Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [18]
Since this subject was my first reading I was a little stiff and nervous, so I did not stray far from the standard Barnum reading, worked my way through the Big Five personality traits fairly successfully (and from which I correctly guessed that she was a middle child between firstborn and last-born siblings), and did not hazard any of the high-probability guesses. Since she was a student I figured she was indecisive about her life, so I offered lots of trite generalities that would have applied to almost anyone: “you are uncertain about your future but excited about the possibilities,” “you are confident in your talents yet you still harbor some insecurities,” “I see travel in your immediate future,” “you strike a healthy balance between head and heart,” and so forth.
Tarot cards are a great gimmick because they provide the cold reader with a prop to lean on, something to reference and point to, something for the subject to ask about. I purposely put the Death card in the spread because that one seems to make people anxious (recall the Death card was in the news of late because the East Coast sniper of 2002 said that it influenced him to begin his killing spree). This gave me an opportunity to pontificate about the meaning of life and death, that the card actually represents not physical death but metaphorical death, that transitions in life are a time of opportunity—the “death” of a career and the “rebirth” of another career—and other such dribble. The bait was set and the line cast. I had only to wait for the fish to bite.
After each reading the producers conducted a short taped interview with the subject, asking them how they thought the reading went. This young lady said she thought the reading went well, that I accurately summarized her life and personality, but that there were no surprises, nothing that struck her as startling. She had experienced psychic readings before and that mine was fairly typical. I felt that the reading was mediocre at best. I was just getting started.
The Palm Reading
My second reading was on a young woman aged nineteen. Palm reading is the best of the psychic props because, as in the tarot cards, there is something specific to reference, but it has the added advantage of making physical contact with the subject. I could not remember what all the lines on a palm are suppose to represent, so while I was memorizing the tarot cards, my daughter did a Google image search for me and downloaded a palm chart (figure 1.3).
I mainly focused on the Life, Head, Heart, and Health lines, and for added effect added some blather about the Marriage, Money, and Fate lines. Useful nonsense includes:
If the Head and Life lines are connected, it means that there was an early dependence on family.
If the Head and Life lines are not connected, it means the client has declared independence early.
The degree of separation between the Head and Heart lines indicates the degree of dependence or independence between the head and the heart for making decisions.
The strength of the Head line indicates the thinking style—intuitive or rational.
Breaks in the Head line may mean there was a head injury, or that the subject gets headaches, or something happened to the head at some time in the subject’s life.
On one Web page I downloaded some material about the angles of the thumbs to the hand that was quite useful. You have the subject rest both hands palm down on the table, and then observe whether they are relaxed or tight and whether the fingers are close together or spread apart. This purportedly indicates how uptight or relaxed the subject is, how extroverted or introverted, how confident or insecure, etc. According to one palm reader a small thumb angle “reveals that you are a person who does not rush into doing things. You are cautious and wisely observe the