Journal of the Council of Magickal Arts, Inc.

Clean Water: The Influence of Cold Reading on Divination Ethics

by Stepanie Canada

"You must become an ear to hear what the Universe is saying." (from the Maggid of Mezritch)

While going through boxes of my books in storage recently, I "coincidentally" came across one of my old college textbooks for a course I took on Pseudoscience taught by Prof. Coker of the Physics Dept at the Univ. of Texas in the early 1980’s.

Here was a flash from my past as a skeptic, and an artifact of a key time in my development as a divinadora. Here was a silent voice, a nudge reminding me that there are no coincidences, so I figured that the time is right to share what I learned from this book with the divination community.

So, what's Cold Reading and why should we care about it? Cold reading is something we do every day without even thinking consciously about it. When you are standing in a line and musing about the person ahead of you, what sort of person they seem to be, what kind of mood are they in, you are cold reading them. You are unconsciously or semi-consciously observing their appearance, dress, speech, and any number of visible clues in order to form a rough notion of who they are. What you see helps you to form initial, tentative expectations of what that person’s social-religious preference-economic status-mood. You note these factors, and you adjust and refine them, as your observations continue. This is the essence of cold reading.

Anyone who does divination for other people automatically "sizes them up" as they prepare to read for them. This is not necessarily a sinister, or a "bad thing", but something we all do naturally. Without any awareness on our parts, we may be thinking, she looks like a college kid, she seems upset, maybe this is about a relationship problem. You might have a reasonable insight that your older clients have questions which tend to involve their health issues, or their finances. Pagan clients tend to bring queries which interweave both the spiritual and practical areas of their lives, while younger "off the street" clients are likelier to bring the dreaded "Is he (or she) the One?" or "Is my partner cheating on me?" questions.

I want to stress that doing this is second nature to us all, and not necessarily done as a way to “cheat” or fake psychic ability. As human beings, as creatures who keenly watch, listen, and learn about our fellow creatures from the moment we are born, we do this as innocently as a deer cocks its ear, or as a cat watches from its window. But when you understand cold reading: and give serious thought to how it impacts your voice as an oracle, is the most important step you can take toward becoming an oracle who is most true to the Great Voice.

But for those outside the psychic community; for the skeptics who judge us, this is a means by which people who have no spiritual gifts mislead the vulnerable, and make a living by falsehood. For us; awareness of what cold reading can and cannot do, and whether we are doing it at any given moment, can seriously impact the power of our connection with the Voice. It impacts the purity and honesty of a reading, in that it muddies the waters between those things which we understand based on our personal insights and experience (which are valid in their own way), and those things to which our own egos must step aside, so that we recognize the movement of Spirit within us, and give it free reign to speak from a place beyond us.

I've been reading Tarot for myself and others since 1971. In my own practice, I began with letting the querent chat with me for a few minutes, and then tell me their question, center, and begin. In my early years I didn't necessarily "believe" in the cards, but I knew that they seemed to work and I didn't bother too much in examining the "how" and "why" of it. Parallel with all this was my break with the Christianity of my youth, and a long period of harsh analytical skepticism where matters of the Spirit were concerned. Yet all through it; I read Tarot, for friends and family, on "psychic lines" to pay my college bills, and occasionally I had that uneasy feeling that logic and rationally weren't going to do me much good if I tried to explain to myself why these colored pictures on paper could do what they did, and do it so very well. There was something uncanny here, something essentially Other, and I knew it even if I didn’t want to admit it at that time.

At this time of my life, I was thrown in amongst people who would now be considered "New Age" folks. Too often what I perceived within the readings of other psychic readers; whether they read Tarot or not, made me clench my teeth. My intuition told me that they were getting paid for something which had more to do with good PR and a certain facility at telling people what they wanted to hear, and they gladly accepted payment for it. On the other hand, the special few who made the hair on the back of my neck stand up with insights which were beyond the clues the mundane world presented to them, those readers never seemed to ask enough in payment for a wild, uncanny ability that didn't fit well into the boxes I had built for my internal belief system at the time.

What Dr. Coker's class (and later research) got me hip to was the difference between cold reading and genuine intuitive ability combined with a solid spiritual connection. You know it when you see it, the reader seems to "go somewhere else", eye to eye contact is low during the core of the reading itself, the reader seems to be transmitting information from somewhere "else". If you are the querent, then question you asked may be answered right on the nail - or - the question you should have asked is put before you, and answered by a presence not visible, but keenly felt. This is the real deal, and the heart knows it even when the head cannot explain.

What evolved for me over the years to help me to get to that level in my readings, was recognizing the three key presences at play in a reading. The first is the energy brought to the reading by the questioner, which is perhaps the easiest to sense and account for. One can key almost without effort. The second factor is the cards; or perhaps more correctly, the vision of the creator or creators who envisioned this particular deck and its images, and how you as a person have your own inner archetypes activated by the symbology presented by them. And the third is Spirit, both as something within you, and as something beyond you as an individual.

This second factor is reading, study, and contemplation. The longer you have studied your particular form of divination, the greater the "data base" of symbols you know, and the greater range of context, pantheons, traditions and so on are stored within you to give you a vivid range of understanding of your oracle. Practice, practice, practice also gives you more confidence and insight, and sharpens your "people skills" so that you can take the information from factor one - what you sense about the questioner and combine it with factor two to be able to transmit the information in such a way that the querent will truly hear, and take to heart.

The third factor is - paradoxically – the point at which where your most powerful information comes from letting go of the information which has brought you to this far. This is the threshold, to cross it you must be ready to stand with open heart and clean hands before Deity with the readiness to put your personal impressions aside and receive the words of the Greater Voice with the purest intuition and clarity that you as a vehicle can summon. This is the voice from Elsewhere, the gate you enter sometimes fearfully and sometimes joyfully, but a place where you are not longer in control, you - as an individual - no longer speak, you are now a vessel for the voice of the Gods.

All these factors above now begin to converge on the point which contains and supersedes them all, the center point. But’s let’s take a step back for a moment and look again at the first key presence in the reading again, and that is you as a reader. The other aspect of your ability as a reader is how honest you are with yourself, what you bring to the table as a spiritual guide, priest, or priestess (pick the spiritual title of your choice).

The discipline of entering with "clean hands" before Deity for me involves remembering the old saying from the teacher in my family, my Aunt Minerva. "Ya can't pump clean water from a dirty pipe, honey," she used to say. She taught me “fortune telling” from a pack of playing cards when I was a teenager, and much about human nature and the difference between what people seek, and what they really need. Her words have been a guidepost for me over the years, a reminder that it is important never enter into a reading when I'm scattered, tired, angry, or carrying a big sack of my own baggage, unless I feel I can truly put it aside for a person in need. For the course of this reading, I am their Priestess, with all the ethical responsibility and karmic debt that entails. Human and fallible though I am, if I am going to “put on the mantle” for this person, I need to set aside my own issues to the best of my ability, so that I can serve their highest good.

And let me speak here to the importance of honesty within yourself in the sacred space where a reading unfolds. Yes, yes, I understand that compassion is appropriate when you are telling your querent about upcoming trials and obstacles. I also understand that the commercial and social pressures of reading make themselves felt as a strong temptation to sugar-coat the message in order to make the querent more comfortable. There is a time for this, and that time is when the querent is being faced with situations which are not of their own making. The thing to remember is that as your insight grows stronger, you will more often see the issues of culpability in the situation, the things your querent did to bring these difficulties on themselves.

To my mind, the Gods have created this situation in order to give the querent the opportunity to become strong by facing their part in the creation of this situation, and to grow strong by choosing to face it and overcome it. If my intuition tells me that this is the correct time and place to point this out, I won’t hesitate to do so and – depending on how resistant the client is to hearing what I have to say – the more unflinching I become in pointing out what they have done and insisting that this is the time to accept responsibility and with that acceptance comes the onus to put things right. To do otherwise, is to debase my oracle, in my opinion.

Consider these bold words carefully. I am not saying that every querent needs a cosmic 2 x 4 from your tongue; for most, a kiss of reality will do. But have the 2 x 4 ready. Look back at past readings, consider how a different and more forceful approach may have aided you to get your querent to take your words and effectively apply them in your life. For myself, I don’t care if a querent “likes” me at the end of a reading. For me the question are along the lines of “Did I put the proper tools before them to take on the job of refashioning their life? Did I express myself in the way most likely to encourage them to listen and use those tools?” Often those who need a stronger hand will never openly admit to their part during the course of the reading itself. Just as often, they will admit it to themselves later, heed the guidance, and see the results. It satisfies me greatly to have these same people come quietly back, often months later, with a new demeanor and respect for what I can bring to their quest for growth and enlightenment. They are the best word of mouth for my skills that I could ever ask for.

So in returning to step three, I have found that for me, cold reading brings me to the gates, but not past them. In order to cross the threshold, I must shed my preconceptions, my issues, my expectations, and be an Ear for the words of the Ineffable. I must do my best to be a true Priestess, to come with a clean spirit, and the willingness to pump the water and offer it with compassion, but with a compassion that understands that sometimes pain is a teacher, and soft words can sometimes bring soft results.

This threshold is a daunting place to pause, and the temptation to turn back can be overwhelming. Your expectations and prejudices will howl and beg and cling to you. You cannot see what waits for your past this point, but you must master your doubts and step forward all the same. Fear is your friend, certainty is a fatal flaw.

Your understanding of cold reading is perhaps the most powerful tool to have at hand as you prepare to cross over. Hold fast to your awareness of what cold reading is, be both forgiving and cognizant that you have done it and are doing it still. Hold this knowledge tight within your consciousness field. And now, you throw down the crutch with vigor, and face the Guardian eye to eye and heart to heart. For this is the moment which holds all the great paradoxes:

To hesitate with Fear / To be Bold and stride forward
To be the humble Vessel / To be the grasping Hand which fills the Jug
To be swept away in the Waters of Submission / To be the Oracle of Fire whose voice burns in Truth

Blessings on your journey,
Stephanie

“For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.”
-- Ivan Panin

Bibliography:

Paranormal Borderlands of Science by Kendrick Frazier
Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science) by Martin Gardner
Pseudoscience and the Paranormal by Terence Hines
Essay: “The Three Most Important Things in Life” by Harlan Ellison, from the collection, “Stalking the Nightmare”

Quick introductory references:

http://www.randi.org/library/coldreading/index.html

http://www.denisdutton.com/cold_reading.htm

Listen to MP3
http://www.pointofinquiry.org/ian_rowland_the_cold_hard_facts_of_cold_reading/

Copyright by Stephanie Canada 2010, used with permission.

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Stephanie Canada is a visionary artist, Owner-moderator of the "Ethical Witches" and “Pagan Mediums” on Yahoo Groups. She served as coordinator for Yew Grove Pagan Interfaith in Austin (2003-2008) and is a previous Accord contributor. She practices Appalachian Granny Witchery and is an activist for religious tolerance issues as a Pagan and a Unitarian Universalist. You can contact her through her profile on WitchVox.org, she is in the “Texas” section, under Adult profiles in Austin.