As the economy goes South, Roxanne Usleman’s Psychic business is booming.
“It’s more types of people I have never seen before,” says Usleman. “Men in the business world, high-powered jobs, stock market, Wall Street.”
Since last fall, she says she began to see a new type of client — a “logical, [A-type] of personality.” Many of them are “just completely lost,” says Usleman.
Relationship advice, typically the bread and butter of the psychic business, has been supplanted by something new.
“Should I merge with this company? Should I bring in a partner to my company,” are the kind of questions Usleman gets from her clients.
For a typical reading, she grips a client’s photograph or set of keys and consults “the angels.”
Business is good, she says. Usleman sees five or six clients a day and charges up to $135 a pop for sessions that usually last more than an hour.
Businessman Bruce Levy was skeptical at first but one of his clients pushed him to get a reading.
“What I expected was something like Ouija boards and someone looking at my palm and seeing my lifeline,” says Levy.
Instead, he found a psychic who he says helped him find the answers.
“She helps me make better decisions,” Levy says. “She is able to make me see things that I wouldn’t otherwise see. I just think that she has this intuition that gets through to my subconscious in a way that I can’t.”
There are no national statistics on the business of psychics. But Usleman’s experience is backed up by anecdotal evidence from other psychics around the country. Liveperson.com matches psychics with customers on its Web site and says the uncertain economy has been good for business. Some psychics charge up to $20 a minute for advice.
Many people simply feel like they have to do something, according to Professor Gita Johar at Columbia Business School in New York.
“The biggest reason people are going to see psychics is probably that they want to feel in control,” says Johar, who studies consumer behavior.
“And when they see that their financials aren’t looking so good and they really can’t turn to their financial adviser — they haven’t been getting really good advice and so they have to turn to someone else.”
Source: CNN link Filed under Weird US News
