• Prophets for Troubled Times

    It has been just over a year since the first COVID-19 cases were identified in North America, though the disease was not called that then. We did not know what to call it. It was just the long-threatened pandemic landing on our helpless heads at last, and those of us who had been following the news started to lay in tinned goods by the time poor old Italy locked down in February.

    In late March, I took a look at some 2020 psychic predictions on  YouTube, to see whether a random selection and a couple of my old favourites (Joni Patry and Joseph Tittel) had come through with anything remotely resembling a respectable prophecy about this massive hit on the globe. The answer was no—just the usual retrofitting of piddling nonspecific claims to make them appear specific and impressive. Ho hum, business as usual.

    Meantime, we’ve had quite a year. The pandemic, the lockdown, the tragic death toll, the rise of mask-denying Karens and Kevins, the QAnon lunacy, the bloody American election starring the outrageous shenanigans of one Donald J. Trump and his cult following….yes, 2020 was a ghastly year, and my hopes for 2021 are not high. But what did the psychics say about these coming twelve months?

    Who cares? To be honest, I no longer give a toss about their predictions. They’re not even funny anymore. My only residual interest is in seeing how a few of them have reacted and adapted to the unforeseen dramas we are living through, and how some separate strands of silliness have been woven into a dire pattern.

    Joni Patry, Vedic Astrologer

    Confession: I can no longer watch all the way through the prophetic videos of Joni Patry, Vedic astrologer and Living-Barbie-Wannabe. I tried, I truly did, but my boredom threshold has plummeted during the lockdown, and I am no longer the intrepid soul of old. Patry’s thicket of highly technical Vedic astrological terms has become so impenetrable that it is almost impossible to suss out what she actually thinks is going to happen. And it’s not just me—judging by the comments on her videos, a number of her regulars have the same problem, though it rarely dims their enthusiasm.

    The best I could do was skip through the video Ms. Patry posted on the eve of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Mars would be empowered by passing through Aries but would also be conjuncting Uranus on January 20th; and while Mars is associated with red, blood, anger, and war, the aspect with Uranus would mainly add an element of unpredictability. Or something like that. Mainly, she forecast that some surprising things we did not expect would take place on the day of the inauguration, possibly involving violence.

    Well, except for Lady Gaga’s gown and Bernie’s mittens, there was nothing very surprising about what happened on the steps of the US Capitol Building on January 20th. Unless, of course, Ms. Patry was referring to something that MAGA and QAnon affiliates found very surprising indeed: a smooth-running ceremony that went off without a hitch and ended up with Joe Biden sworn in as POTUS #46. Where were the arrests? The prosecutions? The summary executions? The triumphal return of the God-King Donald, archfoe of Illuminati pedophiliac cannibals? Most of us were relieved and unsurprised when the day was over, but the lunatic fringe apparently wasted a lot of popcorn. Anyway, no cigar for Joni.

    Ah, but there’s more! It seems a number of Joni’s youtube commenters expressed their disappointment in her failed prediction, to the point where she issued a clarification, otherwise known as excuses. First excuse: even accurate readings of the charts may not be fulfilled, because humans have free will and may take action to change the outcome. Imagine the conversation in the National Guard HQ: “People, Mars is in Aries and conjuncting Uranus! We’ll need more troops!” Second excuse: this was a birth chart referring to the birth of the new presidency, so everything Joni predicted was accurate, but would apply to the next four years instead of Inauguration Day. Nice attempt at sidestepping, but still no cigar.

    Now, I do not get the impression that Ms Patry is personally very committed to the whole conspiracy-theory subculture, though she mines the zeitgeist and uses the tropes freely: great awakenings, revelations of corruption and secrets in high places and so forth. The same could not be said for a large proportion of her youtube fans, though, judging by the paranoid and Q-ish nature of many of their comments; and I think Joni is savvy enough to oblige them with predictions that reflect the nightmarish, millenarian QAnon dream.

    Next: a true believer in the Illuminati New-World-Order Deep-State Luciferian Etc Cabal – an old favourite, and the guy who would like to sue me, Spiritman Joseph Tittel.

    Category: FeaturedScienceSkepticism

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    Article by: Rebecca Bradley