Guide to the Perfect Charlatan

HUMOR Guide to the Perfect Charlatan in 22 tips

It’s the crisis. At least that’s what the multinationals who want to fire employees to increase shareholders’ profits say. Do you want to feed your family or stuff your digs? Stop playing the lottery, it’s expensive and it doesn’t pay much. Become a clairvoyant scammer. The down payment is low and the payoff is huge if you follow these tips.

1) Do like the Pope, forget your scruples. Well yes, you will destroy the lives of hundreds of people in moral and financial distress. They will come to you full of hope and leave loaded with debt. The slightest ounce of compassion would be fatal to your new activity. 2) Find a mysterious-sounding nickname. Admit that Lucinda is more annoying than Josette. However, don’t go too far into the strange. With Lucifer or Morticia, you will scare away customers and you risk getting into trouble from beings who do not accept competition… 3) Move to town. The customer potential is greater there. Without forgetting that the lack of solidarity and the pollution that reigns there predispose to depression and cancer. Two evils that will be your friends as the people who suffer from them are vulnerable and ready to give you everything in exchange for a little hope. In the countryside, you will have no chance. People are suspicious there and the charlatans are quickly unmasked. 4) Plan a good advertising budget. Word of mouth only works for real psychics, only advertising can fill your office. 5) Cast your net wide. Love, money, health, work: nothing can resist you. You overcome all problems thanks to your multiple and incomparable talents. As long as you are a charlatan, don’t do things by halves: you are the Mozart of clairvoyance. You know how to do everything the moment you open your practice. 6) Obtain as many diplomas as possible today. To do this, you don’t need to be a genius, rest assured. Pseudo schools of parapsychology are legion. Of course, they were created by scammers. But who other than a scammer can teach you how to scam people? Better yet, buy a computer, a good printer, and create your own diploma. If possible, arrange to study in the United States; it’s a must have and no one will check. 7) Invent yourself a long, very long experience in the practice of divinatory arts. And far, far away. But know how to remain mysterious about the dates and places. This avoids mixing brushes. 8) Since gifts are generally revealed, if not transmitted, by someone in the community, increase your godparents. The more there are of them and the more extraordinary the donations they send you, the more money you will be able to extort. Don’t forget, however, that your godparents must live very far away or be completely dead. Sometimes someone might be tempted to talk to them… 9) Invent expressions of gratitude. Ask your parents and friends to write to you to thank you for winning the lottery or for being cured of incurable cancer. Avoid including their phone number, however, unless they are very good at comedy. 10) Have a celebrity clientele. It always wows and it’s so easy. Celebrities often agree to have their photos taken with their fans. Cover your desk with these photos and you can make everyone believe that you are the clairvoyant ofstars, the political marabout. There are even many ex-showbiz stars who will agree to say that you are an extraordinary clairvoyant, as long as you buy them a good bottle. 11) Travel! And take advantage of your vacation on an organized trip to have your photo taken in front of a Shinto temple or an African hut. It doesn’t matter if the temple is actually a brothel or if the hut is made of cardboard. You will be able to say that you have been initiated into ancient practices to which no Westerner has ever had access. Being the only one chosen, your prices will be even higher. 12) Reach out to the media. The more they talk about you, the more credible you are. The best is TV. But be careful, to be invited on TV sets, you have to give extra. Do you draw cards from the canaries, do you read the future in the exhaust pipes or do you talk to the spirits reincarnated in the cabécou? Notoriety is assured. 13) Protect yourself from detractors. When initiating you, your godparents (see n°6) predicted to you that jealous people would try to discredit you, but also that they would have big problems. Because you are almost a saint. I said almost. 14) Get your customers talking. After an hour of conversation, they will no longer know the difference between your supposed gifts and your memory. 15) Retain the loyalty of the gogos. Sorry, customers. If in the testimonials you have invented you solve all the problems in such a brilliant and lightning way, for real customers things must be long and difficult. A returning victim means money every morning, a crook’s proverb. The more complicated the case, the higher the bank account. 16) Don’t forget occult works. It is an incomparable source of income. Especially since it requires neither investment nor the slightest effort. Indeed, any occult work has two essential characteristics: it does not exist and it is very expensive. Whether it’s a ceremony in an exotic country or a powder show, occult work requires you to spend time poolside in your stunning villa on the French Riviera. Well worth a few thousand euros, right?
17) Count on the placebo effect. Healing by autosuggestion exists in medicine as in quackery. 18) Don’t be modest. If chance dictates that you fall just for only 1% of your customers, do not hesitate to assert that 99% of your victims are satisfied with you. Everyone will believe they are part of the remaining 1% and will tell themselves that luck is definitely not on their side. 19) Avoid saying that you get your gift from God himself. You would be told that true saints never got paid. And then you have to avoid getting angry with the big boss, remember Sodom and Gomor… 20) Plan to move as soon as the tide turns. Because one day or another, someone will prove that your only gift is to defraud others. 21) Start writing, brag about your merits, show off your successes. Advertising, copyright and customers guaranteed. 22) Think before you start. “He who plays with fire will perish by fire.” You are about to play with forces whose magnitude you cannot imagine. A certain Doctor Faust lost his soul there. Without going that far, learn that the Inad has helped many victims, in the absence of an amicable settlement, to take legal action and win their case.

Buffy Brinogene