Celebrity AMA w/ the Grand High Poobah of Nothing

[jamesbulls]

Not a chance. Trump is a blow-hard who’s splitting the GOP’s voter base and hasn’t any chance of appealing to the diverse range of voters necessary to win the general election. Maybe once upon a time a candidate could win by appealing only to middle-class white men, but the USA is rapidly becoming a majority minority country, and pardon the expression, but women aren’t taking politics laying down anymore. Trump is so universally disliked by women and minorities, and appeals to such a narrow audience among white voters, that I’m not sure he could win an election to become a dog catcher.

[jamesbulls]

I haven’t a clue about Indian politics, so I’m turning to the cards on this one:

The cards say she’ll run a dominating campaign promising an influential global presence for the country that will invigorate daily life for citizens without regard to social status. Whether she’s been a populist candidate in the past or not, she’ll appeal to popular desire and this will elicit a huge response from every-day people who might not normally take the time and effort to cast a vote.

[writer99025]

The cards are wrong because no “she” has a chance of becoming the PM of India 🙂

[writer99025]

Well, don’t you want America to be great again 😦

[writer99025]

That’s good, at least they will win something then…

[writer99025]

Jeez man, do I look like a hooligan to you? Football (or soccer as you Americans/Canadians mischaracterize it) is watched by 3-4 billion people around the world. Stereotyping much?

[jamesbulls]

Thin skin, much? Relax - I’m not poking fun at you. You’re taking my answer far more seriously than I do 😛 Best not to over-think it since it’s all tongue-in-cheek, anyway!

[jamesbulls]

[jamesbulls]

Well, like I said, I don’t know a thing about Indian politics and I couldn’t be bothered to even Google the name. Perhaps the message was merely channeling Modi’s feminine side? laughs Even if I thought that the name “Narendra” was a woman’s name, I’m still surprised that the cards captured her - er, him - as a populist. Funny how that works. Of course, it’s also funny how it doesn’t work - I still haven’t won the lottery, but I’ll let you know when it happens. At any rate, you’re no longer bothered by the weight of the question anymore, eh? Now you can move on to more productive things than asking an ex-pat American living in Canada about the political currents in India.

http://static1.fjcdn.com/comments/4636598+_066fb3ee131beb9aed6088300e75b326.png

[writer99025]

I was just pretending to be upset 😃

[jamesbulls]

[misscrystal]

Regarding the divination causing the predicted event to occur in the future, what is actually happening is that the future event is causing the past event to occur, in this case the card reading. The future event that will occur is set in stone, and causes the event in the past to happen.

Many spacetime continua have physical interpretations which most physicists would consider bizarre or unsettling. For example, a compact spacetime has closed timelike curves, which violate our usual ideas of causality (that is, future events could affect past ones).

Your carrot orange and ginger mixture sounds grate!

[emmaki]

sir you are rude and underhepful. I leave bad review!

Hos I maek that?I join today.

[emmaki]

hay gay! hay gay?

[emmaki]

You wake up as an insane dictator of a modestly-sized country. What is your particular odd quirk that newspapers will always refer to every time you hit the news? You have 100% popularity thanks to your secret police, and no chance of being invaded by a concerned USA as your country is hopelessly destroyed thanks to you and your cabal of sycophants. You do not read the quips in the foreign press, as your personal butler cuts them all out of the paper and inserts funny cartoons in their place instead.

Sorry if that was your quirk. Already taken.

Also, you still haven’t told me how I can mek sell. I think you should ask the tarot cards and make a helpful copy-paste we can all use in future. Does tarot work for such a general question?

[writer99025]

Couldn’t he just say that Narendra Modi will be reelected as the prime minister of India in 2019? That would have made my day. I mean, isn’t that what tarot readers are supposed to do? Make people happy?

[jamesbulls]

I heard that throwing yourself off a cliff does wonders to increase impressions.

http://timrymel.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/cliff-jump.jpg

cliff-jump.jpg3000×2363

[emmaki]

Modi wears suits with his name written in tiny print in the stripe.

News story here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-31034110

That’s exactly the kind of small, fussy detail I like in a world leader. I have to say, you have a terrible taste in politics 🙂 Using it to have a dig at tarot reading is kind of ¯_(ツ)_/¯ in my book!

[jamesbulls]

I’m of at least two minds when it comes to divination. Two of my minds I already explained above, but another I’ll explain now is that I don’t actually care that much why - or even “if” - divination is possible. As far as I’m concerned, the only place where I know magic exists is inside my own mind. Fantasy is as necessary as reality, but it’s important to remember which is which.

So, as I’ve stated in my gig and I encourage all my buyers to reader before starting an order with me, I don’t consider myself psychic. I don’t believe that I have innate psychic abilities or intuitive powers whatsoever. I embrace all the magic and mystery of the Tarot, but I accept all the limitations that come with it, and one of those limitations is that - thus far - I’ve yet to pick any winning lottery numbers, foil a terrorist attack, predict a natural disaster, find missing children, or solve any cold-case murders.

Going by the objective facts, I’ve actually got a pretty terrible record for accuracy in my predictions. But, because the magic of a Tarot reading exists in my mind - or in the mind of my clients - whether the reading accurately predicts or changes reality is neither here nor there. Whether I’m reading for myself or reading for a client, there are a variety of cognitive phenomena that influence the perception of the recipient of the reading.

This is commonly called “cold reading,” but I don’t consider myself a cold reader because I don’t start with the intention to use tricks of mentalism supported by Tarot as a prop. Instead, I’m a Tarot reader, which means exactly that: I just read the cards. Is there magic, and can I really tell the future? Maybe. But I think it’s more likely that as a consequence of such phenomena as selective validation and the Forer effect that we who get Tarot readings (including myself) tend to convince ourselves of the accuracy, instead of being convinced by the objective proof.

Even with the best-intentioned Tarot readers who want only to convey a clear message - and that’s how I was brought up in the Tarot - the client is applying principles of cold reading to him or herself without any effort required from the Tarot reader. The difference between those kinds of readers and myself is that I acknowledge the cognitive phenomena at play.

So no - I don’t consider myself a cold reader. I honestly consider myself an entertainer. Some of my clients have been off-put by this level of honesty, but that’s their fault for believing that I’m anything other than what I’ve clearly and openly described myself as. And like any performer, what responsibility do I have to ensure that my patrons interpret my performance correctly? Due to legal liability, there are some things I simply won’t touch - health, death, investments, medical decisions, how to commit a crime, how to harm yourself, etc. - but outside of that, I’m playing a role and it’s up to my clients to decide how they want to use the tool that is Tarot. Some uses are more productive than others, but it’s not my place to tell my clients how they should use this tool.

I find Tarot to be tremendously useful, and while I rarely read my own cards any more, Tarot has become a highly internalized practice and I often put the cards together in my head - no physical Tarot deck required. I think this is the goal that every Tarot reader should aim for - to be able to say that the Tarot is a part of their internal consciousness, and not an external tool.

As a species, humans are highly talented at recognizing patterns, and people who don’t recognize this innate talent tend to call it intuition. I’m not what would be called a “psychic intuitive” in the industry parlance, but I do try to use my internalized knowledge of the Tarot to recognize patterns to find or create opportunities for myself.

I also use Tarot as a mental purge to alleviate irritation, frustration, distraction, and even anger or obsession. When I lay down the cards, I suspend disbelief and enter into a kind of ritual chamber where I choose to believe that the future predicted is certain. Whether the prediction is good or bad, it provides an answer that I can use to assuage my restless mind. When the reading is finished, I’m no longer inhibited by feelings that urged me to get the reading, and I’m able to approach previously troublesome situations with a clear head.

[jamesbulls]

Certainly not! I never tell people what I think they want to hear, or what I think they’re hoping for. I like to challenge my client’s perspective and encourage them to see things they didn’t see before. I believe that a good Tarot reading stimulates the mind and creates more questions than it answers.

[misscrystal]

That suit makes me very sad, to see a world leader who is so self absorbed he spends $16,000 on that stupid self loving display while people are in such misery in his country. We can clearly see where his interests lie and it has to do with spending lavishly on his own vanities.

[jamesbulls]

My particular quirk is that I spend all day in my pajamas and tend not to get dressed unless it’s absolutely necessary. I also tend to avoid shaving unless I’m going to get in front of my web camera. Case in point, I’m laying in bed right now, answering morning emails, and making silly optical illusions that wouldn’t fool a four-year old child.

Regarding mek gret sells, I actually get a fair number of questions about work and money, usually with the goal of how to get more work, make more money, or successfully launch a venture. I accept these kinds of questions, and I think Tarot can be helpful, but I think that the best Tarot reading will create more questions than it answers.

Predictions can be fun and exciting, and perhaps there’s some real magic there, but if the Tarot reading spurs the imagination and gets the client thinking in new and different ways, then it was a great success. I find that many people who ask me such questions don’t actually follow any advice I give them, but instead take greatest benefit from having their perspective challenged.

Whether the reading is accurate or not, it gets them moving, and the truth is that Fortune favors the bold. Another truth is that the problem is usually not the business, but the recipient of the reading who’s procrastinating on something else, is distracted by something else, or - in some cases - is just feeling demotivated.So long as the reading spurs the client into action, then it’s a fortunately self-fulfilling prophecy.

[misscrystal]

I used to read the tarot cards and each reader has his or her own way of doing it. I am delivered messages from the spirit world and knew exactly what I was dealing with when I read the cards. I kept my own thoughts and interpretations out of the mix as much as possible.

James you have an interesting and helpful way of doing readings and probably one way is not necessarily better than another. I found the reading you did for me very helpful and eye opening.

[emmaki]

It’s just another example of why our so-called elders and betters could be described as elders, but not “betters”. The world is run by rich sociopaths.

Power corrupts, after all. I’m reminded of the Occult thread here, where (I think) James mentioned that many famous/rich/successful people must have had some occultish influence in their life to get to where they are.

Here’s a good question to follow up on that train of thought! You can sell your soul metaphorically (and on eBay for a quick buck), of course–but based on your world-view and/or spiritual beliefs, do you believe it could be a literal transaction?"

Side-note: I read somewhere once on one of the more woo-woo corners of the internet that sociopaths/psychopaths don’t have a soul, because they are clones of humanity. This all does presuppose a lot of other stuff, such as giving some actual credence to Sumerian records of their Gods (=aliens and the origin of all Abrahamic religion stories/myths, plus some modern day Mt Shastra woo woo that is endlessly entertaining) and of course that the powers that be have some kind of cloning facility. Do some more digging on that and you’ll find out that the aliens also had a subterranean war with crazed scientists in NM (Dulce). I mean, I have no idea if that actually happened, but it’s pretty interesting reading. They also had a human farm because the aliens love the fresh taste of human meat. That’s battery, of course. None of that free-range nonsense for our secret overlords.

[jamesbulls]

Q: HOW DO I SELL MY SOUL?

A: Satanists do not believe in God, Satan, Heaven, or Hell. There are no souls—and nobody to buy them. If you want something out of life, get off your lazy butt and work for it.

Read more: http://www.churchofsatan.com/faq-selling-souls.php