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Redux: Your Psychic Friends

Lynn Parramore looks back at the Great Depression to see the path ahead.

What’s in the crystal ball? Minds freaked out by the economy want to know.

So much so that folks are willing to shell out their scant cash on psychics during an economic downturn. The business of telling fortunes is thriving, with psychics reporting visits from a new class of customer – high powered business types and well-heeled Wall Streeters. Some clients fork over a hundred bucks for the privilege of staring at a pile of crystals. Seems kinda silly – until you consider the bad predictions they’ve likely heard from their financial advisors.

Shows like “The Medium,” or “Ghost Whisperer” have sparked a renewed interest in psychics in recent years, but the downturn has revved up a full-blown revival. The American Association of Psychics, a professional trade organization, says that 90% of customers are asking about money matters and the economy.

The reasons are not too mysterious: People get sick of hearing bad news, and want a little psychological pick-me-up. Saving and planning and being diligent all the time is a bit of a bummer, frankly. It’s much more amusing to read Tarot cards and play with crystal balls.

In February, the movie “Push” showed a group of young Americans with psychic powers who get chased around by an evil government agency. By portraying the psychics as heroes, the film opposed our current positive view of the mystical to our distrust of the government after years of abuses and corruption.

The fascination with divining the future has been around since the Ancient Egyptians, where a special class of priests gained insight into the path ahead through dreams. In the 19th century, psychics were all the rage, popularized through the Spiritualism movement. These colorful figures channeled spirits, spat ectoplasm, levitated and delved into sitters’ deepest thoughts. After a round of high-profile exposures by Harry Houdini, he public turned away – for a while.

In the 1930s, Duke University researcher J.B. Rhine got interested in mind-reading and performed electrifying experiments on psychics that were, alas, not replicable. They were, however, great for newspaper copy. Psychics made a comeback.

During the Great Depression, fortune-telling machines were a cheap form of entertainment and a way to forget your troubles. A wide variety of coin-operated machines and booths became popular at fairs and arcades. The Mystic Pen wrote out a fortune when people inserted a penny. A British machine used to raise money for the blind featured a sightless man who pointed a stick towards the person’s fortune, which consisted of cryptic messages like, “Now is the accepted time.” Some of the most sophisticated versions contained creepily life-like mannequins that talked and gestured.

After a political defeat in 1932, Adolf Hitler turned to psychic Erik Jan Hanussen to glimpse his future – which looked pretty bleak at the time. Jan Hanussen predicted that within one year’s time the future Führer would become Reichschancellor. Despite overwhelming political odds, the prediction came true on January 30, 1933.

In 1931, famed psychic Edgar Cayce formed the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, VA to study mediums, psychic readers, spiritual healing, meditation, dreams, and other esoteric subjects. The organization is still around, promoting holistic healing.

Our psychic friends don’t stop at telling us what our stock portfolio will do next quarter: They aim to make the whole darned mess disappear. On March 6, 2009, a group of psychics in the U.K. attempted to end the crisis by visualizing it, hoping that their positive thoughts could dispel bad financial energy.

Our crystal ball tells us that we’ve still got some hard times ahead, and wishing it away may not quite do the trick. But it sure feels like we all need a miracle.

Tags: crystall ball, divination, fortune-telling, psychics, Redux