the years, including telling Lisa that he could see someone who was in need of medical care but were difficult to look after because they kept on throwing their pills down the sink, that someone in her family had once died without leaving a will, and that she had a stack of photographs in a drawer. Everyone assumes that they are unique, that these statements couldn’t possibly be true of others, and so ends up being overly impressed.

  It is now time to explore the sixth and final principle of cold reading. But before we do, let me make one final prediction. I have the impression that you arrange your books on the basis of the colour of their covers, and recently spent three days in Lisbon. No? That’s not a problem.

  6. Turning psychic lemons into lemonade

  During his readings at Edinburgh University, none of Mr D’s participants openly stated that any of his comments were untrue. However, it does happen. Under these circumstances psychics have various ‘outs’ to help them avoid outright failure. Perhaps the most common involves broadening a statement that has been rejected as incorrect. For example, ‘I can sense someone called Jean’ might be transformed into ‘Well, if not Jean, perhaps Joan, or maybe even a Jack, but certainly a name starting with a J. Or something that sounds like a J. Like a K. Maybe Karen? Or Kate?’

  There is also the strategy of giving someone else the problem by asking the person to think harder, or telling them that they may be able to work out the answer if they ask other members of their family after the reading. After that comes the old ‘I was talking metaphorically’ scam. Mr D told me that he had once been giving readings in a small seaside town. One of the readings was to a man named George. He looked at George’s weather-worn face and guessed that he had spent much of his life outside, and had a hunch he might have worked on ships. Mr D looked at a Tarot card and said that he could see George standing by the port waiting for a ship to arrive. George looked disappointed and shook his head. He had spent his entire life working on a farm and didn’t like the sea. It was a huge miss. In the blink of an eye Mr D explained that he was not talking literally but metaphorically. The ship was a new direction in George’s life and he was nervous about the change. George’s face lit up as he explained that yes, he had recently got married and was looking forward to sharing his life. Bingo. Psychic lemons transformed into lemonade in the blink of an eye.

  HOW TO CONVINCE STRANGERS THAT YOU KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM: PART TWO

  Earlier on we encountered three techniques essential to any psychic reading; flattery, double-headed comments and vague statements. Now it is time to learn how to use the three other techniques essential for a successful and convincing reading.

  4. Fish and fork

  It is important to touch upon a wide range of topics and then change your patter on the basis of the reaction you obtain. If your comment results in a blank look, play down the statement and move on to another topic. If you are gre
eted by nods and smiles, elaborate. Many manuals on how to give psychic readings recommend working through several key topics, with one writer recommending using the mnemonic 'THE SCAM' to remind yourself to cover Travel, Health, Expectations about the future, Sex, Career, Ambitions, Money.17

  5. Predict the likely

  Use statements that are true for many people, such as 'I can see you achieving something at school, perhaps getting an award - you can still remember feeling proud as the teacher called out your name', 'as a child, you had a particularly embarrassing experience that you still think about from time to time even today', 'why can I see the colour blue or purple? Are you thinking of buying something that colour, or have you just bought it?', 'who is the elderly woman I can see, someone in a black dress complaining about her legs?', and 'something happened about two years ago didn't it, a major change of some sort?'

  Also, many psychic manuals advise readers to focus on the type of issues that concern people at different stages in their lives.18 According to these writers, teenagers and those in their early twenties are often trying out different identities and exploring sexual relationships. Those in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties have usually developed a sense of stability and are more focused on their career, finances, and putting down roots. People in their mid-thirties to mid-forties are often worried about parental health and the stresses and strains of bringing up children. Those aged 45 onwards tend to be more concerned about their own health, whether their relationship is becoming stale, and the novelty of grandchildren.

  6. Prepare your 'outs'

  Remember that you cannot fail because if someone can't make sense of your statement you have two huge safety nets at your disposal. First of all, broaden your comment. Explain that perhaps the statement does not apply to the person directly, but rather someone in their family, a colleague at work or their friend. You can also broaden into the past and the future. Was this something that happened to them in childhood, or perhaps something that may take place in the near future? If that doesn't work, feel free to make the comment far more abstract explaining, for example, that when you see a 'holiday' you are actually referring to a major change of some sort, or when you speak about a 'hospital' you are really talking about someone coming into their life to care for them. If they are really struggling to make sense of a statement, make it sound as if they are the one that has failed by saying 'I'll leave that one with you'.

  Finally, if all else fails, try using these giveaway signs to your advantage . . .

  • Are the person's clothes slightly too small or big, or the surrounding buckle holes in their belt worn? If so, say that you have the impression that they have recently gained, or lost, some weight.

  • Does their posture suggest time in the military, a background in dance, or perhaps someone who spends lots of time hunched up over their computer?

  • Look at their skin and eyes. Dry-looking skin, and dull-looking eyes, are some of the most reliable signs of a long-term, or recent, health problem.

  • Glance at their fingers and hands. Calloused hands suggest someone who is involved in manual work, while long nails on just one hand strongly suggest someone who plays guitar. Tar-stained fingers suggests a smoker, while a lighter coloured strip of skin on their ring finger will usually signal a recent break-up of a relationship.

  • Shake hands with them. People with especially weak and limp handshakes tend to be more anxious than others.19 Also, an unusually cold hand could be a sign that they suffer from poor blood circulation or are on some form of medication.

  • Are their shoes practical or fashionable? Does this suggest that they are involved in sport, or vain? Also, especially large shoes might suggest that they work in a circus.

  So there we have it. Mr D had lifted the lid off of the psychic industry. Learning how to give a psychic reading is not a question of attending psychic training courses or the school for gifted mediums. Instead, it is a case of flattery, double-headed statements, ambiguous comments, fishing and forking, predicting the likely, and transforming failure into success. It would be nice to think that Mr D was the only one engaged in fakery. Nice, but wrong. In fact there is an entire underground industry devoted to cold reading. Books with titles such as Cashing in on the Psychic, Money-making Cold Reading, and Red Hot Cold Readings are widely available; as are interactive DVDs, training courses and conventions all devoted to fooling all of the people all of the time.

  Does this mean that all psychics and mediums are fakes? No. In fact, many more mediums and psychics are using the techniques described above without realizing it. Lamar Keene referred to them as ‘shut-eyes’ – people who don’t have any paranormal ability but are, without being aware of it, fooling themselves and others.

  Cold reading also explains why psychics have consistently failed scientific tests of their powers. By isolating them from their clients, psychics are unable to pick up information from the way those clients dress or behave. By presenting all of the volunteers involved in the test with all of the readings, they are prevented from attributing meaning to their own reading, and therefore can’t identify it from readings made for others. As a result, the type of highly successful hit rate that psychics enjoy on a daily basis comes crashing down and the truth emerges – their success depends on a fascinating application of psychology and not the existence of paranormal abilities. Now that you know the techniques, going to a psychic or watching one on a television should be a very different experience. In the same way that a music lover appreciates the nuances of Mozart or Beethoven, so you will be listening out for the psychics fishing, broadening statements and forcing their clients to do their work for them.

  Enjoy the concert.

  2. OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES

  In which we hear about the scientists who attempted

  to photograph the soul, discover how a rubber hand

  reveals the truth about astral flying, learn how to

  leave our bodies and find out how our brains

  decide where we are right now.

  I remember it as if it were yesterday. I had been admitted to hospital for some minor surgery and it was the night before the operation. As I drifted off to sleep something very strange happened. I felt myself slowly rise out of my bed, float up to the ceiling, and turned around to see my body sound asleep in the bed. A few seconds later I flew out of the door and whizzed full speed along the hospital corridors, eventually landing inside an operating theatre. The surgical staff were hard at work trying to remove a ketchup bottle from . . .

  . . . actually, I can’t carry on with the story. It’s not that it is an especially painful memory, it’s just that I feel bad for making the whole thing up. I have never had an out-of-body experience. Sorry for wasting your time – it’s just that for years I have had to patiently listen to people as they describe their own flights of fancy and so it felt cathartic to produce one of my own.

  Although fictitious, my experience does contain all of the elements associated with a ‘genuine’ out-of-body experience (or ‘OBE’). During these episodes, people feel as if they have left their body and are able to fly around without it, with many being convinced that they have found out some information that they couldn’t possibly have known otherwise. Many people report seeing their actual body during the experince, with some commenting on a strange kind of ‘astral cord’ linking their floaty self to their real self. Surveys suggest that between 10 and 20 per cent of the population has had an OBE, often when they are extremely relaxed, anaesthetized, undergoing some form of sensory deprivation such as being in a flotation tank, or on marijuana (bringing a new meaning to the term ‘getting high’).1 If the experience occurs when a person is in a life-threatening situation, it can also involve the sensation of drifting down a tunnel, seeing a bright light, and a feeling of immense serenity (these tend to be referred to as near-death experiences, or ‘NDE’). Experiences like these do seem to be surprisingly beneficial, with the vast majority of OBEers and NDEers reporting that
the event has had a positive impact on their life.2

  What is the explanation for these strange sensations? Are people’s souls really drifting away from their earthbound bodies? Or are these light-headed moments the result of our brains playing tricks on us? And, if that is the case, what does that say about where we are the rest of the time?

  Early attempts to answer these questions involved a small group of strange scientists joining forces with the grim reaper in a bizarre search for the soul.

  Dead Weight

  In 1861 Boston jeweller and keen amateur photographer William Mumler made a remarkable discovery.3 As one of his self-portraits emerged from a developing tray he was astounded to see the ghostly figure of a young woman eerily floating by his side. Certain that the figure had not been present when he took the photograph, Mumler assumed that it was nothing more than a double exposure. However, when he showed the image to his friends they pointed out that the figure bore an uncanny resemblance to Mumler’s dead cousin and became convinced that he had stumbled on a way of photographing the dead. Mumler’s photograph quickly made front page news, with many journalists adopting a less than sceptical stance and promoting it as the first ever image of a spirit.