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Cold Reading is "a set of strategies, to do with the psychology of communication, that enable you to influence what others think, feel and believe." I often say it is the most powerful psychological persuasion technique in the world.

In its most trivial form, cold reading is used by people who pretend they have psychic ability or can read fortunes. The Masterclass is not about pretending to be psychic.

Cold reading has many ethically responsible applications in your personal, social and professional life. It is especially useful in any role to do with selling, negotiation, therapy, training or inter-personal communications.

The Masterclass is not context-specific. When you attend the Masterclass, you will acquire a set of skills that cover all the above areas and more. How you use these skills is up to you.

I sell a book called 'The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading'. The Masterclass starts where the book leaves off. The book is 'how cold reading works', the Masterclass is 'how to benefit by applying cold reading, personally and professionally, in everyday life'.

To book your place on this course, please follow this link : http://www.ianrowland.com/CRM/CRMPayment.html


For more information on the Cold Reading Masterclass please visit Ian Rowlands website at http://www.ianrowland.com/crm/

See the feedback from previous Masterclasses can be viewed here:
You can also see this independent review by a participant on the June Masterclass : http://www.magicweek.co.uk/magic_rev...wland_2008.htm

To book your place on this course, please follow this link now: http://www.ianrowland.com/CRM/CRMPayment.html

Do any of the participants on the previous CRM have any feedback they'd like to post up here?

If you are thinking of booking a place on this course, I'd do so sooner rather than later, as there are less places available on this masterclass than previous. This has been done to give you more 1-on-1 time with Ian Rowland. See you there.

Well first, please tell me that he's booked a room with a window or air conditioning this time! The event I went to was nearly all sweaty blokes and I nearly passed out trying to breathe the air in that tiny room!

Seriously though, it was an interesting couple of days. I'm not sure it actually lived up to the hype - but then there was a lot of hype - and I still picked up a couple of useful distinctions. Ian is a fantastic performer and I'd have paid £150 just to see him perform as an entertainer doing cold reading, which is where I think his talent lies. I didn't like his teaching style - far too much of a bruiser, very little flexibility and right on the edge of bullying people who questioned him. The trouble for me is that Cold Reading is essentially about fakery. It's the art and science of making people believe that you know something you don't actually know. So I might tell you to think of someone, and then I pretend I know who you're thinking of. If I get details right, you think I'm clever. If I get a detail wrong, I somehow convince you that I was right all along. "Oh I said it's a man and you say it's a women, but this is a strong woman, isn't she? Somebody who has what some people would consider to be typically male attributes. You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her, would you?".

It's the art of bullshitting, basically. And that's ok - there's a place for that in performance and maybe some people will find it useful in life generally. The problem I had is that Ian is so good at it! When people had questions about the model or how it works or the ethics of tricking people this way, for example, he just talked and talked and kept talking until we accepted that the woman was really a kind of man, strong woman, man, woman... what were we talking about?! He's a cold reader; not a teacher. Listening to him is hugely entertaining and it makes your head spin as you realise how easy it is to be a fake - but it's also incredibly creepy at the end of the day, like seeing a hologram of a beautiful woman, and then realising it's just a light show and you're never going to touch her.

I can see why some people like it and I can also see why it's being marketed so heavily towards NLPers, even though Ian is openly scornful of NLP. (He repeatedly belittles it in his talk, though he doesn't seem to know what it is!) Cold reading is now being used by people who really just want other people to like them. Ian said some therapists are even using it to make their clients like them more. (Why?!) It's rapport the easy way, I guess - but the price is having to become a big fat liar. I like living in the country and so does Ian. Someone else likes living in the city and so does Ian. He gets rapport with both of us by reducing the differences and focussing on commonality, but I don't know which is real (if either). I don't know where he really likes to live or if he even cares. If he spoke to a martian, he'd probably be really into red planets!

And that's the genius of it. If you want to perform mentalism or pretend to be psychic - if you want to be the next Derren Brown - this is probably the best way you can spend your £150. Ian is a genius performer; there's no doubt in my mind about that. In magic circles - including the Magic Circle - he's idolised. We had a couple of magicians on the course I attended and they pretty much kissed the floor he'd walked on. If that's your thing, go for it and you will not be disappointed. If you're that kind of guy (99% of his students seem to be guys), you'll probably be ok with his teaching style too because that's who he's used to teaching.

However, Ian is quite open that there aren't enough performers who want to pay the bucks to learn mentalism. That's why the definition of Cold Reading keeps being broadened out and now we're told it's non-context dependent, suitable for business, great for therapists, compatible with NLP - and soon I bet it'll be a great way to lose weight or something! That's not what I found on the course I did, only a month ago. It was 99% about pretending to be psychic, pretending to use tarot cards to tell people about themselves, and that kind of thing. There was a bit about pretending to know about the industry someone works in, so you could pretend to do business with them, or something, but it really wasn't that broad.

If you don't want to be a performer, I suggest you think about why you want to learn this stuff. If you just desperately want friends so much that you don't care about repressing your own identity, I think it'd be better to spend your money on some therapy instead! If you want to really know what people are thinking - not just pretend you do - go see Eric Robbie and learn how it's actually possible. Eric isn't as dramatic and showbizzy as Ian but I've seen Eric do much better demonstrations. While Ian has to backtrack and pretend you misunderstood what he said ("when I said man, I really meant woman") because he is just guessing, Eric gets it right more often because most people do represent men and women differently on the inside and there are clues to notice on the outside. He doesn't have a 100% success rate either, but it doesn't matter so much because Eric is about exploring and Ian is about being right.

I hope I don't sound overly negative. I found the two days interesting and afterwards I thought a lot about the nature of reality and relationships and trickery. The practicalities of not being able to breathe aside, it was a nice group of people and an interesting two days. Just beware of making it into something more than it is. There are enough bullshitters in the field of NLP, and I've yet to meet one of them who is happy.

Chris, thanks for that. All feedback is good.
Did you also learn to understand when other people might be bulshitting you? This was one of the key techniques I gleened from Cold Reading; the ability to check and correctly unveil a bullshitter. Far too often I get the 'unconcious' impression that someone is selling me snake oil, but can't understand how I know that. The techniques Ian teaches draw attention to these cues, and present good ways to challenge them.
On the subject of rapport, I think you're right. Bullshit-rapport (for the sake of rapport-BUILDING) is not valuable for a therapist, however I have had instance where I needed to gain rapport with a gentleman who was fanatical about golf. I know close to nothing about golf, but was able to use some simple techniques to gain rapport at that level. I was then able to steer the conversation in to the field they wanted help with. Does this constitute bullshitting?
And you know bullshitting that you don't know anything about a given subject can be equally useful!
PS. I'll confirm with Ian that the room has air-con

hi Chris...i...ejoyed...reading...your...post...for.. .the...most...part...yet...
a..lot...you...wrote...reminded...me...of...a...gr eat...deal...of...NLP...
practitioners!..full...of...it!

...cold...reading...works...in...a...very...simple ...way!..i...can...see...how...
it...would...not...sit...well...with...NLPers...as ...it...invloves...no...map...to...
play...with!..Milton...was...a...master...cold...r eader!..

...cat...got...your...tongue!..young...Chris!

...Big...Dick...did...not...mention...that...1...i ...take...it!

also...if...you...could...kindly...explain...to... us...the...difference...between...
bio-feedback...cold reading...and...the...yes/no...set?..calibrating...a...
persons...yes...and...no?..and...if...you...consid er...none...then...by...
that...logic!..anyone...practicing...any...of...th e...above...is...dishonest!..or...
just...if...you...cant...understand...it!

peace&love...vern

What's with the three dot writing Vern? YOu trying to install a reading stutter?

Maybe his keyboard is broken

So, Ian Rowland’s Cold Reading Masterclass (CRM) July 08, only £150. I think of myself as an ‘early adopter’ rather then a ‘cheap skate’ so I singed up. Ian’s opening introduction began with an emphatic declaration that we were going to be pushed way outside our comfort zones (I was), engage in exercises that were going to rewire my minds (now more scrambled then rewired), so that we could acquire significant CR skills (We did). To give you a flavour of his style he continued, ‘You won’t like some of the things that you do, I don’t care. Go away and hate me. I really want you to reach a stage that is different from where you started from. Any objections I don’t care. That’s the way I do it.’ The practical sessions were not compulsory. I’m sure if Ian could have made them compulsory by use of a tazer he would have. He told us as much. He continued, ‘the atmosphere in this perfectly safe laboratory will always be friendly, encouraging, supportive and helpful – ALWAYS.’ (Then it dawned on me, I’m in trouble!)

Ian’s book defines CR within the context of one-to-one psychic reading and considers CR to be a ‘…deceptive psychological strategy. Among other things it can be used by someone who is not psychic to give what seems to be very convincing psychic readings.’ (pg. 14, The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading, Rowland)

Having encountering negative connotations with the term ‘deceptive psychological strategy’ the CRM definition has been expanded to encompass any one-to-one interaction. So now ‘CR is a set of psychological strategies to do with the psychology of communication that enable you to influence what others think, feel or believe.’ Well yeah – the latter definition is more palatable but I still think the first definition is more accurate as deception seems to be the name of the game regardless of context.

In Ian’s model the players are the people concerned and the goal is what the person using the CR is trying to achieve. In the psychic context the CR goal is trying to give the other person the impression that they have some sort of special psychic talent or gift, a source of wisdom, insight that cannot be gained in any other way. In other contexts the CR goal seems to be about giving the impression that you have a level of authoritative knowledge concerning a particular domain, whether business or social, when in fact you have no such knowledge.

Ian commented that whilst in IT he had to convince people that he knew about Java, Cova (?), C++ when he didn’t know anything about those subjects; he acted as an adviser on the National Coal Board when closing down a colliery even though he commented he knew nothing about the industry. The expectation was to know the other industries. Ian commented that sometimes he was prepared for meetings, a lot of the time he didn’t know anything. He went into these meetings pitching his case as to why prospective clients should use his services, talking to them about their business model. These were the techniques he claims to have used to generate hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of business.

Maybe I’m being way naïve and have missed the point. Maybe in most work environments you’re expected to be all singing and all dancing. It’s just not possible to ‘be all knowing’ about every aspect in one’s profession so while you’re desperately trying to fill the knowledge gap knowing how to appear confident, knowledgeable and authorities using CR [even when you’re not knowledgeable or authorities in that business sector] may be for some an essential temporary survival skill – just look at some politicians. But I’d hate to meet a doctor or air pilot with this attitude.


Undoubtedly, CRM comes into it’s own in the context of entertainment. Ian Rowland is masterful at giving convincing and extremely entertaining CR demonstrations. His training style is engaging, passionate, professional and effective. It certainly isn’t for the faint hearted but we all improved our CR skills dramatically throughout the 2 days. The course was fun, if not scary and I kind of had the impression that there was a limit to Ian friendly coaching demeanour. He can certainly turn on the signals of friendly charm but on occasions I was left wondering if that might have been just stage performance.

I guess what shocked me the most was just how easy I found it to lie convincingly. To communicate a depth of conviction and sincerity that sealed my performance as genuine in the mind of the recipient was both strangely liberating in the context of the training exercises. To perform at that level in other context requires shear guile way beyond what my conscience could tolerate – thankfully. But the training experience was fascinating and I feel more equipped to detect skilful deception in others far more readily. But even more surprisingly I’ve noticed a more uncomfortable awareness of when I’m deceiving myself.

I got a lot from having to demonstrate my grasp of the CR model in front of others on the course which got me out of the nonsense I usually go through before having to speak in public. There certainly was no place to hide in that environment. And I found Ian’s coaching useful.

But, I’m not quite sure what the CR model promotes. Maybe the idea is that it’s all right to deceive as long as you come across as knowledgeable and authoritative. And remember - never, never, never fake rapport but it’s OK to lie when it suite your end goal? The CR model claims to be morally neural. Like a knife in the hands of an assailant it’s a weapon, Ian exclaims, but in the hands of a surgeon it’s a different instrument. You personally bare the responsibility of how you weald ‘the knowledge.’ Far greater consideration to ethics is required.

I can’t help thinking that there’s something powerful within the CR model but it will require a much sharper mind then mine to uncover it - but I shall keep wrestling. The model is undoubtedly affective and easily learned. There’s something valuable here but it just seems to be out of reach, like something you desperately want to capture but despite every attempt to invoke clarity endeavours evaporates into a fog of concealment. In all, the Master class was an evocative, enjoyably unsettling experience that shall remain with me for some time.



Tony

(Note - I’m getting over food poisoning so forgive moments of incomprehension.)

I like your post Tony and I especially want to pick up on this part because I think it's revealing. You remember that definition by heart, I bet. (Ian made us keep repeating it out loud and then go home and learn it by heart, and then he tested us the next day to check we had it word perfect!) It was clearly important to him that we got the definition drummed into us word for word, and yet it was just one version of a definition that keeps changing. I think this a reflection of how the Cold Reading Model gets you to think! People don't like the bit about pretending to be psychic? Oh no, you misunderstand Sir! When I said it's about pretending to be psychic, what I actually meant is you'll learn to spot when people are lying to you! You don't want to be taken in by fake psychics, do you Sir? Protect yourself! So that's what I meant by that. Deception, Sir? You don't like deception? Well when I said deception, what I really meant was influence. It's the same thing, different words. Hey, I never said deception Sir; I said influence. Look at my face - am I lying? Here, repeat the new version 100 times so you know what I meant. It's funny you mis-remember that! I wish I had it on tape, you could play it back and hear I never said deception. Influence. Come on, repeat it, influence. Nice soft word. Yes, Sir, you at the back? You want more windows? Well there's a door, isn't there? Are you really telling me there's never been a time in your life when you've looked out of a door just like you've looked out of a window? Not one time? Come on, who are you trying to kid here? Don't make mugs out of the audience by lying! Windows and doors, all the same. Don't be pedantic here! This is not a class for whiners! We're talking about things you look through and see a view. Doors, windows - it's all the same. When I said it was a man you're thinking of and you said no, it was actually a woman, wasn't it? See, I was right! Yes, see. Roughly average height too - give or take a bit... yes? I knew it! I'm psychic, I mean deceptive, I mean I'm teaching you how to be a better therapist.

I think I've done it to myself now; I've forgotten what I actually wanted to say!!!

Who am I? Where am I?

It's good fun though. I think it's fun to play with and explore but it can also lead to some pretty dark places. Just keep your wits about you. There are layers upon layers of fakery involved with this stuff, and as well as what you learn that's useful it's also worth considering what's presupposed in the bits you aren't comfortable with. There are lots of layers. Even a month on, I keep catching myself operating from the presuppositions of the model, even though I consciously reject them.

Chris’s Quote -
Ohhhh, I hadn’t even thought about the unconscious installation stuff working/lurking in the background. Whether installed intentional or not you can’t escape those presuppositions working their thing. How many NLP courses have I done? I knew there was a reason why I still feel unsettled by the training, apart from the obvious disagreements with the application of deception outside of entertainment etc. Potentially dark stuff indeed – (Q twilight zone music.):cool:

I guess NLPers are more willing to pay for courses. There are some great possibilities here, circus skills for NLPers, Ballroom dancing for NLPers anyone with a course to sell could aim it at us. Perhaps the really hard to sell courses could get in on this, Banking or Estate Agency anyone?

Ian is an amazing performer and very good at what he does.

I found the course absolutely fascinating but it was a strangely uneasy and possibly morbid fascination! The psychology of deception is really worth knowing about from an entertainment, educational or a psychological self-defence point of view but aside from that I still can't really find any ways I can ethically use most of what I learned. There's the odd little innocent thing such as the "sugar-pill" which is just a "complementary pre-frame" which seems OK and like harmless fun to me. I do similar things to that when I'm out just to stimulate some interesting conversation with strangers. I don't continue like that all the way through the conversation though - that would be mental!!

From a workshop point of view, doing all practice sessions one by one in front of the class meant a lot of waiting for a go. That's also a pretty intense way to practice a brand new skill while trying to remember all the variables! I think we mostly only got about 3 or 4 goes each and was only just getting to grips with "putting my ethics on hold" (which seems to be a prerequisite to do it well) by the last go! I have spent a lot of my adult life trying to cut through the bull of my own mind and others. I found it quite difficult switching this off to begin with. The idea of intentionally sounding like an expert when you know nothing just bloody scares me.

I think if you are in entertainment or just morbidly fascinated then this is a great workshop. Although advertised as useful in a therapeutic context, I can't for the life of me work out how. To get rapport maybe? But why? There are other ways apart from bullshitting to do that!

Just make sure you know why you are doing it!

Sheesh, this course sounds seriously creepy (yes, to me, IMHO - In My Head Only) and all that. I was fascinated by the publicity beforehand but no way could I have made it along. And now I'm glad I didn't. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Cold Reading a way of putting what Eric Robbie does, and this rather a form of bullshitting people? And how many of those attending would have paid for the course they actually got had they known that in advance? Some of the posts here strike me as people dealing with cases of cognitive dissonance, to use a non-NLP term...

Hi Adrian,

You raised several interesting point and for me there’s a profound difference between the Cold Reading model and Eric Robbie’s work (and here I’m assuming you’re refereeing to SMEAC – So please forgive me if I’ve misunderstood.)

In the CR model you’re actively seeking to give the other person the impression that they have some sort of special talent, wisdom, insight, authoritative knowledge that, in the psychic reading context, cannot be gained in any other way, or in other contexts the CR goal seems to be about giving the impression that you have a level of authoritative knowledge concerning a particular domain when in fact you have none.

The CR artistry lies in having carefully selected statements, fully supported by a rational that ensures you have good odds of being correct and if you miss the mark you then utilise a pre-selected reframe, any number of ‘outs’ as described in The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading, to ensure your statement works to support your position whilst not making the other person appear wrong – the win/win scenario.

Eric Robbie, through highly attuned sensory acuity is reading subtle (sometimes not so subtle) physiological cues that correlate with the internal organisation of how we represent our subjective experience through visual, auditory and kinaesthetic etc modalities.

So, CR is about having a good guess backed up with reframes - ‘outs’. SMEAC is about actually reading physiological shifts that correlate with internal representations. Cold Reading is based on pretence and illusion of knowledge and SMEAC is the real deal.

Both have different goals. CR is attempting to create the impression that you are knowledgeable and authoritative on a given subject when you’re not so that you can, given your outcome, use this position to persuade in a variety of ways. SMEAC is about becoming aware of the structure of a persons subjective experience opening up all the possibilities for ascertaining the internal structures involved with profound implications for utilising such understanding for modelling and or structure refinement – change work etc. And most of this observation is never shared overtly with the other person.

In the CR model body language reading plays only a minor role with shrewd observations revolving more around noticing observable details like, is the person wearing a wedding ring, is there a tan line on the finger where a wedding ring has recently been removed, noticing the quality and style of the person’ dress etc. All these details can provide useful insights. But CR isn’t necessarily concerned with providing accurate information, according to Ian Rowland. ‘It’s about applying a deceptive strategy to appear to provide information, when in fact there is little or none to offer.’ (pg 20)

There, not being an authority on either model, and having probably grossly misunderstood your inquiry Adrian, I think I’ve sufficiently displayed my ignorance of two interesting approaches. I’m looking forward to my mashed interpretations being duly corrected – and rightly so. All the best - Tony

Yes, I was referring to SMEACs where Eric is concerned, though not them exclusively, as NLP provides plenty of opportunities for 'reading' people. Given what you've said, the Cold Reading model should more accurately be called the Faking Cold Reading model, but of course you'd have less people interested in signing up to that...

I have not been to this so called "masterclass" but have read the Rowland book and am regrettably not impressed. Unlike Mr Rowland I have done thousands upon thousands of psychic readings and can honestly say that based on my considerable experience in this field the book is a lot of impractical tosh.

I know at least a hundred or so psychics personally some of whom are quite crooked and some who are not so crooked. The crooked ones don't use a single technique in the book and obviously neither do the not so crooked ones. In fact most of them have never even heard of the term "cold reading".

Ian Rowland has never done a paid psychic reading in his entire life so he is completely unqualified to chatter about something he knows nothing about. The sample readings in his book that he is so utterly proud of are in fact bloody awful.

As for the so called other uses of this stuff in everyday life all I can say is "have you heard the one about the three bears?"

Of course I am a cynical person by nature. I believe NLP itself is also a load of old cobblers. To my mind it stands for "Not a Lot of Plausibility"

However we will leave it at that. I did see one of the founders of this daft pseudo science wandering around a psychic fair once. Since I lost my psychic powers at the time I wasn't sure whether it was Bandler or Grinder. Whoever the bloody hell he was I took one look at him and thought "he looks a right scam artist if ever I saw one"

A bit like Ian Rowland actually.

and of course your posting is credible because we can prove that psychic abilities exist, cant we?

Do pay attention, old chap. I am not here to discuss whether psychic ability exists or not. I am here merely to say that Ian Rowland knows as much about so called cold reading as I do about the care and breeding of Japanese butterflies.

So Ronnie, who do you rate as an authority on cold reading, and what do they do that's lacking in Ian's work?