Cold reading
Wikipedia contributors · 2024 · Wikipedia
This source is used as context evidence across 3 linked claims and 8 related evidence hubs. Its citation record is marked verified; that verifies the source trail, not the truth of any linked claim.
Summary
Reference overview of the techniques (Barnum statements, statistical guessing, leading questions, observed micro-reactions) by which an apparent psychic can produce specific-seeming information.
How this source is used on the map
Direct reference for the 'cold reading explains mediumship' skeptical hypothesis.
Citation record
- Authors
- Wikipedia contributors
- Year
- 2024
- Publication
- Wikipedia
- Source type
- Secondary summary
- Map role
- context
- Credibility level
- secondary
- Citation status
- Verified
- DOI
- Not recorded
- PubMed
- Not recorded
- Not recorded
Linked claims
Stage mentalists reproduce 'mediumship' on demand. Cold and hot reading are well-documented techniques.
Most claimed mediumship is reproducible by cold reading. Some controlled lab studies (Beischel and others) report small but anomalous effects.
Tarot has no evidence of predictive accuracy. Apparent accuracy is reader skill plus client interpretation.
Related evidence hubs
Evidence around dying, near-death experience, and what (if anything) continues.
Cryptomnesia, anoxia models, cold reading. Counter-anchors.
Reports of contact with the deceased.
Whether anything of mind continues.
Telepathy, precognition, remote viewing, PK.
Practice claims — prayer, reiki, chakras, astrology, tarot, manifestation.
Astrology, tarot, numerology, dream interpretation.
Determinism, free will, destiny.
Related research reports
A comparative guide to the strongest survival-adjacent evidence: NDEs, terminal lucidity, deathbed visions, past-life memories, mediumship, and after-death communication.
A careful guide to spiritual claims that are popular but weakly supported, including astrology, reiki, auras, crystals, manifestation, numerology, and predictive tarot.
Related sources
The single most-cited cognitive mechanism behind subjectively-convincing astrology, tarot, cold-reading, and 'this happened for a reason' inferences.
Useful for both the phenomenon's claims and the well-developed sceptical literature.
Distinguishes the predictive use from the symbolic / reflective use.
Useful as a claimed replication/extension of the 2007 Windbridge-style protocol; still controversial, but much stronger than anecdotal stage mediumship.
Major reference for the sceptical / cognitive-explanation side of psi-style claims.
A core positive mediumship paper because it explicitly targets cold reading, sitter cueing, experimenter cueing, and fraud as alternative explanations.