Cold reading isn’t just for mediums, it shows up in journalism too
There is something deeply compelling about feeling understood, especially when you’re overwhelmed, grieving or desperate for clarity. That is why people turn to psychics, fortune-tellers and mediums. They are not just seeking answers. They are seeking meaning. They want to believe someone can make sense of what they feel.
When someone looks you in the eye and says, “You’ve always felt like you had to carry other people’s emotions,” it feels intimate. But it’s not. It’s just a line, crafted to sound personal yet vague enough to apply to almost anyone. And it works because we want it to. We want the reading to feel real, so we make it real.
Cold reading is most often associated with spiritual services, but it quietly appears in more professional environments than people realise, including journalism, therapy, sales, and even PR. It’s a psychological technique, not a spiritual one. Once you understand how it works, you start to notice how often people reach for its tools.
In my own work, I’m not trained in cold reading, but I do need to be able to read emotional states quickly. When a client is spiralling in a reputational crisis, I have to calm them, reflect what they’re saying back in a grounded way, and help them feel safe enough to follow strategy. That might look similar to cold reading from the outside, attentive phrasing, mirroring, gentle reassurance, but I’m not trying to extract anything or convince them I already know them. I’m not manipulating. I’m de-escalating.
To explain how cold reading really works, I’ll focus mostly on how it plays out in psychic readings, because that’s the format most people recognise. But the techniques are used far beyond mediumship, and it’s important to understand how they function in other industries too.
What cold reading actually is
Cold reading is a set of conversational techniques designed to make it appear as though someone knows intimate details about your life, without any prior knowledge. It’s often used by mediums, psychics, fortune-tellers and interviewers to simulate insight. The “reader” observes your body language, tone, facial reactions and energy shifts, and uses vague but emotionally weighted language to trigger a response.
They rely on high-probability guesses and make use of social steering, shifting direction based on how you react. It’s a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall. Something always sticks eventually.
They might say:
“You’ve been through a lot recently.”
“There’s someone you never quite got closure with.”
“You’ve felt a bit lost in your career path.”
“I’m seeing the number 7… July, or something seven years ago maybe?”
These lines sound like insight, but they are designed to be generic. And once the participant responds with a “Yes, actually,” the rest of the reading builds from that foundation (the reader got a ‘hit’). It becomes personalised because the person being read begins supplying the detail, not because the medium started with any.
And this isn’t instinctual for everyone. There are actual cold reading courses available, full training programmes that teach people how to deliver readings convincingly, what phrasing to use, which body language cues to look for, and how to shift direction when a guess doesn’t land. That alone should be telling. If this were truly about psychic ability, you wouldn’t be able to learn it from a two-day weekend seminar.
It’s also worth addressing the idea that some people genuinely feel they’ve experienced something supernatural - a dream that came true, a sudden urge to call someone just before they passed. Those things can feel real, and emotionally they are. But a strange coincidence does not prove a supernatural connection. It just proves that rare, striking things happen sometimes, and we remember them because they feel significant. The mind is very good at pattern recognition, even when there’s no pattern to find.
Why cold reading works so well
The most important thing to understand is that cold reading only works if the person wants it to work. It’s not a con in the usual sense. It’s a dynamic. The participant walks in already hoping it will be true.
You’re not being given information. You’re helping create it. And you do that by nodding, shifting in your seat, smiling, going quiet or offering clues in your tone. The moment something resonates, even vaguely, your body will show it. And the reader will see that and follow it.
It’s the same principle hypnosis relies on. It doesn’t work unless you want it to. There has to be a kind of permission.
And this isn’t just about spiritual environments. You see a similar effect in broadcast interviews when a public figure is led into revealing something they didn’t intend to say. Certain journalists are very good at this. I’ve seen hosts soften a guest with praise, then pivot into a “just curious” question about a past scandal. Or they’ll say, “Some people think…” and frame it like they’re giving the guest a chance to respond, while actually backing them into a corner.
It’s a soft skill, but a powerful one. And I choose interviewers carefully for my clients because of it. Not all of them are there to extract clarity. Some are there to extract content.
How they get specific things right
One of the most common defences of mediums is, “Yes, but how would they have known that?” So let’s break that down properly.
There are two techniques at play: hot reading and cold reading.
Hot reading is when the medium already knows something about you… because they’ve researched you beforehand. And in the digital age, that’s alarmingly easy:
If you book under your real name, they can find your social media accounts, online comments, or old blog posts.
LinkedIn shows your entire career history.
JustGiving or fundraising sites often reveal recent bereavements.
Newspaper archives might show family notices, obituaries or local stories involving your name.
Even comments you’ve made under other psychic readings (“I really hope mum comes through next time”) can be searched and connected.
Often asked to fill out a form with your full name and date of birth - both of which are more than enough to pull up public records, fundraising pages, and even family connections on ancestry sites.
All of this is publicly accessible. You don’t need to be famous, you just need to exist online.
And when there’s no obvious online trail, there’s still the reception area.
This is the part many people overlook. Even if you didn’t personally speak, there are other ways information can slip through, and be used:
You might have been overheard speaking quietly to a friend while waiting. People often say things like, “I hope something comes through from dad,” or “I’m nervous, I just want clarity on my job.”
The receptionist might engage in harmless small talk. Phrases like, “Is this your first time?” or “What made you book today?” sound innocent, but they give away context.
Some mediums work with assistants who pass on pre-session notes, even if the exchange was brief.
In certain venues, there have been quiet investigations into receptionists who listen and feed information through earpieces or notes.
Even the way you dress, your age, or how emotional you look on arrival can be read in seconds and used to shape what the medium starts with.
The key point is this: you don’t always realise what you’ve revealed.
If you’re grieving, nervous or emotionally raw, you’re not tracking what you’re saying, and most people don’t walk into these sessions on high alert. You’re hoping to hear something meaningful. That means you’re more likely to fill in the blanks when something vaguely fits.
So when the medium says, “Did your mum pass quite suddenly?” and you gasp, “Yes, she had a stroke,” it feels like an impossible guess. But in reality, it might have started with a half-heard sentence in the waiting room, or even just the emotion in your face and body language. It only feels like insight because you’ve forgotten the clues you already gave.
Where else it shows up
Cold reading isn’t limited to psychics. The same techniques show up in plenty of professions, though without the same intent.
In journalism, you’ll often see it during interviews. A journalist might subtly reframe what a subject has just said and reflect it back to them using more definitive or emotionally loaded language. If the subject agrees, even passively, that reworded quote becomes the story. For example, if someone says, “I’ve felt really let down by a few people this year,” the journalist may respond with, “So, would you say you’ve been betrayed by those closest to you?” The difference is subtle, but powerful. And it happens all the time.
In therapy, some practitioners use gentle prompting, mirroring, and observed behaviour cues to help a client open up. The intention is healing, not manipulation, but the structure can be similar.
In sales, especially high-pressure or luxury environments, salespeople often mirror language, reflect concerns, or make broad affirmations like “You strike me as someone who doesn’t settle for second best,” to build a connection and steer toward a purchase.
In life coaching and self-help spaces, vague validations like “You’re someone who gives a lot but often doesn’t get it back” are everywhere. They’re designed to feel personal, but they apply to nearly everyone.
Even in crisis PR, the world I work in, some of the same foundations apply. When someone comes to me in a state of panic, I have to help stabilise them emotionally before we can talk strategy. That means reflecting what they’re feeling in a calm, grounded way. I’m not trying to impress them by guessing their thoughts. I’m just showing them they’re understood, so we can get to work.
The distinction is important. I’m not trying to extract something from someone. I’m not trying to prove I know them. I’m trying to de-escalate someone in distress, and help them think clearly again. The psychology overlaps, but the intention, and the outcome, is completely different.
Cold reading taps into something universal. People want to feel seen, understood, validated. It’s not a weakness. It’s a basic human need. But when that need is exploited by someone selling comfort or closure, it becomes performance.
Cold Reading vs. Natural Emotional Insight
It’s worth saying, not everyone who picks up on emotional cues is doing something manipulative. In fact, many people cold read without even knowing the term. If you’ve ever walked into a room and instinctively known someone was upset, or softened your language because you sensed tension, that’s a form of emotional attunement. It’s not rehearsed. It’s not calculated. It’s just a human response.
Some of us are more intuitive than others. Maybe you’ve learnt to read micro-expressions because of past trauma, or you’ve had to navigate emotionally volatile environments growing up. That’s not training, that’s survival. And it’s very different from the rehearsed scripts and polished tactics used by those who monetise this skill under the guise of insight.
There’s a spectrum here. On one end, you have people using emotional intelligence to soothe, de-escalate, or connect - often without even realising they’re doing it. On the other, you have individuals who actively study these behaviours to build trust they haven’t earned, often for profit or power. One is responsive. The other is performative.
The Business of Belief
These techniques are even more common when the reading is part of a larger, paid service. There are entire directories of mediums and psychics available online, many of which operate on a per-minute billing structure. Some offer instant phone or video readings, while others require you to pre-book a slot in advance. When you do, you’re often asked to provide a few basic details, your name, birthdate, sometimes a general area or a reason for booking. It might feel harmless, but those small details are more than enough to identify someone through publicly available databases, social media, or genealogy tools. If you’ve ever donated in memory of someone, been listed in a wedding or funeral notice, changed jobs recently, or commented on a public post about grief, that breadcrumb trail is easy to follow. The system is designed to feel intimate and spiritual, but when you look closely, it’s structured more like a search engine.
And it’s also worth pausing to consider just how many people apparently have these abilities. On some of these sites, you’ll find dozens, sometimes hundreds, of individuals all claiming to possess extraordinary powers: the ability to read your mind, predict your future, or communicate with the dead. If even one person could actually do that, it would change everything. We’d be seeing clinical trials, peer-reviewed research, government interest, maybe even Nobel nominations. Not a dropdown menu and a £1.60 per minute call charge. It’s extraordinary how many people seem to have monetised a superpower, and yet none of them are ever asked to prove it in any meaningful way. We scrutinise scientists, therapists, even nutritionists more than we scrutinise people who claim to speak to the dead. And that, in itself, says a lot.
When It Didn’t Work on Me
A few years ago, a close friend of mine, very spiritual and very determined to convert me, invited me to see a medium. And honestly, I was open to it. I’ve had some real losses in my life, and I wasn’t going in to be smug or difficult. I was genuinely curious to see what would happen.
When we arrived, we were asked to fill out a form with our name and date of birth. I signed in as Lauren Peachley, and gave a different birthdate. I did, however, keep it within the same star sign. Not because I believe in astrology, but because I knew if it didn’t work, I’d be blamed for throwing the moon out of alignment. I wanted to remove every possible excuse. Then we were told we had to leave and come back in half an hour. In case it isn’t obvious, that’s often done so they have time to research you.
I didn’t speak to anyone in reception. I didn’t chat about my life while waiting. And when the reading started, I gave neutral, minimal answers to the usual vague openers. I wasn’t rude. I just didn’t hand her anything to work with.
She told me both of my parents were alive. That I had five siblings. That I worked in the medical field. That I’m engaged to an imaginary boyfriend. That the name Sarah was significant. All of which was wrong.
She guessed I’d lost a grandparent, which, given I’m in my 30s, isn’t exactly a wild swing. But no spirits came knocking. No names, no messages. Just thirty minutes of gentle fishing that never landed anything.
And when we left, the fascinating bit happened. My friend didn’t question the medium. She questioned me. Said I wasn’t open enough. That my energy was closed. That I hadn’t allowed the messages to come through properly. Something about needing to be more emotionally available or raise my vibration. Apparently, the spirits had better things to do than try harder.
But surely, if someone truly has the ability to speak to the dead, they don’t need me to make that happen. It’s not my job to summon them. I thought the whole point was that they make the connection (wherever that’s happening) and bring something through. The idea that it all falls apart unless I’m sitting there in full emotional surrender doesn’t exactly scream “supernatural gift.”
Why I Struggle With Mediums and Fortune Tellers
I genuinely don’t know how someone sits in front of a grieving mother, knowing full well her child has died, and pretends to pass on a message from them. How someone looks her in the eye, hears the heartbreak in her voice, and still plays along with the performance. That level of emotional detachment, dressed up as spiritual connection, is something I’ll never understand.
The same goes for fortune tellers. Promising someone clarity about their future when you’re just improvising isn’t harmless. It can change how someone lives. I’ve seen people walk away from jobs or relationships based on what a stranger told them in a dimly lit room. And if it doesn’t work out? That psychic is long gone. But the consequences stay with the person who believed them.
And of course, they charge for it. Whether it’s £1.60 a minute or £70 for a half-hour session, this isn’t spiritual guidance. It’s a business built on emotional vulnerability. If someone could really speak to the dead, why are they doing it in a lounge for cash, not under scientific review?
When it doesn’t work, the blame always shifts. You weren’t open enough. Your energy was blocked. Spirit couldn’t come through. The medium stays untouchable. No proof required.
Once you understand how cold reading works (and how much people want it to work) the illusion starts to fall apart. The language is clever. The ethics aren’t.
And these techniques don’t just live in psychic circles. They show up in journalism too, especially in interviews designed to catch someone off guard. I’ve seen it firsthand with public figures. I’ve had to clean it up.
That’s partly why I wrote this. I work in crisis PR. I understand how language can calm someone down or guide them through chaos. But I also regularly experience when it’s being used to manipulate.
Mediums rarely get called out for what they are, emotionally exploitative and rarely held accountable.
Because once you recognise cold reading for what it is, you start spotting it everywhere. And once you spot it, it stops working.