Cold Reading Summary (C24): Background Checking

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Background checking doesn’t mean googling someone's name or going through their trash. Leave that to the ‘psychics’ and charlatans. 

In a cold reading context, background checking is done on-the-fly.

The premise of this isn’t anything we haven’t talked about before.

Basically, ask your target about their desires, fears, pivotal events in their life, etc. Do it in a vague manner. From this information, search your own life for instances and feelings that match closely with what they describe to you. Then, describe your own situation from a third person perspective. If you want, you can even frame it as a prediction as to what will likely happen to them. LINK Cold Reading Summary (C23): Third Person Magic

As long as you find out the general theme of what they want, you can match it to an experience of your own within that theme. 

For example, perhaps the target is thinking about buying a house. Even if you’ve never thought about buying a house, you know the general theme is financial, and everyone has had to make a hard financial decision before.

Often, in general conversation, you can ask about someone's desires and fears  directly. 

In other cases, you may want to elicit the information in a more roundabout way. To do this, ask some either-or questions. For example:

This thing that’s troubling you, is it more of a personal choice or a professional one?

Just keep giving them binary choices until you narrow it down. As you gain skill, you can give them more choices. Eventually, you won’t even need a verbal answer. You will be able to tell their likely choice from body language.

Here is a basic step-by-step of how you could perform a cold read as if looking into someone's future.

1. With your eyes closed, ask some vague either-or questions.

2. As you get the answers, search your past for similar situations. Ensure the situation you choose meets the following two criteria:

a. It was a tough decision

b. It had a happy ending

3. Describe your situation to them using vague, predictive language. Speak slowly and agree with any information they add.

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