Editing Cold reading (section)

=== Shotgunning ===
"Shotgunning" is a commonly used cold reading technique. This technique is named after the manner in which a [[shotgun]] fires a cluster of small projectiles in the hope that one or more of them will strike the target.

The cold reader slowly offers a huge quantity of very general information, often to an entire audience (some of which is very likely to be correct, near correct or, at the very least, provocative or evocative to someone present), observes their subjects' reactions (especially their body language), and then narrows the scope, acknowledging particular people or concepts and refining the original statements according to those reactions to promote an emotional response. A majority of people in a room will, at some point for example, have lost an older relative or known at least one person with a common name like "Mike" or "John".

Shotgunning might include a series of vague statements such as:
;"I see a heart problem with a father-figure in your family."
:A vast variety of medical problems have chest pain as a symptom, and heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. "Father-figure" can refer to somebody's father, grandfather, uncle, cousin, or any male relative who is also a parent or has served in a parental role to the person.
;"I see a woman with blackness in the chest, lung cancer, heart disease, breast cancer..."
:Most people will know a woman who was diagnosed with one of these problems, which are among the leading causes of illness and death.
;"I sense an older male figure in your life, who wants you to know while you may have had disagreements in your life, he still loved you."
:Nearly all people will have had such a person in their lives, and nearly all of them will have had a disagreement.