FORTUNE-TELLING

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 March 1932, Page 12

FORTUNE-TELLING

CRAZE IN AMERICA. NEW YORK, January 6. At a very conservative estimate, £20,000,000 was paid in America during 1931 to fortune-tellers, horoscope readers, numerologists, glass-ball starers, table-tippers, and tea-cup readers. The craze, like every other before it, spread to Canada; now it is dying out. The Federal Radio Commission frowns on it. The National Broadcasting Corporation banned it from the air. Every radio station in the United States had its charlatan associated with the broadcasting units, peering into the future at a dollar a glance. It was a veritable tidal wave of faith in applied mysticism. It was entirely a creature of the depression. To such a pitch did the craze absorb the populace that one State Governor refused to sign any important document until the hour his favourite for-tune-teller astrologically dictated. Stock market operators bought and sold according to the indications of this new sorcery. Business men subscribed to periodical horoscopes. Women competent to earn £lOOO a year steered their “love” affairs by astral navigation. Numerology, a fumbling with the letters of names, had equally plentiful devotees. Faith or fear are behind all these shibboleths. Stars are full of vibrations and wave lengths, one or more of which is specifically directing the destiny of each of the 2,000,000,000 souls on earth. Eighty per cent, of the occupants of the Hall of Fame were born in the same month, according to Evangeline Adams, the most sought-after of these new “scientists.” She- came into vogue by predicting a fire at the hotel where she was living. Since then 100,000 people have consulted her. An interview costs £lO, a mail horoscope £2, and a forecast of world conditions so much a month. One of America’s greatest bankers sought her advice on future happenings in politics, business, and the stock market. Caruso consulted her as to the most propitious date for his concert tour. A Senator asked her about his chances for the Presidency. She cast a horoscope for the Mauretania, depicting it would be a greater success socially than financially. As the “Maury” has crossed the Atlantic more times than any other passenger liner, this distinction is not clear, unless it refers to her popularity with Americans for her “Cruises to Nowhere,” by which British lines, notably the Cunard, have replenished their treasury during the depression by taking capacity loads outside the territorial limit and then opening the bar. In nearly every important divorce case Miss Adams is consulted. She is said to have foretold a “casus” in divorce three years before! One “Dolores” got responses from 1,500,000 persons to her offer of horoscopes by mail at two and five dollars. A man named Brown prepares a daily horoscope for the largest newspaper syndicate in the country. A woman draws the horoscopes of important infants for Sunday papers. Another advises State Governors and officials. A song writer will lack inspiration in one State, but will be a success in another. And so on ad infinitum, ad nauseam.