How to make people think you can read minds

You knew what was going to happen before it happened and the fact that you had psychic ability and could read minds surprised you. This experience of being right on with your intuition about things that haven’t happened yet is more common than you might think.

It’s possible that psychics don’t have any skills beyond what we possess ourselves. Psychics have simply learned to be excellent observers. With practice, you can learn to develop your psychic abilities so that reading someone’s mind becomes a powerful tool.

Predicting someone’s thoughts is easier the more that you know about reading people. In learning to detect the small, observable things that people do with their bodies and words when speaking to you, you can pick up on what is not being said.

If you could read minds, it would make your life much easier, so let’s explore how to access your psychic ability to read someone’s mind. Here are a few suggestions to practice with.

Reading body language

Hands in fists on hips, a furrowed brow and slightly downturned mouth are pretty universally understood as angry body language. If you were tying to read this person’s mind, their thoughts would sound like “I can’t believe you did that. I’m so frustrated with you!”

Now let’s try another one. If a person is resting their chin in the palm of one hand, has slightly pursed lips, and their eyebrows are raised slightly while they are looking up at you, what would you guess their thoughts would be? This is a typically bored posture, so their thoughts might be “I wish I was somewhere else doing what I want to do.”

Reading facial expressions

An easy trick for determining what someone’s facial expression means is to mimic their face yourself. One your facial muscles repeat what theirs are doing, you can sense the emotion that they are feeling because you know what corresponding emotion goes with that set of facial movements.

For example, if someone is raising their eyebrows near the bridge of their nose and opening their mouth slightly, they are probably trying to plead with you for something that they want.

Withholding the truth can be seen in people’s facial expressions. One study found that when people are withholding their emotions, they tend to blink faster. The study also found that people who are hiding something have facial expressions that are inconsistent with their emotions, for example smiling when they are angry.

You can read more about how to tell if someone is lying to you here.

Reading into language

Ask yourself, “What aren’t they telling me?” The things that a person says are almost as important as what is left unsaid. Leaving things unspoken could mean that the person is trying to keep their options open or attempting to deceive you by failing to be specific. They could also be trying to be diplomatic by only telling you what you want to hear.

Lie-spotting author Pamela Meyer says that people will gloss over details when they are lying. For example, if you ask what they were looking at on their computer and they say “Oh just some stuff that somebody posted,” they are probably hiding something from you.

Trusting your intuition

Your intuition is that inner voice that is very important for reading minds. The intuition is picking up on cues from our environment when we may not even notice them. It uses all of this information that it has gathered to come to a conclusion.

The intuition is particularly important for making trust decisions. When your safety is on the line, your intuition will tell you whether a person can be relied on to keep you from harm. Reading someone’s mind when it comes to protecting yourself is an important use of your psychic abilities.

Learn to tell the difference between your expectations and reality

Ask yourself what you hope you will read in the other person’s thoughts. This is one possible thing that they are thinking, but it is more likely that your desires are clouding your ability to perceive clearly.

Learning to calm your thoughts is helpful with accessing your psychic ability to read someone’s mind. Your own thoughts can interfere with what you are trying to pick up on. Clearing your mind through meditation, deep breathing, and spending quiet time in nature can help you to be more receptive.

You can read more about how to prepare yourself for mind reading here.

Get more Oxytocin

In a study of mind reading skills, that is people’s ability to read the mental state of someone by interpreting subtle social cues, data suggests that oxytocin helps. Oxytocin is released by the brain when you receive a hug, do something exciting, or have an orgasm as well as during other pleasurable activities.

Researchers found that oxytocin improves the ability to infer the mental state of others from social cues of the eyes. Giving someone a hug before you try to read their mind might be the boost that your intuition needs to get the right answer.

The future for mind reading holds some promise for technology that can reconstruct your thoughts. Researchers studying how the brain maps information have discovered that they can reconstruct images based on what areas of the brain are activated as seen in an MRI. Once they know how mental representations map onto patterns of neural activity, they were able to demonstrate several impressive feats of mind reading.

Is there a psychological explanation for ESP?

Posted Jun 02, 2015

Although there is no research evidence to support mind-reading via extrasensory perception (ESP), there are individuals who are extremely skilled at reading others’ body language and making educated guesses about what they are thinking or feeling. Psychologist William Ickes calls it “everyday mind-reading,” and there is evidence that we can develop our perceptual skills and become better at reading other people’s feelings and thoughts.

Nonverbal Decoding Skill. Much of our ability to tap into others’ feelings and emotions is through individual differences in “reading” others’ nonverbal emotional expressions, particularly through facial expressions and tone of voice. To give you a sense of what a skilled nonverbal decoder can do, watch a professional “mindreader” or “mentalist” at work on stage. The “mentalist” seems to have some sort of ESP, but is actually reading the nonverbal cues of audience members. The mindreader says, “Someone here has recently experienced a loss of a family member,” and then looks for subtle reactions. Zeroing in on the person who reacts, the mentalist probes around and watches for reactions. It’s not ESP, it’s highly-developed nonverbal decoding skill. The way to improve your ability to decode nonverbal cues is through systematic practice. Here is a guide for improving nonverbal decoding skill.

Consider the Context. It isn’t enough to be a good decoder of nonverbal cues. To really be an everyday mindreader you need to consider the context. The same nonverbal behaviors in different contexts mean different things. Imagine a wife and husband in a group discussion. You notice the wife gently squeezes her husband’s hand. If it occurs during a lull in a conversation, it likely is a sign of affection. If it occurs after someone else has said something provocative, it might mean “pay attention” or “remember what I told you?” If it occurs after the husband has said something, it might mean “keep quiet!” Context matters.

Deception Detection Strategies. One might be motivated to become an everyday mindreader in order to tell if others are lying or telling the truth. I’m sorry to tell you that research shows that we are simply not very good at detecting deception. There are some rare individuals, however, who have exceptional ability to detect lies. Psychologists Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sullivan labeled these people “wizards” of lie detection. How do they do it? The wizards look for inconsistencies in nonverbal behavior, or between what a person is saying and how they are saying it. They also analyze the context. Importantly, they don’t fall prey to mental shortcuts when it comes to lie detection, such as believing that a liar won’t make eye contact, or will look in a certain direction when lying. Research actually shows that liars engage in more eye contact than truth-tellers. Good liars know all about the mental shortcuts people are prone to. (Here is an earlier post that might help you in improving at lie detection.)

So, how do you become a better everyday mindreader?

1. Get Motivated. It’s not easy to be a good nonverbal decoder, so you have to have the dedication to do it.

2. Practice. Reading body language and contextual cues require a great deal of practice. Importantly, you need to practice in a way that allows you to assess your accuracy. In other words, if you don’t know the “truth,” you can’t learn to become more accurate.

3. Don’t Take Mental Shortcuts. Don’t assume that a certain nonverbal cue always means the same thing. Don’t fall prey to stereotypes about people and their body language. For example, several studies suggest that deception is better detected by focusing on the liar’s words, rather than their body language. In other words, is the lie plausible? Are the verbal and nonverbal cues consistent?

Scientists have used brain scanners to detect and reconstruct the faces that people are thinking of, a scientific achievement that could someday lead to a dream-recorder. (Alan Cowen)

Scientists have used brain scanners to detect and reconstruct the faces that people are thinking of, a scientific achievement that could someday lead to a dream-recorder. (Alan Cowen)

Think mind reading is science fiction?

Scientists have used brain scanners to detect and reconstruct the faces that people are thinking of, according to a a study accepted for publication this month in the journal NeuroImage.

In the study, scientists hooked participants up to an fMRI brain scanner – which determines activity in different parts of the brain by measuring blood flow – and showed them images of faces. Then, using only the brain scans, the scientists were able to create images of the faces the people were looking at.

“It is mind reading,” said Alan S. Cowen, a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley who co-authored the study with professor Marvin M. Chun from Yale and Brice A. Kuhl from New York University.

‘You can even imagine, way down the road, a witness to a crime might want to come in and reconstruct a suspect’s face.’

— Alan S. Cowen, a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley

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The study says it is the first to try to reconstruct faces from thoughts. The photos above are the actual photos and reconstructions done in the lab.

While the reconstructions based on 30 brain readings are blurry, they approximate the true images. They got the skin color right in all of them, and 24 out of 30 reconstructions correctly detected the presence or absence of a smile.

The brain readings were worse at determining gender and hair color: About two-thirds of the reconstructions clearly detected the gender, and only half got hair color correct.

“There’s definitely room for improvement,” Cowen said, adding that these experiments were conducted two years ago, though they only recently were accepted for publication. He said he and others have been working on improving the process in the interim.

“I’m applying more sophisticated mathematical models [to the brain scan results], so the results should get better,” he said.

To tease out faces based on brain activity, the scientists showed participants in the study 300 faces while recording their brain activity. Then they showed the participants 30 new faces and used their previously recorded patterns to create 30 images based only on their brain scans.

Once the technology improves, Cowen said, applications could range from better understanding mental disorders, to recording dreams, to solving crimes.

“You can see how people perceive faces depending on different disorders, like autism – and use that to help diagnose therapies,” he said.

That’s because the reconstructions are based not on the actual image, but on how the image is perceived by a subject’s brain. If an autistic person sees a face differently, the difference will show up in the brain scan reconstruction.

Images from dreams are also detectable.

“And you can even imagine,” Cowen said, “way down the road, a witness to a crime might want to come in and reconstruct a suspect’s face.”

How soon could that happen?

“It really depends on advances in brain imaging technology, more so than the mathematical analysis. It could be 10, 20 years away.”

One challenge is that different brains show different activity for the same image. The blurry images pictured here are actually averages of the thoughts of six lab volunteers. If one were to look at any individual’s reading, the image would be less consistent.

“There’s a wide variation in how people’s brains work under a scanner – some people have better brains for fMRI – and so if you were to pick a participant at random it might be that their reconstructions are really good, or it might be that their reconstructions are really poor, which is why we averaged across all the participants,” Cowen said.

For now, he added, you shouldn’t worry about others snooping on your memories or forcibly extracting information.

“This sort of technology can only read active parts of the brain. So you couldn’t read passive memories – you would have to get the person to imagine the memory to read it,” Cowen said.

“It’s a matter of time, and eventually – maybe 200 years from now – we’ll have some way of reading inactive parts of the brain. But that’s a much harder problem, as it involves measuring very fine details of brain structure that we don’t even really understand.”

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Imagine how easier life would become if we developed the talent of reading the unexpressed thoughts of other people.

Weirdly enough, in psychology there is no proper evidence proving that it is possible to map someone’s mind accurately through their emotions, words and body language. But the lack of research-backed evidence does not totally deny the fact that it is, in fact, possible to develop sharp skills of reading minds.

There are many out there who are extremely skilled at mind-reading, and the techniques they use to decode the unexpressed thoughts are:

1. Decoding all sorts of nonverbal expressions

I read somewhere that it is a fantastically complex skill, which requires a lot of practice. As the term says, it requires you to read the other person’s non-verbal emotions. The tone of the voice, quality of touch, facial expressions, handwriting style are the key clues to understanding someone’s feelings.

Infants, for obvious reasons, convey their thoughts through non-verbal facial expressions and their mothers are the best natural non-verbal communication decoders. Mothers actually are at all times best at decoding their children’s nonverbal expressions.

2. The mirror technique

You can replicate their body positions or their personality traits. Metaphorically speaking, it is somewhat similar to stepping in someone else’s shoes. It helps you empathize with what the other person might be feeling. Moreover, copying the actions of the person that you are trying to read, drives their mind in such a way that they feel compelled to let their inhibitions go and open up to you.

3. Deception detection technique

Most of us think of ourselves as pros at detecting lies but in reality there are only rare individuals who are like masters of lie detection. And if research studies are anything to go by, not all those who avoid eye contacts are liars. In fact, most liars maintain a steady eye contact than those who tell the truth, thus giving a sad realization of an evident fact that the act of deceiving has evolved in terms of smartness over the years.

4. Study the context

One kind of gesture made at different situations could mean several things. Couples make a great subject for this technique. If the girl gives a wide-eyed expression to her man for a reason not obvious to you or anyone else, it could perhaps mean that she suddenly remembered something that she had earlier forgot to tell her hubby. However, if some friend of the man from the group suddenly reveals something about him that his partner was not aware of until that moment, then at that point of time her wide-eyed expression in reaction would mean that she is shocked and mad at her partner.

5. Play the guess game

If you know the person who seems to be hiding things a little too well, you can guess random things relevant to that person. Their expressions are ought to change once you land up on the guess that is the exact thought on their mind. And if you are nearly sure about their unexpressed thoughts but want them to reveal it by themselves, then you can keep talking to them about it until they blurt it all out.

6. Let their muscles tell you their secrets

This one is pretty common and more so often, gives accurate results. No one has to be an expert really to understand that if a usually relaxed person looks very tensed body-wise, that means he has something on his mind. Also, there is something called muscle-reading.

You can either keep pressing the person’s back muscles while making random but relevant guesses of what can perhaps be bothering them, or you can hold their hands while continuing the guessing game. Once the right guess strikes, you will feel their muscles tense up. This is how their bodies give away the hidden thoughts easily.

7. Telepathy- A highly debated, complex, but if records in history are to be believed, a totally effective technique.

Telepathy refers to the art of ‘thought reading’ without having to use any of the five senses. It is a technique performed between a sender and the receiver of the thought.

– Once the thought gets transmitted, the sender will get a strong feeling declaring the same, and that feeling can never be missed.

– Receiver, on the other hand, has to keep himself in complete sync with sender‘s thoughts, all while feeling completely relaxed. He has to keep noting down whatever his mind seems to be receiving, even if it is the most bizarre of things.

This technique needs a lot of practice and cannot be mastered overnight. Also, it has not really been proven by science yet some people continue to perform it with winning results.

Now while the above-explained techniques are more to do with daily mind reading, these days the evolution of brain scanning technology (neuro-imaging) has led the researchers to debate on what particular areas can be benefited with this technique. And one key application of brain scanning technology is criminal law.

A neuroscientist, Marcel Just believes that 3 to 5 years into future, a machine that could read complex thoughts will become a reality.

If you want a psychic, go hire one.

If you want an awesome relationship, you create one.

One of the best ways to start creating that relationship is by letting people in on what is going on in our heads. By letting them in on the weird and wacky world that exists in there. Stop pretending it isn’t, you and I both know it is.

As a life coach, I have seen this trend lately where we believe someone loves us more if they can figure out what we are thinking at all times. That they know instantly when we are happy, upset, frustrated, excited, disappointed, etc., and more importantly, they understand why we are feeling those emotions. Because they just “get us”.

Who told you that crap? If you know who did, take away their wine for a week and send them to bed without their supper!

Reality check. People do not show their love by randomly guessing correctly what is going on in that very, very complicated place we call our brain. They show love by asking questions, listening, supporting and learning about who we are.

I don’t know about you but I can be thinking about Louis C.K. one second and the kitten video I watched that morning the next. I mean literally the next second. It all connected in my head, but why would I expect anyone else to keep up? Aren’t they also trying to make a living, be a functional human being and deal with all of their own stuff in the process?

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

When we make them guess or put these wackadoo expectations on them, it is not them who is letting you down by not guessing correctly about what is going through your head. It is you who is letting them down for making them guess. Playing games. Punishing them when they don’t know. Making them feel like a lesser person in the relationship because they can’t read your mind.

That is just setting them up for failure and why would you want the most important person in your life to fail? How is that creating an incredible lasting relationship?

Amazing and healthy relationships happen when both people get to win. When both people get to feel great, supported and more importantly, loved.

Every move you make should be working towards asking questions, really listening to answers and understanding each other.

So that is why when someone asks you “what’s wrong?” Tell them.

If you are interested, let them know. Most times they need you to NOT be subtle.

If you are having a bad day, explain it to them. Then they can know it is not about them and learn how to support you.

If you have expectations about something, share them. When you can talk about what you want or need, they can actually try step up to reach your expectations or help figure out what can work for both of you. See? Win-win!

At the end of the day, most importantly, you just want to let them in. No matter how scary it is.
You may be shocked at how amazing they can be, once you actually let them.

Save the psychic for your winning lottery numbers.

Are you single and meant to be a super hero? Grab your cape and join the League of Adventurous Singles! A weekly newsletter with activities, journal questions, checklists, cocktail recipes, Jedi mind tricks, madlibs, challenges and so much more. It is for singles interested in changing the world AND their love lives by getting offline and out of their comfort zone.

For more by Kira Sabin, click here.

For more on love and relationships, click here.

If you’ve ever been convinced by a salesperson that you truly wanted a product, done something too instinctively, or made choices that seemed entirely out of character, then you’ve had an idea planted in your mind. Here’s how it’s done.

This classic post has been republished is part of our Evil Week series at Lifehacker, where we look at the dark side of getting things done. Knowing evil means knowing how to beat it, so you can use your sinister powers for good. Want more? Check out our evil week tag page .

Welcome to Lifehacker’s Fifth Annual Evil Week

It’s that time of year again: With Halloween getting closer, we’re feeling the need to unleash our…

If you’ve seen the film Inception , you might think that planting an idea in someone’s mind is a difficult thing to do. It’s not. It’s ridiculously easy and it’s tough to avoid. We’re going to take a look at some of the ways it can work.

Note: We’ve gotten a lot of emails about how to do this in specific situations. Although some of those situations have been legitimate, this post was written to teach you to detect these tactics or use them for positive reasons, rather than use them on others for selfish or nefarious purposes. If you want a good way to convince people to do what you want that doesn’t involve the dark side of manipulation, read this and this .

How Can I Be More Convincing and Get Anything I Want?

Dear Lifehacker, I’ve read about how to plant ideas in someone’s head, but the whole idea of…

Reverse Psychology Actually Works

Reverse psychology has become an enormous cliché. I think this peaked in 1995 with the release of the film Jumanji . (If you’ve seen it and remember it, you know what I’m talking about.) The problem is that most people look at reverse psychology in a very simple way. For example, you’d say “I don’t care if you want to go risk your life jumping out of a plane” to try and convince someone not to go skydiving. This isn’t reverse psychology—it’s passive-aggressive. So let’s leave that all behind and start from scratch .

Three of The Easiest Ways to Manipulate People into Doing What You Want

You can do a lot of things to be more persuasive, from learning better ways to communicate to more…

If you’re going to use logic reversals in your favor, you need to be subtle. Let’s say you want your roommate to do the dishes because it’s his or her turn. There’s always this approach:

“Hey, would you mind doing the dishes? It’s your turn.”

But in this example we’re assuming your roommate is lazy and the nice approach isn’t going to get the job done. So what do you do? Something like this:

“Hey, I’ve decided I don’t want to do the dishes anymore and am just going to start buying disposable stuff. Is that cool with you? If you want to give me some money, I can pick up extras for you, too.”

What this does is present the crappy alternative to not doing the dishes without placing any blame. Rather than being preoccupied with an accusation, your roommate is left to only consider the alternative. This is how reverse psychology can be effective, so long as you say it like you mean it.

Never Talk About the Idea—Talk Around It

Getting someone to want to do something can be tough if you know they’re not going to want to do it, so you need to make them believe it was their idea. This is a common instruction, especially for salespeople, but it’s much easier said than done. You have to look at planting ideas in the same way you’d look at solving a mystery. Slowly but surely you offer the target a series of clues until the obvious conclusion is the one you want. The key is to be patient, because if you rush through your “clues” it will be obvious. If you take it slow, the idea will form naturally in their mind all by itself.

Let’s say you’re trying to get your friend to eat healthier food. This is a good aim, but you’ve got a tough enemy: they’re addicted to the Colonel and need a bucket of fried chicken at least once a day. Out of concern you tell them to eat healthier. They either think that’s a good idea and then never do anything or just tell you to stop nagging them. For them to realize what they’re doing to their body, they need to have an epiphany and you can make that happen by talking around the issue.

To do this you need to be very clever and very subtle, otherwise it will be obvious. You can’t just say “oh, I read today that fried chicken is killing 10 million children in Arkansas every year” because that’s a load of crap and comes with an incredibly obvious motivation for saying it.

If chicken is the target, you need to make chicken seem really unappealing. Next time you sneeze, make a joke about coming down with the avian flu. When you’re ordering at a restaurant together, verbally convey your decision to order something other than chicken because you just learned how most chicken is processed by restaurants. When you’ve done enough of these things—and, again, with enough space between them so that it doesn’t seem like odd behavior—you can start being a little more aggressive and stop going with your friend to get fried chicken. You can also take proactive steps to improve your own health and tell your friend 1) what you’re doing, and 2) how well it’s working for you. After a few weeks, if your friend hasn’t decided to reconsider his or her position on frequent fried chicken, you can casually mention it and they should be much more open to having a real discussion.

Undersell

Underselling is probably one of the easiest and most effective ways to plant an idea in someone’s mind. This is another version of reverse psychology but at a less aggressive level. Let’s say you’re trying to sell someone a hard drive. They could buy a 250GB, 500GB, or 1TB hard drive. You want to sell the largest hard drive possible because those cost more and mean more money for you. Your buyer is coming in with the idea that they want to spend the least money possible. You’re not going to get very far by telling them they should spend more money when you know they don’t want to. Instead, you need to cater to what they want: the cheap option. Here’s a sample dialogue:

Buyer: Can you tell me about this 250GB hard drive? I want to make sure it will work for me.

You: What kind of computer do you have and what do you want to use it for?

Buyer: I have a 2-year old Windows laptop and I need it to store my photos. I have about 30GB of photos.

You: 250GB is definitely more than enough for just storing your photos, so as long as you don’t have many more files you might want to put onto the drive it should be just fine for your needs.

This last sentence instills doubt in the buyer. You could even add “you’d only need a larger drive if you wanted to be absolutely sure you’ll have enough space in the future” but that might be pushing it a little bit. The point is, if you appear to have their best interests at heart it can be easy to make them think they want to buy more from you.

Again, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that planting ideas in the minds of others is not necessarily a nice thing to do. Use this information to detect when someone’s doing it to you and not necessarily as a guide to do it to somebody else for evil reasons.

Impress your friends and terrify your enemies, by pretending to read anyone’s mind. It’s not as hard as it looks — there are some well-worn tricks that can make you appear telepathic. Screw magicians and their lame fire tricks — we’re way more impressed with someone who can guess your favorite movie just by staring into your eyes.

We spoke with Las Vegas’ resident Mentalist Gerry McCambridge and he broke down the basic steps to wowing people with your powers of telepathy.

McCambridge, who has spent the last 7 years at The Planet Hollywood reading throngs of tourists, doesn’t just pull information from your brain — he’ll also tell you exactly how he got there as well. So we asked him to break down his methods step by step.

Select the right subject.

You can’t just grab any old victim for a good mind sucking off the street. Rather, you should select your prey delicately. McCambridge elaborates:

“Some people want to be the center of attention. So, if I’m asking for people to come up on stage a lot of times it’s those type of people. And they tend not to be the best assistants because they want to have their 15 minutes of fame at my expense. So I’m looking for people who may not come up on stage at the drop of a hat, but aren’t [so] overly shy that they’re going to stay in the audience. The first thing I’m looking for is somebody who is smiling and laughing at the jokes that I’m putting out there. There you have someone who wants to interact. Then you have the over-responders and that’s someone I don’t want necessarily right away. That’s what you look for first, the type person.”

Mirror the subject (make them comfortable).

Once you’ve snared your subject, woo them into a sense of security, by mimicking their ways.

“Make sure you try something that they are comfortable with. Do you have any artistic abilities? Then you can do something where you using drawing. You feel them out based on what you’re going to ask them to do. Then you use an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) technique called mirroring. Where you get them comfortable with you by mirroring the way that they’re responding to you. People can pick up on that and they feel more relaxed around someone they feel is close to them. If they’re a shy person and you’re loud and obnoxious, they’re not going to feel comfortable standing next to you. If they are a little shy and you back off and act a little timid yourself, introduce yourself nicely, it puts everybody at ease.”

Know the statistics.

Know your stuff. In order to become and excellent Mind Reader, you need to up on the latest trends and tendencies of the mind. McCambridge has spent years documenting his shows, taking notes of the different ages of people in the audience, the cars parked in the parking lots, what kind of event it was. And he makes good use of all this statistical data.

“I know statistically how people are going to respond to certain situations. When I offer you a choice of 4 different objects I know 92% of the time you’re going to choose the third one on your own. When you tell someone to think of a number between 1 and 10, statisically they are going to gravitate towards 7. If you ask someone to respond to a question very quickly, that changes the response. If I asked you to think of a color very quickly 1, 2, 3 — red is the statistical first choice. Blue is the second choice. If you ask for a color quickly, people go for red. If you ask for a color and you give someone a three or four second space, they will go for blue, because they will change their mind thinking red is the obvious choice.”

Look for signs.

But you’ve got to be aware of basic responses!

“Look for reactions. For example [something I might try] is instruct the person to respond to what I say with the word no. No matter what I say, you respond with no. Then I’ll say think of a number between 1 to 10, and I ask is it the number 1? No. The number 2? No. We go through the entire thing with No and I tell them that it’s the number 6 because of the fact that they looked at me different when they were actually lying to me. They couldn’t make eye contact [or something similar to that].”

Utilize the body.

Learn the art of muscle reading.

“Without the people realizing it, I’m touching them in a very relaxed way that they don’t realize what I’m doing. Based on the questions that I’m asking them, I can tell what the answers are by feeling the difference in their muscles. You body echoes what your brain thinks. And I’ve learned how to pick up on the echoes. An example is I tell the person to think of a letter in the alphabet, and then the audience sing the Alphabet Song. By the time their finished I can tell what letter they have because the second the audience said their letter, their brain thinks to itself “that’s it!” That changes the physiological response in your body and I can pick that up, it’s different than the other 25 letters.”

Don’t be afraid to admit failure.

If you fall flat on your face, pick up and try again. The audience will love you even more for it.

“[If the trick doesn’t work] I usually try it a second time. If it’s an important part of the show I may send the person back to their seat and say, ‘OK let’s try something else.’ There is no sure-fire way, things go wrong, it actually adds more credibility to the show when the audience sees that sometimes it fails. What a mentalist does, it doesn’t always work, and that’s OK. “

The easiest trick in the book.

We’ll tell you the name of the trick after you do it, because it spoils the reveal!

• Pick a number between 1 and 10.
• Multiply it by 9.
• If it’s a 2 digit number, add them together.
• Now subtract 5.
• Map the result to a letter of the alphabet, where A=1, B=2 and so on.
• Think of a country which begins with that letter.
• Take the second letter of the country and think of an animal which begins with that letter.
• Think of the color of that animal.

Are you thinking of a grey elephant from Denmark?

Obviously this is titled the Grey Elephant from Denmark. We tried this on 3 people in the office and, one out of three guessed Grey Elephant. Our suggestion, do it in big group and the odds will be in your favor.

Here’s a clip of Gerry in action. Check him out over at his Mentalist website or live at the Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas.

Today I’m going to talk to you about the problem of other minds. And the problem I’m going to talk about is not the familiar one from philosophy, which is, “How can we know whether other people have minds?” That is, maybe you have a mind, and everyone else is just a really convincing robot. So that’s a problem in philosophy, but for today’s purposes I’m going to assume that many people in this audience have a mind, and that I don’t have to worry about this.

There is a second problem that is maybe even more familiar to us as parents and teachers and spouses and novelists, which is, “Why is it so hard to know what somebody else wants or believes?” Or perhaps, more relevantly, “Why is it so hard to change what somebody else wants or believes?”

I think novelists put this best. Like Philip Roth, who said, “And yet, what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people? So ill equipped are we all, to envision one another’s interior workings and invisible aims.” So as a teacher and as a spouse, this is, of course, a problem I confront every day. But as a scientist, I’m interested in a different problem of other minds, and that is the one I’m going to introduce to you today. And that problem is, “How is it so easy to know other minds?”

So to start with an illustration, you need almost no information, one snapshot of a stranger, to guess what this woman is thinking, or what this man is. And put another way, the crux of the problem is the machine that we use for thinking about other minds, our brain, is made up of pieces, brain cells, that we share with all other animals, with monkeys and mice and even sea slugs. And yet, you put them together in a particular network, and what you get is the capacity to write Romeo and Juliet. Or to say, as Alan Greenspan did, “I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” (Laughter)

So, the job of my field of cognitive neuroscience is to stand with these ideas, one in each hand. And to try to understand how you can put together simple units, simple messages over space and time, in a network, and get this amazing human capacity to think about minds. So I’m going to tell you three things about this today. Obviously the whole project here is huge. And I’m going to tell you just our first few steps about the discovery of a special brain region for thinking about other people’s thoughts. Some observations on the slow development of this system as we learn how to do this difficult job. And then finally, to show that some of the differences between people, in how we judge others, can be explained by differences in this brain system.

So first, the first thing I want to tell you is that there is a brain region in the human brain, in your brains, whose job it is to think about other people’s thoughts. This is a picture of it. It’s called the Right Temporo-Parietal Junction. It’s above and behind your right ear. And this is the brain region you used when you saw the pictures I showed you, or when you read Romeo and Juliet or when you tried to understand Alan Greenspan. And you don’t use it for solving any other kinds of logical problems. So this brain region is called the Right TPJ. And this picture shows the average activation in a group of what we call typical human adults. They’re MIT undergraduates. (Laughter)

The second thing I want to say about this brain system is that although we human adults are really good at understanding other minds, we weren’t always that way. It takes children a long time to break into the system. I’m going to show you a little bit of that long, extended process. The first thing I’m going to show you is a change between age three and five, as kids learn to understand that somebody else can have beliefs that are different from their own. So I’m going to show you a five-year-old who is getting a standard kind of puzzle that we call the false belief task.

Rebecca Saxe (Video): This is the first pirate. His name is Ivan. And you know what pirates really like?

Child: What? RS: Pirates really like cheese sandwiches.

Einstein once said that “the only real valuable thing is intuition” while Marilyn Monroe is quoted as saying “a woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself,” but what makes intuition such a valuable thing to possess? And what is it about intuitive individuals that sets them apart from the rest of us?

While it is nigh-on impossible to give a definitive set of characteristics that all intuitives embody, there are some common traits that can be identified to provide a window into their world.

The following 13 qualities describe some of the ways a highly intuitive person thinks, acts, and lives differently.

1. They Listen To And Obey Their Inner Voice

Perhaps the most obvious trait of an intuitive person is the extent to which they listen to the little voice inside of them and actually act based upon what it says. They don’t question the advice being given, but simply know it to be the most appropriate course to take at any given moment.

2. They Closely Observe Their Surroundings

In order for their gut to provide sensible and effective recommendations, they will keep a watchful eye on their environment and the situation at hand. All of this observation means that they have the necessary information required when a decision needs to be made. They can act on their impulses safe in the knowledge that they have assimilated all of the relevant intelligence available.

3. They Pay Attention To Their Dreams

Intuition forms a link between the conscious and unconscious minds which is why a highly intuitive person recognizes the importance of dreams. They know that what they think about during sleep can be a metaphor for their underlying desires and fears. They also understand that dreams can provide solutions to the problems they face or other forms of inspiration.

4. They Are Acutely Aware Of Their Feelings

Whereas many people attempt to numb their feelings or ignore them altogether, an intuitive person values the feedback provided by them. They know that their feelings have valuable messages for them that can help shine a light on the path they should take. They don’t just feel a feeling, they think about what it is trying to tell them.

5. They Can Quickly Center On The Now

In order to help them hear and comprehend what their intuition is saying, they have a remarkable ability to refocus their mind entirely on the now so as to block out any unnecessary thoughts about the past or future. Only when they have achieved a state of mindfulness can they be aware of the full message being communicated.

6. They Are Typically Optimistic Souls

Being more closely aligned with their feelings than most, intuitive people are better equipped to process anything negative that may arise from within before detaching themselves from it. They are able to quickly learn lessons from their mistakes and this generally makes them optimistic about the future. They know that good can come out of bad and that progress can be made no matter how bleak the outlook appears at any given instant.

7. They Have A Strong Sense Of Purpose

Without necessarily knowing what it may be, highly intuitive individuals tend to feel a strong sense of purpose in their lives. They believe they have a calling that they are destined to answer, and they like to move forward with gusto as if to uncover the full meaning of this feeling.

8. They Are Deep Thinkers

You may imagine that a person who is guided by their intuition has little need for deep thought and contemplation. But the opposite is closer to the truth; they find it extremely helpful to focus their minds on their values and core beliefs. This allows them to further educate and refine their intuition so that it provides them with better counsel.

9. They Take Note Of Signs Provided By The Universe

An intuitive being knows that there is more to this world than meets the eye. They are acutely aware of the various messages being conveyed by the universe at any given time. Coincidences, fateful meetings, and other apparently random events are all seen as significant and are taken as signs by which they navigate their path through life.

10. They Can Sense What Others Are Thinking/Feeling

Intuitive people commonly have very good empathetic abilities, meaning they can sense what others are thinking and feeling. Their minds are highly attuned to the vibrational frequencies given off by those around them and they use this information to further refine the way they act in a situation.

Related posts (article continues below):

11. They Can Easily Build Trust With Others

With such a good grasp of how other people are feeling, they are well equipped to choose the most appropriate responses. They can instantly tell how open someone is and tailor the way they behave so as to progress at a speed the other person is comfortable with. This non-threatening approach makes them very likeable.

12. They Are Creative And Imaginative

No idea is too far-fetched for a highly intuitive person and this freedom gives their imaginations and creative sides full scope to imagine and create. They let their minds take them wherever it wants to go which results in thoughts and ideas packed with unique points of view.

13. They Make Time For Peaceful Relaxation

They know that for their intuition to operate at peak efficiency, rest and recuperation are paramount in order to let other energies that may create noise to settle and disperse. They make sure to schedule sufficient periods of relaxation and often find that some of their most brilliant thoughts come about during these moments.

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60 Minutes: Incredible Research Lets Scientists Get A Glimpse At Your Thoughts

• 2008 Dec 31

Incredible Research Lets Scientists Get A Glimpse At Your Thoughts”,”url”:”
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This video is available on CBS All Access

This story was first published on Jan. 4, 2009. It was updated on June 26, 2009.

How often have you wondered what your spouse is really thinking? Or your boss? Or the guy sitting across from you on the bus? We all take as a given that we’ll never really know for sure. The content of our thoughts is our own – private, secret, and unknowable by anyone else. Until now, that is.

As 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl first reported in January, neuroscience research into how we think and what we’re thinking is advancing at a stunning rate, making it possible for the first time in human history to peer directly into the brain to read out the physical make-up of our thoughts, some would say to read our minds.

The technology that is transforming what once was science fiction into just plain science is a specialized use of MRI scanning called “functional MRI,” fMRI for short. It makes it possible to see what’s going on inside the brain while people are thinking.

“You know, every time I walk into that scanner room and I see the person’s brain appear on the screen, when I see those patterns, it is just incredible, unthinkable,” neuroscientist Marcel Just told Stahl.

He calls it “thought identification.”

Whatever you want to call it, what Just and his colleague Tom Mitchell at Carnegie Mellon University have done is combine fMRI’s ability to look at the brain in action with computer science’s new power to sort through massive amounts of data. The goal: to see if they could identify exactly what happens in the brain when people think specific thoughts.

They did an experiment where they asked subjects to think about ten objects – five of them tools like screwdriver and hammer, and five of them dwellings, like igloo and castle. They then recorded and analyzed the activity in the subjects’ brains for each.

“The computer found the place in the brain where that person was thinking ‘screwdriver’?” Stahl asked.

“Screwdriver isn’t one place in the brain. It’s many places in the brain. When you think of a screwdriver, you think about how you hold it, how you twist it, what it looks like, what you use it for,” Just explained.

He told Stahl each of those functions are in different places.

When we think “screwdriver” or “igloo” for example, Just says neurons start firing at varying levels of intensity in different areas throughout the brain. “And we found that we could identify which object they were thinking about from their brain activation patterns,” he said.

“We’re identifying the thought that’s occurring. It’s…incredible, just incredible,” he added.

“Are you saying that if you think of a hammer, that your brain is identical to my brain when I think of a hammer?” Stahl asked.

“Not identical. We have idiosyncrasies. Maybe I’ve had a bad experience with a hammer and you haven’t, but it’s close enough to identify each other’s thoughts. So, you know, that was never known before,” Just explained.

60 Minutes asked if his team was up for a challenge: would they take associate producer Meghan Frank, whose brain had never been scanned before, and see if the computer could identify her thoughts? Just and Mitchell agreed to give it a try and see if they could do it in almost real time.

Just said nobody had ever done an instant analysis like this.

Inside the scanner, Meghan was shown a series of ten items and asked to think for a few seconds about each one.

“If it all comes out right, when she’s thinking ‘hammer,’ the computer will know she’s thinking ‘hammer’?” Stahl asked.

“Right,” Mitchell replied.

Within minutes, the computer, unaware of what pictures Meghan had been shown and working only from her brain activity patterns as read out by the scanner, was ready to tell us, in its own voice, what it believed was the first object Meghan had been thinking about.

The computer correctly analyzed the first three words – knife, hammer, and window, and aced the rest as well.

According to Just, this is just the beginning.

“Who knows what you’re gonna be able to read,” Stahl commented. “A little scary, actually.”

“Well, that’s our research program for the next five years,” Just said. “To see what, you know – we’re not satisfied with “hammer.”

And neither are neuroscientists 4,000 miles away in Berlin at the Bernstein Center. John Dylan-Haynes is hard at work there using the scanner not just to identify objects people are thinking about, but to read their intentions.

Subjects were asked to make a simple decision – whether to add or subtract two numbers they would be shown later on. Haynes found he could read directly from the activity in a small part of the brain that controls intentions what they had decided to do.

“This is a kind of blown up version of the brain activity happening here. And you can see that if a person is planning to add or to subtract, the pattern of brain activity is different in these two cases,” Haynes explained.

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Wouldn’t you like to have mind control over people? Wouldn’t it be great to have them do what you want?

The idea of getting of a potential dating partner to take notice of you, getting your children to behave, having your boss promote you, getting people to help you succeed in whatever you want that all sounds great doesn’t it.

Well, let me tell you that it is possible to have people do what you want.

I am not talking about any sort of mind control. Back in my Special Forces days, we studied psychological operations. In the military, psych ops (as it is called) is used to influence a target audience’s emotions, motives and reasoning. Now this can do down any number of rabbit trails. What we found worked the best was not any sort or manipulation or trickery. It was basic human psychology.

Today I am going to tell you about what can help you in your life, make you more productive, help the people around you and get the results you are looking for. Are you ready to learn the secret of how to control people’s minds?

People will do what you want when you give them want they want.

Wow, doesn’t seem like much of a secret does it?

The question back to you is, why don’t you practice it? The important thing to remember about the secret is that when you don’t follow it, people will resist you, act against you, do the things you don’t want them to do. A lot of times we get it backwards. If my boss would give me a raise, I will work harder. If my spouse shows me more love, I will show them more love. You have to give them what they want first, then they will follow through with what you want.

Let’s make this even more simple. Instead of what they want, turn that into what they need. People say they want to be rich, they need to feel fulfilled. People say they want sympathy, they need empathy. People say they want power, they need respect. If you supply what someone truly needs, they will do anything you want.

Listening is the key

People would rather talk than listen. You can use that to your advantage and let other people talk and tell you what they want and need. People just like to talk. Freud pointed out that just the act of talking can provide healing. People tend t naturally do this in a supportive environment. By listening intently to what someone is saying you can hear what they want and need and supply it.

Scratch the itch

The key then is to identify what motivates someone and fill the desire. We did the same thing when I was in the Green Berets. One of the Special Forces’ missions is to train indigenous forces. A twelve man A-team would be inserted into country to work with 300 – 400 guerrilla soldiers. Twelve men cannot force 300 – 400 to do anything, especially if they have to live with them. We had to get them to do what we wanted them to by motivating them with their own needs. Only by understanding them, talking to them, and observing them could we know what was “their itch.”

Now here is the key. Once we had what motivated them, we didn’t use it as a bribe. We incorporated it into what we wanted. So by fulfilling their need, they fulfilled ours. They needed a well, we needed the roads improved to move supplies. Well to build a well you need to bring in supplies. We had them improve the roads in order to build the well. You can do the same. You want a discount on a price. The vendor wants to move a floor model. Find out their needs and fill it with one that benefits you.

It is not hard getting someone to do what we want. It is not about manipulation or some sort of military thought control. It is simply listening and observing to find out what they need and filling that need.

(Photo credit: Image of a Hypnotist via Shutterstock)

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If we want children to thrive in our complicated world, we need to teach them how to think, says educator Brian Oshiro. And we can do it with 4 simple questions.

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

We all want the young people in our lives to thrive, but there’s no clear consensus about what will best put them on the path to future success. Should every child be taught to code? Attain fluency in Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi and English?

Those are great, but they’re not enough, says educator and teacher trainer Brian Oshiro. If we want our children to have flexible minds that can readily absorb new information and respond to complex problems, he says, we need to develop their critical thinking skills.

In adult life, “we all have to deal with questions that are a lot more complicated than those found on a multiple-choice test,” he says in a TEDxXiguan talk. “We need to give students an opportunity to grapple with questions that don’t necessarily have one correct answer. This is more realistic of the types of situations that they’re likely to face when they get outside the classroom.”

How can we encourage kids to think critically from an early age? Through an activity that every child is already an expert at — asking questions.

1. Go beyond “what?” — and ask “how?” and “why?”

Let’s say your child is learning about climate change in school. Their teacher may ask them a question like “What are the main causes of climate change?” Oshiro says there are two problems with this question — it can be answered with a quick web search, and being able to answer it gives people a false sense of security; it makes them feel like they know a topic, but their knowledge is superficial.

At home, prompt your kid to answer questions such as “How exactly does X cause climate change?” and “Why should we worry about it?” To answer, they’ll need to go beyond the bare facts and really think about a subject.

Other great questions: “How will climate change affect where we live?” or “Why should our town in particular worry about climate change?” Localizing questions gives kids, says Oshiro, “an opportunity to connect whatever knowledge they have to something personal in their lives.”

2. Follow it up with “How do you know this?”

Oshiro says, “They have to provide some sort of evidence and be able to defend their answer against some logical attack.” Answering this question requires kids to reflect on their previous statements and assess where they’re getting their information from.

3. Prompt them to think about how their perspective may differ from other people’s.

Ask a question like “How will climate change affect people living in X country or X city?” or “Why should people living in X country or X city worry about it?” Kids will be pushed to think about the priorities and concerns of others, says Oshiro, and to try to understand their perspectives — essential elements of creative problem-solving.

4. Finally, ask them how to solve this problem.

But be sure to focus the question. For example, rather than ask “How can we solve climate change?” — which is too big for anyone to wrap their mind around — ask “How could we address and solve cause X of climate change?” Answering this question will require kids to synthesize their knowledge. Nudge them to come up with a variety of approaches: What scientific solution could address cause X? What’s a financial solution? Political solution?

You can start this project any time on any topic; you don’t have to be an expert on what your kids are studying. This is about teaching them to think for themselves. Your role is to direct their questions, listen and respond. Meanwhile, your kids “have to think about how they’re going to put this into digestible pieces for you to understand it,” says Oshiro. “It’s a great way to consolidate learning.”

Critical thinking isn’t just for the young, of course. He says, “If you’re a lifelong learner, ask yourself these types of questions in order to test your assumptions about what you think you already know.” As he adds, “We can all improve and support critical thinking by asking a few extra questions each day.”

Watch his TEDxXiguan talk now:

About the author

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

The elephants in Denmark trick is a trick that I would consider is gimmicky and it’s very easy to work out but it’s a good warmup trick and you don’t need any props. There are lots of variations to this trick in different ways to deliver it but the fundamental principles rely the same and you going to be relying on people making similar choices and narrow in their choices while giving the illusion that they still have a lot of choice.

As I said this is a little bit gimmicky anything I really don’t like about it most is the mathematical equation that is used. It doesn’t take much of a mathematician to know that no matter what number you pick at the start the answer is always going to be four. Anyway here is a trick. You can watch a trick here the video also does an excellent job of explaining how the mind reading trick is done but I will also talk at how it’s done and other slight variations.

The first thing you need to do is use a mathematical equation to get your subject to the number 4. I shall subject to choose a number between one and 10 and then multiply by nine. E.G. 5, 5 x 9 = 45. Next you need to ask them to add the two digits if got together , Because of the nine times table at this point you will always end up with two digits that once they are together will make nine. The final step at this point is to ask them to subtract five at number and they will always get four.

Next you need to get the corresponding letter in the alphabet that number. So 1 = A, 2=B etc. they will pick “D”. That sparked off and think the country begin with the letter they have. This is almost always going to be Denmark even if people try to fight it the typical can’t think of another country begin with D (there aren’t many, Dominican republic possibly) and therefore have to choose Denmark by default.

Next he asked them sequentially think of the next letter in the alphabet which would be “E” and think of an animal beginning with that, again this is most always going to be elephant, but there are are other choices such as an eagle or electric eel. But seriously everyone picks elephant which has a totally random fact spend 22 hours a day eating you can throw at fact out there your performance if you want. The performer then goes on to ask think of the colour of the animal. And I like the way he delivers it saying “why would you be thinking of grey elephants in Denmark”.

There are many variations to this trick especially after you get to the point of thinking of a country. Once you have Denmark you can continue and bump up the letter as in the video shown above or you could ask them to think of an animal that begins with the last letter of the country they thought of in this case it would be “K” most the time people think of kangaroo. You can then asked them to think of a colour that begins with the last letter of the animal they thought of which would be “O” people usually pick orange. So in this case they will have an orange kangaroo in Denmark.

This is an easy trick and it doesn’t need the use of any props but it’s quite easy to work out but for a bigger it’s perfect and remember it’s all about delivery and engaging your audience. Make them think there’s more at play than there actually is.

Frustrated, some Republicans have become anti-Trumpers: ‘This guy couldn’t lead his way out of a wet frickin’ paper bag’

‘Donald Trump has a negative impact on the future of the Republican party.’ Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

‘Donald Trump has a negative impact on the future of the Republican party.’ Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Last modified on Wed 15 Jul 2020 04.28 BST

The anti-Trumpers are at it again – only this time, they’re Republicans.

Kevin, a lifelong Republican voter and pastor from Arizona, says he voted for Trump in 2016 “with high hopes for the future”. He knew that Trump didn’t have the same political experience as the other contenders, but he was optimistic he could grow into his new role.

Now he says: “I’ve seen how he has tried to divide our country and that is not something I want, nor what our country should have … This man is an absolute danger to our country.”

Kevin’s experience – of voting for Trump and then quickly realizing he’d made a mistake – is one of many being used by Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), which wants to boot Trump out of office later this year. The group is seeking testimony from former Trump voters through its website, which displays the best quotes so far with pride. (“I’d vote for a tuna fish sandwich before I vote for Donald Trump again,” reads one.)

Kevin is a pastor from AZ who voted Trump in 2016 – here is his case against four more years:

“And when you put all that together, I think this is a man who must, must be removed by voters in November from governing our country.”

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@RVAT2020) July 14, 2020

Sarah Longwell, a Republican consultant who co-founded RVAT, said they have received hundreds of testimonies in recent months.

The group is funded by millionaire neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol, who was formerly chief of staff to the vice-president under George HW Bush, but uses testimony from distinctly non-political voices to make an impact.

“One of the reasons they are so compelling is because you can tell how authentic they are, how deeply they feel this – a lot of them want to get something off their chest,” says Longwell. The testimonies are not scripted or paid for, but they are the result of a lot of workshopping.

Jeffrey Farmer, from Massachussetts, certainly fits the bill of a non-polished but frustrated voice: he is immunocompromised and angered by Trump’s response to the pandemic. And he is certainly not the voice of a media-trained, focus-group prepped politico – just a person who formerly backed Trump.

“I don’t even know why I’m doing this stupid thing, because this is not what I do. I don’t do social media or anything. But I can’t take this any more,” he says.

Farmer voted for Trump in 2016 because of how much he disliked Hillary Clinton, but describes him as being “Like a Tasmanian devil,” who spends all day complaining on Twitter instead of doing his job.

“This guy couldn’t lead his way out of a wet frickin’ paper bag,” says Farmer.

‼️ Jeffrey voted Trump in 2016, and it’s safe to say he won’t be doing so again.

He takes you on a ride. You gotta watch the whole thing. (Warnings: 1. NSFW 2. Wicked “Good Will Hunting” Energy)

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@RVAT2020) July 13, 2020

Longwell, herself a disgruntled Republican, says she initially started looking for answers after Trump won the presidency.

“I have been alarmed by him from the beginning,” she says and so, around 2017, she began to search for answers. “I wanted to know how the party got taken over by Donald Trump,” she says. She ran focus groups with soft Trump voters – who voted for him in 2016 but rated him as doing somewhat badly or very badly – and tried to understand how to persuade them against him.

The key thing, she found, was for them to hear from people like themselves.

“One thing we found is that the cultural aspect played a big role in [the 2016 election],” she says. “You’d get women who’d say ‘I voted for him and I cried,’ or, ‘I voted for him and then I had to take a shower afterwards’. But they were surrounded by people who talk about how all Democrats are socialists or whatever,” she says.

But as a lifelong supporter of the Republican party, does she really want Biden to win? Longwell says she absolutely, unequivocally does.

“Donald Trump has a negative impact on the future of the Republican party,” says Longwell. “He has sort of hijacked it, and really poisoned the country, and has turned it into a nationalist populist party. There’s a section of Republicans who do not find that attractive, and I’m one of them.

“The best thing for the party long term is for him to get defeated soundly, and for the party to rethink its direction.”

If you’re looking for a way to impress the hell out your friends then you can’t beat a good mentalism trick. Through mentalism you can appear as if you have all sorts of incredible mental powers including telepathy, mind control, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, diviniation and a whole lot more.

Great mentalism tricks will leave your audience completely stumped and on the verge of wondering if perhaps you really do have some kind of superhuman mental powers. So to help you to fool your loved ones into thinking you’ve acquired mental superpowers we’ve compiled a list of the very best mentalism tricks out there along with an explanation of exactly how they’re done!

The Simple Card Mind Reading Trick…

Watch this 5 minute video to learn a mentalism trick that allows you to pick out a card that your audience has selected from a group of several cards making it look as if you are reading their mind. This trick is especially perfect for anyone that is new to mentalism and looking for simple but effective trick that will wow you’re mates!

The ‘Add A Number’ Trick…

This is a great mentalism trick that works well with small groups of around 4-6 people. To perform this simple trick you’ll need just a pen and pad and optionally a hand towel and face flannel. This video will show you how to successfully guess a number that an audience member has chosen in their heads and is guaranteed to blow minds!

Drawing Your Thoughts Trick…

Here’s a really clever trick that allows you to trick your audience into thinking you’re able to read their thoughts and draw a picture of whatever they’re thinking of. It’s surprisingly easy to perform and is bound to get some big reactions. Keep in mind this trick can only really be done once per audience or else you are likely to be caught out!

The Cell Phone Card Trick…

This video shows you how to do an easy to perform but very impressive mentalism trick involving a deck of cards, and a cell phone. This trick will give the illusion that you can successfully guess the card that another person has randomly selected whilst not even being in the room whilst doing so!

The Guide To Cold Reading…

Cold reading is a mentalism trick that is often used by mentalists to trick people into thinking that you have psychic powers. Through cold reading you can pick up signals from your audience and make high probability guesses about them that will make them believe that you are in fact psychic. This video demonstrates exactly how you can easily use the powers of cold reading!

Discover the secret that master mentalists use to mystify their audiences…

If you’re ready to uncover exactly how the top mentalists around blow their audiences minds then you’re going to want to check this out.

These simple and easy to learn techniques will leave people so FLOORED that they’ll start to wonder if you really can read their mind.

First, make sure to let Trump supporters know how stupid they are. Pull up a study that says educated people, like yourself, are less likely to support Trump to prove your point. Then, flaunt how much smarter you are than they are. Let them know they’re deplorables, and that if they lost their jobs or are going to lose their healthcare, they deserve it — especially the white working class. Because that’s what they asked for when they voted Trump. They voted against their self-interest. Those dumb hicks and rednecks just don’t know what’s good for them.

Let them know they’re racists, bigots, sexists, xenophobes, and have their heads in their asses stuck in the Jim Crow era. They’re sexists especially since they didn’t want Hillary Clinton, the most qualified person to ever run for President, to break the glass ceiling. Ignore the fact that many of them voted Obama. Neglect the fact that the DNC was heavily biased in the primaries against Bernie Sanders, since they fight for the right ideas, they can’t possibly be corrupt. Let them know they’re privileged because they didn’t have any consideration for your black, latinx, female, LGBTQ, and Muslim friends. It’s alright that you always forget about Native Americans when you fight for minorities, and only remembered they were there once it became a trend to tweet #NoDAPL.

Let them know, verbatim, what John Oliver said last night, and then pat yourself in the back for being so funny and original. Ridicule them — that’s always the best tactic. Make sure to destroy them for reading fake news like Breitbart and Fox News, and then brag about how you read credible sources like The Huffington Post. Make sure to show them articles from The Borowitz Report, and then say “look at how ridiculous your President is.”

Let them know they’re on the wrong side of history. If they say something remotely racist, make sure to announce it to the world so no one can forget how much they deserve to be shunned. Attack anyone else that dares defend them as racist as well, and smirk at what a phenomenal debater you are. Never accept the despicable racist’s ignorance for an answer, and never, ever forget so you can bring justice to Neo-Nazis like said Trump supporter. Until tomorrow. Oh, and you can’t possibly ever be racist either. Liberals are immune from that.

Let them know that Donald Trump is exactly like Hitler. Then shame them. Use your favorite words: Racist. Nazi. Misogynist. Make them feel so ashamed that they can’t possibly support Trump anymore. Oh, and since Trump didn’t win the popular vote, their president is illegitimate. He only won because of Putin and Russia. Make sure to shake your head whenever they mention manufacturing jobs. They’re not important and being lost to automation, so why are we talking about them so much? Then end the discussion right there, and don’t worry about any relief for those workers. Make sure to let them know that outsourcing isn’t a real issue. Free trade? Who cares?

Above all, make sure to forget that Trump supporters are human beings, with insecurities and problems that parallel your own. Let them know that it doesn’t matter if they love their spouses, children, and neighbors. It doesn’t matter if one of them helped you jump start your car the other day while everyone else just drove by. It doesn’t even matter if they regularly volunteer at the soup kitchen. Because they voted Trump, they are terrible people that deserve to be damned.

Follow all these steps, and before you know it, Trump supporters have changed their minds. Then pat yourself on the back again one more time, because above all, you did the right thing.

June 22, 2015

Certain people, researchers have discovered, can’t summon up mental images — it’s as if their mind’s eye is blind. This month in the journal Cortex, the condition received a name: aphantasia, based on the Greek word phantasia, which Aristotle used to describe the power that presents visual imagery to our minds.

I find research like this irresistible. It coaxes me to think about ways to experience life that are radically different from my own, and it offers clues to how the mind works.

And in this instance, I played a small part in the discovery.

In 2005, a 65-year-old retired building inspector paid a visit to the neurologist Adam Zeman at the University of Exeter Medical School. After a minor surgical procedure, the man — whom Dr. Zeman and his colleagues refer to as MX — suddenly realized he could no longer conjure images in his mind.

Dr. Zeman couldn’t find any description of such a condition in medical literature. But he found MX’s case intriguing. For decades, scientists had debated how the mind’s eye works, and how much we rely on it to store memories and to make plans for the future.

MX agreed to a series of examinations. He proved to have a good memory for a man of his age, and he performed well on problem-solving tests. His only unusual mental feature was an inability to see mental images.

Dr. Zeman and his colleagues then scanned MX’s brain as he performed certain tasks. First, MX looked at faces of famous people and named them. The scientists found that certain regions of his brain became active, the same ones that become active in other people who look at faces.

Then the scientists showed names to MX and asked him to picture their faces. In normal brains, some of those face-recognition regions again become active. In MX’s brain, none of them did.

Paradoxically, though, MX could answer questions that would seem to require a working mind’s eye. He could tell the scientists the color of Tony Blair’s eyes, for example, and name the letters of the alphabet that have low-hanging tails, like g and j. These tests suggested his brain used some alternate strategy to solve visual problems.

After I came across the case study of MX in 2010, I wrote about it. And then something remarkable happened: I discovered that MX was not alone.

“I have spent my entire life explaining to people that I do not think visually,” one reader wrote to me. “I cannot conjure a mental image of a person or of a place to save my life.”

As more emails arrived, I did the only thing I could think to do: I forwarded them to Dr. Zeman. It turned out that he and his colleagues were also hearing from people who thought they had the condition.

The scientists decided to make a formal study of their email correspondents. They replied to emails with a questionnaire designed to probe the mind’s eye. All told, the researchers have received 21 responses.

Among the questions, the scientists asked their subjects to picture things like a sunrise. Try as they might, most of the respondents couldn’t see anything. But some of them did report rare, involuntary flashes of imagery. The mention of a friend’s name, for instance, might briefly summon a face.

When the scientists asked their subjects to mentally count the windows in their house or apartment, 14 succeeded. They seem to share MX’s ability to use alternate strategies to get around the lack of a mind’s eye.

All in all, Dr. Zeman and his colleagues were struck by how similar the results of the survey were.

“These people seemed to be describing something consistent,” Dr. Zeman said. Rather than being a unique case, MX may belong to an unrecognized group of people.

In their new report, the scientists note that many of the survey respondents differed from MX in an important way. While he originally had a mind’s eye, they never did. If aphantasia is real, it is possible that injury causes some cases while others begin at birth.

Thomas Ebeyer, a 25-year-old Canadian student, discovered his condition four years ago while talking with a girlfriend. He was shocked that she could remember what a friend had been wearing a year before.

She replied that she could see a picture of it in her mind.

“I had no idea what she was talking about,” he said in an interview. Mr. Ebeyer was surprised to discover that everyone he knew could summon images to their minds. Last year, someone showed him my article about MX.

“I’d been searching forever on Google, but I didn’t know what to look for,” he said. “It was really empowering just to hear a story of someone else who had it.”

Mr. Ebeyer got in touch with Dr. Zeman, who sent him the questionnaire. Like many other subjects, he could count his windows without actually picturing his house.

“It’s weird and hard to explain,” he said. “I know the facts. I know where the windows are.”

The new study has brought Mr. Ebeyer some relief. “There’s something I can call this now,” he said.

Dr. Zeman now wonders just how common aphantasia is. “Moderately rare” is his guess, but to follow up, he has sent the questionnaire to thousands of people in Exeter.

He hopes to find enough people with the condition to begin a bigger scanning study, comparing their brains with those of people who see vivid mental images. Together, they may reveal more than MX could on his own.

Based on popular psychology literature, some thinkers have codified the way we form habits into a simple loop: a trigger, a routine, and a reward. We see something in our environment that sets off the trigger; the trigger leads to a routine we’ve internalized based on our past interactions in such an environment; finally, a reward at the end reinforces said routine.

If you observe this in your daily life, you’ll see that it’s roughly right. Our brain is a pattern-seeking survival machine, and habits are how it ensures that we don’t have to think too hard about what to do when familiar situations arise, letting us conserve energy.

With time, we start to recognize patterns around us, and we internalize these patterns so that we can reuse them in the future.

When it comes to the human mind, there are still no concrete theories of how thought emerges. We know, however, that thought plays a pivotal role in facilitating how we interact with the information that the Durants, for example, were trying to impart on us.

In the same way that we form habits of action relating to our environment, we also form habits of thought when it comes to how we think about the world. We are all born into a reality in which — at first, at least — we can’t even distinguish between our own separateness from the world. With time, however, we start to recognize patterns around us, and we internalize these patterns — like we do habits — so that we can reuse them in the future. Usually, if a pattern persists in our mental habits, it means that it is valuable in some sense. But this is only the case if we apply that pattern to the right information.

One of the reasons it’s so hard to change our minds about things is that our brains are stuck in these mental habit loops, which tend to look at information from a singular point of view. Our brains have learned something in one context, so they mistakenly apply it to others, mixing up the triggers that lead to routine thoughts.

We’re all capable of overpowering these habit loops, of course, but it’s very easy and productive to have them operating as the default mode. To think well, we must be aware of their limitations and to not let them restrict us.

Each of us faces different challenges at different times in different ways based both on our biology and our unique cultural upbringing. No two people think exactly the same way because no two people have lived exactly the same life.

In fact, these different thinking patterns (mostly produced from our mental habit loops) are, in large part, what makes you, you and me, me. Our identities are borne from the convergence of these patterns. They create our subjective experience.

The more diverse our trained thinking patterns are, the more accurately we will be able to interact with information around us.

The Durants are getting at the idea that although we’ve seen so much external change throughout history, none of it truly makes a difference unless we calibrate our internal, subjective experience with that objective, external environment. Our subjective experience is limited, and using it — and the thinking patterns that create it — as a baseline for understanding the world is a limited way to go through life. It biases us in the wrong direction.

At its core, a thinking pattern is an implicit rule of thumb for the way we connect aspects of our reality. Given the complexity of this reality, the more diverse our trained thinking patterns are — and the better refined the associated triggers are — the more accurately we will be able to interact with information around us.

Because thinking patterns emerge from the mental habit loops we form as a response to experience, the only way to diversify them is to seek out new and conflicting encounters. We can do this through books, unfamiliar environments, or even hypothetical thought games.

Outside of extreme external circumstances, any time we’re struggling to solve a problem or lacking a sense of satisfaction and meaning, it’s due to the fact that our current thinking patterns are not adequately suited for the job. Instead, we have to remodel the form and shape of these patterns so they better fit the form and shape of the issue at hand.

We’re born with a set of biological machinery, but we’re not born knowing how to use it.

As time goes on, however, we begin to make sense of our reality. We realize what kinds of food are good for us, we learn to avoid things that are painful, and we begin to get attached to those who can take care of us. With even more time, we develop fully concrete distinctions between the different objects around us and how we, as subjects, are to interact with them.

What keeps this process going is our pattern-seeking brain. It forms both habits of action and habits of thought that it embeds into our conscious and subconscious memories to reduce cognitive load.

One of the problems with this, however, is that it’s really easy for us to become stuck in mental habit loops that don’t accurately assess the situation at hand, leading to both problems of comprehension and satisfaction. To counteract this, we have to be intentional in diversifying our thinking patterns. We have to learn to recognize when we’re falling into a mismatched pattern of thought, and we have to then use that information to update how we make connections between the objects in our environment.

To say that all issues can be solved with a shift in thinking patterns ignores the larger picture, but there is a truth to what the Durants learned from history — how we think about what is happening around us is arguably more important than what is actually happening around us.

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