Writer bullshits four "psychics," all four just make excuses.

[Archae]

Naturally.

I Asked Psychics to Connect with My Non-Existent Dead Sister

I was 13 when my mom dragged my brother and I to a "psychic." We were visiting family in Malaysia, and somewhere amongst the palm oil plantations was the house of an old woman who claimed she could channel Buddha. My mother was enthralled during the hour-long ordeal, during which the woman rolled her eyes often so the whites were showing, dropped her voice a few octaves, and made astonishingly mundane statements that could've applied to anyone (examples: our house had ants out front; my grandma was old and having some health problems). Combined with my love of Harry Houdini ( who spent the last few years of his life debunking psychics and mediums) and teen angst that made me hate everything my parents liked, the experience left me convinced that psychics were con artists who separated vulnerable and desperate people from their cash in exchange for poor acting.

http://www.vice.com/read/i-asked-psychics-to-connect-with-my-non-existent-dead-sister

[Warpy]

1. "Crystal ball buster"

is what professional psychics call skeptics who call up with false information, trying to catch them in fabrications. Since that requires absolutely no real effort, I haven't bothered to join them. It's just too easy.

As it is, most professional psychics are masters at weaseling information out of people and then feeding it back to them in forms they want to hear. They might provide a service for the chronically uneasy, cheaper than psychiatry and less drastic than drugs. I have no problem with allowing them to continue to do what they do as long as it doesn't turn into outright extortion--pay me a thousand dollars now and I'll exorcise the demon or your family will die. The 900 number phone psychics are fairly benign when it comes to that sort of thing.

Face it, this is a pretty sick culture and people who are overworked and underpaid can be very lonely. Telephone psychics provide them with a sounding board that should be provided by friends and family, were they not all working just as many hours.

Were this country to shove the conservatives out of government and back to their silly churches, raise wages, lower hours, and promote the general welfare, most psychics would have to go out and get real jobs because they wouldn't be needed any more.

[EvilAL]

2. Psychics hit a nerve with me

I find them to be awful human beings. They destroy people's memories of their dead loved ones replacing them with new bullshit memories. They lie and steal and will never admit they are all charlatans. Unfortunately it can be quite lucrative and they stay in business.