If you've picked up a newspaper, watched a TV, or checked your 401K in the past few months, there's a near-perfect chance that you've experienced the full miasma of fear, anxiety, and helplessness that accompany loss of control. We hate that feeling—it's a trait embedded in the human condition. And we'll go to any lengths—including "developing" the ability to talk with the dead, see invisible patterns, and read the stars—in order to avoid it. Sharon Begley at Newsweekwrites that a whopping 90 percent of Americans either think they've experienced a paranormal event, or believe that they can happen. And when occurrences—like oh, say, worldwide financial crises—remind us just how futile our desire for order and control really are, our "ability" to see the future in tea leaves by no coincidence begins to rise. As Begley puts it:
Historically, such times have been marked by a surge in belief in astrology, ...