AS the number of television commercials offering psychic readings multiply exponentially, I keep thinking people eventually will figure out that there simply cannot be that many real psychics out there. Future of television psychics rosy
I'm willing to concede that there may be a few humans with incredible latent intuitional skills that allow them to somehow predict the future behavior of certain people. It's not that big of a trick. Show me someone who is in the 18-25 year old range and I will predict that they will have car problems, be attracted to a new person or will be breaking up with someone they have had a relationship with.
That's not predicting the future. That's describing life.
If the person is between 55 and 65 years old, I can boldly predict that a major change in his or her life is going to happen (like retirement), that a loved one will have a serious illness and that travel may be indicated. If the person is only two years old, I can look into the future and predict that he or she will cry a lot and drive someone close to them nuts.
It turns out that many of these "psychics" hired by the proliferating fortune-telling television industry aren't even that good. A newspaper reporter called a number of the psychics advertised on television and most couldn't even get the most general thing right about his life. One so-called psychic actually hung up in frustration after not getting a single part of the reporter's life correct.
Why? Because these psychics aren't psychic. They are fakes and phonies and the entire psychic industry is probably the largest fraud unleashed on the American public since the instant lobotomy craze.
What I find even more offensive is that the commercials clearly are focusing on black Americans. Where is Jesse Jackson to decry this kind of targeted victimization? He ranted when beer distributors targeted black consumers for a certain type of malt liquor. Black leaders screamed when a certain type of cigarette was marketed to black consumers. Why are these leaders sitting back while phony psychic companies take thousands of dollars from the black community?
What the TV psychics are doing is the same thing gypsies used to get run out of town for doing. The difference is that gypsies didn't have telephone and credit card companies in on the scam.
But all that aside, aren't people eventually going to wise up on their own?
On one commercial the psychic tells the caller, "You are going to have new opportunities soon." Who isn't?
But the excited caller says he just got a new job. The moderator looks amazed. The psychic looks smug. The viewers gasp. Why, it is just too amazing! The psychic predicted that this person was going to get a new job!
No she didn't. She didn't say job. She said "opportunity." She was ready to take credit for any type of positive movement in the caller's life.
But let's say, for the sake of argument, she did know that the caller was going to get a new job. What difference does it make? The guy had the job before he called. She told him something he already knew. Why would you pay $5 a minute to have someone tell you about something that's already happening in your life? You don't need a psychic, you need a personal commentator. Maybe Marv Albert should start a new business: Psychic Commentator. ("You're getting hungry. You're going to eat lunch." Wow.)
I notice that the commercials now carry a disclaimer that they are only providing entertainment. I predict people eventually will figure out that throwing money down the phony psychic garbage chute isn't much entertainment.