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Not surprised this is the longest vid. One of my favourite areas to argue about and Derren was the one to put onto this way of thinking.
Change the details say it was a guy , then she is talking to me. Well except the west end bit
Is there going to be any more science of scams series after this? I’ll miss finding a new one just when i need a lift towards the end of the week
They’re fantastic, go derren and kat! 
Another good episode and probably the one that I was most interested in (having seen psychics live before). It was fascinating having the cold-reading technique broken down so you could more easily see how it’s done.
Interesting and most enjoyable series. Would love there to be more on the horizon…..
LC x
Very well known technique. TV Psychics use this all the time. Derren has done a lot of things like this. The best one of these was when he gave out several peices of paper to everyone in a room (I think it was 12). This piece of paper would say everything about the people in the room. Each person said that it summed up themselves really well, one guy even said that it was perfect. It turned out that he had given out the same summery to everyone in the room. Some things are true about everyone. All people have the same feelings and have simular drives.
AGHHHHHHH the video is 13 minutes long. I can’t watch. Noooooooooooooooooooo
i believe some people genuinely have psychic powers but there are many who use methods like this to trick people. i mean a few weeks ago my mum went to meet an elderly woman who she had never met before and the woman’s daughter said to my mum ” youve got two sons(true) one of which is very talented(also true)” but my mum had never seen this woman in her life let alone spoken to her. so answer that. p.s while at the house my mum had never spoken of me and my brother to anyone and she had not known that her daughter was there.
Liked the other episodes in the series but thought this was a tad basic. Didn’t seem to be much of a trick, just textbook manipulation, drawing on people’s (barely) hidden yearnings and stuff they want to believe about themselves and the world to get them on side. We all do a bit of that don’t we?
I totally agree with what Derren is saying. If you think about it logically you have a set of tarot cards, each one having a certain meaning, so each apparent psychic is going to apply those similar meanings to every one of their clients. I do believe in psychic phenomena strongly but I do think it takes meditation, peace and quite to be able to reach this phenomina. There are lots of false claims but there are also a lot of true unexplained happenings. You don’t need tarot cards or anything for that matter to tap into psychic consciousness. If you have the gift, the words, pictures, objects, faces, feelings, smells and everything else just comes to you naturally. To have the gift, I also believe you have to have suffered one or more traumatic experiences, where you learn or are forced to dissociate from life! What about Spiritual Healing
“i mean a few weeks ago my mum went to meet an elderly woman who she had never met before and the woman’s daughter said to my mum ” youve got two sons(true) one of which is very talented(also true)” but my mum had never seen this woman in her life let alone spoken to her.”
If that elderly woman said the same thing to every married woman who spoke to her, how high do you think her strike rate would be?
Or, of course, she could be genuinely psychic, and simply morally opposed to the idea of winning every World Series of poker.
What a bunch of nonsense from Derren and Kate. First they get a woman who minces her words and doesn’t have any psychic ability to merely have a friendly chat (nothing wrong) with a client who doesn’t know what to expect and then they take her apart because she didn’t exhibit any real skill? Isn’t that a self fulfilling prophecy? And by what standards could they judge the whole reading? There was no real question asked at the beginning by the querent nor did the ‘psychic’ read the actual cards.
So in fact it’s Derren and Kate (why does she always hold an invisible ball when she speaks and pontificates?), who are the frauds here. Because they try to convince us that they know about the occult when in fact they don’t know anything nor have they really been around. They should contemplate the 0 card of the Tarot. It’s called: “the fool
Dude, you didn’t even get her name right.
“First they get a woman who … doesn’t have any psychic ability”
To be fair, their hand was forced in that regard by the fact there aren’t any other kinds of women.
She has the creepiest hands I have ever witnessed.
Kat Kate what’s the difference?!
The trouble with Derren doing these videos is that he often uses fake science in his act, like the ‘deep maths’ needed to win the lottery recently. Although he’s open about the fact that it’s just a trick outside the act, it gives the scammers the weight in their argument that this science is also faked.
On another note, I tried explaining cold reading to some friends about 15 years ago, I though I was quite elequant but recently found out that they still go to a psychic regularly and have been all these years, I find it unbelievable that people still buy (literally) into Tarot, palm reading etc.
There are may things in the world that I truely fail to understand and how intellegent people still get suckered into this stuff is one of them
I dunno, Brian. Guess you’re right.
@Byron – Kat can be an abbreviation of Katerina or the multiple versions of Kathryn.
“First they get a woman who minces her words and doesn’t have any psychic ability” – that was kind of the point.
“then they take her apart because she didn’t exhibit any real skill” – I think she knew she was going to be taken apart, partly for that first statement of yours and it being the whole point of why they got her to do the reading.
“Isn’t that a self fulfilling prophecy?” – You mean just like when a “psychic” suggests something and the believer purposely or otherwise makes it come true because they believe it so much?
“They should contemplate the 0 card of the Tarot. It’s called: “the fool” ” – I suspect that to be an in-joke, only a fool would consider tarrot cards to be a catalyst or tool of psychic abilities. Why can’t it be done without them?
Gosh can’t believe its been 7 weeks already since the first video went up. I watched it on my laptop with my face buried in a cushion half the time. But I had fun filming the series and it was a fantastic experience – well it beat answering phones in an office!
So there you have it, the last in the current series is up and away. Thanks to everyone who has watched over the run, I hope you found it enjoyable if not useful and the episodes are still available so spread the word. Constructive crticism is always useful, and I’ll be passing on the most valid feedback to the powers that be.
Follow me on twitter (@katakingbade1) for updates and oher sciencey bits, and please do keep the feedback coming in.
Also I’m going to ask Phillis very nicely to give me a shout out in a couple of weeks cos I’ve got some stuff coming up :O)
Kat x
Overall enjoyable set of films. Some will say too simplistic or that the explanations are obvious once known.
I think this one episode is the most important one as it really does show one of the main techniques that is the basis of psychic shenanigans – it is not about physical phenomena it is about the manipulation and use of human nature.
The last few episodes I have watched the set-up clip but moved away from the video for the explanations, mainly due to the awful on screen effects. It seems that the film-makers either don’t think the information is interesting enough so give some flashy camera work or that the people the films are aimed at would not watch something that is more simply filmed. Also, on picky point no need for BSc after Kats name. I know it was done to show she knows what she is talking about. Well done though!!
I work in this field. When I do a reading I dont charge. I dont knowingly use cold reading and it would not help if i did because I dont allow the person to talk to me throughout. I dont really look at them. They spend time choosing the cards – while I get a feel for them in my head. Eyes closed, I then try and get images in my head relating to them while they are doing the choosing. After they have chosen I tell them what I saw. In the time it takes I can usually get 3 very specific “movies” which not always but usually relate to their younger self. Still not allowed to comment – I then read the cards. I do this by looking at the card and seeing if anything in the imagery jumps out. If it does I will explore that and interpret. They are only allowed to talk/correct me after I have finished. Dunno if this is usual but its how I do it.
I’m sorry, Tony?
Still believers out there! how much proof do you need, quite simlpy no one is or ever will be psychic, they will just believe they are regardless of the evidence to prove otherwise. Important note here, that under proper scientific investigation no one as proved otherwise, ask James Randi.
I’ve never been able to understand why only psychics are supposed to be able to read tarot cards. I mean, each card has a set meaning that you just explain once the card has been dealt. What’s psychic about that? Surely, if you were really psychic, you wouldn’t need to read any tarot cards?
Anyway, Science of Scams has been awesome. Really interesting stuff. Well done, Derren and Kat!
P.s. Emma’s hands creep me out!
“Still believers out there! how much proof do you need, quite simlpy no one is or ever will be psychic, they will just believe they are regardless of the evidence to prove otherwise. Important note here, that under proper scientific investigation no one as proved otherwise, ask James Randi.”
My name is James Randi. I have been everywhere, with every person, in every situation since the beginning of time. I can tell you conclusively that nothing psychic has ever occured, to anybody, ever.
“Because they try to convince us that they know about the occult when in fact they don’t know anything nor have they really been around”
DING DING DING!!!!!!!! Thank you, and goodnight.
I LOVE IT ! Everything you both ’show / tell’, it really inspires me.
I fell like a sponge n i just want to absorb as much as i can
from you both. I find all your works fascinating ‘exspe Derrens’
Who i look forward to seeing in Swansea in the NEW YEAR..
I look forward to your next extravagander……… SOA
I once did a cold reading of a friend trying to stop her wasting her money on physics. I used a pack of regular cards, no Tarot available. If a king or jack came up I’d say it referred to an influential man in her life, then use her cues to discuss her father, or boyfriend. All the suits were money, work or love etc, I made vague comments that could relate to anyone. When I finished I told her I’d made it all up and she still believed it was real, and I must have subconcious pyschic abilities that I’m denying. Some people decide what they want to be true then try to fit the world around their beliefs regardless of any evidence to the contrary.
hmmm… ive seen such much better in depth cold readings before
Quite interesting, got to say i was hoping for something a bit more mysterious, managed to work out all of them in about the first 20sec.
How do you manipulate minds?
I love this site and all the videos. I also love the fact that the psychic fans still believe they can argue around these points, though they do seem to be hampered by only having a passing acquaintance with punctuation and grammar. What I’d like to see from Derren is something about how people like the TV psychics (not mentioning Most Haunted, or anything specific) can pursue a career based on fraud – have they convinced themselves, like Storm has, that they have a genuine talent, and the mistakes are due to “influences in the ether” or the negative aura of unbelievers? How come, if it’s a real science, all the horoscopes in the papers are different? Shouldn’t every paper say the same things for Leos on the same day? Go Derren, go Kat! Great stuff.
Use of the Tarot does not denote psychic power. Personally I believe that psychicism (neologism FTW) is completely hyped up. It makes people want to appear “special” and different from everyone else when in reality they are just saying and doing things that can be explained by science. The question is: Are they aware of it. Some of them might very well be aware of it, but there are some that I am not so sure of. Now I myself do utilize the Tarot, but I am also a skeptic of many things. I have learned to do my research and question things that happen to me. Never do I use the Tarot as something that I should follow and rarely do I give readings to people. I see it as more of a personal tool rather than one to use with other people.
Of course, that is just my interpretation.
When someone is lying, they give subtle clues that they are doing so. Even if you\’re not D-Beard, you pick up on these signals, and thats why you get suspicious. A great way to hide these clues is to convince yourself as wholeheartedly as possible that you _aren\’t_ lying… Orwell called it doublethink. Well done to Byron and Storm to achieving this so perfectly.