This is the dawning of the age of asparagus – fortune telling goes green

Podcast: Download

By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1212

Jemima Packington is an “asparamancer”. This is a vegetable-in-cheek way to describe fortune-telling using greenery. In Packington’s case, the greenery is asparagus: she can throw asparagus spears on the floor, or have you throw them yourself. By the resulting positioning, as well as her chlorophyllic intuition, she will tell your future.

How does this process work? How does Packington know her “asparamancy” works? According to Jemima Packington’s interview as reported by the BBC, she said she started her fortune telling “quite by chance” some years ago after some stalks fell on her floor and she made a prediction that came true.

Now, the source material says she helps “promote Worcestershire and its asparagus-growing tradition.” It doesn’t qualify if this is just a goofy publicity stunt to promote asparagus (we all know asparagus needs it, what with the vicious broccoli competition), or if Jemima Packington truly believes in her skill. Regardless of her motivation, there is a serious point between this and similar future telling techniques. From entrail-reading to tarot cards, these fortune-telling techniques “work” because of the diviner’s intuition and interpretive skill. Two points can be made about these types of readings:

1) The Weekend at Bernie’s Effect

This is nothing more than a very old concept becoming re-popularized. Take the example of Hollywood “writers”: creatively stagnate and devoid of original ideas, they now love to remake movies. They think a previously-used movie storyline will be successful today because the original was lost to the mists of obscurity (often referred to as “the 1980s”). This “ancient knowledge” is considered special for no other reason than its age. If “the ancients” created it, that alone justifies the popular acceptance. Unfortunately for this essay, entrail-reading and tarot cards fall into the same category as “Weekend at Bernie’s“: they’re old, sometimes funny, but ultimately a waste of your time and money. A movie about a dead guy with no rigor mortis is as odd as telling your future by throwing asparagus on the floor.

2) What’s my name? Who’s my daddy?

(Apologies to The Zombies, because “Time of the Season” is an excellent song, and doesn’t deserve to be referenced in a conversation about asparagostic fortune-telling.)

Take the two questions above – your name and your lineage, both important and a critical part of your being – and submit them to a fortune-teller. Given zero background information about you, shouldn’t a true psychic be able to provide these answers? Even if fortune-telling is inexact (and all “proof” seems to claim this), one still should be able to visit several fortune tellers and notice a significant trend towards divining the correct information. If they can’t, then you’re better off saving your pennies: flip them yourself to determine your fortune, rather than give them to a fortune-teller.

It’s argued that fortune-telling and divination is a search for the truth, and is nothing more than a meager human attempt to understand the mystery of life. It can also be argued that better results can be achieved from research and experimentation, not from spilling your asparagus. If you really want to involve vegetables in fortune-telling, try predicting when Hollywood will remake “Weekend at Bernie’s”.

Other articles related to this topic:

• Astrology is The Forer Effect in action
• The meaning of life (and podcasting)
• The ten percent of the brain myth: a fractional truth
• Psychic stagecraft: how to change from magician to miracle worker
• Christmas traditions revealed