I got an email from Esmeralda the other day. Maybe you did, too. Esmeralda is very concerned about my wellbeing and wants to help me mend my life, and don’t think I’m not grateful for her concern. After all, how many people you’ve never heard of write you out of a clear blue sky offering assistance? I can count them on one finger. Esmeralda asked me to fill in a simple questionaire involving my age, date of birth, etc., and I did. She took all this information, consulted her charts and was shocked to find that I had numerous problems. Among other things, I was very lonely, in need of money and beset with health concerns. No worries, though, major astral events were on the horizon which could rectify my woes. Esmeralda said I could still have “the life you dream of.” Whew, that’s reassuring. But I must act “very quickly.”
“Very Dear Bill,” Esmeralda writes (and I must confess to giggling “aw, shucks,” when I read this mushy salutation). “I’m telling you like I would tell a member of my family: If you do nothing, you’re missing out one more time on real opportunities for Happiness. By the way, I must tell you something. This morning, I picked a card from the Tarot for you, I picked the number 10, ‘The Wheel of Fortune.’ This card comes at the right time….it represents the wheel of luck that is turning. That’s why you must answer me very quickly. Answer right now by clicking on this link.” If I do this, I will receive my official certificate which allows me to procure my Great Oracle of Luck, Love and Money. I’d be a fool to ignore it.
It stands to reason, of course, that even an altruistic soul like Esmeralda has to fill the larder every so often, thus all this information will come at a small cost, some $69 to be precise. Obviously a laughably piffling amount to receive life-altering information. AND coming complete with a money back guarantee if an unsatisfied customer is able to track down Esmeralda in her mossy cave somewhere in the bowels of Lower Moldavia. I am currently mulling over this offer but I must admit to a few concerns with Esmeralda’s powers of perception, since I am neither lonely, broke or in bad health. It could be something as simple as her crystal ball running on dyspeptic batteries or the Moldavian tea leaves being past their sale date. Hey, even Tarot Masters have a bad day every now and then.
Esmeralda is waiting to hear from me. She’s pissy about the delay.
Foodini The Great
When we were kids, the only person we knew who could see into the future was a hand puppet named Foodini, a resident of late afternoon TV. Foodini had a turban and a crystal ball and was aided in his activities by his faithful assistant, Pinhead, who spent most of his time sweeping up the place while singing “I’m Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage.” Seeing the potential benefits of these crystal balls (why listen to the Red Sox game if they were just going to lose?), we asked our parents where we might rustle one up. They told us Foodini was a fraud and that noone could see into the future, except possibly the Pope. Since our mothers and fathers knew everything, that was it for us; the prophets were false. We did take a step back in 1963 when Jean Dixon’s prediction of John Kennedy’s death came true. But then Jean fell victim to the dreaded “sophomore slump,” the baseball phenomenon in which outstanding rookies tail off in their second seasons. One-hit wonder, we thought. Mom and Dad were right.
Foodini & Pinhead, discussing the latter’s contract.
Not So Fast, My Friend
Where once we had fortune-tellers who depended exclusively on the clarity of their crystal balls or Tarot decks, now we have the whole megillah. Alectromancers determine the future by observing roosters pecking at grain. Advocates of Extispicy inspect the entrails of animals. Oneiromancy makes dreams preeminent. Parrot Astrologers make their predictions after observing parakeets picking up fortune cards. Our favorite, Ureamancy, requires gazing upon the foamy froth of urine created within water. Mom, can I change my major to shoemaking?
Why do customers flock to these odd psychics and bent astrologers? They offer easy answers to complicated lives, just like Donald Trump. In the hippie era, Tarot readers and astrologers were all the rage. Remember “What’s your sign?” Hmm---let me take a second look at that guy if he’s a Scorpio. Or, “No, George, you’re a Pisces, we’d never make it.” Most pared-down daily newspapers still offer astrological charts, so the malady lingers on. But are there any real fortune-tellers out there, anybody with a legitimate peek into the future? Elon Musk doesn’t count.
In 1938, Edgar Cayce predicted that “A portion of the temples of Atlantis may yet be discovered under the slime of ages and sea water near Bimini. Expect it in 1968 or 1969---not so far away.” The Bimini Road was discovered in 1968 and many people believe the BR is actually a portion of Atlantis.
In 1924, Cayce predicted the Stock Market would crash in 1929 and told his clients how to prepare for the crash and play the bull market. He was largely ignored, to the detriment of his clientele. Cayce said the Market would lift again in 1933, and it did.
Edgar Cayce predicted in January 1934 that Adolph Hitler would rise to power in Germany and remain there until deposed by “an overthrow or an outside war.” He forecast the Jews would return to Israel, which they did when that nation was reestablished in 1948.
Cayce described the concept of the shifting of the Earth’s poles as a result of the planet’s crust moving independently from the core to bring a different surface area over the spin axis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He predicted that changes in the Earth’s surface would begin sometime between 1958 and 1998, the changes being due to a shift in the world’s magnetic poles around the year 2000. Cayce said when this occurred, there would be a reversal in the Earth’s climate….”where there has been a frigid or semi-tropical climate, there will be a more tropical one, and moss and fern will grow.” According to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, something changed the Earth’s gravitational field, which moved the magnetic poles closer, in 1998.
Cayce told the world his visions warned him not to use his psychic abilities more than twice a day or serious health problems would occur. Since his readings were in great demand, he ignored the visions and went about his business. Then, on January 1, 1945, Edgar Cayce predicted his own demise, advising that he would be buried in four more days. He died of a stroke on January 3 and was buried in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where he was born. (Insert Twilight Zone music here.)
Won’t You Calm Us, Nostradamus?
The most famous prescient human of all time might have been Michel de Nostradame, colloquially Nostradamus, a French physician and astrologer from the 16th century who wrote over 1000 predictions about coming world events, sometimes hundreds of years into the future. Called Les Propheties, the predictions were written as four-line poems and published in 10 volumes, each of which was referred to as a “century.” Hundreds of years after his death in 1566, Nostradamus is believed by some to have predicted the French Revolution, World War II and the September 11 attacks on New York City.
On the death of Henry II: The young lion will overcome the older one….On the field of combat in a single battle….He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage….Two wounds made one, then he dies a cruel death.
King Henry II of France died in 1559 after Gabriel, comte de Montegomery, accidentally killed him during a game of joust. Both had lions on their shields, and a shard of the latter man’s lance went through one of Henry’s eyes while another shot through his temple. It took him 10 days to die.
On the rise of Adolph Hitler: From the depths of the West of Europe….A young child will be born of poor people….He who by his tongue will seduce a great troop….His fame will increase towards the realm of the East.
Hitler was born April 20, 1889 in Western Europe. He moved to Germany a few years later and rose to fame in part due to his outrageous speeches.
On the Atomic Bomb: Near the gates and within two cities….There will be scourges the like of which was never seen….Famine within plague, people put out by steel….Crying to the great immortal God for relief.
Is it a reach to say Nostradamus called these three shots? Are the poems vague enough to be challenged? Maybe. But Nostradamus wrote tons more which closely described actual events, too many to dismiss. Maybe this one was about Commissar Trump: The great shameless, audacious bawler….He will be elected governor of the army….The boldness of his contention….The bridge broken, the city faint from fear. Okay, that’s a reach.
Punxsutawney Phil and his humble servant.
Groundhog Day
Punxsutawney Phil is not the least impressed by all this prognostication foofaraw. The Pennsylvania groundhog has been doing it for years, popping out of his gilded hole every February to predict when Winter will end. Phil has one thing in common with his human psychic buddies---one year hence, nobody will remember whether we was correct or not. They’ll still be begging for his wisdom. In the prediction business, if you hit it big with a single success you’re good forever.
By the way, Punxsutawney Phil isn’t the only critter in the psychic trade. More than 100,000 odd Ohioans can be counted on to attend the annual Woolleybear Festival in Vermillion, Ohio each Fall. The woolleybear caterpillar, it seems, is also a soothsayer. Woolley is striped brown and black; if he arrives with a thick brown stripe, Winter will be severe. If the stripe is narrow, get out the Maypoles. If you think this all sounds too boring to merit a visit, they also have caterpillar races. If you’ve never been to a caterpillar race, bring a novel. War and Peace would be good.
There’s a cat in Rhode Island named Oscar who can tell you when The Grim Reaper is at the door. Oscar resides at a nursing home where over the course of five years he’s correctly predicted 50 deaths. Oscar is the Babe Ruth of cat psychics. If Oscar cuddles up with a patient, it’s time to call the undertaker. You can’t hide from him, either. He’ll scratch at your door. And he won’t be put off by misdirection plays. In one case, nurses tried moving him from a fading client’s bed to that of a healthier one. “Surely you jest,” sniffed Oscar, who moved right back. Oscar’s candidate bought the farm the next morning.
On a lighter note, we have Paul the Octopus, who spent most of his time blissfully floating around in a German aquarium. Paul is famous for correctly picking the winners of numerous athletic contests, particularly the 2010 World Cup of soccer. In that one, he flagged his choice by selecting a mussel from one of two boxes decorated with the banners of the competing countries. Outraged fans of the losing aggregation threatened to fry the octopus and serve him with tomato sauce, causing him to take flight. Paul now lives anonymously in a St. Petersburg nursing home where he referees shuffleboard matches.
Finally, if you’re playing the stock market, you might want to check in with Mi Jin, a South Korean parrot. She’s much better at picking stocks than most humans, with a 13.7 percent return on investment. Several investors have tried to purchase the bird from her current owner, but he won’t sell. “I had a very good offer from customer in America,” the man said. “But no way I can sell. Mi Jin, she not know a thing about American stocks.”
That’s all, folks….
