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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 1963)
Family Weekly j February S, 1963 - When this reporter rvent seer-hunting with a hidden tape recorder, her findings included some amusing phonies plus a few About Fortunetellers rZ By marya Saunders " were eerily accurate The Truth I'M fascinated by fortunetellers in fact, most women are. Ah a result, fortunetelling is a 100,000,000-a-yenr business in the United States. In my city alone, there are such diverse practitioners as a psychometrist who locates lost objects, a medium who locates dead relatives, and a woman who reads feet ' "But do people really believe in fortunetellers?" I have asked friends. "Can occult powers actually shape our lives or tell us who we are?" At some time or other, we have all been told about seers with unaccountable knowledge of one's past and amazing predictions about one's future which have come true. These stories of "marvelous" fortunetellers have been repeated so often and so convincingly that FAMILY weekly assigned me the job of trying to find out the truth. I arranged to visit a series of well-known for tunetellers as a typical customer. The only dif ference would be a small tape recorder hidden in my purse wnich would preserve an irrefutable transcript of each encounter. A celebrated palmist was first on my list. "Shake hands with me, my dear. I can tell a lot from your handshake," she said after -e met and nut down at a small table in an exclusive restau rant. "Are you in your twenties?" I nodded yen. My mouth was dry with nervousness ; I was afraid she would discover the recorder. "Now relax, my dear, and put your big purse on this chair. Your fate is in your hand, you know, and you have nothing to worry about." she said soothingly. She turned my palms up and examined the iiihra under tile itiet-tl tl'ww tit Iter flashlight. "I see you are a mature, realistic young lady and sensible and kind to people. Are you married, dear?" I shook my head no. "Well, you will be. And you'll make a good wife and mother." She explained that the lines on my left hand showed my possibilities at birth, while my right hand showed what I had done with my life. Apparently, my right hand was filled with good things. "You are quiet and efficient," she told me. "You'd make a fine nurse. Do you have a job, dear?" I answered no. Swiftly, she considered this reply and switched to a new line of predictions. "You know, you're quite an artistic young lady creative and versa tile. You would do well in some branch of the applied arts." I tried to kick the chair holding my purse closer to her. She was saying 'so many things, and I wasn't sure the tape recorder would pick it all up. "May I take notes?" I asked. "No. You can remember the high points." Here was the key to her success, I decided later when I played back the tape of our conver sation. Most customers would remember the ad jectives that appealed to them and forget the inconsistencies in the prognostication. I was fun loving but reserved, an idealist but practical, I got discouraged but not too discouraged. Her encouraging words added up to a lovable char acter for every client. It was a "marvelous" formula. I left the restaurant glowing happily. A ftraphotoglst Sounds Off Still glowing the next morning. I opened my mail and read, "Per Miss Saunders: You are rebellious, emotionally undisciplined, and unrea listic about yourself and life." The stinging words were part of the answer to a letter I'd written to a world-famous graphologist. Graphology is the study of handwriting and claims to see your character in the way you dot an "i" or cross a "t." "You arc basically not suited for wifehood or motherhood," continued her analysis. "You are irritable and resentful, and you don't like peo ple." When I finished the letter, I felt stunned. The graphologist was a widely acclaimed teacher. Could this really be me? Had the palmist been so wrong? For the rest of the day, I brooded over my faults. Only late in the evening did a friend finally convince me that I wasn't really such a terrible person. "Look," he said, "the graphologist may have been in a bad mood the day she wrote this. She probably only saw the dark side of your handwriting. Why don't you write her again, sign a different name, and compare the results?" "Well, perhaps it's rationalizing," I said, "but maybe you're right Perhaps she was tired and needed a vacation. I'll write a second letter." My next stop on the soothsaying circuit was a visit with a reputedly "brilliant" numerologist A small, sprightly lady with frizzy red hair, she asked my birth date, counted the letters in my name, and began to scribble down numbers. It took her several minutes of adding and sub tracting to find my life pattern. Finally, sne looked up, pleased. "Your ego number is six, a feminine number," she announced. "Your emotional genie is number five, and your lower mind or sixth sense has great uniting power able to reduce discord to harmony." For three hours, she talked while I stared in myaii'tiatiuu. Some of the more comprehensible things she told me were that I would have six children and that I gave people siv chances. At one point she said gentiy, "I usually don't give the bad news until the end. But you must be careful. Your present name attracts fly-by-night people. It would be better if you added a middle name or at least an initial. 'S' might do." She then gave me a chart containing my life pattern and a handful of mimeographed daily lessons which, when followed scrupulously, would assure me a happy life. I could feel her genuine concern for me. She was worried, for example, about my groping blindly in the universe. I was so young and had so little time in the pat to 4 family W !. February J, I ft)
