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Erica's WLS Book |
For Darn Good Writing Ask Erica CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC READING ADDICT Despite a lifelong skepticism about anything that even hints of hype or charlatanism, I long ago became hooked on psychic readings. It is a guilty pleasure that I am loath to admit to my more cynical journalistic colleagues. When I’m under stress and no one is watching, I skulk into storefronts with crystal balls in the window, seeking a psychic fix. The longing for a psychic reading comes upon me most urgently when I’ve been unlucky in love. Actually that’s how psychics survive, and even rack up six figure incomes if they’re giving readings to the rich—not predicting the stock market, career moves or even sickness and health--but preying on the man troubles that afflict so many women. They all guarantee to tell you if he really loves you, is seeing someone else, will come back to you or whether you should just dump the bum and move on. I first realized most of them didn’t know what they were talking about when one online psychic after another told my friend Lynne that an extremely commitment-phobic ex-boyfriend of mine, whom she’d been dating and was madly in love with, would marry her. She racked up hundreds of dollars in by-the-minute fees asking for reassurance. I told her that the likelihood of this man marrying her, or anyone, was as remote as Brad Pitt asking for her hand. You didn’t have to be psychic to know that. I got hooked in my 20s when a psychic I went to cold told me as soon as I walked in, “you work for the New York State Youth Division.” I was floored. At the time I worked for the New York State Division for Youth but there is no way he could have known this. He was famous for health readings and during the same reading, he told me I was going to get arthritis. I never got arthritis, but I did get diabetes, which he actually said I wasn’t going to get despite being in a high-risk group due to my weight. Unfortunately, the problem with psychics is not that they aren’t psychic, but that they are as often wrong as right. When they’re right it can be startling, but from my extensive if non-scientific research I’ve figured out that they’re only right about 50% of the time. The problem is figuring out which 50%. Another problem with psychics is that they tell you stuff you already know, like you should stop falling in love with unavailable men. Duh!! Or that your long deceased mother still loves you from beyond. For instance, I don’t understand why the audience for John Edwards, who contacts the dead, ooos and ahhs when he gets in touch with somebody’s uncle Lester who tells his niece they used to pick apples together when she was a kid. The niece gasps in recognition and the audience goes nuts. What kind of help is that? Why doesn’t Lester tell her what life is like in the afterlife, or at least whom she’s going to marry? Before I got married my friend Louis told me about a psychic named Flo who predicted during his first reading that he would get mugged today. Despite numerous precautions, including bringing a friend along, he did get mugged that day. I was really impressed and tracked Flo down to an apartment complex in Queens, where despite her Brooklyn accent and housewifely demeanor, she cast spells and did other witchy stuff. I went to her with my currently unemployed boyfriend, Ira, and we asked her to get him a job. She waved her arms around and predicted he would soon be working in a place “with a lot of wires on the floor.” He was hired shortly thereafter by a video-editing place with, sure enough, a lot of wires on the floor. He had applied there a short time ago but someone else got the job. Then that person had an accident—and they called him. An accident--that was pretty impressive magic. At my next reading when I told Flo I was living with Ira, she said in a most un-psychic way, like the Italian mother that she actually was, “what are you doing with HIM? He’s a real loser.” I married the guy, only to find out that that was her most accurate prediction. During my marriage I lost interest in psychics because my love life was settled if boring. My career was chugging along and didn’t seem worthy of spending money on a reading. When my husband and I decided to adopt, however, I did go for an I Ching reading at a Renaissance Fair, and got the “Dragon growing inside mountain” hexagram. The Chinese reader told me that dragons were symbolic of royalty and my baby would be a powerful person. She was right but don’t we all think our children are royalty. Actually the I Ching had also predicted my marriage. Just after I’d met Ira I threw the I Ching and got a reading that told me that I needed “a dark and passive force,” in my life. God knows why anyone would need a dark and passive force, but I sure got one. I wouldn’t count that reading as helpful. After my husband dumped me for another woman, I went back on the psychic circuit. I started seeing Stephanie, a tarot reader in the local new agey bookstore. Stephanie had predicted my daughter’s character with total accuracy when she was three months old so I figured she knew something. She told me with total confidence that my ex would break up with the girlfriend and want to come back to me, but by that time I would have moved on. Ha! Two years later he’s marrying the girlfriend and planning to have a baby with her and would just as soon come back to me as marry Brad Pitt. She did get one thing right. When I started going on Internet dates I showed her pictures of my dates, including a picture of Bob, whom I eventually fell in love with. “He’s an angry loner,” Stephanie said instantly. Did I listen to her? Noooo. Of course she was right. I had to stop seeing Stephanie, however, because she started acting more like my shrink than my psychic. She wanted me to stop being so obsessed with men, and start being more independent and self-directed. I was already paying a shrink for that advice. I wanted Stephanie to tell me about my love life, but the better she got to know me, the worse she was at predicting my future. After Bob broke up with me, I became obsessed with him and started patronizing all kinds of psychics, including doing my own readings on Tarot.com, talking to online psychics, going for a reading with Stephanie’s vacation replacement, and my friend Nancy’s daughter, who at age 12 was fearsomely psychic. They all predicted Bob would come back to me, but by that time I would have moved on. Well, many months later I haven’t moved on, but Bob has another girlfriend and shows no signs of returning. I’m wondering if I should go back to Flo and ask her to cast a spell for me, or just keep calling the girls at www.psychicpredictions.com and try to get more predictions of Bob’s return. How many psychics will it take to beat the 50% odds, I wonder? (This essay is available for purchase)
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