A couple of years back, the Animal Channel came out with what may very well be the stupidest program that has ever flickered onto television screens. (Keep in mind that it requires profound stupidity to earn such a distinction!) That program was The Pet Psychic. Just as the name suggests, this show featured a woman who would supposedly read the minds of animals. Let’s say that you have a depressed dachshund. You could come to the Pet Psychic and hear a reading like this.
PP(Pet Psychic)—“He says that there are some times when he’s happy but many times when he’s sad.”
DD (Dachshund Dummy)—“That’s so true. He acts sad when I
go to work, but happy when I come home.”
PP—“Yes, that’s it. He says that it makes him sad when you go to work. You
leave for work in the morning, don’t you?”
DD—“Yes! That’s so amazing.”
PP—“And you come home in the afternoon.”
DD—“Actually in the evening.”
PP—“Yes, but it’s afternoon on the West Coast, and that’s where Fido’s heart
is.”
DD—“Really?”
PP—“Yes, he longs to go to California. He thinks that you’re going to California when you go to work. That’s what makes him sad. He says that he can’t be truly happy until he gets to see the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Need I point out the obvious problems with this program? Why, if this woman can read animal minds can she not read the minds of human animals? Also, there’s this tiny matter of the absolute impossibility of verifying anything that she says. Human psychics can at least be proven as fakes, but how do you prove that with the animal psychic?
In the short span this idiotic program marred the airwaves, I suggested a show for myself: the Furniture Psychic. I could see myself reading the mind of a basement sofa or a dining room table. “It makes it feel sad when you sit on something else.”
As silly as all of this stuff sounds, I’m amazed at how seriously people will take various divination practices. People actually believe that our fates can be controlled by the positions of the stars and planets. They take seriously the bland proclamations of “psychics” and tune in with great interest to those who claim to speak to the dead. While this all makes for good theatre, it makes for terrible truth-telling.
I can tell you that I’m a Capricorn and was born in the year of the Tiger (or so says the placemat at the Chinese restaurant), but these things mean nothing to me. I’d love to have some way of channeling arcane knowledge, but in the end that knowledge can only come by consulting the source of all knowledge. So before you face the rigors of this day, spend a season inquiring of your God, asking him for guidance. He won’t mutter his reply.
Tune My Heart is primarily an aid to the devotional life of its author, Mark Browning, who holds the copyright for this material. It is provided online in hopes that some will find it edifying. All contents, unless otherwise noted, may be redistributed freely provided that you give credit for its origin and do not charge anything.