Several years ago I read The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Within those pages, I learned about and started to follow the Amazing (James) Randi. A devoted skeptic and debunker of anything paranormal, he’s been offering a $1,000,000 prize to anyone, anywhere that can do anything that he can’t explain rationally.
I’ve been receiving sporadic updates from his foundation for years and this past week he published the script given to Miss Cleo’s “psychics” that helped Miss Cleo earn many millions of dollars. To be precise, “Miss Cleo” was actually not a psychic. Nor was she even Jamaican. It was her promoters that swindled so many scientifically-challenged Americans out of their money. Nonetheless, a simple and clever formula was implemented to convince a caller that they were dealing with a real psychic.
From the longer article that can be seen on Randi’s online post, I found these two paragraphs interesting. They remind me much of the astrology reports that my mother gets regularly. They are perfectly crafted to give the appearance of being specific while actually using flattering statements and the most nebulous vagaries.
(if caller is a male)
Now in marriage, something is going to happen where you are going to end up being very successful, and it is all going to be because of your partner. It’s not that your partner is going to do it for you or push you to do it. But you see your partner has a very feminine influence as a matter of fact many people consider this person to be perfect and that’s because of a tendency to nurture, and that is why people love being around your partner and when your spouse loves someone that tends to be an unconditional love. Now like I said… it is not going to be that this person is going to do it for you, or push you to do it… but it is going to be the atmosphere, the atmosphere that is created in the home… the atmosphere with the unconditional love, and the nurturing that is going to have a lot of influence over you and motivate you to your best foot forward to do whatever it takes to become successful.
(if the caller is a female)
Now in marriage, I see that something is going to happen where your husband is going to be very successful, and it is going to be all because of you. Now, it is not going to be that you are going to push him to do it, or that you are going to be doing it for him. But you see… one thing about you is that you have a very strong feminine influence… as a matter of fact many people out there really consider you to be a perfect woman, and that’s because you have a tendency to nurture people, and that’s why people love being around you. And when you love someone that love is an unconditional love. Now like I said… it is not that you are going to do it for him, or push him to do it… but it is going to be because of the atmosphere, the atmosphere that you create in the home… the atmosphere with the unconditional love, and the nurturing that is going to have a lot of influence over him and motivate him to put his best foot forward and do whatever it takes to become successful.
Check out Randi’s article if you’d like to read more about this and other scams he’s following.