The Great Psychic Sweepstakes
First published in the August 4, 1999 edition of ESP Magazine
Christine Hall
I just received a letter in the mail that proclaims that I am already a winner! My ship is practically in port and it’s all down hill from here! I don’t have to have the winning number or give a specific time for Dick Clark or Ed McMahon to stop by to drop off my check. All I have to do is sit back and let the good times roll.
My notification came in the form of a six page computer generated letter, written especially for me, from psychic Raylene Van Worth. I know that she’s a real psychic, because the return address on the envelope proclaims her to be a “psychic criminologist” and her letterhead says that she writes predictions for USA Today and Journal News. Just to think that she would take time out from such an obviously busy schedule to write to me made me feel queasy inside.
Right from the start she lets me know that she’s the bearer of glad tidings. “I have a ton of great news for you, my dear friend,” she says. “It’s five past midnight, I’m sitting here snuggled up on my bed typing away furiously, too excited to sleep... I’m sure you know the feeling.”
I knew then that this must be very, very important. After all, I don’t do anything after midnight except saw logs or count sheep. Yet, here she was, busily writing a letter to a person she’d never met.
“Now please listen to me carefully. Money, romance and (this is the best part) security are all coming back into your life in a big way,” she goes on. “And I mean in a really big way. I’m writing as fast as I can because I don’t want to leave anything out, so please excuse any spelling errors. You know how terrible I am at spelling.”
No, I didn’t know. How could I since we’ve never met? Besides, since she was writing on a computer, why didn’t she just use spell check? Anyway, she goes on to tell me that she’s an excellent psychic who helps the local police solve murders and locate missing persons. Then she explains why she is taking the time, at five after midnight, to write to me.
“Would you believe I was glancing at a list when your name practically flew off the sheet?” she writes. “Well, after thirty years of practice, I knew something big was up. And, as you may already know, I feel it’s my duty in life to help the people I love, so I did a reading. I needed to know nothing bad was going to happen.”
It appears that she was given a vision for me of a quiet tree-lined street, with the sun breaking through a cloud filled sky on a beautiful autumn day. There was a magnificent Tudor style house with a quaint English garden and a new sedan parked next to a cracked sidewalk.
“One of the car’s windows is open, I can smell the new leather,” she says. “It’s wonderful.”
Wow! It’s about time things started going right for me.
There was more to the vision, but the gist of it is that my lucky period will begin on September 11th and continue through March 4th. During that time, if I buy a lottery ticket it’s sure to be a winning number, if I try to rent a house the owner will want to give it to me, and if I ask Ogi for a raise, he’ll give me five times what I ask for. Truly, it seems, there is a goddess looking down on me.
I am assured that during this time, psychic Raylene Van Worth will be there to help guide me, so that I can make the best of my lucky days. All I have to do is send her $19.95 ($10 off her regular rate) and she will be glad to help. Not only that, she will send me a 14 karat gold plated key that she has inscribed with secret runes to protect me through this fortunate period.
“In essence, I’ll be your guide,” she explains. “Your advisor. Your friend. Think of me as a sister. I’d like that.”
Why is she willing to do this for little ol’ me?
“I felt you have no one you could really trust,” she says. “And I felt your loneliness. I sensed a yearning for the comfort and warmth that comes only from a nurturing relationship. Well, we can provide that for each other.”
She says that she knows that there is no one in my life and that she feels my pain for having to face life alone. “If only I had found you sooner. Perhaps I could have made the last couple of years a little easier for you. But at least we have each other now.”
This gave me a good chuckle. For a psychic she gets a lot of things wrong. I’ve been in a close and committed relationship for over two years and am lucky to have many friends with whom I can talk.
Of course, she is a fraud and this letter would be funny if it weren’t meant to prey upon the vulnerable and the lonely. Obviously, this woman doesn’t give a hoot about her clients, since she callously tries to exploit people’s weaknesses and unfortunate circumstances. This is doubly sad because there are plenty of good psychic readers who work closely with their clients to try to help them to improve their circumstances.
If you have had a long run of bad luck or if you are lonely and alone, don’t become a hapless victim of someone like Raylene Van Worth. It’s people like her who give the New Age a bad name.