50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True

by Harrison, Guy P.

  Is she buying it? I force a smile, worried that she knows I'm faking. I figure it's a long shot for me to be able to convince someone that I am a psychic, but I'm going to give it a try. No, I'm not charging her money, pretending to speak to her dead relatives, or anything quite so terrible as that. I simply want to see if I can pull off something called a “cold reading.” Before continuing with the story of my first attempt at mind reading, however, let's explore the concept of a cold reading.

  Experienced skeptics have long known that cold readings are a very effective way to deceive people. Once you understand how the process works, it's easy to see how professional psychics are able to fool so many people. It's much like playing the old game called “twenty questions,” only with a thick layer of supernatural silliness applied to it. A cold reading is performed with no prior specific knowledge about the individual being “read.” The psychic thinks of some information about people in general that probably hits the mark and then delivers it as if it is a unique and personal insight for that person alone. Knowing something about common concerns and behaviors according to gender and age is useful. Being aware of health and lifestyle statistics can help, too. A critical part of cold readings is gleaning information from simple observations of the subjects' reactions to questions and guesses during the reading. The cold reader starts with general comments and then watches for a positive response to something that may indicate a productive path to pursue.

  Many psychics use a shotgun tactic. They blast a flurry of comments and questions rapid-fire at the subject, and if one of them hits the mark, they claim success. All the wrong guesses are ignored as if they don't count. For example, a psychic may say, “I see sadness; you have lost someone close. A mother, father, grandparent, uncle…” If they get a nod or verbal agreement for one of the choices, the psychic then pretends to have known that specific fact all along. While this may seem ridiculous, it does work.

  One reason cold readings are so effective is that people tend to remember the hits and forget the misses. A correct guess or prediction grabs our attention and lights up our brains with excitement. But bad guesses and failed predictions are boring and forgettable. This is that problem of confirmation bias rearing its troublesome head again. Those who already believe in psychics and mediums are predisposed to having their belief strengthened no matter what happens when they sit down with one. We all have a natural tendency to look for and remember what we expect or hope to find, while ignoring or rejecting that which contradicts our expectations and beliefs. If someone goes into a reading convinced that psychics have real powers, then they are far more likely to forgive and forget numerous errors and remember the rare correct comments. This is how psychics can be wrong most of the time yet still convince so many people that they can read minds. Primed believers also are more likely to connect vague generalizations (“You will be lucky today.”) with specific events (“I found $10 this afternoon!”) and then conclude that it was an accurate prediction. It may be difficult for some to accept that this is all it takes to convince many people, but it does. I know because I pulled it off.

  At the start of my first attempt at fake mind reading, I picked up two key things about the lady I was giving the psychic reading to. She was in her early thirties, from a Spanish-speaking society, and not married. I remembered from personal experience that some Spanish-speaking girls I knew in high school and college were very family oriented. They seemed far more concerned about their parents' wishes and much more connected with extended families than other girls I knew. The idea that marriage was a big deal in Spanish culture popped into my head as well. I had a spontaneous hunch that she might be feeling some pressure from her family for not being married yet. Of course, this was all based on generalizations about Spanish-speaking people, a diverse population numbering in the hundreds of millions. When doing a cold reading, however, a psychic can afford to take shots with crude stereotypes and hunches because the misses don't matter anywhere near as much as the hits. It's like throwing darts in the dark. The more darts you throw, the better your chances of hitting the dartboard—and no one sees all the darts stuck in the wall that missed the target, because it's dark.

  “I feel your deep concern about something very personal and important,” I said in the most serious tone I could manage. Again, all I had done was put two and two together in my head: she was thirty-something, single, and probably in a family that placed a high priority on marriage and family.

  “You worry about the fact that you have not yet found the right man to marry. It frustrates you because you know that you are an attractive woman and a good person. There is no good reason that you should not be married yet, but still you are not. It doesn't help that your family keeps asking you about this and pressuring you. Sometimes you wonder if you will ever get married.”

  I half-expected her to laugh and tell me to shut up at that point. But a remarkable thing happened. Her eyes widened. She leaned forward. I sensed that she was hooked. Wow! I thought, This really works! She thinks I'm reading her mind!

  My confidence soared. I instinctively knew to follow this path at full speed. Without missing a beat, I grimaced and rubbed my forehead. “All you want is a good man who treats you like you deserve to be treated. He should be a good father, too. You feel frustrated because you don't think this is too much to ask. And you are fed up with all the guys you meet who turn out to be losers or only interested in one thing.”

  Based on her facial expressions, it was obvious that she was eating up my trite comments. But then I got overconfident. I changed course and squandered my momentum. Rookie mistake.

  “I also sense that you worry about money all the time. You have a good job, you work hard and save, but you are still concerned about bills and having enough. You want to be rich.”

  She did nod in agreement but it didn't seem sincere. I stayed in character but could tell that I had lost her. Apparently money didn't matter very much to her and I had blown it. I tried my best to recover and finish strong. “Listen, I want you to know that things will work out for you one way or the other,” I added. “You will find a nice man and get married or you won't. But either way, you will be happy. You are a good person and your life is going to be great. You will be a success in life.”

  Cold reading fundamental: keep it positive and pile on the compliments. People are more willing to believe good things about themselves than anything else. This is why mediums always say that the grandfather loves everyone from the great beyond and has nothing but hugs and kisses for all. Psychics never seem to report back that dear old grandpa says he hates his family and couldn't be happier to finally be free of his annoying grandchildren.

  I felt I had bungled my cold reading at the end. I cringed, expecting ridicule or anger for daring to waste her time with such an absurd charade. She couldn't possibly believe I was a psychic after that performance, could she? Fortunately, the encounter ended with no harsh words. She chuckled, rolled her eyes, and left. Lesson learned, I figured, cold readings are for professionals, and I'm clearly an amateur. I felt stupid for even trying. But that was not the end of the story.

  I felt embarrassed when I saw the woman a few days later. I could only assume that she must have thought I was some sort of weirdo for pretending to be a psychic and talking about her personal life. But then she hit me with one of the biggest surprises of my life. She drew close and whispered: “How did you do that the other day? It's amazing. How long have you been a psychic? You knew so much about me.”

  I was stunned. Based on a cold reading that I fumbled through in five minutes, the woman was awestruck and completely believed that I possessed psychic powers. Simply by throwing out a few guesses I convinced her that I could read minds. Undoubtedly I could have sat down with her right then and there, conducted another reading, and this time billed her $300 for it. But I wouldn't do that, of course. I'm a decent human being with a conscience. In fact, I was already feeling a few stabs of guilt for having tricked her at all.<
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  I immediately confessed that I was just pretending and have no psychic powers. I explained that I hadn't realized that she believed it when we parted ways that day. If I had known, I would have told her then. Even though I justified the encounter to myself by thinking of it as a harmless experiment, I admit feeling a bit creepy for doing it. After that experience, I find it deeply disturbing that professional psychics around the world make a living doing that to trusting people all the time.

  Tauriq Moosa, a young South African intellectual, has lived on both sides of the fence. Years ago he was lured into the world of psychics. Convinced he had special powers, Moosa found it easy to convince others—and get paid. Today, however, he is a graduate school student who writes about skepticism and science topics frequently. He offers his story as a case study in how good minds can stumble.

  Uncomfortable with the religion of his parents, Moosa says he sought spirituality elsewhere and found it in “Norse mythology and divination.” Soon he was convinced that he was gifted at reading minds, seeing things others could not, and giving life advice. Friends were eager to believe he was gifted.

  “I began practicing on the very friends who proclaimed my talents,” he said. “Of course, I got amazing results. I began practicing on friends of friends. It was my thing at parties to talk to girls. I then took it to the streets, with a cardboard sign. I offered free readings at first, but then I obtained regular customers who wanted private sessions. I started charging.”

  Moosa eventually recognized that things didn't add up. One of his clients was in awe of his powers because he hit on an obvious guess about her personal life. She told others that he was amazing, but Moosa had doubts.

  “I knew then that something wasn't quite right. I began recalling all the other spot-on readings I had made. To my disappointment, they were all exactly the same—guesswork. I carried on for about a week, but eventually I confessed to one of my clients that all I really was to her was a cheap, unqualified therapist.

  “I retained some aspect of the spiritual for some time. I thought perhaps my medium had become tainted. I tried reading palms and auras and other nonsense. Then I enrolled at the University of Cape Town, studied psychology, and had all pretentions of unfalsifiability and superstition slowly beaten out of me.”

  Looking back, Moosa says it was extraordinarily easy for him to convince people that he had supernatural powers, even though he didn't.

  “I think it's easier to convince people that you have magical powers than it is to convince them otherwise. Most people, it seems, think that the universe has some underlying or external realm which we're connected to. The idea that the universe is as it is, as science explains it, is difficult, since it means that we are part of those mechanisms. It means we are not special. Working on that hunger to be special, on having forces external to us yet working through us, and so on, only taps in to what many people want to believe. Couple this powerful desire with the human mind's ability to misfire its pattern recognition—seeing faces in mountains, men in shadows, and so on—and you have the template for any quack, huckster, and self-appointed guru. If you know even a little bit about human psychology, you too can become a successful psychic.”1

  The enduring popularity of psychics is a strange phenomenon, especially considering the fact that they are wrong so much more often than they are right and that they never produce or contribute anything of value to society. Imagine if psychics really could read minds and see into the future. Wouldn't it be great if they could predict earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, and tsunamis so nobody had to die from those things? Wouldn't it be wonderful if they could prevent and solve crimes, give advance warnings about terrorist attacks, predict winning lottery numbers for charities, and let us all know with 100 percent accuracy if it will rain this weekend? But, of course, they can't do any of that. Based on the absence of compelling evidence—and very good counter explanations for their performances—all psychics are most likely either dishonest or self-deluded cold readers.

  Is it possible that some people really do have psychic powers? I suppose it could be true. But until someone can demonstrate it scientifically under controlled conditions, it makes no sense to believe it. Unicorns might be living on the far side of the Moon, too. But until we catch one or some fossils turn up, it would be a pretty silly belief, right? If psychics can do what they say they can, then show us. But that's not all. Besides proving that people can read minds or hold conversations with dead people, believers also need to come up with a theory that explains how it works.

  So why don't professional psychics seem more concerned with proving to the rest of us that they are anything but fakes? They earn a living by reading minds and communicating with the dead. The general lack of enthusiasm about letting science confirm or reject their claims just doesn't add up. Imagine how many more customers they would attract and how much more money they would earn if they had scientific approval. Tellingly, however, most of them seem uninterested in any serious analysis or testing of their work. Professional psychic/medium James van Praagh actually warns people against thinking and analyzing “too much” because it can hinder psychic ability.2 This is the typical warning sign often associated with irrational beliefs that everyone should be aware of. Watch out whenever someone discourages questions, downplays evidence, and tells you that it's better to just trust them than to think for yourself. Never let your guard down around people who stand to profit from an extraordinary claim but have little or no interest in credible testing to see if the claim is even valid.

  Millions of people continue to believe in psychic phenomenon despite the fact that none of the usual psychic claims have been proven to the satisfaction of the world's psychologists and neuroscientists (the people who would be the first to know if there were anything to this). A 2009 CBS News poll found that a majority of Americans (57 percent) believe in “psychic phenomena.”3 In Britain, more than half of respondents say they believe in “psychic powers,” with 43 percent claiming to have read someone else's mind or had their own mind read by a psychic.4 The fact that millions of people around the world believe this stuff when it's very unlikely to be true might not seem like that big of a deal until one considers the money and time wasted. Billions of dollars and countless hours are wasted, decade after decade, on psychic readings, supposed conversations with dead people, books, and television programs. It's not just a belief, it's big business. Visit a website of one of the more prominent psychics and see for yourself. If having too much money is a problem for you, then just sign up for a few private readings with one of them and he or she will happily relieve you of a couple thousand dollars. Or, if you prefer, you can make money vanish into thin air by buying a course that teaches you things like how to “receive messages,” meet your “healing guides,” and “understand why you are here.” Maybe not all, but many of the world's psychic customers, people who don't just believe but also spend hard-earned money on this stuff, must be able to find better things to devote their energy and resources to. What about family, friends, recreation, exercise, education, or charity work? In my opinion, purchasing time with a self-proclaimed psychic/prophet who accepts Visa®, and MasterCard®, so he or she can tell you things you already know about yourself and offer vague predictions and recommendations that could apply to millions of other people is not a sound investment. There is one alternative to giving money to a psychic that makes a lot of sense to me: one could always just subscribe to Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer and develop an immunity to such silliness.

  IT'S JUST NOT THAT HARD TO FOOL PEOPLE

  The next time you see a psychic in person or on television, just remember that the author of this book was a psychic too. With no practice or intense preparation, I aced my debut. It took me about five minutes to convince an intelligent adult that I could read minds. My half-hearted and clumsy effort was a spectacular success. Imagine if I spent years perfecting my cold-reading skills. How good could I be if I devoted time to memorizing key trends and sta
tistics linked to age and gender in order to make better guesses? What if I was intensely motivated to master this technique because I wanted a lot of money or saw it as a route to fame? Could I fool you? I hope not.

  GO DEEPER…

  Fine, Cordelia. A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.

  Kida, Thomas. Don't Believe Everything You Think. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006.

  Randi, James. The Truth about Uri Geller. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1982.

  Rowland, Ian. The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Persuasive Psychological Manipulation Technique in the World. London: Ian Rowland Limited, 2008.

  Shermer, Michael. “Learn to Be Psychic in Ten Easy Lessons!” www.skeptic.com/downloads/10_Easy_Psychic_Lessons.pdf.

  Stenger, Victor J. Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World beyond the Senses. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1990.

  Wiseman, Richard. Deception & Self-Deception: Investigating Psychics. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997.

  Wiseman, Richard, and Robert L. Morris. Guidelines for Testing Psychic Claimants. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995.

  The worst kind of blame, and the most common, is on one's own biology. This is the great final irony of genetic determinism: the very belief of possessing inferior genes is perhaps our greatest obstacle to success.

  —David Shenk, The Genius in All of Us

  Intelligence is definitely not what most of us had imagined.

  —New Scientist editorial

  While watching the last Super Bowl with my son, we got to talking about what it takes to be an NFL quarterback. I explained that it's one of the most demanding positions in any team sport. It takes a very special skill set to be able to read defenses, react appropriately to rapidly changing conditions, select a receiver, and deliver accurate passes—all while dodging very large, quick, and violent defensive players. My son asked me if I had ever played quarterback. I explained that I never even played football in school. I jokingly added that I could have ended up playing in the NFL—if I had been born with perfect vision, lightning-fast reflexes, and an elite throwing arm. Yeah, apart from those minor factors, I could have made it, no problem. The underlying message was that I couldn't have been an NFL quarterback because I was shortchanged at birth—no fault of mine.