ON THE 8th of this month, the world will know who succeeds Barack Obama as the 45th President of the United States.
Will Democrat Hillary Clinton return to the White House for a second term – this time not as the First Lady but as the United States’ first female president? Or will it be billionaire businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump?
As we go to press, it seems to be a contest that’s still too close to call. But that hasn’t stopped various psychics, seers, astrologers or others who claim to have the ability to see the future from putting their reputations on the line and naming the winner.
Danielle Egnew, who describes herself as a “psychic-medium”, made her prediction at the end of July. Still wearing her bathrobe, she treated her Facebook followers to an early-morning live chat in which she declared Clinton would be the next president of the United States.
She insisted, however, that the issues were not about who and how a president is chosen but about “how we handle a changing consciousness”, adding: “Guys, Donald Trump will not be president. It’s simply not in the cards.”
She went on: “Mr Trump, love him or hate him, is playing a super-important role right now, and that is representing a consciousness that’s on its way out,” before offering this rationale:
“As of 21 December, 2012, the Mayan New Year – ‘the end of the world’, according to some – we entered into a feminine timeframe, after a 100,00-year masculine timeframe … and it is time to nurture that which we have brought forward: the feminine energies in all of us.”
And they “just don’t support Donald Trump”.
Try telling that to Uversa Oumbajuah, a psychic you’ll find most days in Manhattan’s Union Square Park, giving one-to-one readings. Consulted by Ezgi Toper, reporting for The Tab in August, she looked at her tarot cards and exclaimed: “Oh my god, it looks like it may be Trump”.
Donald Trump-Conservative Political Action Conference 2015
(Photo: Michael Vadon)
That doesn’t sound as positive as one would expect from a fortune-teller, but Oumbajuah did say it would be very close. “There will be some information that could come up that would change America’s mind of how honest [Hillary] is, because of the Clinton Foundation,” she added.
If that sounds like good news for Trump, think again. She went on to predict he would be assassinated and Mike Pence would take over the Oval Office.
Maybe astrology can shed light on the outcome of the presidential election. After opinion polls showed both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ahead, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported last month on the annual conference of leading astrologers who had gathered in Costa Mesa, California (13-17 October).
Could they predict the election’s outcome? They were, apparently, going to try, having devoted two sessions to discussion panels on the subject.
Reporter Rory Carroll told Guardian readers that having been born under a full moon eclipse, Trump apparently has a possible edge that could align the stars on 8 November.
“Mythologically, he’s Orion – a constellation,” Serbian-born astrologer Aleksanadar Imsiragic told Carroll. “It represents giants. It’s very important for the whole story of the United States, that’s why he finds his place here.”
Hillary Clinton speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, March 2016
(Photo: Gage Skidmore)
Ray Merriman, president of the International Society for Astrological Research, which hosted the conference, offered this guidance on the result:
“Trump is astrologically from Mars, an aggressive place, and that chimes with the country’s combative mood. So, too, is the GOP candidate’s running mate, mild-mannered Mike Pence. They’re both Geminis, born either side of Mars. So in this election, Republicans are from Mars.
Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, in contrast, have their suns making a trine – an angle of 120 degrees. “The Democrats are from Venus this year,” Merriman concluded.
Another of the participants, Glenn Perry, pointed out that astrologers are not psychics. “We can read certain signs but there are always certain levels of ambiguity.”
If predicting the outcome of an election involving only two candidates seems like an easy option, the American Statistical Association (ASA) has offered a cash prize to the student who comes closest to predicting the national vote percentage that “best predicts the winners for each state and the District of Columbia”.
Of course, when the election is over and the votes are counted, there can be only one winner. That means many psychics and seers will be left wondering why their prediction was wrong.
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Dannielle Egnew says it’s all about feminine energies (Photo: YouTube)
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Here’s an excuse those who foresaw a Trump victory might like to keep up their sleeves if he is defeated: their predictions were correct but the outcome was interfered with by witches and pagans.
Now who’s going to believe that? Well, a non-partisan 50-strong group calling itself the World Ad-Hoc Association of Witches and Pagans Who Will Cause Donald Trump to Quit has announced its intention of influencing the result.
“The signs indicating that the seriously disturbed Mr Trump is hell-bent on taking the world to nuclear war caused us to decide that we would not be taking our commitment to our planet and our ideas seriously unless we came together to stop him,” they say in a 7 October press release.
But when and how could they do that? The intention, presumably, is to intervene during the third and final presidential debate on 19 October (after we go to press).
“We will cause no physical harm,” the witch/pagan group promise. “We will simply hold up a mirror to him on the astral plane. As we watch the debate, tens of thousands of us will shout the idea of quitting into his mind.
“This is exactly what part of this extremely dangerous man’s mind wants anyway, and we intend to ensure that it happens. It is possible he may announce during the debate itself that he’s quitting. But whatever happens, he will quit no more than 24 hours later.”
Unfortunately, even when we all know the result, it will still be open to debate as to whether cosmic ernegies, karmic forces, psychic power or witches’ wizardry actually had any influence on the result.