Note: MIPC stands for Magic in Popular Culture and this is a series of posts in which I take a magical belief or practice from a work of fiction such as movies, books, comic books, or tv shows and analyze them against real-world magical beliefs and practices.
The Spell, Belief, or Practice
Annie Wilson, a young widow and mother of three boys makes her living giving readings in exchange for donations. Reluctantly, she gets involved in a local missing person's case, which turns out to be a murder. When the wrong man is sent to prison for the crime, she must summon all her abilities to bring the real culprit to justice - even if it means putting herself in harm's way.
Commentary
According to the trivia section at the IMDB Annie is based on the mother of screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton who is alleged to have psychic gifts. Annie uses the vehicle of the Zener Cards in her readings. However, she often has visions of the past and future and communicates with at least three spirits during the course of the movie. Annie is said to have inherited her gift from her grandmother and there is one scene which suggests that at least one of her sons have inherited Annie's gift for seeing spirits.
It is interesting that the writer / director chose to use Zener Cards rather than the more traditional Tarot Cards or even Playing Cards with which most viewers would be more familiar. Although there is a Zener Deck currently on the market which was made for the purpose of divination, it was unheard of in the year 2000 for anyone to use Zener Cards for divination or fortune telling.
In fact, Zener Cards were created in 1930's to test individuals for extra sensory perception (ESP). The deck consists of five set of five symbols for a total of 25 cards. To test for ESP, one person shuffles the deck and turns over each card unseen by a second person who attempts to psychically intuit which symbol is on the card. Their answer is recorded for each card in the 25-card deck. Afterwards, their answers are analyzed for accuracy.
The methods used by Karl Zener and his colleague J. B. Rhine were criticized as their methods to keep the subject from figuring out the cards by other means were deemed inadequate. After taking more precautions, they could not find a subject who scored as high as earlier test subjects. You can see a comedic take on the Zener Test in this scene from the 1984 film Ghostbusters.
I recently watched the Gift to re-familiarize myself with the plot and characters as well as to closely watch Annie give her readings. Annie typically lays the card out in a 3X3 pattern, that is three rows of three cards each. She looks at the cards, but it also seems that she does not seem them but rather is looking to her inner eye. I personally believe that the Zener cards are a means by which Annie distracts her conscious mind to allow her psychic impressions to come through. This is similar to some crystal gazers who see images in their head instead of actually in the crystal before them.
Is it possible to tell fortunes with Zener Cards? Of course, anything is possible! But is it probable? I think it depends on the person and their unique gift. If I were to read fortunes, I would have to compile a list of associations for the cards and then use those meanings as a springboard for my own intuition and psychic faculties.
- Carolina Dean
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