September 4, 2009 | reviews
Lucky charms: not just in sugary cereals
There are some who see psychics as about as effective as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, while there are others that say, ‘well, it depends, is the one-legged guy the kicker or the one getting kicked? Because then he’s a pretty effective, stationary target. As far as psychics are concerned, there’s no doubt what side of the fence we’re on (it’s an electric one and we’ve even planted a hedge).
Psychics have been in the spotlight of late as a result of the Jaycee Dugard case, naturally for their inability to find the abducted girl despite all their best enigmatic descriptions, which, if they were concert reviews would read “the band played several songs in succession, before leaving the stage”.
As natural skeptics, we’ve put psychics to the test, to weed out the real (overcome by a fit of coughing) from the ersatz. In journalism school, we even went as far as attending a ‘psychic expo’, an event which did to brain cells what bats did to Joe Pesci’s in Casino, and even got several readings recorded for posterity.
After finding out we were students, one such self-proclaimed psychic put forward that we ‘had money problems’ (naturally, at which point, if we’d offered that we were journalism students, he might’ve correctly predicted that we could out-drink leytenants in the Russian Navy).
The pushy pamphlet above is a sure sign that psychics, much like Jenna Jameson just before the closing credits, are taking it on the chin. News reports have suggested that prognosticators profit from recessions, but expect the inverse relationship as our economy bounces back [Bad joke interlude: no more fancy steak dinners, 'medium rare'.]
This particular psychic urges customers to ‘call today for tomorrow may be too late‘ and that ‘they will call out friends and enemies by name!’ (generally, calling out people by name is more effective. If Santa Claus had called out ‘on you guys!’ instead of Cupid, Donner and Blixen fat man delivery would be considerably delayed well past Boxing Day). The first line reads, ‘I will not ask what you came for, I will tell you.’ Of course, this might be more impressive if they were a family physician (“let me take a shot in the dark here, gonorrhea?”) but many business owners have a pretty good idea about the needs of their clientele. For a typical psychic, the very desperate and downtrodden looking for romance and money advice perhaps?
As we emerge from tough times, the auto bailouts, unemployment lines, bank failings, it looks as though business will not exactly be flourishing for the mystic set: something they no doubt could’ve predicted even sans delusional soothsaying claims— but don’t expect any ‘Psychics Suffer During Boom Times‘ articles in the mainstream press.
For more on seers, please see our 2008 Psychic Predictions that were Hilariously off the Mark.
