This interests me, because it was actually one of the questions that Dr Martin Bridgstock and I did for our survey of over a thousand Australians on paranormal, pseudoscientific and conspiracy theories. Yes, it’s forming the basis of my M.Ed dissertation, so you’ll just have to read my blog-posts to get an idea of my literature review and wait until the start of next year for my stuff – but you should certainly keep an eye out for Martin’s work!
Here’s the article in question – from Wired – ‘In Troubling Economic Times, Consumers Flock to Online Psychic’. And the research results I have from our studies… kind of say the opposite… but I’ll have to figure out why!
While it doesn’t take a psychic to see that tough times lay ahead for the economy, online practitioners of the divination arts say they’re seeing a marked sift in the questions posed by their clientele, with anxious consumers increasingly asking what’s in store for them financially in the months ahead. Believers who normally seek psychics for advice on a cheating spouse are now asking whether a pink slip is in their future, and internet psychics across the board saw a spike in traffic in the days following the initial market crash.
The boom in superstition is a predicable response to troubling times, says Columbia Business School professor Gita Johar, who’s studied the phenomenon. “If the future is uncertain, people turn to psychics,” Johar says. Consumers tend to embrace the supernatural when confronted by stress, combined with uncertainty. “You have an illusion then that you can then control the outcome. People want the illusion of control.”
Spears is one of many self-described psychics, empaths and mediums who make a living giving online readings by instant message or phone on sites such as LivePerson.com and AT&T’s Keen.com. Spears performs readings by online chat for $2 to $3 a minute, and says that since September she’s been talking almost exclusively with Americans who are concerned about their economic futures.
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The UK Parliament has just passed an Act which forces psychics, astrologers and their ilk to preface their work for the truly gullible with a statement that what they do is for entertainment only. Any attempt to claim any efficacy opens them up to civil action. They’re whinging like hell. Worth copying elsewhere?
Some people prefer the illusion of control to control itself– or at least, to the hard work they would need to put in to achieve control over their life. Many of them need to do a lot of hard emotional work, or take a hard look at themselves, and that is just too much for a great many people when their circumstances are already hard to cope with.
In short, life is hard, and psychics take advantage of that. That is a bastardly thing to do.
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