[i:19543b1e77]Psychic Junkie: A Memoir[/i:19543b1e77] is a wonderful book by Sarah Lassez and Gian Sardar, which might be of interest to others in this forum. I really enjoyed it. Here is a blurb about it from Amazon.com:

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When her promised stardom fails to materialize, struggling actress Sarah Lassez finds solace in psychics who predict the coming of the man of her dreams. She's sure she's found him in Wilhelm, a suave hotel sous-chef from Germany. But mayhem ensues when she takes the words of the psychics over the words of her actual boyfriend and is convinced he's about to propose -- when in reality he's planning to leave the country . . . without her.

Sarah's world dissolves into a haze of credit card debt, loneliness, and a raging addiction to psychics that threatens to destroy her finances, her relationships, and her sanity. She knows she needs help. But getting it will mean confronting the fact that life is not to be controlled or predicted, and though dealing with reality isn't always easy, at least it doesn't cost $4.99 a minute.

Psychic Junkie is a true story of life and love in Los Angeles, narrated by an endearing protagonist whose search for answers will resonate with everyone who has ever tried to make sense of career, relationships, and adulthood.

P.S. I found the book at my local library!

OOOOh I've not read it but I've really wanted to, ever since it came out. Think I'll put it on my xmas list. Thanks for the reminder :D

Well I read it and it was very insightful. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who was overdependent on tarot etc. As well as being a good read.

Sounds like an interesting book; thanks for posting!

Reminds me of a friend of mine who called a psychic hotline and got really freaked out because the man told her that she either was or would be pregnant within the year! She did not have a boyfriend at the time (and none on the horizon), but nevertheless took this prediction very seriously. She called the psychic hotline and talked to a different "psychic" for over an hour trying to find out if this prediction was a definite. I think it ended up costing her $60 an hour to find out that indeed, she would not necessarily become pregnant that year. :roll:

I've read the book, it's hilarious and it was especially hilarious to me because I recognized myself in the main character. I called a psychic hotline regularly for about 2 years, and ended up in a strange "one-on-one cult," where a psychic leader was my guru. Or, rather, she wanted to be my guru and was very displeased when I gradually stopped worshipping her.

What helped me were good old education articles online, including those written by Rick Ross. I also purchased the excellent book "Take Back Your Life: Recovering frmo Cults and Abusive Relationships" which helped me first define, then handle the issues I was dealing with. I recognized the steps described by the authors (being seduced by the charismatic leader who offers all the answers, then gradually losing your own judgment and will, and meeting the hostility of the leader when you try to speak up for yourself). Unfortunately, the cultic mindframe does not collapse like a house of cards after one "aha moment." I can very well relate to one person who wrote on yahoo answers: "I turned away from the church but I still had those words in my head. I still had my parents and friends in my ears that still belonged to the church. I had to ween myself from the control. I use information to help me. I educate myself about the Mormon religion daily. I do research that helps me feel at ease with what my brain is now telling me and what it was told in the past. It is a difficult thing that one cannot understand unless having been there."

Psychic addicts lose much more than $60.00 - we're talking thousands of dollars and unmanageable debt. It's a very dangerous and tricky dependency, because there are indeed people with extraordinary intuitive abilities who actually CAN read people, but the readings are always hit or miss, the same reader can be scarily accurate one time and completely off the mark another. These are the words of the author of Psychic Junkie herself, who now moderates the Psychic Junkie online support group.

Indeed, it would be so much easier to let go of the dependency if you became certain that the entire concept is baloney. But, it's just not the case. I happened to meet one person who as psychic and picked up on things about me he couldn't have known. However, I didn't like him as a person, I didn't like the way he spoke to me, and I did not remain in contact with him.

My experience was very weird and freaky. I thought I was getting useful advice, instead the psychic wanted to be my personal guru, told me what I WOULD AND WOULD NOT DO in the future (of course she knew, she's psychic and one of the best around according to her own claims!), etc.. I became so uncomfortable that I stopped calling her.

I'm more or less back to being a rational person and figuring things out myself. But the memory of the experience still makes me shiver, and yes I still hear her voice in my head confidently telling me what to do. Fortunately, as time goes on, it becomes less and less important and I obsess with it less and less.

I knew someone who used to work on a psychic hotline. She was a thoughtful woman and had trained with a medium in her native Scotland.

X said she gave up working on the psychic hotline, despite its being a good source of income.

'I became worried because too many people who were already poor were calling and asking for me. They told me enough about their situation that I knew they could not afford the number of hotline sessions they requested, and I was worried they were becoming dependent, rather than taking the information I offered and using it to better their situation.

'I felt I was doing wrong to let them go broke and get dependent on me.'

Leaving this line of work was a sacrifice for X. She ended up homeless for a spell and later faced she herself had addiction issues and needed to gwork on herself.

She is now in a totally different occupation, one where she is still helping people, but using totally different methods aimed at empowering them. It was a rare chance to meet someone who saw the harmful features of psychic hotline work and who acted on her insight and renounced the income and deference others were so eager to confer upon her.