Master Tricks of Mind Reading

Notes to learn about psychic arts.

This opinion has been proven through the overwhelming plethora of academic studies, research, sting operations, and in so many other attempts at validating or debunking the “psychic arts,” in no unspecific terms.

Consider the impact of that statement. It means that there is no one who is born with the ability to perform this art, and that it’s an open field for anyone who wishes to indulge in it. As long as you have the patience and dedication to study and apply it to every aspect of your life with as much perseverance as you would, say, pursue survival in a jungle with a 500-pound tiger on your tail. While there will be some people whose natural inclinations and environment make them more attuned to the areas of observation that make up most of “mind- reading” techniques, it’s a question of degree. Nonetheless, success isn’t dependent on any esoteric information or talents which can’t be learned.

This particular fact has been accepted so readily by practitioners and academics of psychology that it has led to the development of an entirely new stream in psychology known as Neuro- Linguistic Programming or NLP, the basic idea of which is that there exist speech patterns that are more likely to elicit positive or negative associations in the minds of listeners. Furthermore, NLP allows practitioners to exert small measures of control over willing listeners (or at times, even unwilling listeners) by nudging their behavior along positive or negative paths of action — but none that didn’t exist within the minds of listeners to begin with.

If “mind-reading” techniques allow practitioners to understand and establish trust and credibility with their listeners, NLP enhances that bond and allows the practitioners small measures of actionable leverage on the behavior of listeners. However, the science of NLP is intricate and immensely complex, and therefore I will be providing only the need-to-know components of it in this post.

Without further ado, let’s go ahead and delve into the art of “mind-reading,” and discuss the various pillars that support and are responsible for the success of these techniques. Although they are only mentioned rather succinctly in this chapter, their application to the practice will be discussed in greater detail as we move along.

1. While everyone is unique in some way, no one is truly unique.
2. The reason why mind-reading works well is because everyone wishes and believes they’re truly unique. Yet, refer to rule A.
3. Even people who don’t seem great at making connections want to make a connection, but are either afraid of rejection, have trust issues, or tend to hold themselves back by repeating to themselves that no one out there can truly understand them.
4. People are always willing to share more about themselves than they realize, and only refrain from doing so because no one has used the proper approach to get them to open up yet.
5. As long as you’re confident and hold your own, a significant number of people will deeply believe the version of themselves that you paint them out to be, since they themselves want to believe that that’s who they truly are.
6. No one wants to believe as deeply as a skeptic, yet no one is as much on their guard as a skeptic either.
7. Perception almost always trumps truth or reality.
8. A mob is far easier to predict than an individual. However, two to three people are far harder to convince than an individual, unless one individual in that group is significantly higher in the power dynamic than the other two. In that case, if you target and convince.

The Art of Cold Reading

Cold reading requires a smooth, confident talker who understands the nuances in word usage and sentence construction. When you’re throwing out correct observations, it’s all hunky-dory anyway and you need no course correction. However, it’s when you’re wrong that you truly learn more about the subject.

Unless you’re absolutely certain about what you’re going to say, always phrase vague questions that allow a subject to open up more beyond a short “yes” or “no.” When you do so, your subject will supply the details himself for the next point in a reading. This is also why cold reading requires you to be an excellent listener. In fact, the best cold readers only talk about 30 to 40% of the time during a read, instead letting the subject do most of the talking without realizing all the details which are being divulged. You can file away those details to add more credibility to your later claims.

The principle of “Yes, but” primarily applies to Cold reading. Another place from which you would recognize this sentence construction is from professional improvisation techniques, and with good reason since improv is the core strength of a cold reader.

Here’s an example of Cold reading to help you understand it better:

You meet a woman for the first time in a group while you’re both out with your mutual friends. Although she’s laughing with everyone, she seats herself slightly distanced from the rest, and leans back when everyone else leans forward — even if everyone else is leaning towards her to listen to what she’s saying. She also volunteers to get each round of drinks and stays slightly longer at the bar sipping her fresh drink before going back. If you were to approach her for a read, you already know a little bit about her just by having observed her subtle and nuanced body language signals. Just from what I’ve told you so far, you know she’s either a very independent individual who enjoys hanging out with friends but doesn’t need them for a good time; or that while she usually enjoys spending time with her friends, something is currently occupying her mind which is preventing her from completely letting go and is instead wishing for some quiet time to sort things through. Let’s go with the first one for now. Let’s say you approach her and mention that she seems like a very independent and confident person, and then she agrees with the statement, you continue

with “Yes, and” — She’s an independent person and more than capable of being alone in this bar, and have a great time meeting new people. She may say “Maybe, but I feel like I have trouble with new people sometimes,” to which you reply with “Yes, but you still wish you could add more friends to your circle who would share more common interests with you.” Here she could say something along the lines of “No, I do share a lot of interests with them,” to which you respond “Yes, but there are hidden depths to your personality which you don’t let them see, and rather you just tend to be satisfied if they’re having a good time while you sit back and observe them.” Chances are quite high that this particular statement will be reciprocated with a strong positive response. Every woman likes to hear that she has hidden depths that aren’t visible to the majority, and the fact that you can perceive them gets you part of her approval. You’ve now won her favor and she thinks you’re intelligent for having perceived that aspect of her than nobody else has before.

If at any point, however, you see her brow furrowing slightly, take a step back and pivot to another branch of the same conversation. Many women hate people telling them what they’re thinking, especially if they don’t consciously or subconsciously agree with the analysis being offered to them. “Yes, and” has limitations, and it would be a far better bet to retreat to safer grounds in a conversation than sticking to your line of analysis when she has to defend her point of view once too often. The usual rule is two consecutive “No”s at the most, by which point you should let go of your line of analysis and pursue a different one. But, as you must have noticed from the example, subjects often give out more information than they strictly have to more times than not. In this case, the subject has already mentioned that she has trouble meeting new people — which either points to insecurities, low self- esteem, shyness, etc.

In the end, the basis of cold reading is to start with very vague statements based off of one behavioral aspect which you noticed in them. Again, this isn’t entirely necessary since there are some particular generalizations which you’ll recognize and be able to use as you gain more experience in this field. No matter what you use, try to ensure that your first statement is met with a “yes,” even if the second one is a “no.” That first bond is vital with regards to establishing your credibility. Once that’s done, the credibility can survive one or two subsequent negative responses, provided you use the “Yes, but” strategy and segue into another direction using the negatives you received to teach you more about the subject. Both positive and negative responses equally reveal a lot about the person whose mind you’re “reading.”

Another popular method in cold reading is called “gatling-ing” and is appropriately named after the Gatling gun. This involves blurting out random hooking statements (vague statements which may hold true for most of the subjects, without being specific enough to warrant a “no” from the majority) in rapid fire mode one after the other to get positive responses. It forces the subject or audience to play catch up with you, and the strange part about memory is that they will mostly only remember your successes later on rather than failures. This needs stone-cold confidence because you need to quickly re-orient yourself according to each positive and negative and shift direction midway without getting flustered or losing track yourself.

Mastering the Hot Read

Hot reading was one of the most popular methods used in the Psychic TV shows or at carnivals, especially when it was held for large audiences. The “psychic” would plant his or her own assistants within the audience, who would then respond when called out, and act the part of a baffled and entranced audience member. Another technique was to hide people within the audience who would casually chat up their neighbors, trying to glean some personal information about them before the main “psychic” act started. This information was relayed to the “psychic” who would then use it to pretend to read the targeted audience member’s mind.

Hot reading is particularly easy when you have a mutual friend who knows your target. It can also be accomplished by eavesdropping on conversations, asking a bar-tender to give you the scoop on a certain person, etc.

Any information which may be eked out of other sources should reveal a lot more to you than is apparent at face value, if you’ve already learned the various inter- relations between scenarios, causative effects, and personality traits. For example: If you hear an attractive person sitting in a bar and talking to a friend on the phone about how there’s nobody there seemingly interesting enough to talk to, yet they have a sad air about them — it’s more likely that they have recently suffered a breakup, than, say it is that their partner recently died or that they just can’t find a date. When you observe them further, if they seem quite guarded or show signs of having trust issues around other people, it may be that their partner cheated on them. However, if they seem guilty and look wistfully over at other seemingly happy couples, it may be that the break-up was their own fault and they regret whatever led to it.

All of these careful observations and calculated guess-work are a part of hot reading. Hot reading, with limited information, is most useful in establishing your credibility and getting you that first “yes,” after which you can proceed using cold reading or warm reading (which shall be covered in the next chapters). Of course, if you already have sufficient background information about them, hot reading is enough to feign an entire “mind-reading” session, as has been done by many famous “psychics” throughout history.

The main trick behind a hot read, however, should always lie in your theatricality. Even if you know something to be an absolute fact, take a moment to analyze it and pretend to think before speaking — presenting the fact as if you just “received” a message from their own mind, rather than having heard about it somewhere else before. In today’s world of social media, a response that’s just a little bit too quick may just seem like it was known beforehand and may put your subject on guard with regards to your technique and intention. The entire point of mind- reading is to establish a connection while making it seem free from any ulterior motive, other than entertainment or pursuit of information for its own sake. Once you’ve established a bond free of any seeming ulterior motive, skepticism subsides and you’re free to develop that bond or use it as you see fit.

You could also use hot reading to impress someone other than the subject whom you know about. For example: If you’re presenting this at a party where a lot of people are ignorant of who the others are in the majority, yet you know something truly unique about one of them

– you could use that to impress the rest of the crowd. Supposing one of the people with whom you chatted before had, say, an ostrich as a pet when they were young — you could perform a bit of theatrical drama and ask if anyone who had a really weird pet growing up could raise their hands… “wait, wait… I’m getting something more… an… os… really?… an ostrich?” You get where I’m heading with this?

While the person you spoke to already knows that they’ve mentioned it to you, the rest of the audience doesn’t — which establishes your credibility at large. If you want to keep that credibility intact, move on from this point really fast since you don’t want a lull in the show where that person could have time to point out to everyone that you only knew this because they’d already told you. This technique is a bit risky when multiple people are involved, but if used correctly it works wonders.

Reading Like a Professional

“Warm reading is the use of absolutely vague psychological statements which are true to some degree or another for everybody”

This method is best applied in conjunction with cold reading to deliver a successful facade of psychic powers. And in fact, this is the technique that is used extensively by “crystal ball psychics.” It depends heavily on the fact that people want to be truly unique, even though they aren’t — and it is that deep seated wish which allows for the success of this stratagem.

First, let me do a quick read on you. Since you’re reading this guide, I have sufficient information on who you might be, as well as your over-riding personality traits to be able to at least provide some details about you. While you like to take calculated risks from time to time, achieving security and stability to a certain degree are your major goals in life. Even though you want to earn just enough to allow you live your life without worry, you have great aspirations — though some of your aspirations are rather unrealistic. You’re not a shallow person, though deep down you know that appearances do matter to a certain degree. Although you’re easily liked and socially adept, you veer between being an extrovert and a bit reserved from time to time. You don’t enjoy restrictions, limitations, or being told what to do. You’re an independent thinker and prefer to experiment with change and variety — within reasonable limits, of course — but you occasionally have doubts about whether you chose the right path or the best option. You have learned the hard way that it’s not wise to be too open or reveal too much of who you are to others. While you have some personality weaknesses, you’re more or less able to compensate for them without any significant problem. You feel a deep urge or need for other people to like and admire you, but sometimes strongly disagree with what other people do to achieve the same for themselves. More often than not, you are your own worst critic, and have a great deal of potential which you haven’t yet realized.

So, how did I do? How many of those statements could you connect with? That paragraph is stuffed full of warm- reading statements, and they are about 80% accurate for any given individual or crowd. Does that corroborate with what you found it to be? About 75–85% accurate, if not more? That’s the power of warm reading — it offers something for everyone. There’s very little chance to be consistently wrong with this technique, otherwise you’re doing it wrong, and it’s the primary reason why it’s used alongside cold reading to perform basic mind-reading on a total stranger.

These aren’t the only statements you could use either. As I said, most people want to be unique, and have gone through the typical life experiences of ups and downs, successes and failures, pain and gain. It means that most traits are found in most people, to some degree or another. Most people want to be trusting but find it thankless or hurtful as a characteristic and so develop at least some trust issues. Most people who don’t seem fit want to go to the gym, just not badly enough to actually get up and do it — yet that doesn’t change the fact that they worry about it somewhere in the back of their mind. Most people who aren’t jealous outright do feel jealousy yet hide it for fear of appearing insecure, weak, or crazy to their partners — particularly so if it’s a new relationship. Most people above the age of 35 have suffered through the death of a close family member, and most teens have strained relationships with their parents. And most attractive adults have had at least one instance of regret in their dating life, if not more. You get the idea. Keep in mind though, if you’re using warm reading to connect with someone, don’t use negative sentences like the ones formed in the paragraph above. Instead, use one positive point and one negative point in the same sentence so that the subject doesn’t feel insulted and is more likely to connect with the sentence as a whole. For example: You had a somewhat strained relationship with your parents when you were in your teens. (that was negative) However, you try harder now to understand them even if they may not always understand you. (that was positive).

7 Critical Aspects of Mind-Reading Techniques
“basic components of mind reading which you need to understand before you can be successful”

1] It’s All About Percentages

In the world of mind-reading, it’s a game of numbers. For every successful prediction, an amateur will usually face two to three times as many number of failures. Even a highly skilled mind reader can only get it right seventy to eighty percent of the time, which is an unattainable percentage for most as you’ll soon discover once you get started. Think of it like basketball… Even the professionals miss a shot once in a while. And for the amateurs… well, the more practice you get, the more shots you’ll make. Moreover, no one is truly unique. For example, even without looking at you I can say with reasonable confidence that while you have a modest amount of achievements in your life, you feel as if there’s a lot of potential inside you which is yet to be realized. While this statement may be untrue for a rare few of you, most of you would agree. As I said, it’s all a game of numbers. Another sample statement: I can say with complete confidence that there is at least one example in your life when you screwed over another person and you regret it or it saddens you sometimes, even if you have never admitted it to anyone else. Again, while a rare few will disagree, this will apply to almost everyone else.

By and large, by the time they hit fifty, most human beings have had a remarkably large number of life experiences (both “good” and “bad,” in quotes since they’re largely relative) in common. The differences lie in the specifics of the situation, which side of the table you were on, and the relative order in which you underwent these experiences. If a person underwent the good experiences first followed by the bad ones, they have a somewhat negative outlook of their life trajectory, and vice versa. Their outlook on the experience matters very little to you, since it gives you the same fodder to throw out while mind-reading. However, that outlook can help to inform you about their current state of mind.

2] Confidence
If you’re the sort of person who gets thrown off their game by one or two failures during this process, you’re quite deeply unsuited to this task until you work on yourself first and come to understand that failure is always a part of the process towards success — in ANY endeavor. The art of mind-reading hinges deeply on the practitioner’s ability to “sell” the process. It must not seem as if you’re struggling at each stage, and in fact yields the best results when it all comes across as effortless. Thus, you need to develop a thick skin to shrug off the times your statements miss their mark and move on from them so seamlessly that this memory holds no particular importance in the experience of the listener.

If you want to understand the mentality of a mind-reader, think of the most successful con-men, or the best salesmen (the two have more than a few character traits and techniques in common). They take each negative response from a prospective client and use that opportunity to lead them down a path of their own choosing. They’re slick, suave, silver-tongued, and supremely confident in every phrase they utter, regardless of its veracity — which is the secret to persuasion.

So, be confident in every statement you make, and develop that silver-tongued ability to convert each failure into a way to re-orient your position with greater accuracy. If you’re saying to yourself “that’s just not my personality — I’ll never be good at that” then I’ll tell you a little secret: PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE is the way to turn any weakness into a strength. “I can’t” is nothing but an excuse. Along with the ability to come back from failures, confidence has a vital secondary purpose. It frees you from thinking too hard and taking too long when you’re trying to read someone else. Some of the most consistently successful techniques depend on making a lot of assumptions very fast, and quickly reorienting your position depending on positive or negative responses from the subject. This reduces the gap between each positive response, which has a marked effect on the final impression in the mind of the subject. Let me explain further. Human minds are a funny thing. Their experiences are largely relative depending on what the person wants out of each experience. Since most people who go through mind- reading or agree to it want it to be successful at some level, their minds only remember the ‘hits’ at the end of an attempt and forgets most or all of the misses. (As for those incorrigible skeptics, they typically won’t even go along with it to begin with because they already believe it’s a sham or a waste of time.)

Reducing the gap between ‘hits’ ensures that their mind only remembers the successful reads rather than the complete ‘misses’ which you threw into the mix as well. Furthermore, since their mind is only capable of remembering so much of the experience, log-jamming several assumptions in there rigs the game so that their memory only retains the ones which had personal significance to them.

3] Observation
Absolutely every statement you make while reading minds will depend on a single factor — keen observation. You need to develop a habit of seeing everything, because the unfortunate truth is that most of us are blind to our surroundings. We fail to differentiate between seeing and observing.

And until we learn and regularly apply the latter, we fail to comprehend the entrenched depth of this blindness. When I say observe, I mean that you need to pay careful attention to the skin, posture, choice of clothing and its state, particular quirks and habits while walking or sitting, body language while talking, the expressions on the face and the look in the eyes, choice and uniqueness of accessories, behavioral affectations, etc. As you observe more and more people and objects on a regular basis, you’ll start noticing concrete relations which will allow you to accurately predict things and circumstances. OBSERVE, OBSERVE, OBSERVE.

For example, if someone looks unfit (therefore it’s likely they don’t walk a lot), yet they have splash stains on the bottom of their trousers, it’s reasonably accurate to say that they don’t have a car — a motorcycle maybe. Or, if a person seems to have expensive taste in clothing, yet their current clothes have small signs of disrepair or an air of shabbiness — it may be reasonably accurate to say that while they come from a rich background, their fortunes may have recently taken a dive. Or, it may also mean that they used to have someone else around them who would check for shabbiness before letting them go out in public, and so they may have recently become single — in which case a perpetually depressed, instead of stressed, expression may confirm that fact. The idea is that your observations will narrow down the potential scenarios of your subject, and then you will be able to make educated guesses with a high percentage of accuracy.

The more you look at the world around you and how people behave when they’re faced with certain events, the more accurately you’ll be able to draw such relations and come to conclusions which will help you read minds. It will also help you identify and categorize different “types” of people and how they react under different scenarios. For example: if a person looks and acts like a “player,” but may have recently gotten out of a particularly serious relationship, they may be attempting to hide inner grief by seeming to be confident or overly-exuberant to compensate.

Observation, then, comes in two parts — watching first, and analyzing second. It’s when you have a wide range of “universal truths” about human behavior that you use to better discern, that you can truly improve the accuracy of your mind-reading, and attempt to become a master in the art.

It is also vital that you start learning micro-expressions and what they mean. These micro-expressions are brief facial expressions, typically lasting for fractions of a second. These usually occur when a person is trying to hide what they really feel, whether consciously or unconsciously. Their specific usefulness lies in the fact that these emotions — happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt — express themselves in the exact same way on everyone, irrespective of biological, socio- economic, environmental or genetic factors. Learning these expressions is particularly helpful for “mind-readers” since they tell you what your subject truly thinks about their ongoing experience with you — whether they believe you or not, or whether you hit jackpot, etc. In this matter, while some people are innately born with the ability to distinguish between micro- expressions, others need constant practice to be able to reach the same levels. However, eventually everyone can become just as good through study and dedicated application.

4] Positivity
If you wish to get people to lower their guards and follow your lead, you need to stay exuberant, positive, and bubbling with energy. If you keep your attitude fun, people will be more likely to want to participate and go along with you.

When you first attempt to read someone’s mind, always start with a compliment or validation of a positive quality you notice in them. Do not attempt to flatter them because, while flattery may make your subject feel good, it distances you from the feeling of “OMG, this person can really look inside me and see me for who I am” quality which you’re trying to inculcate within the person.

Whenever someone disagrees with you — never try to defend your reading. Instead, redirect it with a “Yes, but” before altering your point completely or driving it home with greater accuracy. Do the same for a “maybe” from the subject. The word “No” should literally never enter the conversation from your end, since you’re not judging or marking their responses. Each statement you make — with all the confidence of an established fact, I must add — is an attempt on your part to enter the confines of their mind. If they feel like you’re trying to tell them what they think, it’ll break the bond between you and your subject and put them on guard.

Also, regardless of how you feel your mind-reading attempt is going, never let your energy slip or falter. Instead, work on developing the ability to smoothly make an excuse or back off. This will be particularly useful in the beginning, if you’re using these techniques to draw people closer or actually pretending to read minds — you could just say something like “the negative energy is building up, and it’s mucking up your read” and back off. Never keep pursuing a line of conversation with someone if you’re receiving too many negative responses one after the other, without at least some positive responses in between. It would be far better to disengage, act as if you’re drawing in energy to pull yourself together and start all over again at the bottom of the pyramid by throwing out vague statements at someone new or along a different subject line.

5] Theatricality
While you don’t need a crystal ball and fifty incense sticks burning away in a dark grotto to add dramatic effects to your mind-reading, a certain amount of theatricality is vital in this process. For this particular requirement, a “persona” which you create works best — depending on the environment in which you’re attempting to read a mind. If this is for business purposes, a powerful, yet friendly and approachable persona works wonders since you want the other person to think that you’re completely in sync with them and understand their pains and sorrows. If you’re in a romantic setting, a bit of dramatic mystery with a dose of flirtatiousness works like a charm. This also gives you the ability to make peripheral remarks and compliments which would work in your favor while you’re stalling for time and trying to read them more deeply. This persona should ideally take the best characteristics from your own personality which would best complement confidence, since if you try to play a completely different person you may come across as fake. Remember — just as every great lie has a grain of truth, so does every convincing persona borrow from aspects of the real person hiding behind it. This theatricality also lends another purpose — it nuances your own character from the simplistic understanding of you in the minds of the subject and makes you more interesting as well. This urges the subject to be more receptive, compliant and willing to participate in the process without throwing up their guard.

6] Mix and Match
Another thing you always need to keep in mind: While I’ve dedicated an individual chapter to each technique as if they’re separate, the most successful reads are always a combination of two or more of these techniques. This is because while all of them depend on confidence, the first depends primarily on the gift of gab, the second one on knowledge and information, and the third one on observation and analysis. It is your responsibility to become extremely proficient at the first and third ones if you want to perform your best in front of a total stranger, and all three if you want to successfully impress someone you are already marginally acquainted with.

7] Credibility
This is one of the most important factors that determine the success or failure of a reading. If a person is aware that they’re being played in some manner, their guard will go up and they will seem perpetually skeptical — thus giving you little to nothing to go on with. Instead, if you seem trustworthy, honest, credible, and safe, they are more likely to volunteer information themselves or seek deeper meaning in the process — thus seeing connections in random statements, ones which you didn’t even consciously make.

It’s like how great salespeople are always looked at through a critical eye by their prospective customers. If those same salespeople made it clear that the only thing they care about is their own commission rather than helping you meet your needs, then they wouldn’t get very far, would they? And in fact, in my experience, the most successful salespeople aren’t even the most charismatic people either. Instead, the most successful salespeople tend to be unassuming and so non-impressive in their own regard that they slipped right under the radars of the most skeptic buyers and ended up walking away with fat commissions before the consumer had time to say “But, I just came in here to use the toilet.”

Conclusion
“The first-known mind-readers were said to be sages, mystics, and monks, who have inspired many studies to determine whether their supposedly larger fore- brain was somehow responsible for enabling psychic abilities.”

The understanding of various experts, however, has unearthed the simple fact that many of these men spent decades observing in silence, simply contemplating upon life as they know it, and making connections about humanity that others simply failed to see. They also met with more new people than the average person, given that they were usually the most well-travelled portion of the citizenry in older times.

Eschewing any supernatural theories, we can come to a reasonable conclusion that these men were considered able to read minds simply because they had seen more of humanity and had thought deeply enough in silence about their experiences to be able to draw parallels and make connections that others had yet to realize about human behavior.

The art of mind-reading is simply the art of observation coupled with the art of gab. At first, try to keep things deliciously vague so that no one can give you an outright “no” for an answer. Beyond that, it’s a question of using your gray

matter to observe, analyze, connect and narrow down who the subject is through every positive or negative response — “You also have trouble meeting new people or feeling entirely comfortable around them” “Yes,” “Yes, and this is because you feel a little insecure,” “No,” “Yes, but trust issues are also a kind of insecurity, the insecurity resulting from action of others,” “Yes,” and so on and so forth.

Always keep your cool, and never let your confidence waver. If you start panicking or getting flustered, you can’t maintain the clarity you need to keep making pertinent observations which you can then use for your mind-reading, or even effectively think fast on your feet.

Also remember: it is okay for you to pause or take your time after each “yes” answer but never let a “no” hang in the air — move in with your “yes, but” right away. If you’re using these techniques in your professional office environment, once you’ve established this bond with a superior, you can use the clues they dropped after every “no” to project your goals or plans as a mirror of their own to make them feel comfortable enough to confide in you. This would give you leverage to work on your own ambitions when you need to take a step higher. And in dating, you can use these techniques to establish a primary bond which would buy you credibility while enhancing your mystique. Above all, people want to feel understood and their “uniqueness” validated, especially by their romantic partners.

If nothing else, you can use the observational fundamentals of “mind- reading” to gain a clearer understanding of people around you and use what information you glean to your own advantage. Although of course the skill can be used to take advantage of others by selling them things they don’t want, and convincing folks to do things they otherwise wouldn’t, it’s also a skill that can (and should) be used for good. You can get to know people better, establish deeper relationships, learn to pick up on people’s subtler emotional states and cheer them up when they’re down. All in all, learning to mind-read will transform you into a more perceptive and sensitive person, and therefore a pleasure for other people to be around. Yes, prepare yourself: a side effect of learning how to read minds is that it’s also going to enhance your popularity.