Everyone’s Guide to The Street Smarts

By Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum

  

A collection of essays on the topics of chain letters, psychic fraud, Ponzi schemes, MLM pyramid schemes, schemes of deception, health and medical fraud, business fraud, bait and switch scams, religious fraud, and much more. Protect yourself from the scam artists and cheats who try to rip you off!

One must realize that there are many con artists out there who have been trying to steal money from our community with schemes of all sorts.  I know that these scam artists will never end but if we can stop even one of them, it’ll be well worth it. I've put some of my articles together so that others can learn from these experiences. Past experience has proven that not everyone is familiar with these matters and therefore may have given incorrect advice to their good friends. I do hope these articles will help clarify the subject and prevent people from falling into the hands of the many charlatans waiting to pounce upon the gullible and uninformed. No matter which business one is in, one must learn to be very careful lest one loses all he has earned. The better informed you are the more difficult it will be to fool you.

While our schools teach the kids the three R’s – reading, ‘riting and ‘rifmetic, they are not fully prepared to step into the world where one needs to have street smarts in order to navigate one’s way through the many minefields that lay in our path. Since no one lives for one thousand years, it’s important that we learn from other people’s experiences and mistakes rather than having to try to learn from the school of hard knocks. We must not only become book smart, but street smart as well, or we may easily be left fleeced in a world full of scavengers and vultures. I suggest that accomplished doctors, lawyers, store owners and all sorts of business men be invited into our classrooms and teach our students from their own life experiences. Let our students hear it directly from those that have first hand experiences. There are plenty of parents among a school’s student body with lots of on the job experience that can be extremely helpful in teaching our youngsters the in and outs of the business world. There is no better way for them to learn it, then to hear it first hand from those who have gone through it themselves.

Being street wise can be far more helpful than all the textbooks in the world. In our day and time we must learn the ways of the world from those who know it first hand. We can’t afford learning it on the go!

The Amuka Scam

The Amuka Scam has been going on for a long time, but this one takes the cake. There are many articles on this that explain why one should stay away from this behavior but I will also link to two others that have written about similar tactics.

Kupat Ha’ir’s Over The Top Advertising By Yitzchok Adlerstein,
Link to flyer put out by Rabonim in Flatbush to stay away from these types of behaviours.

The Clever Art of Psychic Deception

By Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum

The art of conjuring is said to be the second-oldest profession and was once the carefully guarded secret weapon of the priests who used it to establish a belief in their avoda zara among a gullible public. Clever charlatans have always used it to make a quick buck. The biggest moneymakers are the ones who camouflage themselves as psychic kabbalistic palm readers or kesubah readers etc. That’s because people are very naive when it concerns the mysterious powers of kabbalah about which we know nothing. Many very clever people have been suckered out of lots of money by con artists masquerading as kabbalists. The easiest to fool are usually the sick, destitute, and needy, who fall for these conjurers like bees for honey.

Once I substituted in an English class, and decided to teach a lesson on this subject. Before entering the classroom I did a careful check in the office and learned about some of the students I was about to teach.

When I came into the class, I told them that I had been studying the art known as “Chochmas Hayad” better known as palm reading from one of the m’kubolim who had just come into town and I wondered if it actually worked. I got into a discussion with the class on this subject and listened to their many opinions. Some were quite skeptical while others were big believers. I told them that I’m pretty new at it and I wanted to give it a try to see if it really worked. I thereupon made what seemed to them to be a random choice and asked a boy to step up to the front of the class.

I again explained that it was a very deep mystical subject that I was studying, and that even if I failed it would not prove that there is no such thing. All it would prove is that I still wasn’t good at it.  I stressed that it was just an experiment.

I now took the boy’s hand and pretended to carefully study its features, making all sorts of facial expressions as I examined it. I then began in very halting words, spacing them carefully, and giving the impression that I wasn’t really sure of what I was seeing.

“You have one brother and two sisters” I said to him, all the while giving him a questioning look as if to say I’m not very sure. When he said that I was right, I acted surprised and continued giving the reading. After scratching my head a number of times and going into what seemed to be deep concentration, I asked him in a very unsure and uncertain voice if it was possible that his father was a lawyer? “Yes” was his immediate answer. I, acted surprised myself at my accurate results, and continued with my clever act. “You seem to have a good head for math, but are quite poor in spelling? Is that correct?” I asked. He now nodded his head vigorously as the class listened in astonished silence. “You seem to be a very big worrier, but if I were you I wouldn’t really worry so much since this line here tells me that you’ll be very rich and you’ll find a very nice girl to marry.” Now the class cracked up and began laughing and I, of course, laughed along.

By now, the class seemed more than willing to accept my kabbalistic knowledge even though I tried playing it down. They now begged me to do another reading, but I explained, that I had to cover the assignment the teacher had left for them. Finally I told them I would do just one more, and chose another boy at “random.”

I carefully examined the boy’s hand while at the same time making all sorts of facial expressions, which added some authenticity to my act.

This time, I began by giving him his exact date of birth and made believe that I myself was quite shocked at having gotten it right. I played this game in order to divert their attention from suspecting the truth. I continued that he had either a sister or brother, but I couldn’t clearly see which it was. He admitted that he had a twin brother and sister. The class was now filled with excitement as my readings were right on target, but I continued downplaying my abilities.

I now paused for a while looking very engrossed and concentrated, and then said as follows. “You seem to have some problems getting along with others”-to which more than half the class nodded in agreement. I quickly continued by saying that it looked as if he was a very good athlete but was also a little conceited. Now the whole class burst out in applause and he laughed along. I now proceeded to say that perhaps he didn’t always obey his parents, to which he nodded his head quite vigorously. I continued making some random guesses that applied to most kids, such as your parents seem to find it very difficult to get you out of bed in the morning etc.

By now I had most of the kids convinced that I was a very good palm reader after all, and some of them even asked me if I could teach them how to do it.  I said that perhaps I would soon reveal some of the methods, but only on condition that they keep it secret, since I’m not sure I’m allowed to teach this holy concept to anyone. I also asked them if any of their parents had ever gone to any of these kabbalists, and some of them answered in the affirmative. One of them in fact told me that his father had gone to a kesubah reader, who had charged him over $1,000 to have his kesubah rewritten. When I asked him why his father had gone, he told me that there was a sickness in the family and the kabbalist had blamed it on the faulty kesubah. When I asked him if the person was now well he replied that the person had unfortunately died a month later, and that his father was very disappointed at the mekubal’s advice.

I now decided that it was time to reveal myself to them and teach them the lesson I wanted them to learn. I slowly began to tell them how they’d all been scammed by my simple tricks, which I’d learned by reading some books on the subject. I also read them an article that appeared in the December Readers Digest titled “My Life as a Phone Psychic” that left a strong impression on them. I then took out the sefer titled “Tomim Tiheyah im Hashem Elokecha” written by some leading mekubalim, and read some paragraphs to them which explained that there is no such thing today as a psychic or palm reader. It’s all a clever art of deception. While there are many other methods of deception, exposing them all could fill a book. I felt that at least I had convinced these boys to think twice before falling for this ancient scam.

When I once wanted to test the skills of a well-known kesubah reader who posed as a holy mekubal, I had a non-married friend of mine who was a great actor, go to see him. I provided him with a phony kesubah and he concocted up some fake story about having two sick children, which he told to the “mekubal’s” gabbi. He wasn’t at all surprised when the kesubah reader told him that he had found a mistake in the kesubah which led him to believe that he had two sick children, and that for only $1,000 he would write him another one, and with this his children would have a speedy recovery. My friend thanked him for his deep insights and said he was going home to talk it over with his wife. So much for his brilliant readings!

While many of us may be school smart and can get a 100% on a math test, most of us are not very street smart and can easily be taken for a ride by a clever con artist.  Hopefully, my readers will have learned the lesson as well.

Claims of the Paranormal

By Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum

Claims of the paranormal are very dangerous and are responsible for misleading billions of people to practice nonsensical religions. This is why the Rambam says that if one’s belief in G-d is based on miracles alone then his belief is only superficial. The Rambam in Hilchos Yesodei Hatorah 3:2 says that the reason Moshe refused to go to Pharaoh and claimed that “They will not listen to me,” was because their belief would be based on miracles and miracles can often be preformed through deception upon which all of magic is based. Today’s great magicians can make the Statute of Liberty or a large animal disappear right in front of your eyes. They can cut a person in half and bring him back to life. The Egyptians were great magicians and used their magic skills to disprove the existence of G-d, as it says in Mesechta Sanhedrin. This may be why the Torah does not allow a Jew to practice magic. In ancient times, priests used their magical abilities to prove the powers of their gods, explains the Rambam in Hilchos Avoda Zara.

Even though we find that when the Red Sea split, it says that the Jews now believed in Hashem and Moshe, which seems to contradict the Rambam, let’s realize that it wasn’t the miracle of the Red Sea itself that made them into believers, but it was because they all suddenly were elevated to the status of prophecy and saw on their very own all that was happening in the heavens above. It was this and witnessing G-d speaking to us at Sinai that confirmed our belief for eternity. And so even if a priest would come today and outperform all Moshe’s miracles, we would give them no credence.

This is why we must never give any paranormal claims such as a talking fish or psychics any credence, no matter how truthful the witnesses may sound and even if there is no reason for them to lie. Millions of people have been misled because of such nonsensical claims into believing in strange gods. All people who believe in the “Talking fish” story are easy prey for kabbalistic scam artists, mezuzah readers, and other phonies, such as Uri Geller, Simcha Ashlag, and their ilk. The belief in the irrational can be very dangerous to both your wallet and spiritual well being.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing... Following a Trail of Fraud and Deception

By Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum

There is no greater danger then a wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing. When a con artist puts on chassidic garb and possess as a kabbalistic healer, the results can be devastating. While many of these con artists reside in our midst, there are some that have outsmarted even some of our finest.

When I read an ad in the local Jewish paper claiming that a holy kabbalist had come into town that was able to heal every incurable illness, I was appalled. He claimed that all one had to do was to bring him their kesuba. He would give it a thorough examination and fix any mistakes or sometimes even rewrite it. This he claimed would solve all problems. For doing this hocus pocus, he would of course charge a hefty fee. Once he had your confidence he would also convince you to support his many educational institutions he claimed he ran in Israel. When he smelled big money, he would also ask for large loans for his non-existent institutions. While he promised to repay them, that promise would never come true.

Since there are always a certain percentage of problems that resolve themselves on their own, it wasn't difficult to convince people of his great miraculous powers. Most evangelists prey on this percentage. By also playing the well-known psychic game he was able to convince many people that he truly possessed great kabbalistic powers.

The desperate, who can find no help elsewhere, will grab any straw held out to them no matter how unbelievable it may sound. When a person walks through the dessert and is very thirsty his eyes begin to play tricks on him and he begins to see a mirage. He thinks that there is water ahead of him but when he gets there it turns out to be sand.

In order to put him to the test we played a simple con game with him. We had a person who was not married make an appointment to see him. He told his gabbi that he had two sick children and needed help. He gave a fake name and had a fake kessubah to match. When he met with the kesuba reader a few weeks later, he wasn’t too surprised when the kesubah reader told him that he had found some mistake in the kesuba that lead him to believe that he had two sick children. He offered to rewrite his kesuba which he claimed would heal the children. When the impostor claimed that he couldn't afford to pay the $10,000 fee, he was nice enough to reduce it to $5,000. So much for his great kabalistic powers!

However it was only recently when his closest aid and former personal gabbi Mr. Drei jumped ship that much of his shenanigans were revealed. Part of his racket was to give people his own concocted medicine called Flora and claimed that this would heal them. His close aid revealed that he bought these tablets from some company in Florida and repackaged them into his own bottles. Dispensing medicine without a license is of course illegal and can be very dangerous. His former gabbai claims that he was fooled by his charismatic and charming personality and that it took him many years to realize that he was nothing but a fraud and very cleaver con artist that stole thousands of dollars from people all over the world with his fraudulent claims.

He has also been accused by Chief Rabbi Bachshi Doron of Israel as well as many other leading rabbonim such as the Chief Rabbi of France of being a womanizer and they have issued letters warning people to stay away from him.

Yet he has the personality of a Shapti Tzvi and is able to continue his fraud despite all the warnings that have come out against him. That’s because people are easily fooled by those claiming to have psychic kabalistic powers. Those who would like to know the truth should study the sefer “Tomim Thiyeh” by one of the leading mekubolim of our time, Rabbi Hillel, who warns people not to fall for these nonsensical claims. He too, has warned people to stay away from him.

P.S. One can also read the book “The Psychic Maffia” which reveals the clever tricks used by those claiming to possess such powers.

Frauds, Con Artists, Quacks, and Charlatans

By Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum

Frauds, charlatans, quacks, and con artists have been with us since time immemorial and have outwitted even the very great, clever and wise.

Nach tells us how the Givonim pulled a real fast one over Yehoshuah and Klall Yisroel. They dressed up in tattered clothes, worn out shoes along with moldy food and claimed that they came from a faraway land and desired to make peace with the Jews. The Jews fell for their story hook, line and sinker. The lesson is obvious. A good con artist can take even the very clever and wise for a ride! No one is immune!

One of the biggest and most successful charlatans in more recent history was Shabtai Tzvi who was able to deceive countless thousands of G-d fearing Jews including many Torah giants into believing that he was the Moshiach. He caused great damage to Klall Yisroel for many years to come.

It's remarkable to see how easily a charismatic learned con artist can amass a following of thousands of adherents. Kabbalistic claims with some chance miraculous cures can bring one instant fame and get people flocking to him by the masses. They attract the destitute, sick and brokenhearted that desperately seek a miracle worker to end their suffering.

Clever psychics have been able to defraud even the most prestigious scientists with the greatest of ease. Take the recent story of Uri Geller, a master charlatan and con artist who claimed he possessed supernatural psychic powers and could make metal bend and watches stop just by looking at them. He received international fame and appeared on TV as well as newspapers and magazines around the world including the prestigious Nature magazine. He even convinced the Stanford Research Institute with the most prestigious scientists in the world of his ability to bend spoons, keys and nails with his "psychic" powers. It was only due to the tireless efforts of a clever magician by the name of James Randi who exposed him as nothing but a clever magician that put an end to his nonsensical claims. One can read more about it in his book "The Truth about Uri Geller" in which he exposes his bag of tricks. Geller later sued Randi for defamation but lost his case in court and had to pay Randi more than $120,000 in court fees instead.

Yet despite all this, there are still people around that are convinced that Geller possesses true psychic powers. There is an ancient proverb that says "If a man deceives me once, shame on him. If twice, shame on me! Randi now offers a $1,000, 000 reward to anyone who can prove that he possesses psychic powers. So far no one has come forward to claim the reward.

Throughout history the biggest scam artists were the priests of the avodah zorah who misled the masses in the name of religion. These charlatan faith healers, like today's evangelists, made a thriving business scamming people with their clever psychic tricks and their claims of miraculous cures.

There are two great secrets of the quack's success. One is the fact that many human ills, including some of the severest, will run their course and vanish without treatment of any sort, and others are wholly or in part psychosomatic.

In times gone by, when prophecy existed, the charlatans far outnumbered the true Prophets and people were easily confused as to who was real and who was just an imposter. Eliyahu was vastly outnumbered by those who insisted that they were the true prophets while he was the fake. Only after Eliyahu brought down a heavenly fire, were they convinced that he was the true novi and the others were nothing but charlatans.

I once had a discussion with my science class on the subject of ESP (extra sensory perception). I asked my students if they believed that it was possible to read other people's minds? Some of them believed that it was possible while others were much more skeptical. I proposed that we set up an experiment in class and study the results. I asked for a volunteer and chose a boy who said that there is no such thing as psychic ability and it is all a fraud. I sat him up front on the opposite side of my desk and we took a coat and pulled it over his head so that he was unable to see me. I asked some of the other boys to check if they could see through the coat and they assured me that it was not possible. I now asked one of the boys to get me some sheets of colored papers that I held out in front of him. I asked the class to concentrate on the color sheet I was holding in my hand. I then asked the chosen student to concentrate as hard as he could and see if a color comes to his mind. At first he said that he couldn't see anything but as I continued to question him, he finally said that he saw yellow, which happened to be the correct color. I explained to the class that this is certainly no proof, since it could have been a lucky guess and we would continue on with the experiment. We tried it many more times and after much concentration he got them right on every try. I now turned to the class and asked if anyone had now changed his mind about ESP. Most of them now seemed quite convinced that there was such a thing as ESP while a few remained skeptical. I offered to repeat these experiments with another boy who still didn't believe in ESP. After this second student was also able to guess the right color more than five times in a row, I had nearly the entire class convinced that ESP was possible. I now proceeded to show them how easily they had been conned by a very simple trick. The two boys that I had supposedly picked at random really were in on the trick and were my accomplices. They sat right opposite my desk with their foot right under it. I simply tapped them on the foot to tell them the correct color. One tap meant yellow, two taps meant blue etc. The purpose of this demonstration was to teach them how easily they could be conned by a clever psychic.

Randi calls Geller "Just about the most dangerous man to come into the limelight for the past 50 years, because he's into psychic feelings, and when he gets into that, the next thing you know, people will be bringing him their problems, their secrets, and then their money."

A story is told about a farmer who claimed that he possessed an intelligent horse that was able to add, multiply and even divide. At first no one believed this nonsense and so he invited all the village flock to come to his farm where he would demonstrate his horse's amazing powers. He began by asking his horse to add 2 plus 2. The horse immediately gave 4 taps with its front leg. He then continued asking it to multiply, divide and subtract and the horse would always tap out the correct answer. He even challenged others to ask it to add or subtract and the people stood amazed at the horse's ability to always get the right answer. The horse soon gained great fame and became the talk of the town as it was written up in all the newspapers. Thousands of people came from far and wide to see this amazing horse in action. When a rich man offered to buy the horse for $10,000, the farmer refused to sell it, claiming that the horse must have a special high soul and he loved it so much that he didn't want to part with it. Finally when the rich man offered the astronomical sum of $100,000 to buy the horse he agreed. The rich man took home his prize possession and began asking it some simple math problems but the horse just stood there motionlessly. The man brought the horse back to the owner and demanded his money back claiming that he had been defrauded. The horse dealer refused to return the money claiming that perhaps the horse had fallen down, banged its head and had gotten amnesia. The man eventually took him to court to try and get his money back, but by then the clever farmer was already in another far off village playing the same trick elsewhere. He was just a clever animal trainer and had taught the horse to stamp its foot whenever he would look straight at him. When he would look down at its foot the horse was trained to stop.

Our problem is that the greed for money is so blinding that we are all too eager to invest in an intelligent horse. Every few months there is another scam artist in town telling us that he has found the secret to wealth and health and we are no smarter then the village farmer.

The latest charlatan to hit town is the kesuba kabalist Rabbi Ashlag. This clever charismatic con artist has come up with a most original brilliant scam which deserves an A for cleverness and ingenuity. He masquerades as a "holy kabalist " and claims that all people's problems can be traced to a problematic kesuba. He is also a master at playing the psychic game. He writes his own self-glorifying press releases and invests heavily in advertising his kabalistic powers. Once he has your confidence, he will attempt to swindle you of your hard-earned money by telling you stories of all sorts.

He told one person that his holy grandfather came to him in a dream and told him of a great business investment. He easily conned him into giving him $40,000 for a business that turned out to be non-existent. When a respectable Bais Din ordered him to return the embezzled money, he unashamedly dared to take them to the Israeli secular courts, accusing the Bais Din of impropriety. (Copies of these papers are in my possession for all to see.) After losing the case in secular court as well, he still refused to pay up. Only after threatening to expose him in public did he finally give the money back. This information can be verified by calling Rav Karelitz of the Bnei Brak Bais Din (011-972-3-6188264 or the Bais din involved at 011-972-6191803.

Only recently did some rabbonim expose him as a master scam artist, and told people to beware and not bring him their kesubos. A kesubah should only be brought to a competent rov. Competent rabbonim claim that he has ruined many a good kesubah with his false corrections. Unfortunately far too many people fall for his clever psychic tricks and fraudulent claims.

Many fortunetellers and spiritualists take advantage of their chance successes to defraud people of thousands of dollars.

How sad and unfortunate that some newspapers will accept any sensational story no matter how absurd. As long as someone is willing to pay for the ad, truth goes out the window. He has succeeded to convince many intelligent people that he has the ability to cure cancer and many other incurable diseases with his hocus pocus kesuba changes. All he needs is to score some chance hits and the rest he makes up, and soon he’s racking in millions. Would any reputable publisher think of releasing a book describing a treatment for cancer if a doctor universally considered a quack by his peers wrote it?

The great magician Houdini exposed psychics as nothing more than master scam artists yet it's amazing to see how many people fall for them. The police recently arrested a number of psychics and fortune tellers for defrauding people of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I can't forget the Purim in Yeshivah when we were introduced to a great kabalist from Israel who we were told possessed amazing psychic powers. His gabbai told us to take out any sefer from the bookshelf and open it up to any page and then return it to the seforim shelf while the great kabalist stood outside of the bais medrash and couldn't see what we were doing. After we picked out a sefer and returned it to the shelf, the great kabalist came into the room and slowly walked around the bookshelf until he pulled out the selected sefer and opened it to the correct page. After pulling this stunt on us numerous times, he had many of us convinced that he truly possessed psychic powers. It was only later that we learned that we had been fooled. The gabbai who had introduced him to us was his accomplice and always walked next to him. When he would reach the sefer that was ten to the right of the one we had selected, he would inhale more deeply. This way the kabbalist now knew that the sefer we had selected was ten to his right .

Perhaps this is why the Rambam (Hilchos Yesodei Hatorah perek 8) writes that someone whose belief is based on miracles alone "yesh belibo dofi". A good magician can easily deceive people with his clever bag of tricks. Even the Egyptians were able to perform some of the makkos. They just got stuck when they reached kinnim. It wasn't until the Jews stood at Har Sinai and heard Hashem Himself speaking to us that our belief in Moshe was confirmed. Miracles in themselves can be very deceiving!

The priests that convinced the people to serve Avodah Zorah were clever scam artists. One of the greatest frauds was perpetrated by King Nevuchadnetzer who built a giant golden idol standing thirty amos tall. It even spoke and called out to all that "I am god your god". The king commanded that everyone bow down to it. It was only when Doniel reached into its mouth and pulled out Hashem's name and it became mute that the hoax was exposed.

A story is told of a priest who claimed that his idol had the power to make the blind see. As proof, he brought this young boy who supposedly had never seen in his life and asked him to bow down to the idol. Suddenly the boy began to shout, "I see. I see!" Thereupon a clever rabbi held out a colored kerchief and asked him what color it was. When he replied that it was red, the hoax was exposed. After all, how could someone who had never seen a color, be able to know what the color red looked like.

While we certainly believe that there are great tzadikim who may possess ruach ha'kodesh, they certainly don't advertise their powers in the press and neither do they charge exorbitant fees to help people.

I still remember from my younger years when someone tried to pull a fast some of my friends and me by claiming that he had magnetic powers in his hands and could cure people just by touching them. To prove it, he waved his hands over a compass and the needle began to move. After watching him a few times I asked him to hold his head back when he waves his hands but then his trick didn't work. Obviously he had a magnet hidden in his mouth so that whenever he drew his head close to the compass the needle would move. So much for his magnetic hands trick. Many books have been written exposing a psychics tricks.

While religious Jews certainly believe in the great power of prayer and miracles, the Torah clearly forbids the belief in superstitions and lies. I suggest you read an important and excellent book titled "Faith and Folly" (Feldheim distributors) which discusses the halachic ramifications of going to these impostors.

While charlatans exist in every profession and come in every shade and color, the most dangerous are the ones making kabbalistic claims. That's because people are easily deceived by mystical claims. Shabtai Tzvi took full advantage of this fact and used it to fool thousands. Let's not fall into the same trap!

Please note that James Randy offers a $1,000,000 reward for anyone that can prove that he has psychic powers and has healed someone of an incurable disease. Country Yossi challenges the "kesuba kabbalist" to give us the names and addresses of the people he claims he has healed of cancer etc., so that his claims can be properly investigated. (This does not include those that gave birth after many years of marriage, since these things happen even under ordinary circumstances.) Unless he reveals this information, we must assume that he is a charlatan and fraud like any of the rest of the evangelistic priests. (See book titled "The Faith Healers" by James Randi".)

Palm Readers and Fortune Tellers

By Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum

While most of us don't believe in crystal balls, we are quite gullible when a charlatan masquerading as a “kabbalist” examines our hand or our mezuzah or kesuba. Even the skeptics become ardent believers when the supposed kabbalist makes a reading that is right on target, especially when we are convinced that there was absolutely no way that they could have been privy to that information beforehand. And so these Kabbalistic palm readers, fortune tellers, and astrologers, flourish like weeds on a rainy summer day and take advantage of the gullible, the troubled and the many fools who believe in this nonsense. They also take advantage of the ignorant that don't have the faintest idea of how these tricks work.

I've often played some of these tricks in class on my students and written articles revealing some of their secrets. That's because only by understanding how these scams work will we be convinced that they are all a fake and not be bamboozled by any of them. Let's remember! You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time! Not everyone is a fool.

I must admit that I like many others, was always fascinated by those who seemed able to read people's past and future by gazing into a crystal ball or by reading ones palm or even one’s mezuzah. How are psychics able to reveal secrets that were totally hidden from man? Was it a science that I too could learn? Why did the Torah prohibit the use of astrology? Was learning to read a horoscope a true science yet still prohibited by the Torah for some other reason? I watched in amazement as people read palms with deadly accuracy and wondered how this supposed science worked? I'd heard psychics reveal people's past and predict their future and wondered what special powers they possessed and wondered if I too could learn it as well? I read the Rambam who claims that all of these things are all a fake and wondered at how millions could be fooled by them? It all seemed so real! I studied the seforim such as "Tomim Thiye Im Hashem.." written by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel one of the leading mekubolim of our generation who warns that it's all a fraud and wondered how intelligent people fall for these hoaxes? (You can get the English translation Faith or Folly
The Occult in Torah Perspective, which is published by Feldheim Press.). It was only after reading many books on this subject such as “The Psychic Mafia,” and other books by James Randi who exposes many of these charlatans such as Uri Geller and others, that I understood that it was all a clever hoax and that one better have his head on straight otherwise we too can easily be taken by these brilliant con-artists.

I must say that the practice of revealing the hidden by reading one’s palm still fools thousands of people who are unaware of the simple tricks used. The more personalized secrets the palm reader or crystal ball gazer is able to reveal, the more one is inclined to believe that palm reading is actually a skill rather than a trick. While some readings are done by collecting information on the client beforehand or use known principles of psychology that apply to nearly everyone. and is referred to as a hot reading, others are preformed by what is known as a cold reading. This is when the crystal ball or palm reader uses both his clever intuition or insight into a persons personality or character traits to give the reading. Sometimes he is also able to extract lots of information from his client by observing him very carefully and listening to his answers.

Recently a person masquerading as a rabbi has gone on the radio and claims to be able to predict the future and know all about the person. All you have to give him is your birth date and then he supposedly will start telling you all about yourself and also make predictions about your future. If you listen very carefully to what he says you’ll quickly learn his tricks. He usually begins by making some general observations that usually apply to anyone and then continues on to probe deeper as he gets a clients feedback. Telling a person that he has “great hidden potential” or “is very sensitive” or that he has “gone through certain disappointments in life” or will soon experience some disappointments,” or that he had some or will have “financial setbacks” or that someone in the family has “health problems” will usually hit the target. After all, most people that go to see these people or call them are doing it because of financial, marital or health reasons. He may flatter you by saying that you are very kind and love doing favors to others. Of course, everyone will believe those things about himself. He may of course continue with predictions about the future and say “you will someday be very rich,” or that “you will soon meet a very nice girl etc.”. He may make some generalizations about your personality that apply almost to everyone such as, “you are sometimes afraid to make difficult decisions,” or that “you sometimes worry too much,” and other such generalities.

There is of course no way for the listeners to the program to know if his predictions will come true, and by then there are enough gullible people that believe that this amazing guru knows what he’s talking about. He can also have some of his cohorts call into the program and every time he says something about them they will praise him for his accurate analysis. This convinces the listeners that this mind reader is for real and actually knows a person’s hidden secrets. Waiting for their clients feedback sometimes tells them how to continue probing. One can also add statements like “there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel” and that “better times are coming” or any other prediction that will make the client feel better and get him to come back for more. If the prediction comes true, then the psychic has scored a direct hit and the client will spread his amazing abilities to others and thereby attract other suckers to the poisonous spider’s web. A sitters reputation is largely based on many chance hit testimonials and a sucker’s belief in the irrational.

Many years ago I careful watched how a supposed “mezuzah” reader made many direct hits using this method. At first I was fooled as many others were and thought that he possessed some mysterious powers and was able to see what no one else could see. Only after watching carefully and studying his answers did I realize that it was all a hoax and they were practicing the generalization techniques used by all fortune tellers. Unless one is familiar with their methods, one can easily be deceived as I once was. That’s why I’ve written many articles revealing many of their secrets. Hopefully as people learn how the tricks work, they will learn to stay away from these “kabalistic” con-artists. The only kabala they possess is the one transmitted to them by Lavan HoArami who was a master at this art.