“But, Cosmic!” you say. “You usually write about the Lord, or about language, or about language and the Lord! Have you lost your mind?”
Nah. Because I don’t really want you to meddle in psychic affairs. I want this: for you to recognize how some people … so-called psychics, TV charlatans, even “deceitful workmen disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:13) … can use language to pretend to wield marvelous powers and work wonders. I want you to see their false “miracles” and "insights" for the very basic word tricks they are.
And not to be controversial, but mostly I’m talking to women today. Ladies, we are the ones, by which I mean those of our sex, who pump the most money into psychic hotlines and astrology readings and New Age claptrap. We are the ones who get a special advisory from the Apostle Paul to avoid the godless deceivers who seem to be apostles, but who creep in and prey on the weak among us, promising us special learning that never really helps us arrive at a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:6-7).
So get your Godly girl on and grasp how we get beguiled.
* * *
I sat in a church three years ago, watching the antics of a visiting preacher who had whipped the congregation to an emotional high. As the excitement subsided, the preacher said, “The Lord is urging me now, urging, there is a woman, a woman whose name begins with an M … does that mean anything to anyone? A special blessing for a woman, an M ...” Two woman came forward, one who said her name was Michelle, another who said she’d been praying for her hospital-bound mother, Marie. The visiting preacher had a special message from God for both of the women. The congregation returned to a praise frenzy. Every warning bell in my head went off.
Point 1: A woman whose name begins with M? Did God not know the whole name when “He” spoke to the preacher?
Point 2: Two women went up when one was called upon?
I knew in an instant that I was watching a Mentalist performance, not a manifestation of God’s power. The visiting preacher was using one of the most basic techniques of psychic performances. He had a willing audience [excited believers], dangled a small bit of general information [the letter M for any female anywhere], and willing women provided the specific details [Marie, oh, and also Michelle], allowing the audience to ignore a clear error [more than one woman] and credit Mentalist Preacher with miraculous powers [return to praise frenzy].
With tricks like that, you don’t even need psychic powers or messages from the Lord. You just let the willing shills do the work for you. Their normal senses make up for your lack of a sixth one. Let the dupes do the work.
“For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” (Matt. 24:24)
* * *
And that's all you need to know to be a psychic.
“But Cosmic,” you ask, “can is be as simple as all that?”
Good question, and not one with an easy yes vs. no answer. It appears simple from the listener’s viewpoint. Behind the scenes, though, the charlatan is doing things with language that have effects you might not suspect.
Let me show you how it works. Let’s pretend I’m your neighborhood psychic, and you’ve just plopped down thirty bucks for a half hour session with me.
Indulge me here, it’s a teaching point.
I'm going to give you a general reading, just to build your confidence that I really am a psychic who's in touch with your inner feelings. Can you smell the sweetness of the incense in my slightly darkened room? I'm talking to YOU now ... not the person at the other computer, not to the Internet in general. To you, [INSERT NAME]. Open your heart. Here's something I know about you, [INSERT NAME], by reading your soul:
Deep down, you truly ARE self-confident. When it comes to your own areas of expertise ... and you have several ... you really KNOW what you know, and you have the insight to recognize the things you don't know. You have a strong capacity for improving upon anything that catches your interest, although you don't let yourself get bogged down. Here's my first bit of advice to you, what the spirits are advising you: Be careful not to let your confidence come across to others as arrogance. The spirit world can see that you did that recently, and you are right to feel concerned about that.
Can you think of a time recently when your confidence came across as arrogance? Bet you can. Am I amazing, or what? Is there anything I said above that you could disagree with? Isn't that really what you're like?
Of course it’s what you’re like. Consider the alternative:
Deep down, you're a sniveling coward. You don't know diddly-squat, and you couldn't improve a darned thing, even if you had a real desire to. Face it, whenever you open your mouth, people know you for the arrogant boob you are. The spirits don’t want to talk to you, they only hang with cool people.
Showing you the exact opposite of your “psychic reading” makes it clear how nearly anyone – especially those who voluntarily went to the psychic for a personal revelation – would accept a bunch of general words as a collection of probing insights. We want the psychic to know us and to reveal things. We want healer Peter Popoff to scam away our arthritis. We want John Edward to cross over to the other side and find our relative whose name starts with an M or a J or an L.
* * *
Let’s take a closer look at what I said in my “reading” of you. Here are five language secrets a “psychic” or charlatan will use to give you a sense that you’re hearing specialized messages. If you try these tricks yourself, remember that you must only use your powers for good.
Power 1: General v. Specific
As your first act of psychic seeing, state a general principle that sounds like a personality insight. Identify a basic human trait you find loathsome, and tell your client -- the "psychee" -- that he or she embodies the opposite of that trait. For example, everyone hates an insensitive lout, so tell the psychee she has compassion for those she sees struggling. No one likes wishy-washy attitudes, so tell her she has a strong grasp of her personal convictions. You won't be contradicted. No one will say, "Actually, I'm a mental midget and a wimp."Power 2: Generic Butter
Deliver a general compliment, a generic butter-up. The key here is general. Don't take the risk of saying, "You treat your children well," only to discover you're talking to an unmarried Benedictine nun. Better would be, "Your friends stick with you because they know they can always rely on you for support." Not everyone has children; everyone has friends, or at least believes they do.Power 3: Get Deeeeeep
Your next language trick is to build the appearance that you're probing deeper. Build on the general compliment by making a personality claim that sounds more specific. Did you use the "friends" line in Power 2? Then go with it. "In fact," tell the psychee, "many of your friends rely on your advice to help them with the problems they're facing." You've won them now. Why does this work? Assuming they came to you, they've already given you the benefit of the doubt. You were psychic enough to see their good traits; now you've proved you know about their friends, and you detect that they've given advice to some of those friends, and you perceive that the advice was good. How could you not be psychic, considering that level of accuracy?Power 4: Flip the Script
Time for a quick twist. Just when you've got them feeling good, you deliver the coup de grace -- you reveal your first bit of advice by focusing on the dark side of the virtue. Make no mistake, every good trait has its negative extreme. Sensitive people run the risk of being emotionally burdened by others; helpful people need to be careful of doing TOO much; industrious people should beware of overextending themselves. By giving advice on the dark side of their virtue, you (1) show that you're no fluffy psychic fake who's afraid to give the bad news, and (2) further reinforce the GOOD trait you've been affirming all along.Power 5: Put Them to Work
Ask your shill if something in their recent experience confirms the negative in #4. If you've played the language rules right, almost anyone who came to you for psychic counseling will now reveal a real-life negative situation related to your general directions. Take it from there ... if the negative relates to co-workers, make predictions about the psychee's future career path; if family, make predictions about future home events. The trick is now to listen and build ... and you'll find your client doing most of the work for you, while you get the credit for deep insight.* * *
No, no, no, I don’t want you to really do that stuff. I want you to see it because it can be done to you. Our walk in Christ calls us to be gentle as doves, yes, but we’re also to be wily as serpents (Matt. 10:16), and knowing the tricks of enemies is one step in the wily direction. As a lover of words, it pains me that language is Satan’s forte. And as a lover of the Word made flesh, I resent that the enemy employs words made dirty.
* * *
It’s hard for psychics and false prophets to get much out of me, simply because I don’t answer them back and therefore give them little to play with. Here’s a recent example of a false prophet trying to give me a “word from the Lord”:
The Lord says -- your passion matches your calling. Your passion seems odd, out of place. But He has given it to you. It is beyond your understanding. But His ways are beyond our ways. Be obedient, and he will magnify you. [The guy pauses here, then says:] Don’t know if that makes sense or not. But I prayed and asked.
See the tricks at work in there? The general vs. the specific … my passion! The prophet sees my passion! And the Lord can see I have a specific passion to do [FILL IN THE BLANK] for Him! The generic butter … my passion matches my calling … way to go, Cosmic, you got it right! It gets deeeeeeeep, beyond my understanding even. And the script gets flipped with how odd and out of place the passion seems … but, generic butter again, I need to get obedient with pursuing that passion, so that the Lord will magnify me.
I have no idea what “passion” was being referred to. Neither did the false prophet. He was counting on my moving to fill in the blanks and grant him Power 5 (“I don’t know if that made sense or not”). He wanted to put me to work for him, get me to say, “Do you suppose the Lord is referring to my awesome cooking skills or maybe my sparkly writing abilities?” Had I taken the bait, the prophesy would have continued, filling me with conceit and leading me down the liar’s path.
Alas, my only feedback was to nod in acknowledgement that I heard the words.
False prophets’ biggest vulnerability is just how darned false they are.
* * *
“They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth …. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because … their folly will be clear to everyone.” (2 Tim. 3:6-9)
* * *
Ew, downer. Let’s end on a lighter note, okay?
Fans of the old Buffy the Vampire Slayer series might recognize this quippy exchange between hero-librarian Rupert Giles and the ever-suspicious Principal Snyder:
Snyder: There are some things I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense.
Giles: No, actually that would be one of the five.The point: Let’s rule out natural causes and motives of the flesh before turning our sensibilities over to claims of the supernatural.
Maran Atha,
Cosmic
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