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