Psychics here and there

PART 1

"The housing crisis will deepen, the country could fall into a depression and laid-off workers may need to start their own business"

---According to Roxanne Usleman, a self proclaimed psychic (sorry for the redundancy, they are all self proclaimed - or at least proclaimed by others that are self proclaimed in being able to tell if someone is psychic or not)

Apparently, Roxanna can see the financial future, and even give business advice!

According to this article, 'Business is good, she says. Usleman sees five or six clients a day and charges up to $135 a pop for sessions that usually last more than an hour.'

Thankfully she was able to foresee that the historically low interest rates that began a few years ago along with the quasi-public Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae that encouraged home ownership and sold toxic bonds all around the world would lead to a financial meltdown, and subsequently tough decisions concerning what to do about it.

...wait, no she didn't.

I guess the crystal ball has been a little cloudy over the past few years, and she could not quite see the perfect storm of a financial crisis that was creeping up on us.

Of course, psychics will usually give excuses to these sort of reactions, such as:

"psychic powers aren't an exact science, it takes years to build them up, so I'm still learning"

or

"simply because we are psychic doesn't mean that we can see EVERYTHING"

or

"I can only convey what the spirit realm gives me, I'm more of a medium of communication"

Whatever they say, they never provide proof that what they're doing is legitimate. Eventually, at least one or two predictions they make will come true because they are built from common sense and are numerous. Probability has it that it would be remarkable if none of them came true.

PART 2

This brings me to the Athens psychics. There is a new 'psychic Saturday' event going on at the Athens Book Center all day on Saturdays for the next few months. In response, the OU Skeptics recreated the pamphlet skeptic magazine sent out recently (10 steps to becoming a psychic) that give an overview of the mentalism involved in psychic 'readings.' We stood outside of the Athens Book Center for a few hours handing them out to passers by and those coming in and out of the store. Although it was a little chilly out we had a good time.

The friends of the psychics who were hanging around were decent to us, and defended their beliefs to us. Everything was alright, and even though they were thrilled about what we were doing - they were atleast cordial.

However, at one point, a women who was there absolutely insisted that one of us get a reading. She was basically telling us 'don't knock it till you you've tried it'. We agreed (as it was at no cost to us), but only one could go inside. The man (who we never got to meet) who was giving the readings inside said he had nothing to prove, but would do it anyway. So, we sent Amanda (our beautfil Treasurer, and my special lady friend) in for the free reading.

Once inside, she went back to the psychic reading room with the guy and they proceeded. He asked her if she ever had any turmoil in a relationship. She was a little stumped (the answer is clearly yes - I mean - how could someone make it this far in life without it?). He realized this was too vague and rephrased it to 'recently.' She said, 'well, couldn't that apply to anyone?'

And he yelled at her and kicked her out!

"I don't want to waste my energy and my time on you!"

Jerk!

Apparently Amanda has negative energy just pouring off of her.

Classic excuse, guy - "your skepticism is messing with my 'energy'"

So, I feel like it was a semi-success and we had fun talking to everyone who came out.

Look for us next weekend as well, we will be back if the 'psychics' are