Just thinking about truthwillsetyoufree's account of their experience with a spiritualist, it reminded me of a Derren Brown series where he recreated or acted out being a healer, fortune teller, preacher, etc... what struck me was what people remembered about encounters with him especially when he was 'cold reading' individuals; they only remembered the 'hits' and forgot all the 'misses'. So when truthwillsetyoufree says the spiritualist said X (which turned out to be true) , it would also be important to know everything else said, then we may well see the misses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgdJ9-s3HEg
As for the account itself... I would guess most at a spiritualist church would be religious or formally religious!? It’s hardly going to be full of atheists! Hard times and losing people - well isn't that everyone? The sacral chakra is usually related to food intolerance not the heart (4th chakra) so that’s odd - sound like fishing to me!
As for "I've never revealed anything about myself"... cold readers are experts on reading the clues we give off without really realising it. The only way to not give anything away would be to wear a full body paper bag over yourself and make sure you do not utter a single word - even then you could be revealing a lot (eg... you may come across as a doubter). So without doing anything a cold reader might be thinking about: Which meeting did you attend? Is it your first visit or were you introduced? What time is the meeting, during the week or weekend in the day or evening? Who did you sit next to? Did you sit on your own? Did you sit at the back or the front? Are your shoes expensive? Did you chat to other people attending before the show? Is your body language defensive or open? How old are you? Do you look tired? Smiling or concentrating? etc... etc...
I have always wanted to ask spiritualist why when they receive messages, the person giving the message never (a) gives their name properly (despite later being able to deliver quite complex ideas and messages) it’s always...'it starts with a B sound brian, bob, bobby, bobby alan, yes, Alan, its Alan... and (b) if the 'spirit' can give their name and have a message for someone, why can't they give the name of the person to give it to? The spiritualist always says something like "I have a bobby, brian, sue, alan here, they died of a heart condition or something like that, they smoked I think, possibly had a buggy... does that mean anything to anybody?". If they are really talking to the dead why not "Hi, I have Christopher Hitchens here... he wants to pass a message to his brother Peter... he says 'damn it you were right! Oh, and I left my will second drawer on the right under the TV"!
Sorry for rambling!
