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January 01, 2004
Cold reading
Television necromancer John Edwards claims to communicate with the dead. "Demystifying John Edwards" explains Edwards apparent ability is no more than cold reading, a technique whereby someone uses fast-talk to convince an audience of psychic ability.
The site also includes a fascinating discussion of Harry Houdini's pact with his wife Bess to attempt to communicate from beyond the grave. Should either survive the other they would be able to recognize a genuine message by means of a secret code they shared only with each other. No con-artist could crack their code.
By the way, Houdini's ten word secret code was: "Rosabelle - Answer - Tell - Pray, Answer - Look - Tell - Answer, Answer - Tell." It was based upon an old Vaudeville mindreading routine. "Rosabelle" was the name of the song Bess was singing when the two first met. The other words correspond to a secret spelling code used to pass information between a magician and his assistant during a mind reading act. Each word or word pairs equals a letter. The word "Answer" stood for the letter "B", for example. "Answer, Answer" stood for the letter "V". With this unique code within a code, Houdini's secret spelled out the word, "BELIEVE."
Posted by Ghost of a flea at January 1, 2004 10:11 AM