There are two kinds of “psychic” information: first, describing the type of person one is (presumably without knowing them) and second, predicting actual events in that person’s future. Let’s examine the usefulness of these two, both separate and together.

Astrological texts are mostly concerned with the former; that is, delineating the characteristics of a particular sign (of whatever astrology) and the compatibility of different signs with each other. Printed daily or monthly horoscopes are widespread but very generic, no specific claims about events in one’s life are usually made.

On the other hand, in-person fortune telling and palm reading focuses significantly more on futuristic claims and less on the characteristics of the client. Also, the few characteristics that are put forth by a live medium were, in my experience, almost entirely situational and current; that is, “you are stressed right now” versus “you are a creative person.”

The ostensible reason for the declaration of characteristics is to establish trust, i.e., belief in the power of the source, so that the prediction of the future will seem more reliable. Why, then, did my palmist and fortune teller ignore this trust-building step? My first guess is because neither was a particularly good psychic, which I will elaborate on in a moment. But my other dilemma is why so many people find an assertion of their own characteristics so profound. The only possible reaction is either to reply “yes, that’s me exactly” or “no, that’s not me at all.” If you already know your own personality, how useful is it for a book to put it forth to you for verification? There are two reasons I see: one, it establishes the trust in accuracy which allows the person to try to figure out the personalities of other people based on the information, and two, it strokes the ego, as usually only positive characteristics are mentioned—and who doesn’t like to be told they are generous, loyal, and creative? “No, that’s not me at all, I’m a terribly stingy, fickle, and dull person!”

Given that dissection of the silliness of the motives behind listed characteristics, I must say that the lists of characteristics were far more accurate than the live readings. Obviously, since the live readings were more oriented towards predicting the future, I can’t yet be sure how wrong they were, but I am quite positive that not only were they guessing about many things, but they often weren’t even very educated guesses. For example, my fortune teller had the audacity to argue with me instead of being adaptable to the fact that she had made a mistake. As she looked at the cards, she said she saw that someone close to me had died recently. I said, “No, no one I know has died in several years, and that last person was a high school teacher.” She said, “Well, close in heart, not necessarily close in distance. An aunt, perhaps, or a cousin…?” “No. No one has died. I have been to exactly one funeral in my entire life, and it was that teacher’s, 3 years ago. I don’t even have any friends who have lost relatives recently.” “Well there must have been someone.” “No one.” “Well, she’s an old woman, whoever she is that did die, and she’s watching over you.” Some random woman I’ve never met is claiming to be close to me and watching my every move? Creepy—there are laws against that, you know.

This same fortune teller later postulated that I was waiting for a very important letter. Again, not at all. Not in any way, shape, or form. This time she saved her blunder a little, trying to talk her way into abstracting “letter” into a promotion at work. She also predicted that I wanted a new car, but she could see my piece-of-trash car quite easily from where we were sitting, and I noticed her glance over directly at it before making that statement. My palmist was much less egregiously wrong, but only because she was much more vague. She attempted none of the traditional palm line interpretations (such as those on the website, which were surprisingly accurate) but instead said she saw generic things like I was stressed, classes were suffering because of it (my backpack was sitting next to me), and when asked where I would have to live (there’s a possibility I may have to move to either Houston or Dallas in August for reasons beyond my control) she said she saw me in Austin for a “little while longer,” but that she also maybe saw me in a bigger city—or perhaps, a smaller one. Let’s cover all our bases, shall we? She reiterated a bigger city was a definite possibility when she saw my reactions, though I tried to hide them throughout the reading.

Needless to say, I was not impressed by the palmist or the fortune teller. Both made extremely generic and waffling statements about my future, and neither ever established any credibility. Apparently, the presence of my body did nothing to aid in the vision of my future, and quite possibly muddied it. The examination of my body from afar, however, using the palmistry website, was surprisingly accurate, specifically the fate line’s prediction of pursuing two careers at once, since that is in fact something I am doing and it isn’t a common thing for someone to do. Also, much of the reading for the fingers may be ignored, since I really wasn’t sure what kind of finger shape I had or what constituted a relatively long or short finger.

The numerology was even worse than the fortune teller, because at least the fortune teller made bold statements (which just happened to be wrong), while the numerology reading described about every person on the planet—“developing tolerance, compassion, and patience will help you achieve your goals” is obviously something that only applies to people with my birthday. As is indicated by the highlighting, nothing in the reading is either strongly correct or strongly incorrect, because there’s nothing strong about any of it.

One of the main things almost all of my books and the palmistry site as well had in common was the assertion that I have a strong sex drive, which is very true. I am a Scorpio, a sign renowned for its aggression and dominance in the bedroom, and apparently being a Monkey in the Chinese astrology, and the characteristics of my fingers and heart line also agree with that. Because of the obvious relation between sex and the body, I chose two specifically sexual astrology books, Sex Signs and The Intimate Astrology. The former was more accurate than the latter, but Sex Signs also included a lengthy section on Scorpio’s fetishes, not a single one of which applied to me. I was particularly impressed with the “type of man Scorpio woman needs” section in Sex Signs, because it not only clearly delineated the exact reasons my last ex-boyfriend was so wrong for me, but then named all the characteristics that make my current boyfriend much healthier for me. This section took me aback with its accuracy in the same way the two careers prediction from my fate line did. The corresponding section in Intimate Astrology suffered from that affliction of all psychic texts, it basically said things were more or less happy for all matches, with no real details that mattered. Nothing in this book overall was new or insightful; all of its predictions had already been made in full by other books in addition to other claims which were lacking in the Intimate Astrology.

The Ultimate Birthday Book was worse, however. Not a single thing it said was interestingly true, only the basic, “I like to think I’m rational and perceptive.” Checking on friends’ birthdays produced similar inaccuracies.

The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need was fairly insightful as well, even if it was only in the standard ‘verification-of-traits-I-already-knew-I-had’ way. This was the only book that brought out the aspect of giving in my nature; that is, “only happy giving life-force to others” and “only once Scorpio finds a commitment in love can she reach true potential in other areas.” I am completely capable of living my life entirely for close friends and lover, and being quite happy doing so. Most books focused on the inherent power aspects, but only this one mentioned that power over oneself is an even stronger power.

I am not inclined to believe anything about the Chinese Astrology, for one simple reason—groups are only separated by year. Supposedly, every single person growing up the same age as I would have the same characteristics. My experience with other people tells me this is so false it is laughable. I can possibly buy the accuracy of some characteristics in monthly astrology for one simple reason: the female body has yearly hormone cycles as well as monthly, and it is possible that the stage of the mother’s cycle during key developmental stages might determine personality and subconsciously rooted behaviors. For this same reason I can accept the accuracy of a palm reading on the basis of my body’s creases, growths, and lines, but not on my palmist’s “skill” of staring at it and predicting specific events in the future. But to declare that all people born in an entire year have the same personality is just silly. Even in the face of a relatively large amount of accuracy in traditional astrology books, I can still only go so far as to ground it in scientific terms; I believe “the stars” are merely a representation scheme to categorize people.