Magician London

Ian Rowland Speaker Trainer Magician / Performing at the world famous Magic Circle in London

Magician London

I love performing magic at corporate events, in London (where I live) or anywhere else!

Would you like me to perform walkabout / strolling magic at your London party or event? I can do that for you and I'd love to!

Would you like me to put on a cabaret / stage show as part of your London company weekend or product launch? I can do that for you and I'd love to!

Would you like me to entertain your group / department with magic or mindreading the evening before a London training day, as a sort of 'curtain-raiser'? I can do that for you and I'd love to!

Magician London / 1

Ian Rowland Speaker Trainer Magician / Lecturing to other magicians and mentalists at 'Masters Of Magic' in Italy.

Magic is an amazing form of entertainment. It can scale to any size audience. I can perform magic for one person, small groups at a cocktail reception or a lecture theatre audience of 1000 people!

Magic can be cool and serious, or funny and full of laughs! When you hire me for your London event or occasion, you can say you want the tone quite cool and serious or fun, humorous and amusing! Magic is a wonderful way to get a corporate message or set of messages across, or to illustrate points using 'magic as metaphor'. You tell me what you want people to understand and to remember, and I'll devise a magical way to do it.

Magician London / 2

Ian Rowland performing 'walkabout' magic at an outdoor company event

Many London-based companies and corporate groups hire me in my capacity at a Trainer. You can read more details here. However, even if they hire me primarily as a trainer, they sometimes also ask me to provide some magical entertainment, either before or after the training session(s).

When the management team at Stansted Airport, London, hired me for a day of training, they also asked me to put on a small magic show for their management team the evening before, as a sort of 'curtain-raiser' event.

When I was hired to train FBI field agents, they asked me for an 'after dinner' show in the restaurant at the end of the day, once all the training was over, just for fun!

I'm always happy to add a touch of magic or mindreading to any event or occasion!

www.ianrowland.com

Read about my work as a Trainer. Training: Cold Reading For Business.

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Corporate Magician

Ian Rowland Speaker Trainer Magician / Performing a show at the world famous Magic Circle in London

Corporate Magician

I love performing magic at corporate events!

Would you like me to perform walkabout / strolling magic at your party or event? I can do that for you and I'd love to!

Would you like me to put on a cabaret / stage show as part of your company weekend or product launch? I can do that for you and I'd love to!

Would you like me to entertain your group / department with magic or mindreading the evening before a training day, as a sort of 'curtain-raiser'? I can do that for you and I'd love to!

Corporate Magician / 1

Ian Rowland Speaker Trainer Magician / Lecturing to other magicians and mentalists at 'Masters Of Magic' in Italy.

Magic is an amazing form of entertainment. It can scale to any size audience. I can perform magic for one person, small groups at a cocktail reception or a lecture theatre audience of 1000 people!

Magic can be cool and serious, or funny and full of laughs! When you hire me, you can say you want the tone quite cool and serious or fun, humorous and amusing! Magic is a wonderful way to get a corporate message or set of messages across, or to illustrate points using 'magic as metaphor'. You tell me what you want people to understand and to remember, and I'll devise a magical way to do it.

Corporate Magician / 2

Ian Rowland performing 'walkabout' magic at an outdoor company event

Many companies and corporate groups hire me in my capacity at a Trainer. You can read more details here. However, even if they hire me primarily as a trainer, they sometimes also ask me to provide some magical entertainment, either before or after the training session(s).

When the management team at Stansted Airport hired me for a day of training, they also asked me to put on a small magic show for their management team the evening before, as a sort of 'curtain-raiser' event.

When I was hired to train FBI field agents, they asked me for an 'after dinner' show in the restaurant at the end of the day, once all the training was over, just for fun!

I'm always happy to add a touch of magic or mindreading to any event or occasion!

www.ianrowland.com

Read about my work as a Trainer. Training: Cold Reading For Business.

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Cold Reading Psychology

Ian Rowland Speaker Trainer Magician / Lecturing at an international conference in Italy

What Does 'Cold Reading' Mean?

First of all, let's define what 'cold reading' means. Then we can look at some of the psychology involved.

Every year, millions of people all over the world go for 'psychic' readings of one kind or another. The reading could be based on tarot cards, astrology, palmistry, peering into a crystal ball, graphology (i.e. a reading based on a sample of your handwriting), relaying messages from people who have 'passed over' (died) or some other divinatory system. People tend to go away from these readings pleasantly surprised, intrigued and astonished. Why? Because the person giving the reading is apparently able to make factually accurate statements about the client (the person they're giving the reading to) -- even though they are complete strangers. These statements could be about the client's personality and character or about facts and events in their life... past, present and future!

Afterwards, clients tend to say things like, "It was amazing! She told me things she couldn't possibly have known!" These apparently amazing results are why people all over the world enjoying going for readings and (in most cases) paying for them.

Psychology / Part 1

Ian Rowland Speaker Trainer Magician / Lecturing on mentalism and cold reading at a Las Vegas conference

How is the person giving the reading able to get these amazing results? If you want, you can believe that they have some type of psychic ability or that the system being used (such as tarot cards or astrology) actually works. I am not currently aware of any good reason to believe that (a) psychic abilities exist or (b) that any of these divinatory systems actually work. If you disagree, that's all right. It means we get to enjoy the warm, golden light of peaceful disagreement.

If you don't believe in 'psychic' powers, the alternative explanation is cold reading. The simple definition of 'cold reading' is 'how to talk to people so you sound psychic'. To go into slightly more detail, it's an elaborate type of communication psychology that enables you to give the impression that you're making factually accurate statements about a stranger's life.

There are many aspects to cold reading psychology. In my book, 'The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading', which you can get from Amazon, I explain about 38 different cold reading techniques in four categories: character, facts and events, the future and ways of subtly obtaining information. In this blog post, I can only give a few examples of cold reading psychology and how it can be used.

Psychology / Part 2

Ian Rowland teaching cold reading at a private class in London

One aspect of cold reading psychology, that you can use to make a statement about someone's personality or character is called 'The Rainbow Ruse'. This basically involves crediting the client with both a personality trait and its opposite. Here's an example: "You can be a very considerate person, very quick to provide for others, but there are times, if you are honest, when you recognise a selfish streak in yourself." This cold reading technique works because most people are not 100% consistent, all the time, under all circumstances. However, if the person giving the reading delivers the line well, as if it's a remarkable insight provided by the tarot cards or astrological data, it can sound quite plausible and not too obvious.

Here's an aspect of cold reading psychology pertaining to facts and events in the client's life. I call this 'The Childhood Memory': “In your younger years I get the impression of a particular interest or subject you were very keen on, where you showed lots of promise. I get a feeling that this was something on the creative or artistic side, where perhaps your parents felt you might go on to great things, but it was not to be.” This happens to be true for the majority of people, and is open to quite broad interpretation, but in the context of a reading it can sound quite plausible and not so obvious that it's trite.

My 'Full Facts' book lists several other types of statements that someone giving a reading can use to give the impression that they are somehow gaining profound insights into the client's life.

Psychology / Part 3

Ian Rowland working with students in a small cold reading class in London

A major aspect of successful cold reading psychology is simply this: the client never knows what the 'psychic' would have said if they had given a different response. If the person giving the reading makes a statement that the client does not accept as a 'hit', it doesn't matter. There are several ways to convert what seems like a 'miss' into a statement that is a hit or at least not entirely wrong. I call these 'revisions' -- ways of being right even when you're wrong!

The simplest and most versatile of these is the 'Time' revision. It might sound rather like this:

'Psychic': I get the sense that you've recently been made aware of a new opportunity to do with your work and career. You got some news that has led you to consider quite a positive change in your work situation.

Client: No, not really. I don't think anything like that has happened.

'Psychic': That's all right. Well, if it hasn't happened yet then I get the feeling it could happen quite soon. Will you watch out for that? Because it could lead to some positive developments.

You see how this works: the 'psychic' made their statement in the present tense but, when it wasn't accepted, she just converted it into a statement about the future -- which, of course, can't be proved either right or wrong at the time the reading is in progress. It may come true later or it may not, but by then the reading is long since over. When I teach 'Cold Reading For Business', I mention seven different revisions in all. When you know how to use all of these revisions, you can make more or less any statement you want, about anything, knowing that you'll be correct or, if not, you can use a revision so that you're not entirely wrong.

This is only an introduction to cold reading psychology. It's a vast subject (which is why I've so far written three books about cold reading) and I cover it all in a short blog post like this. However, I hope this has been a usful introduction to what is certainly a fascinating subject. www.ianrowland.com

Read about my work as a Trainer. Training: Cold Reading For Business.

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