I’ll never forget the 60-year old woman I read for who had no income and no desire to get a job. When I asked her why, she said a psychic in California told her she would win the lottery and that a prince from Europe would marry her. She was quite excited about this prospect, so she stopped working, believing that her money troubles would magically fix themselves in short order.

When I told her what she needed to do to get her life back on track and start earning an income, she became very upset with me. She told me I was a fraud.

I understand why she railed against me. Her desire to have wealth just drop into her lap was a dream she was unwilling to give up. But the consequences of her actions had led her to the point where she could not even buy groceries. She had given all her power to this prophecy.

I asked her if she bought lottery tickets. She said no. I asked her how she intended to win a lottery she never even played. She said it wasn’t her problem to figure that out. The prediction would come true regardless. I asked her if she knew any royalty from Europe, or if she was planning a trip there. She said no, that she hardly ever left the house. I asked her how a prince would even find her or know she existed. She again said the prediction would handle the details.

I was frustrated. And I was really annoyed at the pay-by-the-minute phone psychic in California who preyed on this woman. Because of this random prediction, my poor client stopped working and fell into a financial struggle that would be really difficult to recover from.

Nothing I said to her about the unlikelihood of this prediction coming true was sinking in. Her guides were as frustrated as I was. Finally she agreed to start working a little while she was waiting for her prince and the call from the lottery board. She decided that she would need new clothes if she was to attract her prince.

Is it possible that this woman was destined to win the lottery and marry a European prince? Uh sure, anything is possible.

The job of a psychic is to relay and interpret the messages your guides are trying to send you, not promise you a fantasy, not take your power away, not make decisions for you.

The most powerful question you can ask a psychic is “What do my guides most want me to know to help me on my path?” An ethical and good psychic will hand you the map and discuss the hazards coming up on the road so you can traverse the trail prepared. Beware the psychic who asks for all your water while promising a helicopter will come in a moment to whisk you to the top of the mountain. You will wait a long time for rescue and be quite thirsty while you wait.

Still, I continue to get emails from people asking me for advice and whether or not they should pony up the money to have their curse removed. It pains me. It actually pains me that people are falling victim to this scam. This is one area where James Randi and I totally agree. These frauds, charlatans, and tricksters are criminal! Preying on the gullible, invoking fear to control you, these are horrible people.

In an effort to continue to make people aware of this scam, I got permission from one of victims of this con to share the email she sent me. I want to take you through it and point out what’s happening and how to protect yourself. For the sake of her anonymity, I’ll call this person Rebecca, which is not her real name.

Here are snippets from the email she recently sent me:

“Last Saturday, I was approached by a “spiritual reader and advisor”. She approached me and told me that she “needed” to give me her business card because something in my aura, my spirit was calling out for help and she wanted to make an appointment with me. I initially thought she was being preposterous, but I smiled anyways accepting the card. She stopped me in my tracks when she proceeded to tell me that while I was smiling on the outside, inside I was not. She told me she saw me struggling between 2 men in my life. She saw the initial J surrounding me. I was shocked with how accurate she was, but told her I did not have any cash on me and would have to go to the bank (her card read $20 consultation). She said she didn’t care and really wanted to make an appointment with me right away so she could help me.”

This is how it begins. Someone will accost you on the street, out of the blue, and insist they have a message for you. They either give you the message for a small fee, like $10 or $20 or they will give it to you for free. Now you trust them because they were accurate and seemed sincerely to want to help you. As far as the initial “J”, I believe that the letter “J” is the most popular first letter for first names in the alphabet, so she had a good chance of getting that right just because of statistics. People who run this scam are sometimes just excellent cold readers, or they actually have some intuitive ability but use their abilities unethically. Let’s see what happened next.

“During the appointment, she made observations about me that made me feel like she had known me for so long.”

Again this is done by either cold reading or making general observations that are largely true for everyone. The “psychic” could also have been using empathy to draw conclusions about Rebecca just based on body language.

“Then, she made me write down my name, birthday and think of 2 wishes, 1 of which she wanted to hear out loud. After a long talk with her during which I cried, I decided to trust her and she brought up that she saw an old negativity with me that most likely stayed with me from a past life.”

Here she is laying the trap. Rebecca has opened up and given this woman her trust. Now is the time the “psychic” will strike.

“She wanted to get rid of it and told me I needed to cleanse myself first and the materials needed would cost $390 and that she would need time to research. I agreed and went to the bank immediately.”

Usually the cost for this “service” will be $200 to $400. Not so much that alarm bells are going off, but enough so that if this is all the fraudster gets, they are happy.

“She gave me a container with bath salt and a small bottle of oil, for cleansing and positivity. She told me to put 2 1/2 teaspoons of the salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons of the oil in a hot bath and then write down a list of positives and negatives, sign it and put it under my pillow.”

How much do bath salts and oil cost the “psychic?” A few bucks? This is the ritual part that makes the charlatan seem magical and wise.

“She also told me not to tell anyone because she didn’t want this spirit of negativity to affect anyone else.”

Does this sound like what pedophiles say to young children? “Don’t tell or bad things will happen to you and your parents.” You are at the mercy of the “psychic” now because your friends can’t talk any sense into you if they don’t know what’s happening to you.

“The next meeting which was also the most recent one, she told me all about my past life and even described some current personality traits of mine like my moods of despair and the temper I display only at home and attributed them to my past life. I never revealed to her any of those traits, but again she seems to know me so well.”

Cold reading, or Rebecca inadvertently gave her this information. We’re also not sure what the “psychic” got wrong. Rebecca may only be remembering the info she got right.

“She told me that the materials to put my “negativity” into a tabernacle and lock it away from everyone I love, the price was $1850. I told her I did not have the money and she said I could pay it little by little and to give her whatever I could now, which was $200. She happened to know that I had other funds “intuitively” I guess. However, I explained I could not touch those funds because they were designated for college and only my guardian could access them. What should I do? Please help me.”

Once a person pays the initial amount to have the curse or negative energy removed, the fraudster loses nothing by going for a higher amount. That was the end of the email I received from Rebecca. I immediately explained to her how she was being ripped off and encouraged her to avoid contact with this woman in the future and to, of course, refrain from giving her any money.

Rebecca wrote back to me with more information:

“Thank you so much for alerting me. And yes, please warn others. I really trusted her because she introduced me to her family and she listened to what I had to say. She told me ahead of time that I would start doubting her because of the negative spirit possessing me. I guess I just really wanted to trust her, but my better senses kicked in when I noticed that she seems to have a particular trend in “picking” clients. From phone convos she had with other clients in front of me, which she would never continue in depth, but always reschedule – I noticed that they were all single Asian females. I do not know if that was just me being hypersensitive, but it’s just something I made a mental note of. And then $1850 was a lot to ask, especially when her flyer read $20 consultation. Would you happen to have any advice on how I should deal with her? She calls me occasionally to check up on me. I do not want to offend her especially because I am superstitious and I would not want her to put a hex on me, if that exists.”

Control, doubt, fear, and threats. That’s what this “psychic” offered Rebecca. If this is happening to you right now and you are being harassed or contacted repeatedly by someone like this, you must be firm. Tell them you believe they are a fraud and if they contact you again you’ll report them to the authorities. They cannot hex you or put a curse on you. You may even want to go ahead and report them so they don’t do the same scam on other unsuspecting people.

I get probably 10 of these emails per month from people who are the victims of this scam. I want to educate people so they can avoid this scam. Please share this article with anyone in your life who you think might succumb to this. It’s insidious because they gain your trust first and seem extremely psychic. Before you know it, you’re parting with your money.

As I mentioned in my previous article, an ethical psychic charges a fair price for his or her service and doesn’t use fear to trick you into spending more money with them for curse removal. In my travels I have come across people who really do have a negative entity attachment, but I have always helped them remove it at no charge whatsoever. The truth is, even though a psychic or medium can help you remove a negative entity attachment, you’re the one who must do the work or the entity comes back. It won’t be through a magic potion or charm that you release the negative entity, but through raising your vibration and becoming an unwelcome environment for such a creature.

I hope none of you fall victim to this scam. It’s people like this “psychic” who give the industry a bad name. If you want to find an ethical psychic do your own research. Get referrals from friends. Go online and get to know the psychic through her articles or programs. And use your own intuition. If warning bells are going off in your head, heed them.

You go to a cheap psychic, the kind that charge like $5 or $10.  You think, “What the heck?  It’s only a few bucks.”  You listen as the psychic tells you astoundingly accurate things about yourself.  But at the end of the reading, this con artist tells you that there is a dark energy around you, that you are cursed, or that something terrible is about to befall you, but for $200 they can remove this dark energy/curse and heal you.  Frightened, you pony up the money, the “psychic” performs a flashy ritual (chanting, candles, arm waving, etc.) and tells you that you’re cured.  Or she might tell you to check in with her in a week to see if the energy is clear.  If you actually do go back to her, at the next meeting you’ll be told the negative energy is much stronger than she thought and it’s going to cost $3,000 to clear it.  It’s at this point that I hope you have a moment of clarity and call the police on her, but sadly some people do fall for this scam.

The people who write to me say, “But she was so accurate.  She told me all kinds of things about my life that were true, so why wouldn’t I trust her that I was cursed?”  And that’s why this scam works.  Sometimes the con artist is actually a gifted psychic but is simply a darkworker, using her real abilities to scam people out of their money because it’s easier and faster than giving a real reading one time to a client she may never see again.  In other cases, the person isn’t using intuitive abilities at all but is instead using cold reading techniques to fish for information and make claims that are pretty much true for everyone.  You must be on guard for this.

I was telling someone on our discussion forums recently that in the more than 1500 professional readings I’ve done for people, I’ve encountered perhaps a dozen or less people who were actually being “haunted” by a negative energy or had a negative entity attachment.  In all cases, I taught those clients how to clear the situation on their own and had them check in with me in a week to make sure it was gone, all at no extra charge.  For those who couldn’t clear it on their own, I cleared it for them at no charge.  If someone is actually being haunted, it’s best if they use their own power to clear it, otherwise they’re giving their power away to the psychic or the thing haunting them.  I empower people to raise their vibration so negative energy sloughs off of them.

You may be thinking, “I would never fall for something like that.  I wouldn’t go to a cheap psychic.”  Watch out for the freebie too.  Sometimes these con artists will go up to people in a crowd like at a mall or grocery store, selecting people they believe to be gullible or low in personal power.  They’ll say something like “The spirits are telling me you’re having a rough time in life right now and I just wanted to tell you that things are going to get much better soon.”  The mark, sensing no scam in progress because no money has changed hands says, “Why  yes, I am feeling challenged.  Life is so hard.  It’s all out of control.”  The con artist reels you in with more generic information designed to get you to trust them (after all, they’re not getting paid) and at the end tells you that your big problem is this curse or dark entity attachment and that they feel sorry for you.  You say, “Oh my goodness, I didn’t know.  Is that something you can help me with?”  The con hedges a little and says, “Um, well, yes sure.  I mean I could clear that up for you in a few minutes, but I charge $200 for that service.”  You eagerly fork over the cash and you’re done, conned hook, line, and sinker.  You tell your friends what happened and they tell you that you got scammed.  You protest, saying, “No, he didn’t ask me for any money, he just gave me a free reading and I was the one who asked him to clear the curse for me.”  It’s too late.

A reputable psychic empowers her clients and conveys honest information during a reading.  An ethical psychic does not use fear to control her client into spending more and more money with them for false rituals, charms, and curse removal.  Be cautious and aware out there.  Reputable psychics will charge a fair price for their service based on skill and demand; not a super low price designed to get you on the hook for more expensive services.  Get referrals to a great psychic from people that you trust.  Read testimonials to help determine if a psychic is legitimate. 

As in any industry, there are real professionals with real skills out there using their abilities for nefarious purposes.  Be on guard so you don’t fall victim to this common psychic scam.  In the process, don’t assume all psychics are frauds, charlatans, and scam artists.  Find a psychic aligned with the light, who seeks to empower you to make good decisions that will benefit you and humanity.   

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly,  neighborhood psychic.