On the Issue of Fake Spiritualists and Psychic Scams

Fake spiritualists and psychic scams are an epidemic in the metaphysical industry. Whether you are seeking true spiritual guidance or just want a reading for fun, you deserve to get the real thing. Here are a few guidelines to help you get what you pay for, and to tell if you are getting ripped off.

First, a real psychic will have a conversation with you. Many will give what are referred to as “cold readings” which is actually a tactic for getting information from you. This is not being psychic. A real psychic will not ask too many questions other than what it is you want to know about. You are consulting a psychic after all, and the psychic should be giving you answers, not asking questions.

Second, a real psychic will not immediately tell you that there is a generational curse on your family. While you may believe this to be true, more often than not it is a scare tactic used to squeeze more money from you.

Third, a real psychic will show integrity by maintaining the same phone number and website. Scam artists will often change their numbers and websites or even their names in an effort to avoid providing the service they have been paid for.

Fourth, a real psychic will actually be able to tell you things about yourself and your situation that are accurate and that could not be gleaned from information you have already provided.

Fifth, ask for references. A real psychic will be able to provide testimonials to their abilities. However, be careful of testimonials. Many psychics will write their own reviews of have friends write reviews for them. Be wary of anyone who has 100% glowing reviews as this is simply not possible in the psychic world. Not everyone will be happy with their reading. No psychic will be 100% on at all times. Real psychics are human beings and as such, are less than perfect.

A fake psychic will tell you what you want to hear. They are only interested in reeling you in to make more money from you. A real psychic will tell the truth, even if it is painful to share. Unfortunately, many so-called psychics use scripts and their readings are formatted in a certain way. They will tell you that the one you love loves you and that you will be together and get married and live happily ever after. Hearing that kind of reading is simply intoxicating. If you are feeling elated after receiving a reading like that, then the fake psychic has done their job well. You will return to hear more of the same because you have been given false hope.

Think about it. You are hopelessly in love with someone who simply does not reciprocate those feelings. However, you do not see that, you are in denial. It doesn’t matter that they have been clear that they no longer want to be with you; yet, you don’t except it. You don’t understand why this person is not in love with you and you will do anything to get them back. Surely, someone must see it your way, right?

So you go to one of the thousands of psychic networks and ask the psychic if you will get back together with the one you love. What does the psychic do? They tell you that the person is going through a tough time but will eventually come back to you. They tell you that they really do love you and you will be together when all is said and done. You feel relieved. Finally, someone knows what they are talking about and you get a renewed sense of false hope.

A week goes by and you still don’t hear from this person or nothing has changed. So, you go back to the psychic and ask the same question. Again, you hear that you must be patient; the person you love loves you and will come back to you. They will tell you that you are feeling anxious and worried and scared that maybe they don’t love you. You think to yourself, wow, this person IS psychic! How else would they know how I am feeling? Again you are reassured that it MUST be true that the person loves you because the psychic was right about how you are feeling. Yet, what you are feeling is rather obvious because anyone who has ever been in love and broken up with someone they care about knows how it feels. These are universal experiences and universal emotions that everyone goes through under similar circumstances. This is not psychic ability; it is common sense.

Another tactic of fake psychics is that they all use the same article about how to spot a fake psychic. Don’t believe me? Then google how to tell a fake psychic from a real one and see how many people have posted the same article to their site in an effort to convince you that they are the real deal. This is not evidence of authenticity. It is evidence of doing the same thing everyone else is doing.

Another telltale sign is seeing “best Psychic award” badges on a site… Best Psychic of 2009” or ‘Best Psychic 3 years in a row”. Best according to who? What governing institution is judging psychic ability? What is this based on? Again, another attempt at deceiving you and gaining your hard earned money.

In addition to these basic guidelines, there are over 750 so-called “gypsy fortune tellers” in the police database. Check to see if the one you want to work with is in the database. These psychics prey on those who are in real need by giving them cold readings, telling them they have a curse on them, and that only they can help them. Once the client is broke, the psychic or fortune teller will no longer “help” them, telling their unfortunate victim that their situation is beyond repair. The victim is left broke and feeling hopeless and in despair.

10 Things Your Body Can Do After You Die

By Maggie Koerth-Baker
Source: CNN

From getting hitched to saving the environment, here's proof you can still be a busybody long after you kick the bucket.

1. Get married

Death is no obstacle when it comes to love in China. That's because ghost marriage -- the practice of setting up deceased relatives with suitable spouses, dead or alive -- is still an option.

Ghost marriage first appeared in Chinese legends 2,000 years ago, and it's been a staple of the culture ever since. At times, it was a way for spinsters to gain social acceptance after death. At other times, the ceremony honored dead sons by giving them living brides. In both cases, the marriages served a religious function by making the deceased happier in the afterlife.

While the practice of matchmaking for the dead waned during China's Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, officials report that ghost marriages are back on the rise. Today, the goal is often to give a deceased bachelor a wife -- preferably one who has recently been laid to rest. But in a nation where men outnumber women in death as well as in life, the shortage of corpse brides has led to murder.

In 2007, there were two widely reported cases of rural men killing prostitutes, housekeepers, and mentally ill women in order to sell their bodies as ghost wives. Worse, these crimes pay. According to The Washington Post and The London Times, one undertaker buys women's bodies for more than $2,000 and sells them to prospective "in-laws" for nearly $5,000.

2. Unwind with a few friends

Today, most of us think of mummies as rare and valuable artifacts, but to the ancient Egyptians, they were as common as iPhones. So, where have all those mummies gone? Basically, they've been used up. Europeans and Middle Easterners spent centuries raiding ancient Egyptian tombs and turning the bandaged bodies into cheap commodities.

For instance, mummy-based panaceas were once popular as quack medicine. In the 16th century, French King Francis I took a daily pinch of mummy to build strength, sort of like a particularly offensive multivitamin. Other mummies, mainly those of animals, became kindling in homes and steam engines.

Meanwhile, human mummies frequently fell victim to Victorian social events. During the late 19th century, it was popular for wealthy families to host mummy-unwrapping parties, where the desecration of the dead was followed by cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.

3. Tour the globe as a scandalous work of art

Beginning in 1996 with the BODY WORLDS show in Japan, exhibits featuring artfully flayed human bodies have rocked the museum circuit. BODY WORLDS is now in its fourth incarnation, and competing shows, such as Bodies Revealed, are pulling in $30 million per year. The problem is, it's not always clear where those bodies are coming from.

Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the man behind BODY WORLDS, has documented that his bodies were donated voluntarily to his organization. However, his largest competitor, Premier Entertainment, doesn't have a well-established donation system. Premier maintains that its cadavers are unclaimed bodies from mainland China. And therein lies the concern. Activists and journalists believe "unclaimed bodies" is a euphemism for "executed political prisoners."

The fear isn't unfounded. In 2006, Canada commissioned a human rights report that found Chinese political prisoners were being killed so that their organs could be "donated" to transplant patients. And in February 2008, ABC News ran an exposé featuring a former employee from one of the Chinese companies that supplied corpses to Premier Entertainment. In the interview, he claimed that one-third of the bodies he processed were political prisoners. Not surprisingly, governments have started to take notice. In January 2008, the California State Assembly passed legislation requiring body exhibits to prove that all their corpses were willfully donated.

4. Fuel a city

Cremating a body uses up a lot of energy -- and a lot of nonrenewable resources. So how do you give Grandma the send-off she wanted and protect the planet at the same time? Multitask.

Some European crematoriums have figured out a way to replace conventional boilers by harnessing the heat produced in their fires, which can reach temperatures in excess of 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, starting in 1997, the Swedish city of Helsingborg used local crematoriums to supply 10 percent of the heat for its homes.

5. Get sold, chop shop-style

Selling a stiff has always been a profitable venture. In the Middle Ages, grave robbers scoured cemeteries and sold whatever they could dig up to doctors and scientists. And while the business of selling cadavers and body parts in the United States is certainly cleaner now, it's no less dubious.

Today, the system runs like this: Willed-body donation programs, often run by universities, match cadavers with the researchers who need them. But because dead bodies and body parts can't be sold legally, the middlemen who supply these bodies charge large fees for "shipping and handling."

Shipping a full cadaver can bring in as much as $1,000, but if you divvy up a body into its component parts, you can make a fortune. A head can cost as much as $500; a knee, $650; and a disembodied torso, $5,000.

The truth is, there are never enough of these willed bodies to meet demand. And with that kind of money on the mortician's table, corruption abounds.

In the past few years, coroners have been busted stealing corneas, crematorium technicians have been caught lifting heads off bodies before they're burned, and university employees at body donation programs have been found stealing cadavers.

After UCLA's willed-body program director was arrested for selling body parts in 2004, the State of California recommended outfitting corpses with bar code tattoos or tracking chips, like the kinds injected into dogs and cats. The hope is to make cadavers easier to inventory and track down when they disappear.

6. Become a Soviet tourist attraction

Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin wanted to be buried in his family plot. But when Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin insisted on putting his corpse on public display in Red Square, creating a secular, Communist relic.

Consequently, an organization called the Research Institute for Biological Structures was formed to keep Lenin's body from decay. The Institute was no joke, as some of the Soviet Union's most brilliant minds spent more than 25 years working and living on site to perfect the Soviet system of corpse preservation. Scientists today still use their method, which involves a carefully controlled climate, a twice-weekly regimen of dusting and lubrication, and semi-annual dips in a secret blend of 11 herbs and chemicals.

Unlike bodies, however, fame can't last forever. The popularity of the tomb is dwindling, and the Russian government is now considering giving Lenin the burial he always wanted.

7. Snuggle up with your stalker

When a beautiful young woman named Elena Hoyos died of tuberculosis in Florida in 1931, her life as a misused object of desire began. Her admirer, a local X-ray technician who called himself Count Carl von Cosel, paid for Hoyos to be embalmed and buried in a mausoleum above ground.

Then, in 1933, the crafty Count stole Elena's body and hid it in his home. During the next seven years, he worked to preserve her corpse, replacing her flesh as it decayed with hanger wires, molded wax, and plaster of Paris. He even slept beside Elena's body in bed -- that is, until her family discovered her there.

In the ensuing media circus, more than 6,000 people filed through the funeral home to view Elena before she was put to rest. Her family buried her in an unmarked grave so that von Cosel couldn't find her, but that didn't stop his obsession. Von Cosel wrote about Elena for pulp fiction magazines and sold postcards of her likeness until he was found dead in his home in 1952. Near his body was a life-size wax dummy made to look just like Elena.

8. Don't spread an epidemic

In the aftermath of natural disasters such as tsunamis, floods and hurricanes, it's common for the bodies of victims to be buried or burned en masse as soon as possible. Supposedly, this prevents the spread of disease.

But according to the World Health Organization (WHO), dead bodies have been getting a bad rap. It turns out that the victims of natural disasters are no more likely to harbor infectious diseases than the general population. Plus, most pathogens can't survive long in a corpse.

Taken together, the WHO says there's no way that cadavers are to blame for post-disaster outbreaks. So what is? The fault seems to lie with the living or, more specifically, their living conditions. After a disaster, people often end up in crowded refugee camps with poor sanitation. For epidemic diseases, that's akin to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

9. Stand trial

In 897, Pope Stephen VI accused former Pope Formosus of perjury and violation of church canon. The problem was that Pope Formosus had died nine months earlier.

Stephen worked around this little detail by exhuming the dead pope's body, dressing it in full papal regalia, and putting it on trial. He then proceeded to serve as chief prosecutor as he angrily cross-examined the corpse. The spectacle was about as ludicrous as you'd imagine.

In fact, Pope Stephen appeared so thoroughly insane that a group of concerned citizens launched a successful assassination plot against him. The next year, one of Pope Stephen's successors reversed Formosus' conviction, ordering his body reburied with full honors.

10. Stave off freezer burn

At cryonics facilities around the globe, the dead aren't frozen anymore. The reason? Freezer burn. As with steaks and green beans, freezing a human body damages tissues, largely because cells burst as the water in them solidifies and expands. In the early days of cryonics, the theory was that future medical technology would be able to fix this damage, along with curing whatever illness killed the patient in the first place.

Realizing that straight freezing isn't the best option, today's scientists have made significant advances in cryonics. Using a process called vitrification, the water in the body is now replaced with an anti-freezing agent. The body is then stored at cold temperatures, but no ice forms.

In 2005, researchers vitrified a rabbit kidney and successfully brought it back to complete functionality -- a big step in cryonics research. (It may help in organ transplants someday, too.)

But science has yet to prove that an entire body can be revived. Even worse, some vitrified bodies have developed large cracks in places where cracks don't belong. Until those kinks get worked out, the hope of being revived in the future will remain a dream.

Photo of Manman Brigitte and Baron Samedi, Guardians of the Cemeteries. Voodoo dolls available at The Mystic Voodoo.