Jemima Packington, from Bath, UK, claims to be the world’s only ‘asparamancer’, a term coined by one of her friends to reflect her unique talent of telling the future using asparagus.
The asparamancer says she started practicing asparagus fortunetelling when she was just eight years old, after seeing her grandmother practice with tea leaves. She tried using other plants, including broccoli, but none worked as well as asparagus, which she describes as the most accurate. Jemima is aware that most people see her fortunetelling technique as silly, or plain stupid, but she claims that her rate of success has been quite impressive over the years.
“I was the first person to predict that Gordon Brown – former British Prime Minister – would leave high level politics some twelve months before anyone else!,” 61-year-old told The Telegraph last year. “Last year my predictions were 99 per cent accurate, with four coming true within the first week of the New Year.” That does sound impressive, but as some people have already pointed out, her predictions are generally, well, very general.
Photo: video caption
For example, in 2014 she predicted that Middle Eastern politics will give rise to yet more international concern, and that a major winter storm in January will bring chaos and misery to Britain. Both came true, as did her prediction of a pregnancy in the English Royal family, but nobody was actually shocked that they happened.
So how does the fortunetelling actually happen, you ask? Well, when she’s making predictions about the world, or general issue, she just grabs a handful of asparagus shoots, tosses them into the air and interprets the way they fall. If she’s asked by someone to make predictions about their life, the asparamancer has them cast the asparagus shoots.
Photo: Jemma Packinigton/Twitter
Jemima is apparently very picky about what type of asparagus she uses for fortunetelling. She only uses English asparagus, and believes harvests from the Vale of Evesham, Worcestershire are the absolute best. Although she acknowledges the seasonality of her vegetable of choice, luckily, polytunnels allow her to operate year-round. This way, she doesn’t have to use poor-quality, imported stuff.
Packington loves nothing more than making predictions for people, all free of charge. “Each reading is individual and I find it gratifying when people come to see me a time after their initial reading to tell me how accurate I have been,” she says.
Photo: Jemma Packinigton/Twitter
But it’s not the individual readings that have made her famous all around the world. At the beginning of each year, she likes to use her asparamancer power to give people a sneak peak into what the new year will bring. She’s been doing it for a few years, so it’s become somewhat of a tradition. For 2017, she predicted that the US will become a pariah state under Donald Trump, and that several other countries will withdraw from the European Union. Well, let’s hope her asparagus fortunetelling really is just a silly joke…
Sources: The Telegraph, The Metro
