What is the future of PULP?

It's hard not to feel anxiety over this burgeoning mag.

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With PULP only in its infancy, contextualised by the supposed death of print media, it's hard not to feel anxiety over this burgeoning mag. What better way to seek comfort and face hard truths than visit a fortune teller?

Psychics often tell us what we want to hear, soothing our trepidations through a few well-placed, but vague enough words that they can apply to any situation (everything will work out, someone is going to betray you, everyone loves you). While I may be a sceptic, it's always good to go into things with an open mind (and a full wallet).

As such, I decided to visit a few clairvoyants around the Sydney area to find out: what is the future of PULP?

Argyle Oracle

Rushing through the rainy cobblestone streets of The Rocks, I sought shelter in The Argyle Oracle. Operating since 1993 out of a Victorian era terrace house, surely they’d be able to provide the clarity I required.

Visitors to this cosy abode are immediately hit with a familiar scent recognisable to anyone who's ever walked by a crystal shop or modern day apothecary. Incense burns in the corner, and the resident cat sits upright on a red patterned rug. 

The gentleman behind the counter directs me upstairs; as the wooden floorboards creak, I begin to regret my investigation into the mystic arts. Before I could heel-toe out of there, my name bellowed from above, beckoning me to take a journey into the unknown.

Our fortune teller was already sitting, adorned in a black suit jacket over a flannel shirt and jeans. It turned out to be a very interactive experience, as she handed me the deck of tarot and directed me to shuffle, before laying them out in a crescent shape and asking me to pick from the anonymised stack.

Brandishing my copy of PULP ISSUE 01 and throwing it on the table, I felt as though I was in the midst of some dodgy deal. Flicking through, the psychic made vague assertions that, because Mars was in return, “the next two years are going to be pretty important for this”.

“My feeling is, it's a little bit different, that it's got a little bit of an edge in the way that some of them don't.” She said, speaking on the fact that print media is falling by the wayside. “My feeling is that you are doing something a little bit revolutionary in this or a little bit different to what you thought or what people would expect you to do with it. So that feels good to me.”

Having provided little explanation of what the magazine actually was — besides the fact that there was a team of six editors and we were just starting out — they correctly predicted that we would be taken in under some parent company or organisation. I took this to mean she was referencing how PULP is simultaneously under the banner of the USU, while existing separately from it. However, while she was suggesting this was something for the future, she didn’t realise it was already the case.

Flipping over card after card, I couldn’t take in what they were or what they meant. She began suggesting there would be power plays within the team, that there would be a member with their heart not in it but will return by the end, that someone with dark hair is an ideas person with a constant, never-ending flow of ideas (who that may be, considering we all have dark hair, is anyone’s guess), and that 2024 will be when PULP really takes off, reaching a global audience.

I left the Argyle with my ego, and subsequently PULP’s ego, thoroughly stroked. The psychic promised an abundance of riches and notoriety at the end of the rainbow, and gave me an affirmed sense that PULP was something different, something special. While there would be bumps along the way, things would work out in the end.

Diane Kerr Psychic Medium

Unable to do a walk-in or book a face-to-face for the entirety of October, I had to settle for a $150 30 minute phone call with this Northern Beaches psychic. I hope that the powers of telepathy can also be transferred through telephonic means.

Following introductions, I was asked to count from one to ten aloud. Supposedly, the vibrations in my voice sent off signals, and allowed her to tap into an alternate dimension of sight and sound.

My belief in these signals were immediately cast in doubt by an incorrect description of my partner, accompanied by lots of vague suggestions of them being insightful and caring. This was followed by predictions that PULP will someday appeal to both men AND women (supposedly appearing in barbershops?), assertions that I had a scratch on the fender of a car I don’t have, a potential award to be handed to me on the ISSUE 04 launch, could see it potentially being online (which it already is), fashion photography with bucket hats and home ownership being on the cards for me soon.

Diane Kerr was vehement, though, not to entertain any ideas that PULP will crash and burn. According to her, by suggesting that there is a possibility of PULP’s failure, it sets us on the very timeline that will lead to failure. Instead, we must engage in positive visualisation, and imagine PULP being a success.

When getting into specifics, Ms Kerr said that ISSUE 02 will have more copies picked up than ISSUE 01. Alongside this, the number 250,000 kept recurring in her vision, and she too could see us going international, mentioning Japan and New Zealand.

Eerily, she mentioned the name Justin Hemmes was floating around in her head. This session occurred before the release of ISSUE 02, which features an article criticising the hospitality monopoly of Merivale, owned by Hemmes. The context in which she raised Hemmes, however, was regarding us interviewing important or famous personalities in the future, with the first name coming to mind being Justin’s. Coincidence or cosmic divination?

Hanging up my phone call with Kerr, I was reassured that things will ultimately go alright, but I feel as though the mystique of the fortune teller is lost over the phone. When not surrounded by a crowd of crystals and moon-shaped statues in a dimly lit room, the fortune teller’s misguided, vague and non-specific assertions are made ever more glaring. And having paid $150 for 30 minutes, there was a sour taste left in my mouth.

Myself

Dissatisfied with the easy answers of these charlatans, I figured: who better to give me the honest truth but myself? Sitting alone in my room, I dusted off my old tarot card set and accompanying guide, and went to town.

After three shuffles, the same few cards kept recurring. The tower, for one, which signals chaos and upheaval — its image of burning men leaping to their deaths from an aflame spire spelling doom and gloom. Would PULP crash and burn? Is this the fate of the magazine?

This wasn’t helped by the appearance of cards such as the five of wands, a reversed three of swords and the devil. Each one foreshadows quarrelling, rivalry, and seduction by material pleasures.

At the same time, cards like the six of pentacles, six of cups or a reverse seven of wands, among others, pointed to overcoming difficulties, bringing prosperity and good fortune.

Ultimately, my reading was the same as the others, a mixture of good and bad. While one could whittle down the meanings of these tarot to apply vaguely to some material reality, it eventually boils down to a Joseph Campbell-esque tale of overcoming evil. We might endure hardships, but everything will work out in the end.

Perhaps this is why we desperately cling to fortune telling and tarot as panaceas to our anxieties. When submitting yourself to the chance of cards, you are putting your life and decisions into the hands of some higher power, and whatever happens happens for a reason. But like Camus, there is a power and humility to accepting the Absurdity of a universe bereft of meaning, or even in asking for or seeking help in ameliorating these anxious thoughts in the first place. Maybe what PULP needs is not a psychic, but a psychologist.