Why You Shouldn't Trust Your Psychic

Everyone who frequents psychics and fortune tellers knows than many people don't believe in that kind of clairvoyance and divination.  They have a few friends, family members, or acquaintances who tell them what an idiotic waste of money it is.  It does not phase them though.  They keep doing it, and they keep believing it.  I want to show you why you should not trust your psychic even if you are positive that he or she can actually see your future.

First, a disclaimer: I don't believe that psychics or fortune tellers can actually see your future or talk to your dead ancestors.  Harry Houdini tried to find one that could, and he managed to prove a great many of them to be frauds.  He never found a legitimate one.  Statistically speaking, this is evidence that even if there are legitimate psychics, they are extremely rare, even among those who claim to be psychic.  Most psychics are merely good information gatherers.  They learn as much as they can about you, which gives them enough information to guess at your future with better than average odds.  This said, I am going to approach this from the point of view that most psychics are legitimate.

Let's start by discussing why your psychic tells people their futures.  Is it for money?  A psychic needs to make a living, and most psychics charge money for a "reading."  Even those that don't charge directly are generally getting paid for it.  For example, a psychic on a television show that gives free readings on the show is still getting paid by the network.  This covers most psychics, but maybe there are some that are doing it for fame instead of money.  They might give free readings, but they are doing because they want your respect and admiration, and because they expect you to tell your friends about it, increasing the psychics fame.

Now, is this really a problem?  It is.  Imagine this: Your psychic is doing a reading on you.  She sees you acting in a play that someone is recording.  She sees that recording end up on YouTube.  Now, she knows that you are interested in acting (she is a legitimate psychic, of course she knows).  Unfortunately, she does not see any acting in real movies in your future.  The thing is, if she tells you, "In your future, you will act in a few plays that will get on YouTube, but you won't actually be in any real movies," she will almost certainly loose your business and your respect.  She has a serious dilemma.  She can tell you exactly what she saw, and loose income or fame (and if she does this for everyone, she might end up homeless or with a bad reputation), or she can say things that are technically accurate, but which she knows you will misconstrue to mean more than it really does.  So, she tells you that she sees you working in the movie industry.  (It got recorded and put on YouTube, so that makes it a movie, right?)

Another major problem is moral dilemmas.  What happens if your psychic reads your future and discovers that you are going to make a mistake in a few days that will ultimately cause hundreds of people to suffer and die?  What if she also sees an alternate future where you die before the mistake is made, and the disaster does not occur?  Does she tell you the real future, or does she lie and tell you something that will end in your death?  What if one of her family members is affected?  What if the choice is between you causing hundreds of people to die or one of her family members dying?  How can you be certain that she is not going to choose the path that causes you harm?  What happens when a real psychic runs into a serious conflict of interest like this?

This brings up the last major problem.  A real psychic knows how you will be affected by what she tells you.  This means that she has some control over your actions.  Perhaps there is no future in which you would murder someone.  That would mean that she could not tell you anything that would cause you to commit murder.  Maybe there is a future in which you would loose your job and become homeless.  Maybe there is a future where you would cheat on your spouse.  Maybe there is a future where you would end up on jail for several years.  Maybe there is a future where you would end up seriously addicted to meth or heroin.  Maybe one of these futures comes out far better for the psychic, and she chooses to tell you things that will cause you to end up in that future.  In other words, when you are getting a reading from a psychic, you could be letting that psychic control your future.

What it comes down to is that it does not actually matter if your psychic is legitimate or not.  If she can truly see the future, she knows how you will react to what she tells you about it.  If your reaction to the truth would be harmful to her, she will misrepresent it or even lie about it.  She may leave out important things, because you would react badly.  She might tell you something that will cause you to act in a way that would harm you.  Knowing the future is a huge burden, and it is one that is incredibly easy to abuse

Before you trust your psychic, ask yourself this: If she had to pick between saving your life and saving the live of a member of her family, who would she choose?  If you cannot trust her to choose you over her family member, then every time you get a reading, you are putting yourself on the edge of that cliff and making a bet that her family member is not there with you.