It was bound to happen. In Salem, Massachusetts, the established, "legitimate" fortune tellers are upset that upstarts from out of town are allowed to share in the racket. Apparently Barnum was wrong; suckers are in limited supply and protectionist legislation is indicated. The established hucksters are going so far as to tell the city council that some of these newcomers might be—and I’m not saying I believe this slander, mind you, but—well . . . . faking their psychic readings. Unlike the responsible, trained, highly educated psychics who have worked so hard to represent their honorable profession in Salem, these newcomers may be incapable of using tea leaves and tarot cards to tell you what your dead grandmother thinks of your boyfriend. Shocking, I know.
I wish I were making this up, but I’m not: One of the psychics describes having to do a “genuine” psychic reading for a police officer before getting her license. Another describes having to use her aura-detecting machine to correct the damage done by an out-of-towner who’d told a client that her aura was black (you’ll be relieved to know that her aura was actually “blue and beautiful.”)
“Salem Struggles to Sort Out ‘Psychic Free-For-All’”
“Fortune Tellers Did Not See Dead Raccoons, Car Vandalism in Salem’s Future”
Tip of the hat to James Randi, who notes in all seriousness that if any of these psychics are able to do the things they claim, they could simply demonstrate their powers and collect a cool $1,000,000 from the James Randi Educational Foundation.
Somehow I think the money is safe for another day.
6 comments:
They probably didn't send in the $5.00 to the pyschic detective accreditation agency like it says in the back of the comic book.
Ahhh . . . .people always look for a shortcut.
Post-Industrial Paganism. Hilarious.
The scary part is, they're probably serious.
Want to REALLY see some choice granola? Attend a "Pagan Pride Day", almost anywhere in the US. Bring a video camera: it's worth the afternoon you could use more profitably some other way.
The really sad part of the above statement? *I'M* pagan!
How do you judge the ability to predict the future? Even the "psychics" admit that they can't see everything. What objective criterion is there?
Wait, what am I blabbering about? We're talking about Psychics here. "Objective" doesn't really apply here.
You're like, trying to use "science thinking" to understand the universe, OK? And it's like, science thinking, that only works for science things, OK?
Psychics don't make sense to scientists, because scientists can only understand science things, like chemicals and things, but what they don't get is that psychics use, like physics and stuff (especially quantum physics--that totally proves psychics can be real) but it's just that they use it a different way.
Science can't explain everything, you know!
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