Celebrity AMA w/ the Grand High Poobah of Nothing

[writer99025]

You have no idea what you are talking about. That suit was gifted to Modi. He is the most honest politician in India and has absolutely no love of money. He grew up the hard way as a tea seller in railway stations. The only asset he has is a small home in a middle class locality. Even a lowly placed bureaucrat is worth more than the prime minister of India. Modi works 18 hours a day and has no family. Lives an ascetic life. I am very proud to have contributed $500 to his winning campaign in 2014. I plan to contribute much more to his campaign in 2019.

[emmaki]

I tend to agree with @misscrystal that everyone who does readings has their own unique approach, and James is right that a reading should provoke more thought and “doingness” than provide a useful, concrete DFY answer to take home and implement. The only IRL tarot reader I know was a former roommate back in the UK who is now a past-life regression/hypno therapist. You can imagine how that background informs her own tarot readings.

And no, I was very silly and never got her to regress me even as a joke. I was too busy with my studies and very skeptical and dismissive of this whole broad area.

[writer99025]

I have very good taste in politics. Here’s the thing…I value my financial security more than anything. If Modi hadn’t become the PM in 2014, the corrupt Congress party would have run India to the ground and possibly banks would fail taking my savings with it. Modi has brought down the fiscal deficit to manageable levels, raised the GDP growth rate to 7.5%, ended corruption in the government permanently - here are no scams or corruption scandals in his government, brought down inflation from double digits to 5%. I am very happy and proud to have contributed to his 2014 campaign and will do more in 2019. Here’s the thing about me…the only way you can make me angry is by badmouthing India or Modi…you say anything to me, it doesn’t matter. LOL.

[emmaki]

If I join the Church of Satan will I become rich and famous and have sex with anyone I desire?

No.

😦

[writer99025]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to take a dig at tarot reading, I don’t even know what that is all about, and have no opinion on it. I apologize if I came across as doing that. I was only trying to make a joke, guess it didn’t come across well. Really sorry, but I never meant any disrespect to James or his profession.

[jamesbulls]

See, and that’s the beauty of Tarot: it’s such a fluid, flexible tool. For so many readers, Tarot is a highly personalized practice. The way that I read Tarot is best for me - I tend to be highly analytical in my readings and I don’t read based on the picture on the card - but it’s not the best reading style for everybody. I know, I’ve met several of them! One reader famously accused me not reading Tarot, but “memorizing,” which I thought was pretty funny.

I mean, if a surgeon is going to remove a tumor, he or she isn’t going to unzip the patient and then start intuitively stabbing around: he or she is going to use his or her extensive knowledge of anatomy and physiology to mentally prepare for the surgery, and then will make appropriate decisions as the surgery proceeds. You wouldn’t accuse a surgeon of merely “memorizing” the body, would you? I don’t consider myself a surgeon - in the grand scheme of things, I’m really more like a birthday clown compared to a surgeon - but my Tarot practice is highly internalized and demands no intuition. No ad libs required!

The way that many readers just look at the image on the card and let their intuition flow is totally alien to me - I tried that reading style, and it didn’t work for me because I found that the message I delivered varied wildly depending on how I felt. If I was grumpy, clients got bad readings; if I was happy, clients got good readings, etc. I find that a non-intuitive, analytical approach makes it easier for me to produce an unbiased message.

[jamesbulls]

I’ve got thick skin, and I don’t take myself too seriously, so I don’t mind a few jabs here and there. Tarot reading is a super-flaky profession, so it comes with the territory.

Truth told, I’m grateful to my critics because over the years they’ve been very productive at showing me where I’m weak and how I need to improve.

In an online setting, I rarely take offense even when people intend to offend. At any rate, I expected a fair bit of roasting and I’m surprised that @emmaki 's lightly-toasted questions are the worst of it.

[misscrystal]

I have my own story of past life regression which I probably told you about…

[writer99025]

But I am not a critic and I have no intention of offending, even in the slightest.

[emmaki]

Literally the only thing I know about Modi is the suit, and you can see from the tenor of the BBC linked piece how that was perceived in the UK.

Your financial situation is directly linked to your politics. You know the saying that “If you’re not a socialist before you’re twenty-five, you have no heart; if you are a socialist after twenty-five, you have no head.” (may vary according to source)? That’s neither good or bad, but I’m on the other side of the political spectrum to you, so liable to accuse you of awful political taste and admiring men in narcissist suits (while freely admitting I know nothing about their actions, so there’s plenty of scope for a nice right hook back…)

I do not believe an honest politician exists–and that’s a pre-judgement on every last one of them, from the hen’s shining exemplar through to the most dirty, corrupt example.

Not much point arguing about this further, but this is an interesting discussion on the suit for anyone who wants to read more: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Modi-wore-a-suit-valued-at-9-lakh-during-a-meeting-with-Obama

As a nitpicker, I’d be asking whether Modi had any particular links to the store (Jade Blue), as this whole narrative of a “poor PM” reads as PR rather than reality behind the puppeteering to my cynical mind.

However, bear in mind that I come from the UK which is a mess politically and am living in a country that is getting screwed up royally by so-called caring politicians, so everything is colored from my perspective. Not to mention lack of general knowledge about Indian day-to-day politics!

[jamesbulls]

Ah, don’t be such a spoil sport. Have some fun!

[writer99025]

LOL…Emma was the spoil sport here,making it appear as though I wanted to put tarot readers down…that was never my intention…I don’t disrespect any profession.

[jamesbulls]

[misscrystal]

I’m glad he is doing a good job. The suit does give the wrong impression and he should have enough sense not to wear it in public even if it was a gift. Remember also they can print anything. I don’t know how the press works in India but our major news organizations
(Reuters and AP) will never print things they can’t verify. Also stories can be fed to the press that are untrue. Gifts to our president and first lady cannot be over a certain limited amount or they must go into the national coffer. The reason is obvious, so they can’t be bribed.

[misscrystal]

Life and being born is itself an occultish influence. None of this is “natural”. Take a good look around at things.
We are only tiny microbes crawling around on a grain of sand in a big cosmic soup of chemistry and mathematics.

[eoinfinnegan]

Not India!
(Although they probably have a better chance than Ireland do)

[capitalquality]

Thank all the gods for that!

[misscrystal]

Most major religions promise something nice after we die if we follow them and some give nice gifts in the here and now. My direct experiences shaped my beliefs.

[guildmaster0]

What do you think about the crime- preventing and crime- punishment systems ? It is something I have been thinking a lot for the past few years. It is actually very " impressive" to see a rapist get away with nothing for raping an 8 year old girl.

[jamesbulls]

Very generally, I think justice should be swift and severe.

Generally, I think that prison is only for thieves, rapists, murderers and violent attackers, vandals, and people who ruin the environment. I’m not sure I can find a statistic for it right now, but the last I saw regarding prisons in the USA is that more than 50% of all people in prison (+12 months’ incarceration) are there for non-violent drug offenses. While I myself have no interest in using recreational drugs - it’s just not my thing - I think that all drugs should be legalized. The so-called “war on drugs” is an epic failure the likes of which I’m not sure have been paralleled in modern history.

Specifically, I think that the justice system - like the people who created it - is highly imperfect. Justice is necessary to preserve and enforce the social contract which maintains society, and those who’d violate the social contract deserve full punishment under law, but imperfect cops, attorneys, juries, and judges have proven that justice is not just fully-sighted, but also frequently preferential to those with the right looks, money, and connections.

In the category of worst crimes imaginable, the rape of a child is probably at the top of my list. Rape is bad enough, but the rape of a child is so far beyond the pale that such a criminal deserves a punishment the likes of which are no longer permitted.

Statistics say that the death penalty does nothing to deter crime, but I don’t consider it a deterrent, anyway. I think that the death penalty is the last resort for dealing with criminals who’ve rejected the social contract and proven themselves to be too dangerous to be trusted with liberty. They’ve renounced their claim to life and liberty, and the same as we put to death mad dogs to keep safe streets, depraved, violent criminals deserve to be cast into the abyss.

Once upon a time, violent criminals could be exiled to beyond the horizon, but that day is long past. There’s nowhere to exile a criminal that isn’t already populated by somebody else, and it’s unconscionable to insist that another “tribe” (for lack of a better word) accept a violent, mad-dog criminal who’s relinquished his or her right to life.

[misscrystal]

The US prison system is, like much of our justice system, a for-profit enterprise with millions of people on the payroll at high pay in various capacities.
It’s a giant industry that millions depend on for their livelihoods. The War on Drugs gets millions of taxpayer dollar that these employees want to see continuing on indefinitely.

[guildmaster0]

I myself did the mistake of starting drugs and nearly dieing few times of overdose, even got jailed few times, but I am happy that I found a way to stop them. I do think it was a mistake for me, because of my own life- style and way of life. Indeed the justice system is imperfect. That 9 year old girl was someone very close to me, and a year ago when she was older, her kidnapper and raper contacted her and told her that she will be hers again.
From that way onwards I have commited my life into learning ways to change the justice sytsem. I know, I will probably achieve nothing and my efforts will most likely are on waste, but I decided to do it anyway. I am still far from my goals, i am just worried about how much time I have left.
Thank you for your long and honest reply :).

[guildmaster0]

If we can alter and better the justice sytsem a bit more, less innocent people have to suffer and traumatized, killed or kidnapped.

[misscrystal]

The police are out of control and getting more so every day.

[jamesbulls]

The police have always been out of control. The only difference is that a cellphone-as-a-camera in everybody’s hand, we’re seeing it first-hand. This is just one look at one city going back 100 years: http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2015/05/a_bloody_history_of_police_brutality_in_baltimore.html Who started the violence? I think the record is clear.