A bat is a small piece of paper that is usually folded to hide its contents before being transferred to the medium or mentalist. The term “Billet” itself is quite old -fashioned and stems from the French word for a small note or letter.
In a typical Billet, the participants are asked to write down their questions or worries about a bat. These questions often get about deeply personal things, which reflects hope, worries and uncertainties that occupy their thoughts. Common themes include guidelines on relationships, family dynamics or friendships; insights into career and financial care; Questions about specific health problems; As well as wider questions about the mysteries of life.
After it is written on the Billet, it is folded to hide what has been written and transferred to the medium, directly or by placing it in a pot with other bates. The medium will concentrate on one billet at the same time. They can stick to their foreheads or just keep it in their hands. The idea is that the medium uses psychological skills to provide answers or insights without physically opening or reading the newspaper. They claim to receive the information through spiritual guidance or psychological impressions, instead of physical means.
This practice has its roots in the spiritual movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries, where mediums gave various demonstrations of their connection with the spiritual world. Reading Billet is sometimes used in Seans, where it is assumed that spirits communicate through the medium to provide the requested information.
Reading Billet can fit into different categories of psychological skills, depending on the explanation of the medium about how they receive the information. One possibility is clairvoyance, the possibility of gaining information or insights in the form of visual images. This allows the medium to see the written question or receive visual impressions with regard to the answer.
Reading Billet can also be a demonstration of clares, where the medium hears the answers that they communicate to them by spirits or guides. Maybe Claircognessance is also playing. This includes receiving knowledge or understanding directly from the spirit world, so that a medium can simply “know” the answer to the question. There can even be an element of Clairessentience if the medium is able to pick up a physical sensation or emotional impression through their contact with the bat.
Although often presented as a real psychological phenomenon, skeptics claim that it is nothing more than a trick with techniques rooted in the art of deception. Sleight or hand is, for example, an important element. A competent practitioner can open or peek discreetly in the bat without the participant noting. This can be done by subtly unfolding the paper while it is handled, using a fast glance or hidden mirror to read the content.
Mediums or mentists can also rely on subtle indications of those they give the lecture, pick up body language, facial expressions and other non-verbal signals that can provide insight into the nature of their questions. Even the way in which a person folds his bat or the way in which she hand over it can offer hints about the content.
Pre-show research is another method used by some Billet readers to improve their performance. By gathering information about participants in advance, media can adjust their measurements to be surprisingly accurate. This research can be as simple as informal conversations with the public before the show or more extensive investigations using social media and other publicly available resources, such as social media profiles. Armed with this information, the medium may seem to know intimate details that seem impossible to distinguish without real psychological skills.
The ability of the medium to convincingly present the information collected, often with dramatic flair, reinforces the belief in their supernatural powers. For the public, the experience feels deeply personal and often deeply moving, regardless of the methods used to achieve this.
