A country haunted by demons XNUMX: Why is there a tendency to believe readers of all kinds?

Those who engage in cold reading - a definition that includes all those who claim supernatural powers and find interpretations in symbols such as astrologers, palm readers, coffee readers, psychics, etc. - take advantage of several human weaknesses, including the tendency to forget failures and remember only successes, and our desire to find meaning in everything the medium says, Even if it's meaningless things * Your faithful servant will appear today (6/3/07) on the Politics program on Channel One (the program starts at 21:45 p.m.)

Remember the boy Shawn Hornbeck who was recently found, on January 12, 2007 after more than three years of absence (from October 2002) with a pedophile since the age of 10, together with another child who was kidnapped a week earlier? During his absence, his parents contacted a caller who claimed to have supernatural powers, Sylvia Brown, who appeared on a television program and claimed that the child was dead. She also claimed that the man who kidnapped Shawn was dark-skinned, but not black - almost certainly Hispanic, and she also claimed that the kidnapper had long black hair gathered in buns and that he was very tall. She was wrong about all these characteristics. She was also mistaken about the car driven by the kidnapper, Michael Devlan. Also claiming supernatural powers, James Van Praagh claimed that two people were involved in the kidnapping and that a man who worked at a railroad car factory was involved and that the body might be hidden in a railroad car.

A read on Van Praag's website will show why such mistakes do not destroy people's faith in charlatans like Brown or Van Praag. To their devoted believers, these supernaturals cannot be wrong. If there was a mistake it was not in the name of the medium. What appears to be a mistake is not actually a mistake. It is possible that there was some kind of short and they got confused between one soul and another. When you attack the times when these people are right and decide that even when they are wrong they are right, it is a WIN WIN situation for those who claim supernatural powers.

In this article we will review the reason why people tend to believe in all kinds of power claims that use cold reading techniques (astrologers, numerologists, card readers, coffee readers, psychics, etc.).

Anthropologist Dr. Phillips Stevens states that magical thinking includes several factors, including a belief in the interconnectedness of all things through powers that include physical and spiritual influence. Magical thinking involves belief in special powers in many things that appear to be symbols. According to Stevens, most people in the world believe that there is a real connection between symbols and the cause they represent, and that there is a tangible force linking them. They claim that there is a neurobiological basis for this, although the specific cause has not yet been clarified.

There is a certain problem with this definition because the meaning of symbols such as egg, fire, water is not the same between all cultures.

One of the leading principles of magical thinking is the principle according to which things that resemble each other are related in any way that hides itself in scientific experiments (the law of similarity). Another guiding principle is the belief that "things that were in physical or spiritual contact continue to maintain contact even after being separated" (the law of contagion). For example, there are those who believe that the remains of the bodies of saints are supposed to transmit spiritual energy, all kinds of psychic-detectives who claim that they can locate missing people by touching a bone that belonged to that person (psychometry), or scientists who claim that they can hear the thoughts of a dog through Viewing his image, or Rupert Sheldrake's form resonance theory, a term he defined in his 1981 book "The New Science of Life" - a type of telepathic connection between creatures and the collective memory of the human race."

Psychologist James Alcock defines magical thinking as "the interpretation of two close events as if one caused the other, without worrying about the question of what the nature of the connection between the events is. For example if you believe that crossing your fingers brings good luck, associate this action with good events and signal to yourself that there is a positive correlation between the two. In a way, magical thinking is the source of many superstitions. Alcock says that because of our neural structure, we tend to think magically and therefore critical thinking has a disadvantage. Consider, for example, the illusion of the gambler, who believes that he will actually win the lottery because he believes that there is a connection between the numbers (because of their accidental appearance together in the past), even though there is no such connection, and the chances remain the same for each sequence.

Subjective validity

Subjective validity is the process of recognizing words, initials or messages or signs of any kind as true because the believer finds personal meaning in them. Subjective validity is a component of any type of cold reading (cold reading is a technique used by professional manipulators to make the person facing them behave in a certain way or to think that the cold reader (the manipulator) possesses a special and mysterious ability, which allows him to know things about the person in front of him ) refers to the type of reading done by astrologers, palm readers, tarot cards, mediums and the like.

The client of these readers must cooperate. Fortunately for the mediums, most of these clients are eager for the reader to succeed and are willing to work hard to find personal meaning in everything the reader has to say.

Cold reading refers to a series of techniques used by professional manipulators to make the subject behave in a certain way or to think that the reader has some kind of special ability that allows him to mysteriously know things about the subject. In addition to the usual manipulation tools, cold reading also uses suggestion and flattery with slippery words. In cold reading, salespeople, hypnotists, advertising professionals, rogue faith healers, and some types of healers rely on their subject's tendency to find greater meaning in a situation than there really is. The desire to find meaning out of experience can lead us to wonderful discoveries, but it can also lead us to stupid things. The manipulator knows that his signs will be analyzed to make sense of whatever they say, no matter how forced or illogical. Also, he knows that humans are usually focused on themselves, so that we tend to have an unrealistic view of ourselves and that we tend to accept claims about ourselves that reflect not what we really are or even what we think of ourselves as true, but how we want us to be or How we think we should be. He also knows that for every number of claims he makes about us that are rejected as inaccurate, he will make one claim that will be approved by the subject, and he also knows that the subject will remember the vulnerability and forget the omissions.

In a successful cold reading, the client will be convinced that the accuracy of the reading was not only due to his will and ability to cooperate but due to the powers of astrology, palm reading, the tarot, or the medium.

The customers are usually very obedient. A psychic can say that he has a feeling that the father figure is trying to communicate with him from the spirit world and the listener has to find among all things something that suits him. It does not have to be the customer's father. Therefore when a client recognizes the father figure in her late husband, the medium will gain validity in the hands of the client.

The medium will receive such trust when he allegedly quotes the dead as saying "I don't walk alone" and the client will find in this sentence a kind of acknowledgment of the existence of communication from a lost soul who was in a wheelchair before her death. There are thousands of ways to find meaning in meaningless words and phrases such as "broken wheel" but all that is needed is for the client to find one such meaning, so that the psychic's prediction is valid in her eyes.

Selective memory is also involved in subjective validity because it does not make sense that every client will be able to find meaning in every expression that comes out of the medium's mouth. Fortunately for these readers, customers usually forget the misses and only remember the right hits. Therefore, the listener will remember that she managed to find meaning and forget all the things that were meaningless to her. Also, it is rare that someone will independently examine the correctness of the reader's ratings by the client. Therefore, if a client is satisfied with the reader, he will usually tell his friends and see this as evidence of the success of the medium, and the validity of his reading.

The more the desire to make contact increases, the more the client will tend to work harder to find meaning and connection in the medium's words.

Subjective validity occurs not only in cold reading but also in other areas, for example people who have received a fabricated personality analysis or an astrological forecast that is not theirs, often tend to rate its accuracy as high. why? Because humans are good at finding meaning even if it is not found and giving validity to everything that has meaning for them. We are especially good at associating things with ourselves. Words, signs, signals, sounds, gestures, etc. have no meaning in themselves. Humans give them meaning and usually a personal meaning when there is no such meaning. We want to see and hear what we want to hear. If our motivation is strong enough we can sometimes bring the dead back to life or come to believe that everyday objects have spiritual and paranormal significance.

Advice for skeptics participating in a discussion with superstitious believers

"If you've done your homework and gathered supporting facts, the audience won't need your help to reach the right conclusions. In fact, the most successful argument is the one where the audience reaches its own conclusions. For example say that Mrs X claims she has a psychic ability and can help find Mrs A's missing daughter, and you get a message from the police that the mystic's contribution did not help. In these circumstances, it would be unhelpful to say that Mrs X lied about her contribution or that her claims were fraudulent. It is possible that Mrs. X believes, even inadvertently, that her contribution did help. In addition, some listeners will be irritated by the tone of the criticism and gain sympathy for Mrs. X. However, if you quote her claim and the police's response, not only will you stick to the facts, but the listeners will be more willing to reach the right conclusions."

Sources

• cold reading - http://www.skepdic.com/coldread.html
• The story of Sylvia Brown's murder - http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/articles/montel_shawnhornbeck.shtml
• The Gambler's Illusion http://www.skepdic.com/gamblers.html
• Subjective validity - http://www.skepdic.com/subjectivevalidation.html