Ben Cardall is the UK's leading deductionist. In this presentation he gives some insghts into deduction taken from his bestselling book 'The Monographs'.

1. WITH BEN CARDALL
THE MINI MONOGRAPHS

2. Ben Cardall is the UK’s leading deductionist.
Ben has been studying deduction and all of the facets of
skill that it entails for over 15 years now. It all stemmed
from his obsession with Sherlock Holmes, the detective
with infinite reasoning and logic with an aptitude for
picking out the smallest detail of a person within seconds
of meeting them. Ben was curious as to whether this super
human ability was achievable and sort to find out. This was
when he first started to study and put into practice
everything he now knows about mentalism. His book, ‘The
Monographs’ is a comprehensive guide to becoming a
deductionist.
www.bencardall.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/Cardallmagicman
BEN CARDALL

3. It has long been wondered about, many have written about its impossibility,
though few have actually dedicated their lives to the pursuit of this skill. That
skill is all that it takes to become a Deductionist. The real number is probably
somewhere in the thousands but given the millions upon millions of people
affected by Holmes’ legacy, I consider this to only be a few by comparison.
Whether it be because he is a fictional character, much as many of us hate to
admit. Whether it be the poetic license taken with his skills, or the seemingly
never ending palace of information and attributes to draw upon, the skills of
Sherlock Holmes have been considered too much for any real person. The
reality that I have worked on ids very different! Though everything must be
taken with a pinch of salt.
THEMES, MYTHS AND
POSSIBILITIES

4. For those first starting into their journey of mastering these skills, they may
have several far flung ideas about what is possible, and that every little crease
in an item of clothing or speck of dirt on shoe will reveal some hidden truth
that will illuminate this perfect stranger completely. This often reminds me of
David Carradine in the series ‘Kung Fu’ learning his skills from some wise,
and usually blind instructor to go out and then demonstrate what other
worldly gifts he now possesses. This simply isn't the case.
We are human beings after all, we would struggle to work for days and nights
with no sleep and drinking some alcohol and cocaine concoction, and
expecting to maintain a high work load. Reality must step in!
EXPECTATION VS REALITY

5. The reality is that each new skill or topic of information you look at will take time
to master. The amount of time it takes to master will be down to how much
practice is put in. Sufficed to say, very few people are born with the heightened
observational awareness and retentive capabilities of the infamous detective so
time to put the work in to reap the rewards of the skills is paramount.
Be prepared to fail! I know right! Curious that I would warn you of that, but it’s
the truth. Not every deduction you make or inference you draw will hit the mark.
However, they can always lead you to new ideas.
Please remember that sometimes, a crease in a shirt is simply that. It will be up to
you to decipher the evidence that you see. The more ideas you have that point
toward an inference, then the more likely that is to be the case. Deducing
someone's girlfriend is about to go into labour via looking at their shoulder is an
impossibility.
EXPECTATION VS REALITY

6. That being said though, can you read the clues of a person, whatever they may
be in order to know what they do for a living, where they come from and
where they are going? If they are lying or telling the truth? Or even if they
smoke cigars or cigarettes? Absolutely you can, it will just take time, patience
and practice to do it. Much like learning any new skill would.
Mindfulness is something that is always spoken about when it comes to this
area of work so I will simply say, just be mindful of getting swept up in
fictional elements. When the reality is a long and at times a tough journey.
EXPECTATION VS REALITY

7. Nowadays when someone hears the word Deduction with reference to
Sherlock Holmes, pretty much everyone will know what you are talking about.
Knowing information that you couldn’t possibly know. That is why when I
talk about these ideas and trainings I use the term Deduction as a blanket term
for many other terms of rational thought.
These were popularized by the godfather of pragmatism Charles Sanders
Peirce. These terms of Deduction, Induction and Abduction. Three
approaches to the logical thought process behind problem solving
TERMS

8. INDUCTION - Evaluation of the hypothesis, inferring from observational or
experimental tests of its deduced consequences. This is closely followed by
Occam's Razor. Basically meaning that the most likely solution when
presented with evidence will be the correct ones.
DEDUCTION - Explicit deduction of consequences of the hypothesis as
predictions about evidence to be found. Corollarial or, if needed,
Theorematic. Basically meaning that after the evidence is presented the only
possible solution would be…whatever it is. This is Deduction.
ABDUCTION – Succintly put this is reasoning backwards from an answer.
Though i believe that Sherlock himself describes it best...
THE TERMS EXPLAINED

9. In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward. That is a very useful
accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much. In the everyday affairs of life it is
more useful to reason forward, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason
synthetically for one who can reason analytically.”
“I confess,” said I, “that I do not quite follow you.”
“I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clearer. Most people, if you describe a train of
events to them will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and
argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a
result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that
result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically. ”
“I understand,” said I.
“Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to find everything else for yourself. Now let
me endeavour to show you the different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I approached the
house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all impressions. I naturally began by
examining the roadway, and there, as I have already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which, I
ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I satisfied myself that it was a cab and not a
private carriage by the narrow gauge of the wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably less wide
than a gentleman’s brougham.
FROM ‘A STUDY IN SCARLET’

10. To begin I would suggest developing the proper mindset to do this kind of
work. Everything else will follow, though you are basically learning to see
things in a new way. To do this, I would suggest you learn to develop control
over the emotional voice inside your head. It is after all, antagonistic to clear
reasoning.
This little voice gives you the confidence to complete whatever you need to
do, or can colour your opinion of people based on your own models of the
world. This is why I suggest control over it, giving you the ability to critically
analyse anyone and any scene properly.
Here are a couple of exercises you can do to start gaining control and then we
shall finish with a game!
FIRST THINGS FIRST

11. Headphones plugged into 2 alternate sources, 1 has a very quiet, somber
mellow piece of music on. Like chill out whale song. On the other headset
you have some really loud, attention grabbing music. The idea is to turn the
loud music up incrementally, and still focus on the chill out music. An idea
first popularised Bruce Lee. This will help develop your concentration, and
awareness, as well as your conscious control over both. Once this becomes
easier, you swap the loud music out for your all time favourite song, and still
concentrate on the chill out music. You can then swap the chill out music out
for an audiobook. This exercise will allow you to develop the control over
your senses, and voice in your head that acknowledges the likes you have, to
allow you to pick out details in amongst the ‘noise’ of any situation.
EXERCISES

12. These emotions can colour our opinions of anything that we need to deduce
about and stop us from getting at the truth of the matter. They make us fall
foul of things like confirmation bias and versions of inattentional blindness.
Let us say, for example, that you had a particularly bad run in with a tall
bearded fellow, who is covered in tattoos He was in a rock bar, showed typical
signs of angry personality i.e. not willing to listen to reason, only interested in
talking with their fists, the worst kind of narrow minded person you could
ever hope to meet. The worse this run in was, then invariably the worse your
opinions on this ilk would be.
DEMONSTRATIVE GAME

13. (You see this man, mercilessly looking down at something on the floor? What could it be? a
gun? his victim?)
DEMONSTRATIVE GAME

14. Continuing on down this hypothetical rabbit hole, you then come to aid the
local police force in their murder investigation. The person who stands trial is
exactly this type of person to look at, tall, hairy and covered in tattoos. You
have to examine the evidence to help him clear his name as he is protesting his
innocence. Your emotions at this point would then entangle you to such a
degree that you wouldn’t be able to read their body language and emotions
properly; you wouldn’t be able to read the evidence and the crime scene
properly. Your emotions would feed the confirmation bias and only look for
things that support your original theory of how all of these people are. Your
inattentional blindness would be fed in the sense that you would not see
evidence that aids what you were hired for in the first place. This is how they
become antagonistic to clear reasoning.
DEMONSTRATIVE GAME

15. DEMONSTRATIVE GAME

16. (Nope, he’s hugging his son. There was even a bit of his son’s hand on the other photo)
Unless you learn to quiet that emotional voice in your head, which informs
you of your opinions and models of everything in the world, you will truly
miss a lot of relevant data. If not all of it at times. This will prevent you from
obtaining a high degree of accuracy in your deductions. Unless you quiet that
voice all people who dress in black and have tattoos will be heavy metal fans;
all women who wear revealing clothing will be trampy,; all builders will be
inarticulate and unintelligible and so on. You don’t want to see the world in
your models of it when you are reading everything as a Deductionist. Let the
truth of what is there speak for itself. This doesn’t mean that you have to be a
cold-hearted person who has no feelings whatsoever. It just means that you
have learnt how and when to quiet that voice in your head.
DEMONSTRATIVE GAME

17. So remember folks to take care of your brain. To observe carefully and to
deduce shrewdly.
Many more lessons and ideas in the book, ‘The Monographs’ - A
Comprehensive Manual on All You Need to Know to Become an Expert
Deductionist.
IN CLOSING
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