Phantastic Psychics

Yesterday our office had the pleasure of meeting the fabulous famous Psychic-to-the-Stars CHAR MARGOLIS. People went goo gah as she walked around the office with her entourage. Her presence caused quite a stir, mostly because people believe in her "powers" and think that when she brushes up against them in the halls that she’ll magically stop and give them a reading right then and there.

I admit I was curious too. After all, I’m a believer in the supernatural and its ability to penetrate the lives of people in the natural world. I have come to the supernatural through Jesus Christ in such a way, that I cannot deny its existence. But I also believe that anything “real” can also be imitated. The flip side of the coin -- yin and yang, good and evil, real and fake – you see what I mean…

As the Char crowd walked around the office, I came to realize that they were in the office looking for tapes. They were trying to locate tapes of footage of the upcoming ET special. So the obvious question is, “Why can’t she pick up on the location of the tapes? Isn't she getting anything at all?”

With my curiosity peaked, I Googled Ms. Char and read a couple transcripts of her ‘cold readings’ and a method began to emerge that I was able to distinguish. I found that she always reads the same way. And she’s surprisingly wrong more often then right. Here are the links. You can you see the technique.

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/09/lkl.00.html
http://www.randi.org/jr/121401.html (scroll down for analysis)

So after studying her method I was ready to be a fabulous psychic myself… Using her techniques I gave a reading to Stacey at work and it went VERY well. As Char, I started out with letters, and then was able to guess the name of her mother. Then by Stacey’s reactions I was able to go further. Even when I was “off” or wrong in a prediction, I was able to turn it to my advantage by pressing the issue until Stacey filled in the gaps for me. Once I knew she was hooked I could say anything I wanted. But I HAD to act confident.

You see, I appear to be correct, but Stacey is doing all the work! She was amazed at my “powers” and then I promptly began to tell her that I was duping her using Char’s time-tested method. I was essentially lying to her and allowing her to take me on whatever journey she wanted to hear… Not wanting to believe she had been duped. She told me she still believes in Char and that she wasn’t that amazed by my reading. SIGH... I think it’s more about the person getting the “read” than it is about the powers of the psychics… Nobody wants to admit to being duped. If I let you lie to me then you can. It’s simple.

Char was actually this middle-aged Midwesterner from Michigan who couldn't find a beta tape, even with an army of people looking. I realized that without her phsychic shtick – she’d probably married to an overweight couch potato with two alcoholic kids. Sad.