Welcome to the topic of this post! I have begun one of my most difficult challenges in the forms of a deduction experiment! more on that to follow! These blog posts have always been geared more toward lessons and techniques that you can learn and take home with you. Firstly i want to chat about something has re-affirmed my almost 14 year long belief and it is something that i have preached/taught about for many many many years. To begin, i will tell you a little about myself. About 8 years ago (and after living the better part of my life this way i might add) a neuroscientist friend of mine wanted to do some tests on me as part of his course that would form part of his case study and in turn aid in him passing the test. Anyway, as a result of this he diagnosed me when he had passed his course with Ataraxia. Now there is some speculation in certain sectors of science as to whether or not this condition is actually a condition and not just a nihilistic approach to life. It made no difference to me either way as it didn’t change my life one iota. Ataraxia is characterized by a freedom from preoccupation of all sorts and i don’t really understand emotional decision making at all, it really just does not compute with me and as a result i don’t have any empathy. With this in mind, i was able to easily beat polygraphs in the testing and really control all emotional responses. Its not that i am devoid of all pleasantries its just then when i do experience them it is a huge deal for me.
There is a point that i am getting to and it is thus that the emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning! Recently i had the chance to lecture for a bunch of fellow mentalists on my thoughts and theories regarding my approach to being a mentalist. What is advantageous for a mentalist and in particular, a Deductionist when reading people is to silence the emotional side of your mind as it colors and clouds your reasoning. Emotional bias will make you fall foul of confirmation bias based on your thoughts and inn attentional blindness, as well as not being able to function at your normal analytical self. After all we have all seen the lead protagonist in a film run into incredibly dangerous and stupid situations because something he needs to help his life or the war genius that can not function because he is now smitten with some woman and loses battles because of it. Anyway, i begin my lecture and i perform something that goes well and then i perform something that goes wrong. My brain starts to think ‘oh no, people won’t be enjoying my lecture! come on sort it out and carry on, i am sure they will tell you if you suck!’ As these thoughts were running around my head i was performing my next effect which i performed wrong, creating the wrong impression though i still achieved the correct answer via deduction. This wasn’t enough for me, i started to sweat and then worry. Me, worry??! i don’t do this? then i started to sweat some more and i saw people begin to fold their arms and their cheeks began to slacken and their eyes began to wander. These people are bored i thought, I didn’t really take heed of the obvious that was there in front of me, the heat of 80 people in a warm room with no windows, many had been sat there for 4 plus hours. Many were hungry and tired from the night before. I pulled myself together and finished my lecture with what i am told is a rip roaring success. Though i walked off kicking myself hard! i was gutted that my first lecture with fellow mentalists didn’t go like i hoped it would. Yet person after person kept coming up to me and telling me how much they had enjoyed my lecture and how much they had learnt, asking for my autograph and my picture. I was thinking to myself that these people are insane. Then they were buying my lecture notes and my products and i was still thinking the same. I spoke to 4 amazing people who had been on the circuit for many years who gave me some remarkable advice.
In the end it came down to this when i reflected on what had happened and analyzed the situation as i normally do. The kind of situation where i look at someones shoes and see the salesman or the plumber. The type of situation that sees what people have done that day when i was nowhere in sight, the type of situation that knows someones star sign or pin number or job description. The type of situation that knows whether someone is lying or not. My normal vision that allows me to read people like books. My own emotional qualities were antagonistic to what should have been clear to reason. It was refreshing for me that after so long of not having any really, to experience it again and learn from it. That brief half an hour was torture haha but such a valued experience again! After all it has been close to a decade since anything like that has happened to me.
So this is more of a life-lesson 😉 When you look at the following picture and think to yourself with the emotional side of your brain that imbues your cognitive process with all of the biases and models you have of the world.
You might be thinking, oh the big biker who is looking mercilessly down on his victim while the people in the background simply stand around and watch. Ignoring the obvious that the expression not merciless, intact it contains no malice whatsoever. There are no expression markers of anything negative at all. Continuing down the road of silencing the emotional side of your brain you will notice that their is a small hand on the mans arm. Small like a child….
In actual fact its his son that he is hugging! Control that side and your deductions will have much stronger and more accurate road to travel down.
MY DEDUCTION EXPERIMENT
Please watch the video.
THE BOOK – THE MONOGRAPH – THE MONOLITH
As the book nears completion i begin to wonder what i will take on next. Sufficed to say though that both myself and Joe Riggs are elated at the prospect of what you are all going to learn and be able to do, thanks to this epic monograph. We are very proud of it incase that hadnt come across! Until then please enjoy the following video.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=298972863610770
Or the following….
Take care friends! Have a good one!
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Ben