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apologia esoteriCa
AlWAYs HAve A Better AnsWer: HoW to deFend A cold reAdIng.
By Gypsy
“It’s all bullshit,” the sarcastic buxom redhead
quipped as she called me out on reading her
tarot cards. “I wrote a paper about this stuff last
semester entitled, a history of Fortune telling and
the Sociological Effects on the masses.”
“Wow, that’s amazing,” I stated, knowing my nor-
mal routine stack wouldn’t work on this one. she
wasn’t going to start telling me her dreams and
demons just because I cold-read her tarot for-
tune. she was a tougher nut to crack, an intellec-
tual, like me. And strangely I was more attracted
to her because of it.
“Is this what you do? go around reading girls’ tar-
ot to get their phone numbers?” she was drilling
into me again, probing for cracks in the founda-
tion of my game. But, all the while she was do-
ing it with a slight devious smile. My calibration
said she was interested, or else she would’ve just
walked away, instead of verbally fencing.
“no, it’s more than that. Allow me to explain.”
I’d been here before with my back pushed against
a wall by analytical women that just didn’t com-
pletely swallow my “gypsy” routine. they had
deeper questions and they knew that the an-
swers weren’t in my cards or their palms. But
what they never knew is that I had the key to
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unraveling their analytical minds buried deep in
the history of the esoteric arts.
All esoteric arts across cultures, languages, reli-
gions, and times have the common denominator
that they serve as devices for psychological in-
vestigation. the modern field of psychology was
born in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt founded
the first laboratory dedicated to psychological
research at leipzig university. Prior to this, out-
side of religion and philosophy, humanity was
on its own to seek answers to the anxieties that
plagued daily life and for council on the weighty
decisions that must be made.
the esoteric arts evolved to fill this void encom-
passing diverse types, from the cliché crystallo-
mancy, seeing the future in a crystal ball, to the
involved zi Wei dou shu, the combined art of
reading chinese astrology along with constella-
tions to determine one’s fate path. the point was
that for most people distraught about the pres-
ent, worrisome about the future, or concerned
about the past these methods brought them
peace so that they could lead fulfilling lives.
the esoteric device in every varying art is re-
placeable. It is required only as a root designed
to draw individuals out of their mind to reveal to
the fortune teller their problems. In the scholarly
article Social meanings of the Occult, by danny l.
and lin Jorgensen it is stated that when decipher-
ing life problems people have “many possible
paths to addressing recurrent problems, seeking
solutions, creating identities, and associating on
the basis of common beliefs. While some people
are inclined to do this on a casual basis or as a
matter of entertainment, other people make it a
career or a way of life.” one could easily replace
the incense and tarot cards of a gypsy with the
leather couch and dream journal of a psycho-
therapist, both inducing similar effects. In good
fortune telling there is no actual reading of the
future. the real art is in drawing out someone’s
questions and the inherent anxieties and answers
that are attached to those questions in the mind.
Based on these philosophies I’ve never thought
of the esoteric arts as ways to predict an indi-
vidual’s future. What I do view them as is a quick
way to get to the mental meat of someone you
just encountered. normally, people aren’t apt to
dissect their fears, desires, and secrets with a ran-
dom person they meet at a bar. this means that
generally speaking a routine of boring conversa-
tions volleys, sometimes dragged out over weeks,
occurs before you really get to know someone.
It’s almost improper by our social morays to ap-
proach a woman and say, “tell me what you want
the most from life.”
But, if you approach with a tarot deck and tell
her to “Ask the cards a question that is dear to
your life” then that’s a different story. suddenly
you have broken down a barrier between two
people immediately sharing their real selves with
one another. the next time you find yourself be-
ing busted on a cold read by and intelligent skep-
tic feel free to paraphrase my thoughts here. this
intellectual diatribe is a dHv in itself.