It's not in the cards

When I was in college I went through a period of messing around with Tarot cards.  They were cool-looking, and the book I got that explained their meanings was steeped with arcane and mystical terminology.  The whole thing seemed ancient and magical and terribly attractive.  The fact that I was still living at home, in a staunchly religious Roman Catholic family which disapproved of anything smacking of witchcraft, only gave it that much more of a frisson.

So yes, True Confessions time: at one point in my life, I experimented with woo-woo-ism.  But don't worry, I didn't inhale.

What eventually pulled the plug on all of it was that when I talked about it with my friends, I started sounding ridiculous to myself.  I had to explain (when I was doing a Tarot reading for someone) that I was selecting a card to represent them based on their gender and appearance, and that this would establish a psychic connection between them and seventy-eight pieces of glossy card stock with weird designs that I'd bought for ten bucks in a local bookstore.  And in the back of my mind was this constant mantra of, "How the fuck could that actually work?"  I was able to shout the voice down for a while, but sooner or later, I had to admit that Tarot cards were nothing more than a pretty fiction, and any accurate readings I did could be attributed to a combination of chance, my prior knowledge of the person being "read," and dart-thrower's bias.

I still, however, own six Tarot card decks, including the one I got when I was in college.  The coolest is an Art Nouveau deck that is actually quite beautiful, with designs that remind me of one of my favorite artists, Maxfield Parrish.  I also have "The Original Dog Tarot" in which -- I shit you not -- the four suits are Bowls, Biscuits, Leashes, and Bones, and the Major Arcana include The Hydrant, The Dogcatcher, The Cat, and The Couch.

Purists would probably be pissed off about a Tarot deck that is clearly made up, but let's face it; it's all made up.  The infamous "wickedest man on Earth" Aleister Crowley claimed that the Tarot traces its origins back to an ancient Egyptian text called The Book of Thoth, but there's one awkward problem with this, which is that The Book of Thoth appears not to exist.  Undeterred, Crowley wrote his own Book of Thoth, because after all, as long as we're making shit up, we may as well do the job ourselves and not waste our time learning how to read actual Ancient Egyptian texts that might not even say what we were hoping they'd say.

Actually, the earliest Tarot cards come from some time around the fifteenth century, but at the time they seem to have mostly been used for playing games.  The first use of the cards for divination -- what's been called cartomancy -- isn't until around 1750, which seems awfully late for a practice that claims to be Esoteric Secrets From Antiquity.  The surge in popularity the practice had in the late eighteenth century was largely due to one man, Jean-Baptiste Alliette, who went by the extremely subtle and creative pseudonym Etteilla.  Alliette was an occultist who had a huge following amongst the nobility, and wrote a manual called Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées tarots (A Method for Recreating Yourself Using the Cards Called Tarots) which is the basis of all the "Tarot cards interpreted" books you see today.  Modern card decks, including the famous Rider-Waite deck, all derive from the standardization of the cards and suits by Alliette.

Lately, though, things have gone a bit off the rails, and I don't just mean obvious spoofs like my Original Dog Tarot.  If you search on Amazon for "Tarot cards" you'll find dozens (probably hundreds) of different decks, and a great many of them don't have the traditional suits, with fifty-six Minor and twenty-two Major Arcana.  There are divine feminine and divine masculine decks (some of which are highly NSFW), decks that are allegedly Norse or Celtic or Native American or Chinese or Japanese, decks centered around plants or animals or crystals or astronomical objects, queer decks and warrior decks and steampunk decks.

And -- if I haven't already made a strenuous enough point about this -- all of these were made up, most of them in the last fifty years or so.  None of them have the least thing to do with actual ancient wisdom passed down through the ages.

So there you are.  It hardly bears mention that I think divination simply doesn't work; much as it's a beguiling idea, there's nothing mysterious going on with Tarot card readers except how they manage to persuade so many people to fork over twenty bucks for a session.  Be that as it may, I'm gonna keep my decks.  For one thing, they're cool to look at.  For another, maybe I can do a reading for my dogs.  If the Ten of Bones turns up, they'll be thrilled.  That's a lot of bones.

****************************************

The voice of an angel

New from the "It's Not A Sin When We Do It" department, we have: Christian Charismatics using a spin-off of the Ouija board to contact angels.

I was sent this story by a friend and long-time loyal reader of Skeptophilia, and my first thought was, "This can't be true."  Sadly, it is.  The same people who go on and on about how evil Ouija boards are and how you're risking your eternal soul even being in the same room with one are now saying that their Ouija boards are just fine and dandy.

The "Angel Board" is available from Amazon at the low-low-low price of $28 (plus shipping and handling).  In the product description, we're told that we can "ask any question we want, and the Angel Board will answer."  If you don't like that particular one, it turns out there are dozens of different makes and models, some costing hundreds of dollars.  

Because we can't just have one company capitalizing on people's gullibility.

Interestingly, if not surprisingly, the reviews have been uniformly good. One five-star review says:

I have been on a path of spiritual enlightenment for 1 year now.  I have two other friends who have shared this path with me.  We share books, experiences, thoughts and feelings, but when one of us (not me) bought this book and “game” board to communicate with our higher-level guides or “guardian angels,” it became a turning point in my journey.  I didn’t think I was “advanced enough” or “spiritual enough” to make this thing work.  I learned, in about 2 minutes, that doubting myself was doubting God and his angels!  In one evening, I met my higher guide, felt unconditional love, and knew I wasn’t alone and never had been.  I was convinced, beyond all reason, of the presence of my angel.  To this date, I call him “J” as we haven’t yet tuned our energies to really work out the spelling of the name…  I asked him if “J” would be okay, and he said, “yes.”  He has answered to “J” ever since!  One evening, before I was able to acquire an “angel board” of my own, I tried an Ouija Board.  It took several attempts before J was able to answer me, but when he did, I asked if he preferred the angel board and he responded “yes.”  We had a very difficult, short conversation that night. The angel board is a MUST for all those who seek a closer relationship with their guardian angel, and who have not had much practice in meditation and raising their energies to a compatible level with the light bodies waiting to guide us!

It's to be hoped that when they "tune their energies" and she finds out "J's" actual name, it's not a rude shock.  It'd kind of suck if she thought she was talking to the Archangel Jophiel and it turned out she was having a conversation with, say, Jar-Jar Binks.

It bears mention, however, that not everyone is so sanguine about the Angel Board.  At the site Women of Grace, we're given the following warning:

Angel boards are just as dangerous as Ouija boards, perhaps more so because they haves [sic] the same purpose as a Ouija board – contacting “spirits” – only they pretend to be summoning guardian angels to make it seem less dangerous...  This is so dangerous on so many levels.  When a person evokes spirits of the dead, he or she is never in control because they are dealing with preternatural forces.  These are powerful beings who are possessed of super-human intelligence, strength and cunning.  Only the most naïve would think that they can control summoned spirits merely by “politely” asking them to come or go...  Needless to say, angel boards should be strictly avoided.

Over at Our Spiritual Quest, "ex medium and professional astrologer" Marcia Montenegro agrees:

Any attempt to contact or summon an angel will result in contact only with a fallen angel.  Spiritism is strongly forbidden and denounced by God and angels are spirit creatures.

 
There is no example anywhere in the Bible of anyone contacting an angel.  The angels who brought messages or did other things for people in the Bible were sent at God’s command.  They were never summoned by man.

 
Asking questions using this Board is the same as using a Ouija Board.  In both cases, only fallen angels, disguised as good angels, as guardian angels, or as the dead, will respond.

I never realized that borrowing from the spiritualists was such a big thing among the hyper-religious, but apparently it is.  There's even a "Christian Tarot deck," available at (surprise!) Amazon, which says that the practice if done right is "biblically consonant."  As you might imagine, this got quite a reaction, both from the people who think Tarot cards are the instrument of the devil and those who think divination is a divine gift.

Weirder still, sometimes those are the same people, just on different days.  Kris Vallotton, pastor of the Bethel Church and self-styled "spiritual leader," heard people said that he and his church members were using Christian Tarot cards developed by a group called "Christalignment," and responded in no uncertain terms:

This is insane... whoever is doing this needs to repent the craziness in the name of "reaching people for Christ..."  There are people who listen to our teaching and create strange and/or anti-biblical applications in our name...  [W]e need wisdom as we move into the cesspool we call the world.  Stop the craziness!

Shortly afterwards, Vallotton responded to his response in no uncertain terms:

There has been some recent concern about the ministry of Christalignment and their supposed use of “Christian tarot cards” in ministering to people at New Age festivals.  While the leaders of this ministry (Ken and Jenny Hodge) are connected with several members of our community (including being the parents to our much-loved brother, evangelist Ben Fitzgerald), Christalignment is not formally affiliated with Bethel.  We do, however, have a value for what they are seeking to accomplish.

When his followers raised hell about his sudden about-face, not to mention an apparent chumminess with occultists, Vallotton responded to the response to his response in no uncertain terms:

Let’s be clear: I was speaking against Tarot cards and their use, which I am still against.  I was addressing people who were accusing Bethel taking part in this practice.  We don’t and never have been been apart [sic] of this.  So that’s still true!  The people who were named in the article, were never named in the people’s accusations of us (that I knew of at the time) nor did I name anyone in my posts.  The article turned out to be fake news against great people who love God, don’t use Tarot cards and lead 1000s of people who do, to Christ.

So there you have it.  He's unequivocally for it except in the sense that he's unequivocally against it.

But he did get some support from one of his followers who said she thought there was nothing wrong even if these were Tarot cards, because -- and I swear I am not making this up -- he says that "'Tarot' is 'Torah' spelled backwards."

Predictably, I read all this with an expression like this:

My general impression is that the whole lot of it -- Tarot cards, Ouija boards, angelology, and the entire Charismatic movement -- is nonsense.  So arguing about whether a silly board game or some funny pictures printed on cheap card stock are going to put you in touch with an angel or with the Prince of Darkness is a little like arguing over whether 2 + 3 equals 17 or 358.

Anyhow, thanks to the loyal reader who sent me the link.  I suppose it's a good thing that this is what the hyper-Christians are currently spending their time discussing.  It's less time they'll have to spend trying to shoehorn young-Earth creationism into public school science curricula and voting in Christofascist authoritarians to public office.  If those are my other options, I'll take sacred Ouija boards any day.

****************************************

PsychicGPT

Well... we should have seen this coming.  Or at least, they should have.

According to a recent report, visits to psychics are way down because people are paying to use online "psychic chatbots" to make predictions about their future.

Because the AI fortunetellers use "sophisticated algorithms and machine-learning techniques... and are unaffected by human emotions and preconceptions," there's been a sudden surge of the worried and/or lovelorn turning to what amounts to ClairvoyantGPT.

"In the digital age the convergence of ancient wisdom and cutting-edge technology has given rise to new possibilities," writes Jerry Lawton.  "One such innovation is AI Tarot reading where the age-old practice of Tarot cards meets the power of artificial intelligence...  Through natural language processing and data analysis AI algorithms aim to mimic the intuition and insight traditionally associated with human Tarot readers.  This fusion of technology and divination opens up new possibilities for individuals seeking guidance and self-reflection.  AI Tarot reading brings the wisdom of Tarot cards to your fingertips anytime and anywhere.  With just a few clicks you can access Tarot readings from the comfort of your own home or even on the go.  Digital platforms and mobile applications make it easy for individuals to receive instant guidance and insights eliminating the need for in-person consultations.  AI algorithms follow a set of predefined rules and principles providing objective interpretations of Tarot cards.  These algorithms analyze vast amounts of data, taking into account various factors and symbolism associated with each card.  By eliminating subjective biases AI Tarot readings offer consistent and reliable insights that remain unaffected by human emotions or preconceptions."

[Image is in the Public Domain]

Well, that all sounds pretty amazing, so I had to try it out.

I was restricted in my choices given that I am not going to give some random fortunetelling website my name and email address (this eliminated about half of them) and I was damn sure not going to pay for it (eliminating most of the other half).  I finally settled on EvaTarot.net, the home of Eva Delattre, "tarologist," which met my criteria of being free and not condemning me to a lifetime of getting spam emails from psychics.

Anyhow, after doing the "pick a card, any card" thing, here's what it told me about my future.  I've abbreviated it somewhat, because it was kind of long, but otherwise, it's verbatim.

The cards show that you are now in a period favorable to personal development.  This idea of getting better is highlighted by the cards you have selected which show that at work, and in your personal projects, you are adopting a new attitude and a new way of looking at things.  Nowadays you tend to think more about the consequences of your acts; there is no question of doing things at random, and making the same mistakes as in the past.  This new dynamic opens many doors that go beyond your personal projects.

That's good to hear.  I do feel that repeating mistakes from the past is a bad idea, which is why I have a lifelong commitment to making all new and different mistakes.

A proposal will be made that will surprise you for two reasons.  First because of the person who will do it: you didn't expect that from her.  Then by the proposal itself, which will be just for you and which will be totally unexpected.  It will make you very happy, and you will be overwhelmed to be the subject of this proposal.  "The innocent will have their hands full", as they say!  Innocent because you were not expecting this. Hands full because it will fill you with joy.

Then it's up to you to think about the consequences of this request: to accept? to refuse?  It's up to you.  Whatever happens, you'll have to give an answer.  Take the time to think, because the answer you give will engage you for months in a pattern that you will not be able to get out of easily.

Huh.  If the proposal is to turn my upcoming book release into a blockbuster movie, I'm all for it.  But the decision-making part worries me a tad.  It's never been my forte.  In fact, I've often wondered if I have some Elvish blood, given Tolkien's quip, "Go not to the Elves for advice, for they will say both yes and no."

You need calm and tranquility at the moment.  You have been tried by long-lasting problems that never seem to get better, it plays on your morale and your daily life goes by so quickly you never seem to get a grip on it.  You must have patience, create a bit of distance from a system that is going too quickly for you, and get some perspective on your situation.  The card shows a character whose head is buried in the present, trapped by the rhythm of their life, unable to escape.

Well, once again, patience has never been one of my strengths.  So this is accurate enough with regards to my personality, but at the same time I'm struck by how generally unhelpful it is.  "You need to be more patient, so develop some patience!  Now!" doesn't seem like a very good way to approach the problem.

Not, honestly, that I have any better ideas.  Unsurprising, I suppose, given that "my head is buried in the present."

What stands out about all this is how generic my reading is.  That's how it works, of course; you may remember James Randi's famous demonstration of that principle in a high school classroom, where students were told that a detailed horoscope had been drawn up for them using their birthdates, and they were asked to rate how accurate it seemed for themselves personally on a scale of zero to ten.  Just about everyone rated it above seven, and there were loads of nines and tens.

Then they were asked to trade horoscopes with the person next to them... and that's when they found out they were all given the exactly same horoscope.

We're very good at reading ourselves into things, especially when we've been told that whatever it is has been created Especially For Us.  Add to that a nice dollop of confirmation bias, and you've got the recipe for belief.

Of course, maybe my overall dubious response was because I chose the no-strings-attached El Cheapo psychic reading.  You get what you pay for, or (in this case) didn't pay for.

In any case, I suppose it was just a matter of time that the AI chatbot thing got hybridized with psychic readings.  What I wonder is what's going to happen when the AI starts to "hallucinate" -- the phenomenon where AI interfaces have slipped from giving more-or-less correct answers to just making shit up.  You pay your money, and instead of a real psychic reading, all you get is some AI yammering random nonsense at you.

That, of course, brings up the question of how you could tell the difference.

****************************************

Long live the king

Those of you who are interested in the affairs of the royal family of Great Britain will no doubt want to know that the psychics have weighed in on the future of newly-crowned King Charles III.

According to an article Thursday in the Hull Daily Mail, the loyal subjects of His Majesty are in for a bit of a rollercoaster.  One Mario Reading, author and expert in interpreting the writings of Nostradamus, predicts that Charles III isn't going to be king for long.  He's going to abdicate, Reading says.  "Prince Charles will be 74 years old in 2022, when he takes over the throne.  But the resentments held against him by a certain proportion of the British population, following his divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales, still persist."

After that, things get even weirder.  Citing Nostradamus's line "A man will replace him who never expected to be king," Reading says that after Charles's abdication, the next king will not be his elder son William.  It could be that his younger son, Prince Harry, will reign as King Henry IX... or possibly someone even wilder.  An Australian guy named Simon Dorante-Day, who claims he is the secret son of King Charles and the Queen Consort Camilla, might be ready to take the crown once Charles steps aside.

"It’s certainly food for thought, because the prediction makes it clear that someone out of left field would replace Charles as king," Dorante-Day said.  "I can see why some people would think I fit the bill.  I believe I am the son of Charles and Camilla and I’m looking forward to my day in court to prove this.  Maybe Nostradamus has the same understanding that I do, that all this will come out one day."

King Charles III and the Queen Consort Camilla [Image is in the Public Domain]

On the other hand, an article Thursday in the Hull Daily Mail says that the new king has nothing to worry about.  Psychic and Tarot card reader Inbaal Honigman says she did a card layout for King Charles, and found that he will have a long and fruitful reign.

"Starting off, he has the Three of Swords card which is for sorrow," Honigman said.  "This means he is entering a period of mourning and adjustments that will be quite hard for him...  He’s not a young person taking on this role so he will have added worries and concerns about himself and his entire family so I predict this will be a time of introspection for him while he adapts to the transition.  The next card is a Ten of Cups which is a water Tarot and as King Charles is a water sign, he is very aligned to this card.  This card shows that he is possibly preparing or will make preparations early on for the next transition that will occur after him."

Honigman said overall, the predictions were encouraging.  "The third card is the Chariot card, which is a card of moving on.  I predict that around his eightieth birthday, King Charles is going to start sharing duties with his son, Prince William, to ensure there is a smooth transition of power when the time eventually comes for Charles.  The Chariot card is not negative, it means the moving on will be from a safe and secure place and that King Charles and Prince William will work well together.  I think the public will get behind Charles as the King.  I think his words and actions in the next days and weeks will demonstrate his message is one of love, unity and public service and that he intends to do all of it from the heart."

So yeah.  If you were reading carefully and noted the sources of these two predictions, you noticed something interesting.  Two psychics made completely opposite predictions about the same person, and the stories appeared in the same newspaper on the same day.

Believers in psychic phenomena often get snippy with us skeptics about our tendency to dismiss divination and future-reading out of hand, and yet don't have any inclination to call out such obvious impossibilities as this one.  Instead, they pick out the one or two times someone gets something right -- for instance, the aforementioned Mario Reading correctly predicted Queen Elizabeth II would die this year -- and claim this is vindication for the whole shebang, rather than (1) listing all the times the psychics got things wrong, (2) pointing out when psychics say mutually contradictory things about the same person or event, and (3) acknowledging the fact that predicting the death of a frail 96-year-old lady really isn't much of a reach even if you're not psychic.

So come on, psychics.  Get your act together.  If there really is something to what you're claiming, there ought to be at least some consistency between your predictions.  Okay, I can let it slide if you get the occasional details askew.  But "Charles will abdicate soon and be replaced either by Prince Harry or by some random dude from Australia" and "Charles will have a long reign and there will be a smooth transition of power to his elder son, Prince William" can't both be true.

It puts me in mind of the famous quote from the Roman author Cicero: "I wonder how two soothsayers can look one another in the face without laughing."

****************************************

The voice of an angel

New from the "It's Not A Sin When We Do It" department, we have: Christian Charismatics using a spin-off of the Ouija board to contact angels.

I was sent this story by a friend and long-time loyal reader of Skeptophilia, and my first thought was, "This can't be true."  Sadly, it is.  The same people who go on and on about how evil Ouija boards are and how you're risking your eternal soul even being in the same room with one are now saying that their Ouija boards are just fine and dandy.

The "Angel Board" is available from Amazon at the low-low-low price of $28 (plus shipping and handling).  In the product description, we're told that we can "ask any question we want, and the Angel Board will answer."  If you don't like that particular one, it turns out there are dozens of different makes and models, some costing hundreds of dollars.  Because we can't just have one company capitalizing on people's gullibility.

Interestingly, if not surprisingly, the reviews have been uniformly good.  One five-star review says:

I have been on a path of spiritual enlightenment for 1 year now.  I have two other friends who have shared this path with me. We share books, experiences, thoughts and feelings, but when one of us (not me) bought this book and “game” board to communicate with our higher-level guides or “guardian angels,” it became a turning point in my journey.  I didn’t think I was “advanced enough” or “spiritual enough” to make this thing work.  I learned, in about 2 minutes, that doubting myself was doubting God and his angels! In one evening, I met my higher guide, felt unconditional love, and knew I wasn’t alone and never had been. I was convinced, beyond all reason, of the presence of my angel.  To this date, I call him “J” as we haven’t yet tuned our energies to really work out the spelling of the name…  I asked him if “J” would be okay, and he said, “yes.”  He has answered to “J” ever since!  One evening, before I was able to acquire an “angel board” of my own,  I tried an Ouija Board.  It took several attempts before J was able to answer me, but when he did, I asked if he preferred the angel board and he responded “yes.”  We had a very difficult, short conversation that night.  The angel board is a MUST for all those who seek a closer relationship with their guardian angel, and who have not had much practice in meditation and raising their energies to a compatible level with the light bodies waiting to guide us!

It's to be hoped that when they "tune their energies" and she finds out "J's" actual name, it's not a rude shock.  It'd kind of suck if she thought she was talking to the Archangel Jophiel and it turned out she was having a conversation with, say, Jar-Jar Binks.

It bears mention, however, that not everyone is so sanguine about the Angel Board.  At the site Women of Grace, we're given the following warning:

Angel boards are just as dangerous as Ouija boards, perhaps more so because they haves [sic] the same purpose as a Ouija board – contacting “spirits” – only they pretend to be summoning guardian angels to make it seem less dangerous...  This is so dangerous on so many levels.  When a person evokes spirits of the dead, he or she is never in control because they are dealing with preternatural forces.  These are powerful beings who are possessed of super-human intelligence, strength and cunning.  Only the most naïve would think that they can control summoned spirits merely by “politely” asking them to come or go...  Needless to say, angel boards should be strictly avoided.

Over at Our Spiritual Quest, "ex medium and professional astrologer" Marcia Montenegro agrees:

Any attempt to contact or summon an angel will result in contact only with a fallen angel.  Spiritism is strongly forbidden and denounced by God and angels are spirit creatures. 

There is no example anywhere in the Bible of anyone contacting an angel.  The angels who brought messages or did other things for people in the Bible were sent at God’s command.  They were never summoned by man. 

Asking questions using this Board is the same as using a Ouija Board.  In both cases, only fallen angels, disguised as good angels, as guardian angels, or as the dead, will respond.

I never realized that borrowing from the spiritualists was such a big thing among the hyper-religious, but apparently it is.   There's even a "Christian Tarot deck," available at (surprise!) Amazon, which says that the practice if done right is "biblically consonant."  As you might imagine, this got quite a reaction, both from the people who think Tarot cards are the instrument of the devil and those who think divination is a divine gift.

Weirder still, sometimes those are the same people.  Kris Vallotton, pastor of the Bethel Church and self-styled "spiritual leader," heard people said that he and his church members were using Christian Tarot cards developed by a group called "Christalignment," and responded in no uncertain terms:

This is insane... whoever is doing this needs to repent and repent the craziness in the name of "reaching people for Christ..."  There are people who listen to our teaching and create strange and/or anti-biblical applications in our name...  [W]e need wisdom as we move into the cesspool we call the world.  Stop the craziness!

Shortly afterwards, Vallotton responded to his response in no uncertain terms:

There has been some recent concern about the ministry of Christalignment and their supposed use of “Christian tarot cards” in ministering to people at New Age festivals.  While the leaders of this ministry (Ken and Jenny Hodge) are connected with several members of our community (including being the parents to our much-loved brother, evangelist Ben Fitzgerald), Christalignment is not formally affiliated with Bethel.  We do, however, have a value for what they are seeking to accomplish.

When his followers raised hell about his apparent chumminess with occultists, Vallotton responded to the response to his response in no uncertain terms:

Let’s be clear: I was speaking against Tarot cards and their use, which I am still against.  I was addressing people who were accusing Bethel taking part in this practice.  We don’t and never have been been apart [sic] of this.  So that’s still true!  The people who were named in the article, were never named in the people’s accusations of us (that I knew of at the time) nor did I name anyone in my posts.  The article turned out to be fake news against great people who love God, don’t use Tarot cards and lead 1000s of people who do, to Christ.

So there you have it.  He's unequivocally for it except in the sense that he's unequivocally against it.

But he did get some support from one of his followers who said she thought there was nothing wrong even if these were Tarot cards, because, after all, "'Tarot' is "Torah' spelled backwards."

Predictably, I read all this with an expression like this:

My general impression is that the whole lot of it -- Tarot cards, Ouija boards, angelology, and the entire Charismatic movement -- is a lot of nonsense.  So arguing about whether a silly board game or some funny pictures printed on cheap card stock are going to put you in touch with an angel or with the Prince of Darkness is a little like arguing over whether "C-A-T" spells "dog" or "horse."

Anyhow, thanks to the loyal reader who sent me the link.  I suppose it's a good thing that this is what the hyper-Christians are currently spending their time discussing.  It's less time they'll have to spend trying to shoehorn young-Earth creationism into public school science curricula.  If that's my other option, I'll take sacred Ouija boards any day.

***************************

You can't get on social media without running into those "What Star Trek character are you?" and "Click on the color you like best and find out about your personality!" tests, which purport to give you insight into yourself and your unconscious or subconscious traits.  While few of us look at these as any more than the games they are, there's one personality test -- the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which boils you down to where you fall on four scales -- extrovert/introvert, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving -- that a great many people, including a lot of counselors and psychologists, take seriously.

In The Personality Brokers, author Merve Emre looks not only at the test but how it originated.  It's a fascinating and twisty story of marketing, competing interests, praise, and scathing criticism that led to the mother/daughter team of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers developing what is now the most familiar personality inventory in the world.

Emre doesn't shy away from the criticisms, but she is fair and even-handed in her approach.  The Personality Brokers is a fantastic read, especially for anyone interested in psychology, the brain, and the complexity of the human personality.

Playing cards with ghosts

So there's the story of the little kid who starts a snowball rolling at the top of a hill, and as it rolls it accumulates more snow, getting bigger and bigger, until finally it reaches the bottom and crushes a car or something.  Thus the coining of the term snowball effect and a cautionary lesson about getting things started that might eventually get away from you.

I feel a little like that kid this week.  Tuesday I posted about the fact that I loved it when woo-woos conducted hybridization experiments on disparate bizarre claims, and as an example talked about a guy who said he could summon UFOs by telepathy.  This generated an email from a reader, who said that if I liked that one, I'd love the guy who said, basically, that Bigfoot was elusive because quantum.  I ended that piece saying that if anyone had any further weird combos up their sleeve, for example, a recommendation that we choose our homeopathic remedies using Tarot cards, I didn't want to know about it.

This prompted a different loyal reader of Skeptophilia to send me an email that said, "I tried to find one combining Tarot cards and homeopathy, but I found this one instead.  Do I win?"

Despite my feeling of foreboding, I clicked the link.  And found myself reading about "Using Tarot Cards to Communicate With Ghosts."

Like the other two, I kept looking for some sign that this was satire, but sadly, I don't think it was.  "Tarot cards are a great way to communicate with spirits," we're told in the introduction.  "It’s because they open up your intuition, so you become receptive to the ghost’s or spirit’s message."

But then we're immediately told to be cautious.  Ghosts and spirits, apparently, can do bad stuff, so we have to speak to them sternly right from the get-go.  There are four rules one must follow:

1. Never allow the spirit to enter your mind
2. Tell the spirit it may only guide your hand to the right card
3. Tell the spirits that you have the power to end the session when you want
4. Tell it exactly how you want it to communicate or confirm a card

There are even concrete hints on how to accomplish all of this.  These include using "protective charms and stones" such as tiger's eye and hematite to keep those spirits where they belong.

Oh, and we're told that we have to do our research about what the cards mean, and be reasonable about what we ask, because "spirit communication tires out ghosts."  I'm not all that sympathetic about this, because honestly, what else do ghosts have to do?  It's not like they have day jobs, or anything.  They can nap pretty much whenever they want to.  So if I want to talk to a ghost, I'm expecting it to get up off its ectoplasmic ass and talk back.  I don't want to hear any pathetic excuses like "I'm just too sleepy tonight," or to pull out my Ouija board and have it spell out "zzzzzzzzzzzzz."

Then we're told that we should also research what ghosts might be present, and that if (for example) we suspect that there's a female ghost haunting the place, we can expect lots of feminine imagery in the cards we draw.  But then there's the caveat that we might accidentally attract a different spirit, so we might not get the cards we expect.  Which seems about right.  We will either get cards we expect, or not, every time, which certainly sounds like hard evidence of ghostly communication to me.

Then there's a bunch of stuff about thanking the ghost and making sure he's sent back to the ghost realm and cleansing the cards with spiritual detergent or something.  By this time, my eyes had kind of glazed over.  I'm thinking I may need to read a chapter or two of this book, just to recover:

Not that it'll help.  If you're looking for me, I'll be in the corner of my office, sitting on the floor, rocking and quietly sobbing.  So thanks for the cards and letters and all.  I hope you're happy.

The American political parties get a Tarot reading

I know that many of you are concerned about the upcoming presidential election in the United States.  Even many of my readers from other countries are likely to be keeping their eyes on what happens in Washington, DC, because (like it or not) the US is a major power broker in the world.  Campaigning is getting hot and heavy, and right now the race is in a statistical dead heat -- raising the tension on both sides.

Well, it will come as a great relief to all of you to know that we now have more data from which to make an educated choice.  Some professional Tarot card readers have weighed in on the topic, and have done readings for both parties so that we can find out not only what party spokespeople have to say about the issues -- we can also find out what a bunch of randomly-dealt pieces of card stock with colorful images might indicate.

Psychic ReeNee Cummins has started a group called UPredict, whose stated goal is to do psychic readings not only for people, but for political groups and for "mysterious things going on around the planet."  So Cummins and her team decided to do readings for the Republican and Democratic Parties, asking five questions of the magic cards:

• How does this party’s platform affect America?
• Is this convention’s philosophy in touch with a majority of Americans?
• Division is a problem in America – How is this convention going to affect this?
• Will there be problems in the areas around the convention?
• What will be the net effect of the convention on the American Culture?

She then assembled seven readers, including herself, and they began to deal out the cards.  So without any further ado, let's see the results!  Cummins writes:

 The first thing that is apparent about the reading done for the Republicans is the lack of Major Arcana cards in the entire reading. There were only 13 Majors for a reading that involved over 120 cards. When there are few majors in a reading, the reader will usually ask the client if they truly understand what is going on in their lives. There is usually a sad lack of understand [sic] or a major toxic ego involved when there are this small a percentage of Majors in a reading. The readers in the room talked about how there seemed to be a nostalgic element in the Republican Party that wanted to take America back to a simpler time.

Really?  The cards told you that last bit?  Or did you just look up the word "conservative" in the dictionary?

Second, the most populous card was the knights of all suites. Knights are a young, dynamic energy; but it is an uneven energy and can be taken to extremes. Again, why the "my way or the highway attitude"? Why are these people so angry? The economy was crashed in 2008 because of bad banking decisions. However the energy of the knight say that these extremes are the energy levels being exhibited towards the current situation with no reflection on what history actually is or what part they (the Republicans may have played in it).  The Reading Room talked about the war on women and that this junior high like energy would explain why the participants refused to understand that they were hurting more than helping. Again, it also explained a hypocracy [sic] towards attending shows in strip clubs in Tampa where tents had been put up to protect the identity of customers.

Okay, so it's becoming pretty clear that most of the "Reading Room" psychics are not card-carrying GOP members.  So let's turn to what they said about the Democrats:

First, the Major Arcana cards reappeared with the Democratic reading. In fact, the Major's were heavy in this reading. Heavy Major Arcana cards mean that what is going on is very important on a spiritual level. It does not predict that this side will win, it says that they will accept the will of the people, and then fight on for the best conclusion.  The Project TAROT Moment Cards were mainly Major Arcana. The first, and most prominent was The Devil. I know, for conservatives that is enought [sic] to make them weep tears of joy; but that would only be for the ill-informed. The Devil deals with a hell of the client's own making. A mental construct that has no physical component in reality. Now who is making a living hell for this administration? Could it be the Republican's decision to make this administration a one term administration? Could their "junior high" attitude about society explain the bullying that has gone on in the media and between people? Could they have turned this President into their own Devil - only to have people discover that their reality is not the one shared by most of the country.

Myself, I find it a little ironic that these people are talking about "reality" while blathering on about a bunch of playing cards that can magically tell you what's going on behind the scenes in the US political arena.

The adults came back into the room - we had a lot of queens and kings of all suites. The idea of introspection to do the right thing and then lead the people in the manner came out strong. But the inner work of the queens was just as important as the leadership of the king. The fact that there was both kings AND queens shows that while men and women are different, there is a need for both genders and the wisdom they bring to the table. The final Project TAROT moments happened with The Justice card and The Fool. The Justice card was a welcome sight. Yes, Justice will be served, and things will be straightened out. However, the Justice card has it's [sic] sword in the air. It can cut the crap and move us forward, or it can slice and dice people who are on the wrong side of history. The last card - The Fool - back to a card of hope and change. Is that what America wants?

Oh, clearly.  You can't argue with the cards.  All-knowing, connected to the mystical energies of the universe, all that sort of thing.

Or, just maybe -- the interpretation of the cards was reflecting the hopes, desires, political leanings, and (in some cases) prior knowledge of the "readers."

This is my problem with the majority of self-proclaimed psychics -- their readings don't have any sort of scientifically-admissible controls, and yet they rail against the skeptics as being "closed-minded" and "unwilling to consider that there might be more to the universe than what the scientists tell us."  Is that so?  Are we really as blind as all that?  Is there something more affecting outcomes than the known physical components of the universe?

Well, if you want anyone to take you seriously, you have to play by the rules.  Show me that a computer, programmed with the meanings of the Tarot cards, could do a card throw for the Democrats and Republicans, and come to the same conclusions as your "Reading Room" team did.  Or even go so far as to have your "readers" do a second throw for each party, and show that it gives you substantially the same results.  Do something that will convince me that Tarot card readings aren't just clever people imposing their own slant on something that is essentially a random arrangement of pieces of card stock.

I'm guessing they'd probably refuse, however, and simply accuse me of having "a sad lack of understand" and "a major toxic ego."

The woo-woos go high tech

I suppose it was only a matter of time.  The woo-woos have gotten hold of high tech.

I find this a kind of curious idea, given how they harp so continuously on how their beliefs are Ancient Magick Passed Down From The Elders -- it never occurred to me that they would jump on the "app" bandwagon.  But given the utility, ease of use, and low cost of your typical iPhone or iPad app, it was bound to happen.

So, put away your crystals and dowsing rods and sacred knives, and get out your electronic device of choice.  Here's a few of the hundreds of apps I found. 

Rune Magic ($2.99) - "Rune Magic is a state of the art application for rune divination and studying. Ask runes about your destiny, fortune, love, health and business.  The application provides four types of runic divination with the detailed descriptions of rune meanings.  The runes will tell you about the past, the present and the future, and also will give an advice about your problems.  The application is also perfect for studying runes.  A strict compliance with all magical rules makes application predictions highly accurate. Try it, you would be impressed! The application is on sale, it is the best time to buy it."

Ouija Board version 6.2 ($1.99) - "A talking board, generically referred as "Ouija Board" and also known as spirit board, witch board, oracle board, mystic board or channeling board, is any flat board printed with letters, numbers, and other symbols, to which a planchette or movable indicator points, answering questions from people at a séance. The fingers of the participants are placed on the planchette that is moved by the spirits about the board to spell out messages. These boards are considered to be a spiritual gateway used to contact the dead or to receive information from beyond."

New Age Stone and Crystal Guide ($3.99) - "New Age Stones and Crystals Guide provides metaphysical property information for hundreds of stones and crystals. Search through indexes of stone names or property types to find the exact stone needed for your self development. The most extensive virtual stone and crystal guide available, this application identifies stones helpful for improvement of spiritual, mental and psychological aspects."

Erzulie's Voodoo ($3.99) - "Learn all about the secrets of Voodoo & Vodou with the world’s FIRST authentic Voodoo app, from Erzulie’s Authentic Voodoo in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Erzulie’s Voodoo “Advanced” app delves into the roots, detailed history, advanced spiritual concepts, Vodou rituals and magic of this vast and mysterious tradition, written by highly experienced, initiated, Vodou priests and priestesses.  Erzulie’s Voodoo Advanced App offers comprehensive information on Voodoo beliefs, performing your own authentic Voodoo spells, extensive sections on the Divine Voodoo Spirits (Lwa), how they are served in Vodou, and their Catholic Counterparts plus Magical Veve’s (sacred symbols of the Spirits), Spiritual Possession, New Orleans Voodoo, Palo Mayombe, Voodoo dolls, fetishes, Voodoo magic and much more... Perform your very own powerful Voodoo Love Spells, Wealth Spells and Banishing Spells with our extensive collection of authentic Voodoo rituals found only in the Erzulie’s Voodoo Advanced App, complete with their very own detailed instructions and resources."

Goddess Inspiration Oracle (free) - "Get inspired! The Goddess Inspiration Oracle offers a free one card oracle reading to grant you guidance for your day. It features eighty goddesses from around the world, all whom offer inspiration and guidance. These powerful feminine role models range from Abeona, goddess of gateways, to the Zorya, each of whom are represented in this app with gorgeous art and inspiring, well-researched text... Since time immemorial, humans have invoked the wisdom of goddesses by using oracles. Oracles provide an experience of synchronicity, a term created by Jung to describe a series of random events that connect within us to gain a deeper meaning. By doing so, the oracle helps us release information we already possess, thus allowing inspiration to strike when we most need it."

iTarot Classic (free) - "iTarot Classic provides straightforward two-card readings --"Daily Tarot" and "Love Tarot"-- with a streamlined design that makes consulting the Tarot effortless.
Features:
• Draw new cards with a simple shake
• Display only a one-card reading, if desired
• Use only the Major (or only the Minor) Arcana
• Allow or prohibit reversed cards
• Draw "Daily" and "Love" cards independently, from separate decks"


And those are just six out of hundreds.  I'm kind of overwhelmed, and not just because I'm a Luddite.  I just never would have thought that the whole electronic media thing would have caught on with these folks.  My question is: do they really think it's the same thing?  I mean, isn't the basis of these beliefs that when you handle the crystals, Tarot cards, rune stones, or whatever, the act of touching the objects is what is creating some kind of mystical interconnectedness of being?  Can putting your fingers on a touch screen made in China really accomplish the same thing?

Maybe we should try a different app to see if we can get an answer to this question.  How about:

Magic 8 Ball ($0.99) - "Magic 8 Ball™ has all the answers!  And now it’s available for your iOS device!   Ask it any yes or no question, shake your device (or tap the screen) and, “without a doubt,” it will give you an answer to life’s most complicated questions.  Inquire about romance, friendship, school, work…whatever! "


Let's see...  "Reply hazy, try again."


I shoulda known.