January 4, 2016 • 45 mins
Why are most psychic readers women? Cristen and Caroline examine how crystal balls, fortunetelling, palm reading and other mystical pastimes became women's work and whether females are the psychic sex.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Julie Douglas, host of the Stuff of Life, a
podcast that teases a part the tales we tell, because
when we crack open a story and look inside, we
see the seeds of what make our world so maddening,
so strange, and so achingly beautiful. The Stuff of Life
is a podcast about how we're all just getting by,
learning and surviving through the stories that we share. We'll
(00:23):
look at everything from fear and what fuels it, the
inconceivability of death and our desire to become immortal, to
the big universal question in life, why don't men dance?
Join me for the first episode on January. You can
find The Stuff of Life on iTunes or any other
podcast provider. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from
(00:54):
how Supports dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And if you're listening to
this episode when it comes out, this is our very
first step Mom Never Told You of the New year.
That's right, woo woo woo woop. So we figured that
(01:16):
talking about fortune telling might be appropriate because the season
for us to anticipate the year ahead of us. Yes,
and my prediction for so many people, including myself, is
that you'll probably start working out again and then about
two weeks from now stop because you'll be tired. My prediction, yeah,
(01:38):
I predict that my yoga classes will be so full
through Valentine's Day then we'll start to taper off. Um.
But looking at the profession of psychic, which is kind
of an umbrella term, was really fascinating and also a
little bit frustrating because as ubiquitous as a psychic is
(02:02):
and has been throughout our history and around the world,
it's such a marginalized job and even pop cultural figure.
Yeah for sure. I mean we talked about in an
episode long long ago, we talked about mediums and how
women dominated that arena, and it's it's the same today.
I would argue that more women are both psychics and
(02:25):
are thought to be psychics. Yeah, So what I was
really interested in for researching this episode was why we
think of women as psychics, Because if you look up
a stock image, for instance, of a psychic or a
fortune teller, it's going to be an older woman wearing
a headscoff and jewels and with her gnarled hands over
(02:50):
crystal ball. So where did she come from? And why
are so many storefront psychics still women today? And for
millennial listeners, I wonder if part of our perception of
women as psychics has to do with one of the
most famous psychics of our generation, Caroline Miss Cleo, Miss Clio,
(03:15):
she of the commercials every five minutes. When I was
growing up, it felt like I was very familiar with
Miss Cleo. Yeah. So, Miss Cleo, for those of you
who don't know, was the spokesperson for the Psychic Readers
Network from to two thousand two, and her catchphrase was
(03:35):
call me now, so simple, yet so deceitful, because she
would on all these infomercials she would take a call
and of course make some kind of uh prediction for
these people who often just sounded like very lonely, and
she would then look at the viewers and say, call
(03:56):
me now for your free psychic reading. But of course
the psychic readings weren't exactly so free, nor was she
exactly who she claimed to be, which was like a
Jamaican priestess. Yeah no, I mean she wasn't even Jamaican.
She didn't even really have an accent. She just affected
a Jamaican accent because it in some way made her
(04:18):
more believable as this like psychic voodoo priestess lady. Yeah,
because it turns out that Ms Cleo is actually re Paris, who,
before she got her gig with Psychic Reader's Network, was
a Seattle playwright who created a character named Cleo in
(04:38):
her play for Women Only, which apparently she bamboozled all
of the people involved with this play out of their
money too, And so then she skipped down and next
lands on our television screens as Ms Cleo full time.
Oh yeah, super celeb of the nineties. So apparently these
(04:59):
Psychic Network phone calls, if you wanted to call up
and chat with Miss Cleo about your love life or
whatever your concern was, I was supposed to be free.
She's like, call me and we'll chat for free because
I'm I'm amazing and giving and I'm an amazing psychic
priestess lady. Uh. And that's just not true really, because
for the first five minutes they would just keep you
on the phone getting personal information, and so the average
(05:22):
call actually could run you about sixty books. Yeah. Um.
And because of this, I think it was actually True
TV Network that first looked into the Psychic Reader Network
and found that they were making money hand over fist
and raked in like a billion dollars um during this
(05:43):
time period. And so of course there are all sorts
of lawsuits um against Psychic Reader's network, and I think
Miss Cleo herself for falsely representing this service and not
emphasizing enough that it was for entertainment purposes only. Yes,
scarded any major trouble though. I mean, she was put
out of a job, but she never went to jail
(06:05):
or anything like that. She just went off to I
think Florida because that makes sense. I think it's Florida,
but even if it's not, it's probably Florida. Uh. And
it's just you know, walking around best Buy with people
approaching her asking, you know, should I call you now?
And I'm sure she's still she still effects a Jamaican accent.
(06:25):
There was was that the Vice interview where where they're like,
are you using a voice right now? And she's like,
oh no, you know, now that I'm older and my
my mouth is just looser, I just talk like this
and it's like you're so you're so full of it,
Miss Cleo. Yeah. She insists that it is part of
her heritage and she stands by her claims as being
(06:48):
taught voodoo specifically, which she told Vice was a little
too taboo for Psychic Reader's Network, so they made her
out to be more of a psychic because that was
a little of a friendlier term. Um, and that she
still does psychic readings today, that that's still kind of
her bread and butter. But because of all of the
(07:09):
visibility of Miss Cleo and also sort of the lampooning
of her as well as the legal troubles involved with
Psychic Readers Network, I think that's a big reason why we,
you know, look at psychics today with an especially skeptical
I well, sure, I mean it's crazy to me reading
those figures about how much money the Psychic Reader's Network
(07:29):
and Miss Cleo brought in. But it the more you read,
the more it makes so much sense because source after
source when you're looking at whether it's psychic abilities or
things like astrology, numerology, Caro, which will be our next episode. Um.
So many people who reach out to these so called
professionals are looking for love, advice. These people are lonely,
(07:51):
these people are desperate, and they oftentimes find themselves filling
this role of counselor of what Karen Gregory over at
New Inquiry called part of the support staff. She was
looking or talking specifically about psychics in New York City,
and she said, considering the long and rich history of
the psychic reader in the city, we can say that
(08:12):
she's always been a member of the city's support staff,
offering reassurance and comfort to urban dwellers. But in today's market,
the psychic has also become the very model of entrepreneurial
effective labor. So you've got lots of issues. You've got
the gendering of psychics. People think of psychics as women.
You've got an emotional labor aspects for people who are
(08:33):
trying to get jobs and earn money, as psychics and
psychic related positions are oftentimes having to rely on that
old pesky emotional labor that we talked about a lot
on the podcast, in terms of being very empathetic and
putting on this act and listening to people's problems and
trying to convince them of things, whether it's stuff in
(08:54):
their love life or their professional life. And the thing
is not all psychic x are Miss Cleo's feigning these
characters just to do people out of some money. There
are a lot of people out there who take their
psychic work very seriously and are very sincere about it.
There's even a psychic school in London where you can
(09:17):
go and hone your abilities. But really, in reading a
Wall Street Journal article about the school, it's as much
about honing your emotional intelligence and rapport with people as
it is what we might think of as psychic. But
speaking of what we think of as psychic, I think
it's worth clarifying what psychics do because they aren't necessarily
(09:37):
telling the future. It's not just the whole looking into
a crystal ball thing. Because generally speaking, psychics use supernatural
or mystical talents to gain insight maybe on the future,
but also on the past or the present. And they're
distinct from mediums like Long Island medium with that that
(09:58):
platinum blonde hair, who channel Spirits and the Dead and
also have successful reality TV show Empires. There are air
quotes around channel right. Yeah, I mean, I don't know
Teresa fairly, Teresa can do some incredible work on Long Island.
I don't know, just I could not. I could not
be more skeptical. Skepticals way too weak of a word.
(10:19):
So how do these people supposedly communicate and and connect
with the past and with the future. Well, there's lots
of techniques. People. You've got palm reading tarot, dream interpretation,
or reading numerology, tea leaves. People can even read your
coffee grounds in Turkish coffee cups. Yeah. I love finding
(10:43):
out all of the various ways that we have attempted
to divine these these supernatural elements because this is also
coming from around the world. And basically the takeaway is
humans are really obsessed with figuring out whatever way they
can to explain the world around them, through things like
(11:03):
interpreting hysterical laughter. That would be Yellowman since my favorite,
I think because I have been accused of having sort
of a disruptive laugh from time to time. Often actually,
especially when you're at a psychic people in movie theaters
have turned around and looked at me. So well, I
think one near and dear to my heart, since I
(11:24):
do love crazy cat ladies would be full of tomancy,
which is predicting the future via cat. Apparently, when a
cat sneezes, something's supposed to happen. That's supposed to mean
something like maybe your house is dusty to say, I
think it means you need to swiffer. Um. And then
there's also scrying, which I learned is the technical term
(11:46):
well peering into a reflective object like a crystal ball.
But it's not just about the mechanics of say, you know,
if this was like way back when and you were
looking at the blood drippings from some animal intestines that
you had just removed. Um. It's also, especially today, about
building repport with a client and asking questions yes, to
(12:12):
find out more information and also see what resonates emotionally.
And zan Ap K Corkman is a sociologist who spent
a lot of time with coffee ground Turkish psychics. So
they're the ones you're reading, you know, the grounds in
Turkish tea and um. She the way she puts it
(12:33):
is that psychic readings are really about experiencing and expressing emotions.
But if you're serious about becoming a psychic reader, a
side hustle, Caroline, trust me, I'm on it, Lady Boss's
natum um. Karen Gregory, who spent a lot of time
(12:54):
with psychics in New York, noted in her piece in
The New Inquiry that if you are serious about becoming
a psychic reader, that you would not ethically stand for
cold readings, and that's their in term for essentially baiting
someone for information and duping them. Well, here's the thing
(13:14):
side questions. So, I mean, I I'm gonna really shock
a lot of people here when I say that I
don't believe in psychic abilities or that psychic abilities exist
at all. But I predicted you were going to say that,
Oh my god, Well, you and I are connected anyway,
so it's fine, as evidenced by the fact that you
and I are both wearing our magical fortune teller robes today. Yeah,
(13:35):
we didn't. We didn't plan that at all. But I'm
I'm so I'm reading all this stuff with you, Kristen,
and we're researching all the stuff about psychics and how
it's it has way more to do with empathy and
being able to really read the person across the table
from you and and sort of make your questions as
statements to try to get a reaction, engage how people react.
(13:58):
Why wouldn't you just be a therapist at that point?
Like that's my question, Like, if you, if you are
so good at reading people and counseling them, why would
you not just like, is it is it too much
time to go to school to become like a licensed
marriage and family counselor or something. Well, I think that
the big distinction between a therapist or even a life
(14:19):
coach and a psychic would be that the psychic is
going to give you more direct advice of what you
should do based on something that they're reading. There's still
it takes it a few steps farther, obviously, because there
is that mystical connection that people are drawn to. I mean,
it's the same reason in a lot of ways people
are drawn to organized religion. Oh sure, sure, sure, yeah,
(14:42):
And that is I think part of human nature, which
we'll talk I mean more about in this episode and
the next about people humans. If this is just natural
to be drawn to something or a person or a
system or a religion or whatever that helps you make
sense of the universe around you. Yeah, and going to
a psychic, consulting a psychic, getting your palm red or
(15:03):
your aura red is not a fringe activity. I was
actually listening to Call your girlfriend a couple of weeks ago,
for instance, and they were talking to Tobby Givinson who
was saying how much she loves getting her aura red.
I have a feeling that, I mean, I don't want
to put words in Tobby's mouth, but it seems like
it's more of a lark than something that she really
like bases her life around. Um. But that jumped out
(15:26):
to be especially as I was reading about the whole
psychic industry. My boss at my last job was adorable
and crazy and hey Carol, and she loved to fluff
people's auras, which I always would tease her. I was like,
this is a euphemism, isn't it. But she made me
lie down on the floor at work. Gross carpet you.
(15:48):
But she had me light down on the floor and
she like put her hands just like millimeters above me
and like moved them around in certain ways. And she
said she's fluffing my aura and don't I feel bad there?
And I was like, well, I mean, I guess I
got to lie down and close my eyes. But she
used tricked you into taking a nap. I know, best ballsver.
(16:09):
But the thing is, this is not a fringe group
of people. According to the two thousand nine Pew Center
on Religion and Public Life Survey, fifteen percent of Americans
have consulted a fortune teller or psychic. And especially as
we see among our millennial generation US going to church
(16:30):
less and we used to, you see a rise in
US getting into more of these occult practices. And that
number is probably higher than it was back in two
thousand nine because the psychic industry has benefited from post
recession discretionary spoonding. In two thousand fourteen, for instance, the
(16:51):
industry brought in a billion dollars. Well, I mean it's
not just post recession spending. There's lots of trend articles
out there from a couple of years ago talking about
how people during the recession. Uh, during the thick of it,
I should say, we're consulting a lot of like quote
unquote financial psychics trying to get help on what do
(17:12):
I do with my investments? How am I going to
lose money? Earn money? What am I gonna do? Help me? Yeah?
Should I go back to grad school? What should I do? Um?
And in along with though the success of the industry
has had in recent years, there's also been more tightening
of regulations around it because of incidents like the whole
Psychic Readers Network fraud, and there have been so many
(17:38):
high profile cases of people being tricked out of hundreds
of thousands of dollars. There was a guy, I think
in New York who spent almost a million dollars so
that a love curse could be broken so he could
get back together with this woman. Wasn't she dead? And
the woman was dead? Yes, And that's the thing. There
(17:59):
comes a point when it's like people are crazy. Yeah,
I was reading there was an x I Jane column
from this girl who had as a teenager worked as
an online uh tarot card reader. Not to like give
her a whole next episode away, but she was writing
about how this guy every night would get on chat,
the tarot chat and like bug the crap out of
(18:21):
her about how he was in love with this woman
and she she told me to stay away from her
and that she never wanted to see me. But what
does that really mean? How do I get with her?
Every night he would get on this girl's tarot chat
and ask her how to do that, and she's like,
I had to stop because that guy was not exactly
one in a million. I mean, there are a lot
of people out there who are completely delusional and who
(18:44):
are willing to use psychics tarot astrology, what have you
to justify like crazy motivations in their lives. Well, and
that goes to the main reason people see psychics, which
is usually for relationship a related advice. It's for those
unanswerable questions, you know. It's also why in the past,
(19:06):
when I've gone through breakups, I read my horoscope all
the time. But yeah, okay, let me back up here
and and be totally hypocritical. Well, I guess not totally.
I'm a trunk hypocritical because I love reading my horoscope.
I mean, I don't believe it, and I don't think
that it necessarily means anything or is true, but I
still love looking at it. Yeah, I have found comfort
(19:29):
in my horoscopes before for whatever reason, knowing that, yes,
it probably does not actually mean anything, but I think
just seeing words in print along the lines of something
better will happen like okay, okay, good, well, let's get
out of bed now. Yeah, I really like actually free
will astrology by Rob Bresney. I actually emailed to me
(19:53):
every week just because they're so quirky, like, even if
it wouldn't even necessarily have to he could call it
something other than horoscopes and it would still be really
quirky and entertaining. And we have research in fact to
confirm our hunch that the appeal of horoscopes, psychics, et
(20:14):
cetera has to do with us making sense of the world.
There was a study from the University of Queensland which
found an unsurprising correlation between people's belief in psychics and
their sense of control over their lives, meaning the psychics
helped them feel more in control in a way. I mean,
(20:36):
it's sort of uh, duping yourself into believing that you
have some answers or some explanations as to why things
are or to what you should do. And again I
have a feeling that you would find similar results for
people with really strong, more traditional religious beliefs as well. Yeah,
(20:56):
and going back to that Dr Corkman that Kristen mentioned earlier,
she found that women, young people, and lgbt Q identified
clients are the most common people who seek out psychics,
and the way that Karen Gregory puts it in that
New Inquiry article makes perfect sense as to why marginalized
(21:16):
groups are more likely to see a psychic. She wrote
against a backdrop of limited opportunity and the increased perception
that the future is precarious and risky. These practitioners offer
the simple reassurance that a life has meaning, perhaps even
a destiny, and that you, as an autonomous self, are
a source of agency and potential. And that's amazing. That's
(21:39):
that's true, and I completely understand it the same way
that some people might find that by being a dedicated
member of a church or a temple, or some other
people might volunteer to feel like they're a part of
something bigger or or what have you. It falls under
that same category of feeling like I'm not alone and
I have purpose. Well, and what a loft job description
(22:01):
to what do you do well? I'm a psychic, which
means I give people a sense of autonomy and agency
and destiny and that they have a purpose in this world.
It's like, oh, that's an interesting way of putting it. Um.
But the big question that we need to answer is
why are most people claiming this job title, ladies? What
(22:22):
is it about psychics? So we're going to talk about
that when we come right back from a quick break.
So here's the thing, Caroline, when it comes to the
question of why we think of psychics as women, why
(22:43):
most psychics are women. There isn't really a tidy answer
to it, because, I mean, for one thing, there isn't
a whole lot of data on the psychic industry because
it has been so marginalized and it's considered this sort
of entertainment thing. There isn't a lot of scholarly insight
(23:06):
on its history and its current operations um. And also
considering how big it is historically. I mean, if if
you look into practically any culture at any point in
the world, you have some kind of fortune teller psychic
thing going on. Yeah, you've got Greek mythology, which focuses
(23:29):
on lots of sort of psychic leaning ladies and oracles.
You have the figure of Cassandra and Greek mythology, who
could be considered one of the original lady psychics. I mean,
she's more of a prophet. But according to the drama Agamemnon,
Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy in exchange for
(23:50):
hooking up with her. That's great, yeah, but Cassandra was like, no, no, no, Apollo,
I'm going to take the prophecy um and you can
service yourself. Oh what, apologisn't like that? No? He he
cursed her with the whole thing that nobody would ever
actually believe her predictions. That's got to be frustrating. Well,
and that also sounds a little bit like how we
perceive psychics today, where it's like he cursed all women.
(24:13):
Oh interesting, you know what I mean, because we probably
attribute it to like, oh, well, of course women are psychics.
I think there's like it because they're all you know,
it's just there their men see, yeah, they're empathy. Their
men sees empathy. But in the Britannica article on divination
it noted that it happens in practically every culture around
(24:37):
the world. I mean, it's it's just this human impulse.
It seems like, yeah, what book were we looking at?
That was talking about mediums and psychics in the media.
So that was a book by Karen Bheeler called Sears,
Witches and Psychics on Screen and Analysis of Women Visionary
Characters in recent television and film. Well, in the intra
(25:00):
she goes into a discussion of perhaps, you know, all
the way from Greek mythology to a modern TV show,
we think of psychics as being women and vice versa,
because it's not as action packed or role as the
traditional hero who is traditionally male or masculine um. And
(25:22):
so that's one possible explanation for the origins of our
association that you know, women, we've got all the stereotypical
like separate spheres. Women are tending and befriending at home
or at the temple, so they're more likely to stereotypically
and traditionally and mythologically, uh, be inside fortune tellen as
opposed to being outside, you know, slaying the beasts or whatever. Well,
(25:46):
and when you think about it, it's a very passive role.
Psychics are often these empty vessels that allow other forces
to communicate through them. So we're much more comfortable with
a woman traditionally in that kind a passive role. I mean,
even if we take it more literally, women is empty
vessels hello, having babies flooding uterus is I was thinking
(26:09):
of your uterus in place and and filled with a baby. Oh,
I went then comes out. I was just thinking you're
uterus as being like so empty except for good ideas.
I think our yes, we would have been so much
different if people have thought are empty wounds were just
full of good ideas. But we're cursed by Apollo for
(26:31):
no one to believe us, no one to believe our Uteruses.
We are all, Cassandra. That's why we're having the planned
parent in debate. It's because nobody believes our Uterus. It's
because Apollo. And it's notable too that the occult, generally speaking,
is one of like the only non patriarchal realms of
(26:53):
spirituality there is, so there's been room for women, um
to not only play parts, but also have leader ship
in these aspects. I mean, I highly highly highly recommend
listeners if you are into this topic, go back and
listen to our podcast a while back asking the question
were mediums the first feminists because UM, in the United
(27:15):
States in the mid nineteenth century, these women named the
Fox Sisters essentially created this religion called spiritualism, which involved
all sorts of mediumship and psychic reading and tarot reading,
and women who also became suffragists were so into it
(27:36):
because it gave them a platform for the very first time. Yeah,
I gave them a platform. And it was also sort
of the same way that Protestant religions split off from
Catholic the Catholic religion and gave people a direct connection
to the Bible and to God. I mean, mediumship is
not that different, it's it's quite parallel, and that it's
(27:57):
giving people, in this case a lot of women, a
direct connection to another worldly realm and people who some
people who were stereotypically very connected to the other worldly
realm were the Roma. And that's where we get this
image of the the carnival gypsy with all of her
jewels and big earrings and crystal ball. Yeah. In brook
(28:19):
Bunts is History of the Crystal Ball at Broadly, which
I highly recommend you read. She notes that traveling Roma
in America were the go to carnival and standalone fortune
tellers by the nineteen thirties. Now, of course, this is
where we get a little bit of racism, I think,
in our perception of fortune tellers as frauds, because, um,
(28:42):
the Roma people are usually hated for being fraudulent and
being thieves and pickpockets and things like that. So we
have this, uh, this other ring of this group, I mean,
and it's not just in the United States, it's issues
um wherever they've been. Um. But that's where that stereotypical
(29:05):
image comes from. And one thing that I also didn't
find a good source on, but I'm curious to know
if listeners have any more insight on this is a
little more deeply how race plays into our perceptions of
women as psychics. Because going back for a second to
Miss Cleo and her being so believable because she affected
(29:29):
this Jamaican lilt and talked about voodoo, and I don't know,
I just wonder if I just wonder kind of what's
up with that, Like why, um, this image is more
why we were so quick to buy it? Well, I
wonder if it has anything to do with just traditionally
(29:50):
having viewed women from other cultures or countries as just
the other anyway, um, and why we would be so
quick to believe like someone with a different accent who
puts on a turban and big earrings. Yeah, the whole
exoticizing factor. That makes total sense. Um. Although if we
(30:13):
look at the most prominent uh characters on TV who
are playing these kinds of mainstream psychics that Karen Deeler
highlights in her books Sears, which is and Psychics, most
of them are white ladies. Yeah, you've got what is it,
Patricia Arquette, You've got Jennifer love Hewitt, which, come on,
(30:36):
you couldn't have cast someone else better. I've never seen
the show. I probably shouldn't talk. Go ahead and send
of your letters. I've never seen it. I'm sorry. Jennifer
love Hewitt, if you're listening, you've got great hair. She's
got great hair. She's just that beautiful hair. I mean, hey,
I enjoyed Party of Five. There was a show though,
(30:56):
and I don't I don't have the actress's name in
front of me, but wonderful rolls. It was a brief show,
but delight um that she wasn't necessarily psychic, but objects
would talk to her, and she was. Objects would talk
to her. Yeah, like little little things like the stapler
kinda yeah, the stapler might be like you should go
(31:18):
invest a great that hang over there. I'm impressed that
a stapler would know about other things instead of just stapling. Oh,
I've learned so much from staplers over the u S, Caroline,
I've been limiting. If I've been limiting, uh, staplers quite
possibly standing in the way of their progress. That's right.
Don't even get me started on duct tape. Um. But
(31:41):
one thing that that beeler does know, she she kind
of glosses over the how sort of homogeneous all these
characters are. And and how curious that is that these
lead roles, that these protagonists are suddenly white, even though
if we think of the more stock characters, it usually
is like women of color. Well, I mean, that's that's
(32:03):
another thing, having stock characters and background characters and suspicious
characters being women of color. But then having like the
lead in your one hour Saturday night drama TV show
being a white woman. Then Yeah, layers, layers, so many layers. Well,
and she notes too what we mentioned earlier about how
(32:24):
uh and this also echoes our episode on Hollywood Witches.
How of course we would enjoy seeing a woman with
supernatural psychic abilities, because you know, dudes can have the
physical strength and the logic, but ladies, you know, just
just using their feelings to fix pain. I wish my
(32:47):
feelings fixed things. Well, I mean, is that why we
get like the douchy Chris Angel And what's the other
one who's got to go tee? The illusionist? Yeah, like
all of the your magician illusionist people tend to be guys.
That's what I was wondering as well, because you have Yeah,
(33:07):
and in this if we broaden our scope even more
to this entertainment industry. Magicians are men performing in front
of audiences. Psychics tend to be women one on one
tapping into the emotions, whereas men are usually pulling things
out of happen and escaping from tanks of water, pulling
(33:29):
who knows what at of who knows where, goodness being
cut in half. But there's also that emotional labor aspect
of it, or the affective labor, as we talked about
at the top of the podcast, and this was something
that Dr Corkman highlighted as well, and she was kind
of blown over by the work that it does take
(33:51):
to be a fortune teller. She was like, going into this,
it's like, Oh, you're just gonna like read some coffee ground,
no big deal. But a lot of them reported being
so exhausted at the end of the day. Yeah, you've
got to sit there and try to pull really emotional
sensitive information out of people, some of who might be crying,
some of who might be skeptical and not not really
(34:12):
going along with it. But if you've got to be
attuned to every like eye twitch or glance or movement
to try to pick up on someone's emotions, Yeah, it
does sound exhausting, and it's usually I mean, it's not reciprocated.
That's another thing with this, you know, the the energy
being expended, it's not like they're going to get anything
from return from these clients. Um and Corkman notes that
(34:36):
divination work is marginalized as a result of it's feminization.
So it seems like being a psychic unless you're like
a celebrity psychic like Sylvia Brown who made like a
bazillion dollars when she was alive, is often just a
thankless job. But is divination truly dismissed? And I mean,
(35:00):
I recognize that this is what Kirkman studies point to,
but is it truly dismissed because it's feminized or is
it dismissed because we have hundreds of years of history
of people being like kind of jerked around by psychics
and mediums and members of the occult. But I want
to pull magicians back out of out of my top
(35:23):
hat because think about that. We know, I mean, like
they now refer to themselves as illusionists in the same
way that psychics legally and most municipalities have to emphasize
that their services are for entertainment only, and we know
that magic isn't real, but we don't. I don't think
that we give them the side eye quite as much
(35:45):
as psychics. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I really only roll
my eyes at people like Chriss angel just because he's
Chris angel Um, not so much because someone's a magician
or an illusionist or whatever, Whereas kind of across the
board I tend to roll as a psychics. Well, and
I guess I just realized as I was making that
argument that of course we are not as side eyed
(36:08):
toward magicians because we're actually seeing their tricks happening. We
see the things up here, We see the lady being
sawn into song. So sod also the magic of me
learning basic words. I love witnessing it. It's a beautiful thing.
But you obviously can't see a psychic's promise happening right
(36:32):
there in front of you. Well, maybe that's why you
have a lot of psychics who do use quote unquote
tools of the trade like crystal balls, like crystals um, like,
you know, just basic accessories that they have in their
their psychic rooms to try to lend an air of authenticity. Perhaps, Yeah,
(36:53):
I mean, the thing about it is scientifically psychic powers
don't exist. I mean, the whole question of like, well,
maybe women are more often psychics because they're more psychic
than men, and the answers, no, women aren't more psychic
than men because these powers don't exist. I mean, there
was a University of London study, for instance, that essentially
(37:17):
debunked psychic ability, although it was a rather small sample size.
They had like two psychics sit down and had people
write things on cards. I'm just imagining the opening scene
of Ghostbusters or Dr Bankman has the pretty girl in
the basement any who. Actually it was exactly that and
(37:37):
had a marshmallow man come out. Um. But essentially what
happened was the psychics were not able to guess what
these people had written in any statistically significant kind of way.
I think they failed across the board. But it also
goes to show how, in a lot of ways psychics
today can be compared to life coaches sort of a
(38:00):
little more more mystical. Yeah, just like somebody who's on Oprah.
Stuff written for a magazine, which I've said time and
time again is one of my favorite things to read
in the world. I mean a lot of those people
are life coachy. Well, and I'm sure that there are
listeners who have consulted psychics who are indicating their areas read.
I am sure that there are some who do crystals,
(38:21):
because I feel like crystals are super popular right now. Um,
one of my best friend's moms is all about some
healing crystals. Yeah. I used to work at another old job.
Uh there was this very amazingly intelligent, sweet nurse who
she was like a very strong Christian woman, but she
(38:41):
also was big into crystal healing, which I thought was
very interesting considering she was both a Christian and an
actual medical nurse. But yeah, she she gave me a
crystal to help ward off evil spirits and it did
not keep that boss away from me. So I don't
I can't believe. I can't buy into an Unfortunately, Well,
I wonder what listeners have to say about all of this,
(39:04):
or are there any listeners who are psychics who do
this kind of work. We want to hear from you,
and also were curious as to why you think that
most psychics are women. Mom Stuff at how stuff works
dot com is our email address. You can also tweet
us at mom stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and
we've got a couple of messages to share with you,
(39:25):
and we come right back from a quick break. One
great resolution you can make for the new year is
to maximize every minute and every dollar for your small business,
and we know an easy way to do that with
stamps dot com. Think about how much time you've wasted
going to the post office, driving there and finding parking.
(39:47):
Stamps dot com is the better way to get postage.
Just use what you already have, your computer and printer
to get official US postage for any letter or package.
Then the mail carrier picks it up. With stamps dot com.
Everything you would do at the post office you can
do right from your desk and at a fraction of
the cost of one of those expensive postage meters. And
(40:10):
right now you can sign up for stamps dot com
and use our promo code stuff for a special offer.
It's a four week trial with a dollar bonus offer
including postage and a digital scale. So don't wait. Go
to stamps dot com before you do anything else. Click
on the microphone at the top of the homepage and
type in stuff that's stamps dot com. Enter stuff and
(40:34):
now back to the show. All right, Well, I have
a letter here from Carly in response to our adult
acne episode, she says, um, I've been a longtime listener
to the show and especially enjoy the topics on female health.
When the episode on adult acne popped up, I listened
(40:56):
immediately because it's been a major subject of frustration for
me over the past seven months. In the episode, you
mentioned hormonal i u d s can sometimes cause acne.
You also noted that copper i u d s are
non hormonal and thus will not factor into the hormonal
acne equation. However, as I and many other women on
internet message board land will tell you, these copper i
(41:16):
u d s are thought to cause acne too. I
got my copper iu D in just shy of a
year ago. I was so happy to be free of
daily hormones and to have a potentially ten year long
solution of birth control with no fuss. Skipped to six
months later, and my face is breaking out and painful
cystic acne constantly and all over my face. Even before
I was on the pill, I had never experienced anything
(41:38):
to this degree. It was so bad I never wanted
to leave the house, instead scouring the internet for potential
causes and solutions. At first, I thought it was due
to a hormonal imbalance from getting off the pill, but
then I found a slew of message for conversations connecting
the copper I u D two cystic acne, among other
symptoms I won't get into here. Post after post women
(41:58):
recounted experiencing exactly the same course of events like me.
Many women had never had acne before and developed it
after having the iu D in for several months. Subsequently,
many women also wrote about how getting the io D
out immediately reduced their inflammation and then eventually solve the
problem altogether. The theory goes that the copper and the
iu D builds up in your body too much higher
(42:20):
than normal levels and then inhibits zinc absorption because zinc
is correlated with skin health. Without adequate zinc, the skin
goes haywire. From what I can tell, this copper toxicity
theory is majorly anecdotal. I couldn't find one scientific study
to verify the connection with the io D to copper toxicity.
This might explain why myself and other women were not
told that this could be a possible symptom before getting
(42:42):
the iu D, and why women are constantly told there
is no way the copper iu D is the cause
of their acne because it doesn't affect hormones. After doing
this research, I started taking a good zinc supplement and
my symptoms have really improved. I'm also getting the iu
D out this week, so time will tell if the
iu D is really the cause of my think I'm
curious about this potential gap in research on this product,
(43:03):
perhaps another case of women's issues getting the short end
of the research sick. I just wanted to share this
in case there's any other frustrated and confused copper I
u D users out there, So thanks Carly Well. I've
got a letter here from Rachel, also about our adult
acne episode. She writes, I've been struggling with acne for
the past twenty years and think that you treated a
(43:24):
fabulous job of highlighting all the physical, emotional, and psychological
tools that acne can take on a woman. From my
mother who is approaching sixty and still gets sabacious. This
physically holding me down on our bathroom floor trying to
pop one of my first pimples, the odd intimacy of
popping back me with my husband. I'm pointing at you,
gonger Seeva has brought me both joy and pain, and
(43:46):
mostly pain in all forms. In the realm of remedies,
I tried it all and only recently discovered Sperana lacktne.
It was recently recommended to me by a friend about
a year and a half ago, and it's actually changed
my life. After about ninety days on a very low dose,
my skin was gorgeous. Since starting the medication, I've had
a few breakouts, but they have not been anywhere near
(44:09):
as horrible as the pimples of yesteryear, and it made
me realize how quickly I've become accustomed to a clear
face and forgot the horrors of cystic acne. But I've
recently decided to let nature take its course with my reproduction,
so I can no longer take it. My skin hasn't
blown up yet, but I'm sure that's right around the corner.
Keep up the great work on the podcast and keep
(44:31):
on preaching the magic of spur on a lactown So thanks, Rachel,
and I can also attest that it is a fabulous drug.
So listeners, we want to hear from you now. Mom
Stuff at house stuffworks dot Com is our email address
and for links to all of our social media as
well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including
(44:52):
this one with our sources so you can learn more
about like gigs head on over to stuff Mom Never
Told You dot com for more on its in athens
of other topics using how stuff works dot com
I'm Julie Douglas, host of the Stuff of Life, a
podcast that teases a part the tales we tell, because
when we crack open a story and look inside, we
see the seeds of what make our world so maddening,
so strange, and so achingly beautiful. The Stuff of Life
is a podcast about how we're all just getting by,
learning and surviving through the stories that we share. We'll
(00:23):
look at everything from fear and what fuels it, the
inconceivability of death and our desire to become immortal, to
the big universal question in life, why don't men dance?
Join me for the first episode on January. You can
find The Stuff of Life on iTunes or any other
podcast provider. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from
(00:54):
how Supports dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And if you're listening to
this episode when it comes out, this is our very
first step Mom Never Told You of the New year.
That's right, woo woo woo woop. So we figured that
(01:16):
talking about fortune telling might be appropriate because the season
for us to anticipate the year ahead of us. Yes,
and my prediction for so many people, including myself, is
that you'll probably start working out again and then about
two weeks from now stop because you'll be tired. My prediction, yeah,
(01:38):
I predict that my yoga classes will be so full
through Valentine's Day then we'll start to taper off. Um.
But looking at the profession of psychic, which is kind
of an umbrella term, was really fascinating and also a
little bit frustrating because as ubiquitous as a psychic is
(02:02):
and has been throughout our history and around the world,
it's such a marginalized job and even pop cultural figure.
Yeah for sure. I mean we talked about in an
episode long long ago, we talked about mediums and how
women dominated that arena, and it's it's the same today.
I would argue that more women are both psychics and
(02:25):
are thought to be psychics. Yeah, So what I was
really interested in for researching this episode was why we
think of women as psychics, Because if you look up
a stock image, for instance, of a psychic or a
fortune teller, it's going to be an older woman wearing
a headscoff and jewels and with her gnarled hands over
(02:50):
crystal ball. So where did she come from? And why
are so many storefront psychics still women today? And for
millennial listeners, I wonder if part of our perception of
women as psychics has to do with one of the
most famous psychics of our generation, Caroline Miss Cleo, Miss Clio,
(03:15):
she of the commercials every five minutes. When I was
growing up, it felt like I was very familiar with
Miss Cleo. Yeah. So, Miss Cleo, for those of you
who don't know, was the spokesperson for the Psychic Readers
Network from to two thousand two, and her catchphrase was
(03:35):
call me now, so simple, yet so deceitful, because she
would on all these infomercials she would take a call
and of course make some kind of uh prediction for
these people who often just sounded like very lonely, and
she would then look at the viewers and say, call
(03:56):
me now for your free psychic reading. But of course
the psychic readings weren't exactly so free, nor was she
exactly who she claimed to be, which was like a
Jamaican priestess. Yeah no, I mean she wasn't even Jamaican.
She didn't even really have an accent. She just affected
a Jamaican accent because it in some way made her
(04:18):
more believable as this like psychic voodoo priestess lady. Yeah,
because it turns out that Ms Cleo is actually re Paris, who,
before she got her gig with Psychic Reader's Network, was
a Seattle playwright who created a character named Cleo in
(04:38):
her play for Women Only, which apparently she bamboozled all
of the people involved with this play out of their
money too, And so then she skipped down and next
lands on our television screens as Ms Cleo full time.
Oh yeah, super celeb of the nineties. So apparently these
(04:59):
Psychic Network phone calls, if you wanted to call up
and chat with Miss Cleo about your love life or
whatever your concern was, I was supposed to be free.
She's like, call me and we'll chat for free because
I'm I'm amazing and giving and I'm an amazing psychic
priestess lady. Uh. And that's just not true really, because
for the first five minutes they would just keep you
on the phone getting personal information, and so the average
(05:22):
call actually could run you about sixty books. Yeah. Um.
And because of this, I think it was actually True
TV Network that first looked into the Psychic Reader Network
and found that they were making money hand over fist
and raked in like a billion dollars um during this
(05:43):
time period. And so of course there are all sorts
of lawsuits um against Psychic Reader's network, and I think
Miss Cleo herself for falsely representing this service and not
emphasizing enough that it was for entertainment purposes only. Yes,
scarded any major trouble though. I mean, she was put
out of a job, but she never went to jail
(06:05):
or anything like that. She just went off to I
think Florida because that makes sense. I think it's Florida,
but even if it's not, it's probably Florida. Uh. And
it's just you know, walking around best Buy with people
approaching her asking, you know, should I call you now?
And I'm sure she's still she still effects a Jamaican accent.
(06:25):
There was was that the Vice interview where where they're like,
are you using a voice right now? And she's like,
oh no, you know, now that I'm older and my
my mouth is just looser, I just talk like this
and it's like you're so you're so full of it,
Miss Cleo. Yeah. She insists that it is part of
her heritage and she stands by her claims as being
(06:48):
taught voodoo specifically, which she told Vice was a little
too taboo for Psychic Reader's Network, so they made her
out to be more of a psychic because that was
a little of a friendlier term. Um, and that she
still does psychic readings today, that that's still kind of
her bread and butter. But because of all of the
(07:09):
visibility of Miss Cleo and also sort of the lampooning
of her as well as the legal troubles involved with
Psychic Readers Network, I think that's a big reason why we,
you know, look at psychics today with an especially skeptical
I well, sure, I mean it's crazy to me reading
those figures about how much money the Psychic Reader's Network
(07:29):
and Miss Cleo brought in. But it the more you read,
the more it makes so much sense because source after
source when you're looking at whether it's psychic abilities or
things like astrology, numerology, Caro, which will be our next episode. Um.
So many people who reach out to these so called
professionals are looking for love, advice. These people are lonely,
(07:51):
these people are desperate, and they oftentimes find themselves filling
this role of counselor of what Karen Gregory over at
New Inquiry called part of the support staff. She was
looking or talking specifically about psychics in New York City,
and she said, considering the long and rich history of
the psychic reader in the city, we can say that
(08:12):
she's always been a member of the city's support staff,
offering reassurance and comfort to urban dwellers. But in today's market,
the psychic has also become the very model of entrepreneurial
effective labor. So you've got lots of issues. You've got
the gendering of psychics. People think of psychics as women.
You've got an emotional labor aspects for people who are
(08:33):
trying to get jobs and earn money, as psychics and
psychic related positions are oftentimes having to rely on that
old pesky emotional labor that we talked about a lot
on the podcast, in terms of being very empathetic and
putting on this act and listening to people's problems and
trying to convince them of things, whether it's stuff in
(08:54):
their love life or their professional life. And the thing
is not all psychic x are Miss Cleo's feigning these
characters just to do people out of some money. There
are a lot of people out there who take their
psychic work very seriously and are very sincere about it.
There's even a psychic school in London where you can
(09:17):
go and hone your abilities. But really, in reading a
Wall Street Journal article about the school, it's as much
about honing your emotional intelligence and rapport with people as
it is what we might think of as psychic. But
speaking of what we think of as psychic, I think
it's worth clarifying what psychics do because they aren't necessarily
(09:37):
telling the future. It's not just the whole looking into
a crystal ball thing. Because generally speaking, psychics use supernatural
or mystical talents to gain insight maybe on the future,
but also on the past or the present. And they're
distinct from mediums like Long Island medium with that that
(09:58):
platinum blonde hair, who channel Spirits and the Dead and
also have successful reality TV show Empires. There are air
quotes around channel right. Yeah, I mean, I don't know
Teresa fairly, Teresa can do some incredible work on Long Island.
I don't know, just I could not. I could not
be more skeptical. Skepticals way too weak of a word.
(10:19):
So how do these people supposedly communicate and and connect
with the past and with the future. Well, there's lots
of techniques. People. You've got palm reading tarot, dream interpretation,
or reading numerology, tea leaves. People can even read your
coffee grounds in Turkish coffee cups. Yeah. I love finding
(10:43):
out all of the various ways that we have attempted
to divine these these supernatural elements because this is also
coming from around the world. And basically the takeaway is
humans are really obsessed with figuring out whatever way they
can to explain the world around them, through things like
(11:03):
interpreting hysterical laughter. That would be Yellowman since my favorite,
I think because I have been accused of having sort
of a disruptive laugh from time to time. Often actually,
especially when you're at a psychic people in movie theaters
have turned around and looked at me. So well, I
think one near and dear to my heart, since I
(11:24):
do love crazy cat ladies would be full of tomancy,
which is predicting the future via cat. Apparently, when a
cat sneezes, something's supposed to happen. That's supposed to mean
something like maybe your house is dusty to say, I
think it means you need to swiffer. Um. And then
there's also scrying, which I learned is the technical term
(11:46):
well peering into a reflective object like a crystal ball.
But it's not just about the mechanics of say, you know,
if this was like way back when and you were
looking at the blood drippings from some animal intestines that
you had just removed. Um. It's also, especially today, about
building repport with a client and asking questions yes, to
(12:12):
find out more information and also see what resonates emotionally.
And zan Ap K Corkman is a sociologist who spent
a lot of time with coffee ground Turkish psychics. So
they're the ones you're reading, you know, the grounds in
Turkish tea and um. She the way she puts it
(12:33):
is that psychic readings are really about experiencing and expressing emotions.
But if you're serious about becoming a psychic reader, a
side hustle, Caroline, trust me, I'm on it, Lady Boss's
natum um. Karen Gregory, who spent a lot of time
(12:54):
with psychics in New York, noted in her piece in
The New Inquiry that if you are serious about becoming
a psychic reader, that you would not ethically stand for
cold readings, and that's their in term for essentially baiting
someone for information and duping them. Well, here's the thing
(13:14):
side questions. So, I mean, I I'm gonna really shock
a lot of people here when I say that I
don't believe in psychic abilities or that psychic abilities exist
at all. But I predicted you were going to say that,
Oh my god, Well, you and I are connected anyway,
so it's fine, as evidenced by the fact that you
and I are both wearing our magical fortune teller robes today. Yeah,
(13:35):
we didn't. We didn't plan that at all. But I'm
I'm so I'm reading all this stuff with you, Kristen,
and we're researching all the stuff about psychics and how
it's it has way more to do with empathy and
being able to really read the person across the table
from you and and sort of make your questions as
statements to try to get a reaction, engage how people react.
(13:58):
Why wouldn't you just be a therapist at that point?
Like that's my question, Like, if you, if you are
so good at reading people and counseling them, why would
you not just like, is it is it too much
time to go to school to become like a licensed
marriage and family counselor or something. Well, I think that
the big distinction between a therapist or even a life
(14:19):
coach and a psychic would be that the psychic is
going to give you more direct advice of what you
should do based on something that they're reading. There's still
it takes it a few steps farther, obviously, because there
is that mystical connection that people are drawn to. I mean,
it's the same reason in a lot of ways people
are drawn to organized religion. Oh sure, sure, sure, yeah,
(14:42):
And that is I think part of human nature, which
we'll talk I mean more about in this episode and
the next about people humans. If this is just natural
to be drawn to something or a person or a
system or a religion or whatever that helps you make
sense of the universe around you. Yeah, and going to
a psychic, consulting a psychic, getting your palm red or
(15:03):
your aura red is not a fringe activity. I was
actually listening to Call your girlfriend a couple of weeks ago,
for instance, and they were talking to Tobby Givinson who
was saying how much she loves getting her aura red.
I have a feeling that, I mean, I don't want
to put words in Tobby's mouth, but it seems like
it's more of a lark than something that she really
like bases her life around. Um. But that jumped out
(15:26):
to be especially as I was reading about the whole
psychic industry. My boss at my last job was adorable
and crazy and hey Carol, and she loved to fluff
people's auras, which I always would tease her. I was like,
this is a euphemism, isn't it. But she made me
lie down on the floor at work. Gross carpet you.
(15:48):
But she had me light down on the floor and
she like put her hands just like millimeters above me
and like moved them around in certain ways. And she
said she's fluffing my aura and don't I feel bad there?
And I was like, well, I mean, I guess I
got to lie down and close my eyes. But she
used tricked you into taking a nap. I know, best ballsver.
(16:09):
But the thing is, this is not a fringe group
of people. According to the two thousand nine Pew Center
on Religion and Public Life Survey, fifteen percent of Americans
have consulted a fortune teller or psychic. And especially as
we see among our millennial generation US going to church
(16:30):
less and we used to, you see a rise in
US getting into more of these occult practices. And that
number is probably higher than it was back in two
thousand nine because the psychic industry has benefited from post
recession discretionary spoonding. In two thousand fourteen, for instance, the
(16:51):
industry brought in a billion dollars. Well, I mean it's
not just post recession spending. There's lots of trend articles
out there from a couple of years ago talking about
how people during the recession. Uh, during the thick of it,
I should say, we're consulting a lot of like quote
unquote financial psychics trying to get help on what do
(17:12):
I do with my investments? How am I going to
lose money? Earn money? What am I gonna do? Help me? Yeah?
Should I go back to grad school? What should I do? Um?
And in along with though the success of the industry
has had in recent years, there's also been more tightening
of regulations around it because of incidents like the whole
Psychic Readers Network fraud, and there have been so many
(17:38):
high profile cases of people being tricked out of hundreds
of thousands of dollars. There was a guy, I think
in New York who spent almost a million dollars so
that a love curse could be broken so he could
get back together with this woman. Wasn't she dead? And
the woman was dead? Yes, And that's the thing. There
(17:59):
comes a point when it's like people are crazy. Yeah,
I was reading there was an x I Jane column
from this girl who had as a teenager worked as
an online uh tarot card reader. Not to like give
her a whole next episode away, but she was writing
about how this guy every night would get on chat,
the tarot chat and like bug the crap out of
(18:21):
her about how he was in love with this woman
and she she told me to stay away from her
and that she never wanted to see me. But what
does that really mean? How do I get with her?
Every night he would get on this girl's tarot chat
and ask her how to do that, and she's like,
I had to stop because that guy was not exactly
one in a million. I mean, there are a lot
of people out there who are completely delusional and who
(18:44):
are willing to use psychics tarot astrology, what have you
to justify like crazy motivations in their lives. Well, and
that goes to the main reason people see psychics, which
is usually for relationship a related advice. It's for those
unanswerable questions, you know. It's also why in the past,
(19:06):
when I've gone through breakups, I read my horoscope all
the time. But yeah, okay, let me back up here
and and be totally hypocritical. Well, I guess not totally.
I'm a trunk hypocritical because I love reading my horoscope.
I mean, I don't believe it, and I don't think
that it necessarily means anything or is true, but I
still love looking at it. Yeah, I have found comfort
(19:29):
in my horoscopes before for whatever reason, knowing that, yes,
it probably does not actually mean anything, but I think
just seeing words in print along the lines of something
better will happen like okay, okay, good, well, let's get
out of bed now. Yeah, I really like actually free
will astrology by Rob Bresney. I actually emailed to me
(19:53):
every week just because they're so quirky, like, even if
it wouldn't even necessarily have to he could call it
something other than horoscopes and it would still be really
quirky and entertaining. And we have research in fact to
confirm our hunch that the appeal of horoscopes, psychics, et
(20:14):
cetera has to do with us making sense of the world.
There was a study from the University of Queensland which
found an unsurprising correlation between people's belief in psychics and
their sense of control over their lives, meaning the psychics
helped them feel more in control in a way. I mean,
(20:36):
it's sort of uh, duping yourself into believing that you
have some answers or some explanations as to why things
are or to what you should do. And again I
have a feeling that you would find similar results for
people with really strong, more traditional religious beliefs as well. Yeah,
(20:56):
and going back to that Dr Corkman that Kristen mentioned earlier,
she found that women, young people, and lgbt Q identified
clients are the most common people who seek out psychics,
and the way that Karen Gregory puts it in that
New Inquiry article makes perfect sense as to why marginalized
(21:16):
groups are more likely to see a psychic. She wrote
against a backdrop of limited opportunity and the increased perception
that the future is precarious and risky. These practitioners offer
the simple reassurance that a life has meaning, perhaps even
a destiny, and that you, as an autonomous self, are
a source of agency and potential. And that's amazing. That's
(21:39):
that's true, and I completely understand it the same way
that some people might find that by being a dedicated
member of a church or a temple, or some other
people might volunteer to feel like they're a part of
something bigger or or what have you. It falls under
that same category of feeling like I'm not alone and
I have purpose. Well, and what a loft job description
(22:01):
to what do you do well? I'm a psychic, which
means I give people a sense of autonomy and agency
and destiny and that they have a purpose in this world.
It's like, oh, that's an interesting way of putting it. Um.
But the big question that we need to answer is
why are most people claiming this job title, ladies? What
(22:22):
is it about psychics? So we're going to talk about
that when we come right back from a quick break.
So here's the thing, Caroline, when it comes to the
question of why we think of psychics as women, why
(22:43):
most psychics are women. There isn't really a tidy answer
to it, because, I mean, for one thing, there isn't
a whole lot of data on the psychic industry because
it has been so marginalized and it's considered this sort
of entertainment thing. There isn't a lot of scholarly insight
(23:06):
on its history and its current operations um. And also
considering how big it is historically. I mean, if if
you look into practically any culture at any point in
the world, you have some kind of fortune teller psychic
thing going on. Yeah, you've got Greek mythology, which focuses
(23:29):
on lots of sort of psychic leaning ladies and oracles.
You have the figure of Cassandra and Greek mythology, who
could be considered one of the original lady psychics. I mean,
she's more of a prophet. But according to the drama Agamemnon,
Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy in exchange for
(23:50):
hooking up with her. That's great, yeah, but Cassandra was like, no, no, no, Apollo,
I'm going to take the prophecy um and you can
service yourself. Oh what, apologisn't like that? No? He he
cursed her with the whole thing that nobody would ever
actually believe her predictions. That's got to be frustrating. Well,
and that also sounds a little bit like how we
perceive psychics today, where it's like he cursed all women.
(24:13):
Oh interesting, you know what I mean, because we probably
attribute it to like, oh, well, of course women are psychics.
I think there's like it because they're all you know,
it's just there their men see, yeah, they're empathy. Their
men sees empathy. But in the Britannica article on divination
it noted that it happens in practically every culture around
(24:37):
the world. I mean, it's it's just this human impulse.
It seems like, yeah, what book were we looking at?
That was talking about mediums and psychics in the media.
So that was a book by Karen Bheeler called Sears,
Witches and Psychics on Screen and Analysis of Women Visionary
Characters in recent television and film. Well, in the intra
(25:00):
she goes into a discussion of perhaps, you know, all
the way from Greek mythology to a modern TV show,
we think of psychics as being women and vice versa,
because it's not as action packed or role as the
traditional hero who is traditionally male or masculine um. And
(25:22):
so that's one possible explanation for the origins of our
association that you know, women, we've got all the stereotypical
like separate spheres. Women are tending and befriending at home
or at the temple, so they're more likely to stereotypically
and traditionally and mythologically, uh, be inside fortune tellen as
opposed to being outside, you know, slaying the beasts or whatever. Well,
(25:46):
and when you think about it, it's a very passive role.
Psychics are often these empty vessels that allow other forces
to communicate through them. So we're much more comfortable with
a woman traditionally in that kind a passive role. I mean,
even if we take it more literally, women is empty
vessels hello, having babies flooding uterus is I was thinking
(26:09):
of your uterus in place and and filled with a baby. Oh,
I went then comes out. I was just thinking you're
uterus as being like so empty except for good ideas.
I think our yes, we would have been so much
different if people have thought are empty wounds were just
full of good ideas. But we're cursed by Apollo for
(26:31):
no one to believe us, no one to believe our Uteruses.
We are all, Cassandra. That's why we're having the planned
parent in debate. It's because nobody believes our Uterus. It's
because Apollo. And it's notable too that the occult, generally speaking,
is one of like the only non patriarchal realms of
(26:53):
spirituality there is, so there's been room for women, um
to not only play parts, but also have leader ship
in these aspects. I mean, I highly highly highly recommend
listeners if you are into this topic, go back and
listen to our podcast a while back asking the question
were mediums the first feminists because UM, in the United
(27:15):
States in the mid nineteenth century, these women named the
Fox Sisters essentially created this religion called spiritualism, which involved
all sorts of mediumship and psychic reading and tarot reading,
and women who also became suffragists were so into it
(27:36):
because it gave them a platform for the very first time. Yeah,
I gave them a platform. And it was also sort
of the same way that Protestant religions split off from
Catholic the Catholic religion and gave people a direct connection
to the Bible and to God. I mean, mediumship is
not that different, it's it's quite parallel, and that it's
(27:57):
giving people, in this case a lot of women, a
direct connection to another worldly realm and people who some
people who were stereotypically very connected to the other worldly
realm were the Roma. And that's where we get this
image of the the carnival gypsy with all of her
jewels and big earrings and crystal ball. Yeah. In brook
(28:19):
Bunts is History of the Crystal Ball at Broadly, which
I highly recommend you read. She notes that traveling Roma
in America were the go to carnival and standalone fortune
tellers by the nineteen thirties. Now, of course, this is
where we get a little bit of racism, I think,
in our perception of fortune tellers as frauds, because, um,
(28:42):
the Roma people are usually hated for being fraudulent and
being thieves and pickpockets and things like that. So we
have this, uh, this other ring of this group, I mean,
and it's not just in the United States, it's issues
um wherever they've been. Um. But that's where that stereotypical
(29:05):
image comes from. And one thing that I also didn't
find a good source on, but I'm curious to know
if listeners have any more insight on this is a
little more deeply how race plays into our perceptions of
women as psychics. Because going back for a second to
Miss Cleo and her being so believable because she affected
(29:29):
this Jamaican lilt and talked about voodoo, and I don't know,
I just wonder if I just wonder kind of what's
up with that, Like why, um, this image is more
why we were so quick to buy it? Well, I
wonder if it has anything to do with just traditionally
(29:50):
having viewed women from other cultures or countries as just
the other anyway, um, and why we would be so
quick to believe like someone with a different accent who
puts on a turban and big earrings. Yeah, the whole
exoticizing factor. That makes total sense. Um. Although if we
(30:13):
look at the most prominent uh characters on TV who
are playing these kinds of mainstream psychics that Karen Deeler
highlights in her books Sears, which is and Psychics, most
of them are white ladies. Yeah, you've got what is it,
Patricia Arquette, You've got Jennifer love Hewitt, which, come on,
(30:36):
you couldn't have cast someone else better. I've never seen
the show. I probably shouldn't talk. Go ahead and send
of your letters. I've never seen it. I'm sorry. Jennifer
love Hewitt, if you're listening, you've got great hair. She's
got great hair. She's just that beautiful hair. I mean, hey,
I enjoyed Party of Five. There was a show though,
(30:56):
and I don't I don't have the actress's name in
front of me, but wonderful rolls. It was a brief show,
but delight um that she wasn't necessarily psychic, but objects
would talk to her, and she was. Objects would talk
to her. Yeah, like little little things like the stapler
kinda yeah, the stapler might be like you should go
(31:18):
invest a great that hang over there. I'm impressed that
a stapler would know about other things instead of just stapling. Oh,
I've learned so much from staplers over the u S, Caroline,
I've been limiting. If I've been limiting, uh, staplers quite
possibly standing in the way of their progress. That's right.
Don't even get me started on duct tape. Um. But
(31:41):
one thing that that beeler does know, she she kind
of glosses over the how sort of homogeneous all these
characters are. And and how curious that is that these
lead roles, that these protagonists are suddenly white, even though
if we think of the more stock characters, it usually
is like women of color. Well, I mean, that's that's
(32:03):
another thing, having stock characters and background characters and suspicious
characters being women of color. But then having like the
lead in your one hour Saturday night drama TV show
being a white woman. Then Yeah, layers, layers, so many layers. Well,
and she notes too what we mentioned earlier about how
(32:24):
uh and this also echoes our episode on Hollywood Witches.
How of course we would enjoy seeing a woman with
supernatural psychic abilities, because you know, dudes can have the
physical strength and the logic, but ladies, you know, just
just using their feelings to fix pain. I wish my
(32:47):
feelings fixed things. Well, I mean, is that why we
get like the douchy Chris Angel And what's the other
one who's got to go tee? The illusionist? Yeah, like
all of the your magician illusionist people tend to be guys.
That's what I was wondering as well, because you have Yeah,
(33:07):
and in this if we broaden our scope even more
to this entertainment industry. Magicians are men performing in front
of audiences. Psychics tend to be women one on one
tapping into the emotions, whereas men are usually pulling things
out of happen and escaping from tanks of water, pulling
(33:29):
who knows what at of who knows where, goodness being
cut in half. But there's also that emotional labor aspect
of it, or the affective labor, as we talked about
at the top of the podcast, and this was something
that Dr Corkman highlighted as well, and she was kind
of blown over by the work that it does take
(33:51):
to be a fortune teller. She was like, going into this,
it's like, Oh, you're just gonna like read some coffee ground,
no big deal. But a lot of them reported being
so exhausted at the end of the day. Yeah, you've
got to sit there and try to pull really emotional
sensitive information out of people, some of who might be crying,
some of who might be skeptical and not not really
(34:12):
going along with it. But if you've got to be
attuned to every like eye twitch or glance or movement
to try to pick up on someone's emotions, Yeah, it
does sound exhausting, and it's usually I mean, it's not reciprocated.
That's another thing with this, you know, the the energy
being expended, it's not like they're going to get anything
from return from these clients. Um and Corkman notes that
(34:36):
divination work is marginalized as a result of it's feminization.
So it seems like being a psychic unless you're like
a celebrity psychic like Sylvia Brown who made like a
bazillion dollars when she was alive, is often just a
thankless job. But is divination truly dismissed? And I mean,
(35:00):
I recognize that this is what Kirkman studies point to,
but is it truly dismissed because it's feminized or is
it dismissed because we have hundreds of years of history
of people being like kind of jerked around by psychics
and mediums and members of the occult. But I want
to pull magicians back out of out of my top
(35:23):
hat because think about that. We know, I mean, like
they now refer to themselves as illusionists in the same
way that psychics legally and most municipalities have to emphasize
that their services are for entertainment only, and we know
that magic isn't real, but we don't. I don't think
that we give them the side eye quite as much
(35:45):
as psychics. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I really only roll
my eyes at people like Chriss angel just because he's
Chris angel Um, not so much because someone's a magician
or an illusionist or whatever, Whereas kind of across the
board I tend to roll as a psychics. Well, and
I guess I just realized as I was making that
argument that of course we are not as side eyed
(36:08):
toward magicians because we're actually seeing their tricks happening. We
see the things up here, We see the lady being
sawn into song. So sod also the magic of me
learning basic words. I love witnessing it. It's a beautiful thing.
But you obviously can't see a psychic's promise happening right
(36:32):
there in front of you. Well, maybe that's why you
have a lot of psychics who do use quote unquote
tools of the trade like crystal balls, like crystals um, like,
you know, just basic accessories that they have in their
their psychic rooms to try to lend an air of authenticity. Perhaps, Yeah,
(36:53):
I mean, the thing about it is scientifically psychic powers
don't exist. I mean, the whole question of like, well,
maybe women are more often psychics because they're more psychic
than men, and the answers, no, women aren't more psychic
than men because these powers don't exist. I mean, there
was a University of London study, for instance, that essentially
(37:17):
debunked psychic ability, although it was a rather small sample size.
They had like two psychics sit down and had people
write things on cards. I'm just imagining the opening scene
of Ghostbusters or Dr Bankman has the pretty girl in
the basement any who. Actually it was exactly that and
(37:37):
had a marshmallow man come out. Um. But essentially what
happened was the psychics were not able to guess what
these people had written in any statistically significant kind of way.
I think they failed across the board. But it also
goes to show how, in a lot of ways psychics
today can be compared to life coaches sort of a
(38:00):
little more more mystical. Yeah, just like somebody who's on Oprah.
Stuff written for a magazine, which I've said time and
time again is one of my favorite things to read
in the world. I mean a lot of those people
are life coachy. Well, and I'm sure that there are
listeners who have consulted psychics who are indicating their areas read.
I am sure that there are some who do crystals,
(38:21):
because I feel like crystals are super popular right now. Um,
one of my best friend's moms is all about some
healing crystals. Yeah. I used to work at another old job.
Uh there was this very amazingly intelligent, sweet nurse who
she was like a very strong Christian woman, but she
(38:41):
also was big into crystal healing, which I thought was
very interesting considering she was both a Christian and an
actual medical nurse. But yeah, she she gave me a
crystal to help ward off evil spirits and it did
not keep that boss away from me. So I don't
I can't believe. I can't buy into an Unfortunately, Well,
I wonder what listeners have to say about all of this,
(39:04):
or are there any listeners who are psychics who do
this kind of work. We want to hear from you,
and also were curious as to why you think that
most psychics are women. Mom Stuff at how stuff works
dot com is our email address. You can also tweet
us at mom stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and
we've got a couple of messages to share with you,
(39:25):
and we come right back from a quick break. One
great resolution you can make for the new year is
to maximize every minute and every dollar for your small business,
and we know an easy way to do that with
stamps dot com. Think about how much time you've wasted
going to the post office, driving there and finding parking.
(39:47):
Stamps dot com is the better way to get postage.
Just use what you already have, your computer and printer
to get official US postage for any letter or package.
Then the mail carrier picks it up. With stamps dot com.
Everything you would do at the post office you can
do right from your desk and at a fraction of
the cost of one of those expensive postage meters. And
(40:10):
right now you can sign up for stamps dot com
and use our promo code stuff for a special offer.
It's a four week trial with a dollar bonus offer
including postage and a digital scale. So don't wait. Go
to stamps dot com before you do anything else. Click
on the microphone at the top of the homepage and
type in stuff that's stamps dot com. Enter stuff and
(40:34):
now back to the show. All right, Well, I have
a letter here from Carly in response to our adult
acne episode, she says, um, I've been a longtime listener
to the show and especially enjoy the topics on female health.
When the episode on adult acne popped up, I listened
(40:56):
immediately because it's been a major subject of frustration for
me over the past seven months. In the episode, you
mentioned hormonal i u d s can sometimes cause acne.
You also noted that copper i u d s are
non hormonal and thus will not factor into the hormonal
acne equation. However, as I and many other women on
internet message board land will tell you, these copper i
(41:16):
u d s are thought to cause acne too. I
got my copper iu D in just shy of a
year ago. I was so happy to be free of
daily hormones and to have a potentially ten year long
solution of birth control with no fuss. Skipped to six
months later, and my face is breaking out and painful
cystic acne constantly and all over my face. Even before
I was on the pill, I had never experienced anything
(41:38):
to this degree. It was so bad I never wanted
to leave the house, instead scouring the internet for potential
causes and solutions. At first, I thought it was due
to a hormonal imbalance from getting off the pill, but
then I found a slew of message for conversations connecting
the copper I u D two cystic acne, among other
symptoms I won't get into here. Post after post women
(41:58):
recounted experiencing exactly the same course of events like me.
Many women had never had acne before and developed it
after having the iu D in for several months. Subsequently,
many women also wrote about how getting the io D
out immediately reduced their inflammation and then eventually solve the
problem altogether. The theory goes that the copper and the
iu D builds up in your body too much higher
(42:20):
than normal levels and then inhibits zinc absorption because zinc
is correlated with skin health. Without adequate zinc, the skin
goes haywire. From what I can tell, this copper toxicity
theory is majorly anecdotal. I couldn't find one scientific study
to verify the connection with the io D to copper toxicity.
This might explain why myself and other women were not
told that this could be a possible symptom before getting
(42:42):
the iu D, and why women are constantly told there
is no way the copper iu D is the cause
of their acne because it doesn't affect hormones. After doing
this research, I started taking a good zinc supplement and
my symptoms have really improved. I'm also getting the iu
D out this week, so time will tell if the
iu D is really the cause of my think I'm
curious about this potential gap in research on this product,
(43:03):
perhaps another case of women's issues getting the short end
of the research sick. I just wanted to share this
in case there's any other frustrated and confused copper I
u D users out there, So thanks Carly Well. I've
got a letter here from Rachel, also about our adult
acne episode. She writes, I've been struggling with acne for
the past twenty years and think that you treated a
(43:24):
fabulous job of highlighting all the physical, emotional, and psychological
tools that acne can take on a woman. From my
mother who is approaching sixty and still gets sabacious. This
physically holding me down on our bathroom floor trying to
pop one of my first pimples, the odd intimacy of
popping back me with my husband. I'm pointing at you,
gonger Seeva has brought me both joy and pain, and
(43:46):
mostly pain in all forms. In the realm of remedies,
I tried it all and only recently discovered Sperana lacktne.
It was recently recommended to me by a friend about
a year and a half ago, and it's actually changed
my life. After about ninety days on a very low dose,
my skin was gorgeous. Since starting the medication, I've had
a few breakouts, but they have not been anywhere near
(44:09):
as horrible as the pimples of yesteryear, and it made
me realize how quickly I've become accustomed to a clear
face and forgot the horrors of cystic acne. But I've
recently decided to let nature take its course with my reproduction,
so I can no longer take it. My skin hasn't
blown up yet, but I'm sure that's right around the corner.
Keep up the great work on the podcast and keep
(44:31):
on preaching the magic of spur on a lactown So thanks, Rachel,
and I can also attest that it is a fabulous drug.
So listeners, we want to hear from you now. Mom
Stuff at house stuffworks dot Com is our email address
and for links to all of our social media as
well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including
(44:52):
this one with our sources so you can learn more
about like gigs head on over to stuff Mom Never
Told You dot com for more on its in athens
of other topics using how stuff works dot com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.