Harry Ingalls Scams Swindles Steals Frauds (and Tells your Fortune!) Crook with a Zodiac Astrological Turban and a Checkerd Past

Like all things not based on sound scientific research,  anything "Astrological" or "Zodiac" is a big fraud, and that the crap continues to appear in newspapers and such is amazing to me.  Not as in "ooh…that is so amazing that my horoscope came true" but as in "Gawd, how many stupid people believe that crap?"  How can a newspaper have any credibility if they run a daily astrology column, even if it IS the first (and only) thing folks turn to?  They might as well give coupons for "psychic readings"or free Tarot cards.   Thankfully, I am sure one can now purchase any number of Apps which will spin the lucky wheel for you.

(Sure enough…the first article I found is "THE BEST" astrology apps for Android.  Suckers.)

Read it here.  It is a scam.  It doesn't even qualify for "pseudo-science" or for that matter an art form.  It's crap.  A lie.  Fraud. In my opinion criminal and actionable.  Which means one could sue their psychic, except that you probably agree not to in the small print.

It is 2013 as I write this.  We've had centuries to weed out those who prey on the ignorance and blind trust of the people, yet still I hear advertisements for psychics and such.  All that has changed is the turban.  Now most are women. 

By all accounts (and there are very few) Harry Ingalls, self-proclaimed "Greatest Fortune Teller in the World" had a normal childhood in a well-to-do family which dated way back to the earliest days of the country in Massachusetts.  So why did he begin a career in scams, swindles and fraud?  Maybe the family cut him off from the old money.  I've gone over the box of cards here looking for the standard disclaimer "for entertainment only" but my third eye fails to find it. 

Harry wrote one book.  Tea Cup Reading: Tell Fortunes by Tea Leaves, which he published himself out of Swampscott, MA around 1930.  Yea…your fortune is shown in your tea leaves.  At that time, he was calling himself "The Master Mind" I guess.   Here he is the same year appearing with "The Checker Girls" whoever they were.  If my understanding of show business is true, one of the checker girls fell under his spell, he started drinking and it ended miserably.

When Harry began turning up with his gimmick on the radio, he called himself "The Wizard of Mental Telepathy" which reminds me to say there are no wizards and telepathy is a scam too.

An article on Harry appeared in 1957 in "The Yankee Seer" which could have been another of Harry's names.  A Seer is a clairvoyant.  There are no clairvoyants either.  Last night I must have had my oracle on, as I dreamed up some lucky numbers of my own!  Number one and number two…fortunately, I woke up and made it to the bathroom.

The deck of cards above are not scarce at all.  Harry sold a TON of them.  Even today, on a "Tarot" website I found a thread of seers discussing them STILL, so they turn up all the time. 

JIM LINDERMAN BOOKS AND EBOOKS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PREVIEW OR PURCHASE HERE ON BLURB.COM.