Reading Minds - Skate Mental Secrets Mind reading is an extraordinary skill, though its tenets have little to do with supernatural powers. The mentalists and mind readers you see in stage shows are instead very skilled at looking for unspoken signals, planting subtle suggestions in the audience's minds, and using misdirection to disguise the method of their tricks. In some ways, it's really quite ordinary, though it takes considerable skill and a lot of practice to make it work.
Cold Reads • A cold read is essentially the same thing that poker players do: looking for unspoken facial tics or body language that tell the mind reader what he wants to know. A common trick of this type is to let the audience hide an object with one of their number while the mind reader leaves the room. When he comes back, he can spot who has the object because that's the one person fidgeting and looking guilty. Similar "tells" can be divulged by asking questions and looking at the facial response without waiting for an answer. It takes work to recognize them quickly, but once the mind reader has it down, he can learn a great deal without anyone saying a word.
Verbal Codes • Mind readers sometimes make use of an assistant, who can help plant cues for them through the use of subtle verbal codes. For instance, a famous mind-reading trick involves the mind reader being blindfolded while her assistant travels through the audience selecting various objects, such as watches or pens. When the assistant asks the mind reader what each object is, the mind reader is able to describe it in impressive detail. In actuality, the assistant tells the mind reader what it is in the process of asking--sometimes using nothing more than inflection or pauses---which the pair have worked on in rehearsals for some time.
Suggestion • In the course of his own spiel, a professional mind reader can use subliminal suggestions in his tone and choice of words to guide an audience member towards a certain predetermined outcome. For instance, if he asks someone to choose a number between one and 10, and he wants them to choose "five," he may phrase his question using words which rhyme with it ("thrive," "alive," etc.) Or if he wants to "read" a memory of a past event, he may refer to vague incidents---such as "a death" or "a happy occasion"---and then allow the audience member to fill in the details. In the worst cases, it can appear very crude, but skilled mentalists know how to disguise their suggestions with uncanny cunning , giving every impression that they simply plucked the information out of the audience member's mind.
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