Friday 22 January 2010

Why "Peter Answers" matters...

You might have some friends over one night, and the topic of Tarot cards or fortune telling comes up. Your initial response, as a skeptic, is maybe to challenge the claims being put forward. I would suggest to you, my dear reader, to not to do so immediately, but instead play along, and suggest that you, too, have experienced an extraordinary event that can´t be explained in any other way than spirits communicating with you through a remarkable medium. Inform your friends that you used to be a skeptic before you experienced what you´re about to share with them.
Hopefully they will be excited and you will all gather around to witness the phenomena you´re talking about.

You will need a computer with an Internet connection. Go to www.peteranswers.com. Tell your friends that this website can accurately answer any question about them without any information. As semi-skeptics they will be intrigued and wish to challenge your claims.

Tell your friends that in the box where it says "PETITION", you have to first write an appeal, before you ask the question. Ask your friend a question you know the answer to, like "What is Jerry´s daughters name?". In the "Petition" box, put in a dot (.), followed by the answer to the question, for example "Lisa", and finish with a dot. If done correctly, the symbols that will show up are "Peter,". Follow this up with any plea you wish, such as "please answer this question". Then, in the "Question" box, write the question, in this case "What is Jerry´s daughters name?". Press "OK", and accept the terms and conditions (only appears after the first question), and voĆ­la, Peter answers "Lisa"!

Your friends are surprised but still a bit skeptic. So now they will start to ask other questions with more difficult answers. Make sure you know the answers to them (you have to be a good actor here), then follow the exact same procedure. If you don't know the answer to a question, type in the question without using the (.)-commando, and Peter will answer something like "The theosophical semantic of the question is not valid." or similar. Blame this on your friends behaviour, by saying that Peter senses if you're trying to "frame" him, or something.

Keep asking your friends more questions and up the ante without the whole thing getting out of your control. Revel in their amazement before you reveal the secret behind it all.

So, why is this important? Well, often personal experiences are exactly that; "Personal". If you try to challenge them intellectually, people often get very defensive and you run the risk of getting in to an argument, instead of succeeding in putting your point across. But here, you can actually demonstrate to them their own gullibility without stepping on anyone's toes. Once they swallow the whole idea of Peters powers, you reveal to them how it is done, and relate that to their own experiences with Tarot cards or such.

I have done this several times now with different groups of friends, and the outcome has always been very positive. There has never been any hard feelings between my pals and I, and I have very effectively been able to put my point across without any hard feelings arising.

When you have done this and exposed the trick behind it all, inform your friends about the different tricks Tarot card readers or other charlatans use to fool their clients. Finnish off, if you wish, by asking them this powerful question:

"If you really could foresee the future, would you (make it personal), be working behind velvet drapes, or would you be a millionaire by speculating in the stock market, for example? Would you not warn people about the Tsunami, instead of charging someone $5 for a reading?"

If you wish, go in to the techniques behind Cold Reading, Hot Reading and Confirmation Biases. Suggest to them that they should read Michael Shermers fantastic book "Why people believe weird things".

If done successfully, your friends will acquire a more skeptic view on things and lose their faith in some of these charlatans. And there is no greater reward!

Ps. Before you start doing this on your friends, practice a bit on the website by yourself. Here is a simple, home made video that goes through the technique behind it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUDii0fJOAE.

Good Luck! Let me know how you get on!

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