Namaste, Bitches

Most people today know and understand how to avoid becoming victims of fraud when it comes to obtaining goods or services. For example, if a plumbing problem occurs in a home, and it is above and beyond the skills or know-how of the homeowner, they begin to shop for a plumber. They may contact friends and or family who live in the area. Maybe a friend or family-member might even know how to repair the problem. If friends and family do not know of a good plumber, the homeowner may then turn to the internet. There are numerous websites that offer reviews and ratings for service people and businesses. The homeowner jots down a few phone numbers, gets a few quotes, compares rates and things like hours of operation, free consultations and the cost of parts. In the end, they have a plumber who can fix the problem during hours that are convenient to the homeowner and at a reasonable price. Not too many people would pick up their local phone book, flip through the pages, pick the first plumber they see and hire him or her. However, when it comes to obtaining more intangible services, this is exactly what people seem to do.


If a person finds him or her self in a position where they would like to gain some spiritual advice or have a psychic consultation, all too often a lack of knowledge or a sense of embarrassment cause him or her to throw caution to the wind. Unless they belong to an open-minded family or circle of friends or acquaintances, the person who desires these types of services often finds him or her self in a position of taking risks with their money, time and well-being.


There are many testimonials on the internet regarding these types of circumstances. One of the most common scams involves a psychic or spiritual consultant who initiates contact with a customer by offering a free service – maybe a general horoscope interpretation or a sample psychic reading (such as Tarot, tea-leaf or aura reading); once the customer has had this tease, the ‘full’ service is then offered for a price. This in and of itself is not necessarily fraudulent. Many places offer free samples of their goods and services, and want the customer to pay for something afterwards. However, with the psychic scam, the buck does not stop at the full horoscope interpretation or the one-hour psychic reading. The psychic may find something troubling in the reading. Bad news is surely on its way. Maybe, horror of all horrors, the customer has been hexed or cursed. Fortunately, for the customer, their psychic has experience with these things and can allay the bad news or better yet, break the hex or remove the curse – for a fee, of course. The customer is frightened by the negative reading and the implications of a curse or hex being on him or her self, so they hand over more money. This can keep up for some time, because not only is the customer relieved at having the hex broken; now they are curious as to who is the hex-caster. Suddenly he or she has a host of unseen enemies, and the only thing standing between them and that unseen host is their friendly, helpful, costly psychic advisor.


If this customer had gone to see a medical doctor, and was given bad news, his or her first instinct would probably be to panic, but once they calmed down they would usually seek a second opinion. When it comes to psychic services, few people think to do this and instead invest all their trust in their new psychic advisor. It is the nature of a con artist to be able to gain the trust of their customers quickly and easily. The con artist knows how much concern to show, the right words to use to plant seeds of doubt and fear, and how to lure their clients into pouring more and more money onto non-existent problems. Advertisements for spiritual services often have large headlines stating claims such as “Find your lost love today!”, “Get all the answers – health, money, love and more!”, “Why isn’t your business a success?”, “Is he or she cheating on you? Find out now!” These words are geared towards anyone who feels insecure, unsuccessful, and lonely or as though bad luck follows him or her around constantly.


Not all psychic practitioners out there are frauds or con artists. There are genuine psychic readers, spiritual advisors and even professional spell crafters that make their services available to the public for a price. Finding a good psychic practitioner is just like finding any other professional service person, but the search does have some added difficulties because of the sheer number of potential con artists that have set up shop as spiritual advisors.

Word-of-mouth is usually the best way to get referred to any service-oriented business, and spiritual businesses are no different. Casually mentioning something like, “Have you ever gotten a Tarot reading?” to a friend or acquaintance may open a few doors without causing undue stress. Just as there are review and rating sites for more traditional professions, these same ratings can be found for psychic services as well. It is always best to seek independent business rating sites than to trust the testimonials on a business’s self-operated website – these testimonials could be loaded (or even be paid testimonials) by the business itself. A good resource is the Better Business Bureau’s list of accredited businesses. Checking with the local business licensing agency can help a consumer determine if a business is at least licensed, and some licensing agencies may even have a public complaint record available. If the psychic’s business is a brick-and-mortar storefront, asking nearby businesses if they’ve received any complaints about the psychic’s business practices might yield some results as well.


Many psychic practitioners bill themselves with titles like ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’, ‘Fifth-Generation Priestess’, ‘Ascended’, ‘Enlightened’, etc. These titles are essentially meaningless unless the practitioner is an initiated member of a hierarchical religion such as Wicca, Vodou or Santeria or are ordained within a church. The average person shopping for a psychic service is not going to know that, so having a fancy title or an exotic name lends an air of authority to the psychic. For some it serves as a stage name, and they may even have different names or titles depending on what type of service they are offering. If the practitioner does claim to be a member of a hierarchical religion or official church, checking the validity of their titles is nearly impossible. If the person is saying they are a doctor or holder of degrees, they may be listed in the alumni of a college or university, or be a member of a professional organization.


A concern of anyone seeking psychic or spiritual advice is the information being relayed. One thing to be wary of is if a psychic practitioner asks for personal information before the first appointment. All they really need is a customer’s name and possibly a phone number or e-mail address to confirm an appointment. Casually asking for other details, such as where the customer is from, how old they are, what their family is like, or if they have children or pets, can give a con artist all they really need to convince a person that they are an above-average psychic. Many psychic scams involve leading questions. A leading question is a question that suggests an answer or contains the information the asker is seeking. It is usually not allowed in legal settings, and is highly suspect in psychic readings. In the same vein as a psychic asking for personal information when setting an appointment is one that is willing to come to the customer’s home for the initial reading. By inviting a stranger into one’s home, not only is there the potential for personal harm to occur, but a great deal of personal information can be gleaned from the home environment, even on someone’s first visit.


Most spiritual practitioners would be less-than-welcoming of having a second party along for the reading (unless the customer was willing to pay for two people), but when shopping for a psychic consultant, the customer should always ask if the psychic would mind having the reading recorded, possibly by a tape recorder or digital audio recorder, especially for the first reading. If the psychic is hesitant, the customer should have the psychic clarify why a recording device would not be allowable, and if it would still be okay to take notes. If the psychic reveals something potentially troublesome, the customer then has information they could take to a different practitioner and get a second opinion – just like visiting a doctor. It also gives the customer something to go by to see how accurate any of the psychic’s advice or information turns out to be. An honest psychic or spiritual practitioner should not be too reluctant to answer questions about their knowledge, experience and gifts. They should also not mind being tactfully tested in their area of expertise. For a psychic this might mean the customer would ask questions about their own past, something the psychic could not easily guess. For other services, the customer might have to do some research into their chosen professional’s field of expertise.


When faced with a situation beyond the mundane, anything from wanting to know what the future holds, to blessing a new home or business, to wanting to know about a past life, it is usually preferable to learn how to do it for oneself than it is to seek an outside agent. Sometimes, though, time and circumstances do not allow the average person to embark on a course of Occult Sciences 101. Even when working under the premise that all people have the potential to become psychic or spiritual practitioners, maybe someone’s chose religion forbids him or her from performing this type of activity, or maybe a person does not feel capable and talented enough to take care of a spiritual problem him or her self. In these cases, there is nothing wrong with wanting to hire someone who is experienced as a psychic or spell crafter. The customer should always go about carefully and thoroughly researching the person to whom he or she is about to hand money. Unlike other professions, the psychic and spiritual arts are not ones that have self-governing bodies or peer review boards – the only thing most customers have to go by is their own business savvy and common sense.

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© 2009 Janelle Feldes

The term Pagan is a Middle English word derived from the Late Latin paganus – a civilian or country dweller. When the term was first coined, it implied someone who was a rube, a hick, a hillbilly. Over the years, it gained a more spiritual connotation. To someone who followed one of the major religions of the time, Catholicism, Christianity or Islam, a pagan was someone who ascribed to no religion. The Christians considered the Muslims to be pagans, the Muslims considered the Christians to be the same, and the Catholics considered everyone else, Christian, Muslim or other, to be pagan.

 

These newer monotheistic religions took hold in the cities first and slowly trickled outwards to more rural people, so there was also an implication of foolishness or superstition attached to being a pagan. If a person was a pagan, chances were they still celebrated holidays associated with the planting and growth of their crops and herds, and as new calendars were introduced, they probably even celebrated the New Year on the ‘wrong’ day (hence April Fool’s Day). They were also probably the last people who heard about fashion changes (hence the pointy hats and robes attributed to witches).

 

Over the past few decades, Pagan, this time with a capital P, has once again been making an appearance. It no longer refers to someone who is a country dweller, or someone who is not a member of the religion of the majority, instead, it indicates someone who has a religion outside that which is most commonly accepted. If a hundred Pagans gather in the same vicinity, they will likely all have their own interpretation of what Pagan means. It can be a follower of a polytheistic religion, similar to the ancient Greeks or Romans - but there are monotheistic or duotheistic Pagans. It can be someone who has a reverence for nature and organic systems - but there are utilitarian and urban Pagans as well. It can be someone who strives to reconstruct ancient cultural forms of worship in the modern age – or it could be someone who integrates those ancient concepts into symbols of technology and culture that have only existed in the past twenty years. Today, Pagans come in all ages, races, cultural backgrounds, political parties, genders, economic brackets and locales.

 

There is still a lot of confusion as to what a Pagan actually is, and it seems like Pagan is better defined by what it is not instead of what it is. The most generic, generally accepted definition for Pagan is that it is an umbrella term for religions and belief systems that are not Catholic, Christian, Jewish or Muslim. Some feel that Buddhism and Hinduism are not Pagan while others feel they are. Some consider Satanism to be a form of Paganism, others consider it an offshoot of Christianity. Some of the African Diasporic faiths could be Pagan in nature, but some are closer in form and practice to Catholicism. There is a rising tide of people who consider themselves Catholic, Christian or Jewish Pagans, and there are probably even Muslim Pagans out there as well.

 

In many Pagan communities, both online and offline, there is a general outcry about newcomers to Paganism making assumptions about Paganism. Experienced members will often make it a point to wave the ‘umbrella term’ emphatically, and some members will assume the newcomer is clueless or is attempting to be problematic. Others still will argue against any attempts at generalizing or labeling a person’s religion this or that. Most defend their points of view by saying they are trying to dispel misconceptions and eliminate misunderstandings. Oftentimes, the refusal to pin a definition on the term causes greater muddying of the concept behind it and does absolutely nothing to shed light on the heart of what Paganism actually is. There are also some difficulties that come with the territory of being part of something one cannot effectively define or explain.

 

One of the greatest problems American Pagans face is exercising the right to freedom of religion. How can an American Pagan know if their religious rights are being infringed on if they cannot concisely pin down what their religion is? The Bill of Rights does not protect the interests of umbrella terms. An atheist can protest the addition of In God We Trust to the national currency, or the insistence upon repeating the Pledge of Allegiance in grade school – but the average Pagan may hit an obstacle when they try to insist, “No Pagan worships the God being referred to by the money or Pledge”. Inevitably, some other Pagan will stand up and say, “Well, I’m a Christo/Catholo/Jewish Pagan and I do worship that God, so it does not offend me”. Asking an employer for a religious holiday off from work can turn into a convoluted mess. “Boss, I need to have Hallowe’en off, because it’s a traditional holiday for me”. The boss may reply, “Well, I’m a Kemetic Reconstructionist Pagan, and you don’t see me taking some children’s day off, do you?”

 

The problems faced by Pagans are similar to those faced by people working in government agencies and various institutions where there is a need for political correctness, especially with the new trends and emphasis on diversity. How can an employer hope to comply with guidelines for religious respect and tolerance when some of their employees’ religions may not be well known and defy any attempt to classify or define? With Paganism, especially, because of long-held association with witchcraft and negative stereotypes, there have been stories about Pagans who have been denied services such as being able to adopt children, or having to hide symbols of their religion from governmental or institutional representatives. In May of 2005, a judge barred a divorced couple from exposing their child to Wicca[1], which was both parent’s religion. In 2007 in a well-publicized case, a Wiccan soldier killed in service was finally allowed the right to have a pentagram, a symbol of Wicca, emblazoned on his memorial marker. The big difference between being ‘Wiccan’ and being merely ‘Pagan’ is that Wicca, while being under the Pagan umbrella, is more well-defined than ‘Pagan’, and can be quantified by authoritative agencies and institutions. Pagan organizations that might be qualified to receive tax-exempt status as churches are denied on a regular basis because they cannot explicitly describe their beliefs enough to qualify as being religious in nature.

 

Unlike the ‘Big 4’ religions (Catholicism, Christianity, Islam & Judaism), Paganism does not have a unified ruling body. There is no centralized clergy, no Pope, and no centralized sacred document. What Paganism does have is thousands of individuals practicing and living their religions in their own ways. It is therefore largely the individuals’ responsibility to define ‘Pagan’ for those who are not Pagan, and even for Pagans who believe differently while still being Pagan. The best way to go about this is also left up to the individual to decide.