A year ago, psychic swindler Rose Marks was sentenced to more than ten years in federal prison for fleecing clients of her fortune-telling business out of more than $17.8 million. She was 62 years old; she and her family had built a network of psychics, many of whom worked under the professional name Joyce Michael in Ft. Lauderdale and New York City.
One of Rose Marks’s best scams was to “see” the awful (and outrageously convoluted) future of a client, then solicit millions of dollars from the client, bit by bit, in order to perform rituals over the money before returning it. Except, the money was never returned.
At trial, victims testified that Marks “exploited them during vulnerable times in their lives. Victims said the women of the psychic’s family were masterful in their ability to use people’s spiritual or religious beliefs to get them to hand over money and other valuables.”
I always thought psychics had a “gift.”
Turns out, no. They just go to psychic schools. Or seance schools. Or clairvoyant colleges. These institutions have complete curricula of course study in, uh… conning. Courses called Unfoldment into Mediumship, Using Past Life Information in Present Time, Applying Clairvoyant Tools in the Psychic Playground, Trance: How to Sit for its Development, and So You Want to be a Medium are a small sampling from the few psychic schools I surveyed.
Rose Marks is infamous enough to have her own Wikipedia page, and lucky enough to have been trained by her own mother in the Gypsy tradition. She began her psychic career by age nine and later trained her own daughter.
If you don’t have the benefit of maternal training, there are psychic schools. All of them offer comprehensive instruction from beginner to advanced levels.
Psychic Schools
In the class called Stepping into Mediumship at MontClair Metaphysical School in New Jersey, the focus is learning how to “contact someone on the Other Side and to provide proof of their identity, personality and proof of life.”
Proof of life? The “Other Side” means the dead, right? So they’re teaching students how to contact the dead. And they must really teach that—otherwise the school is a sham.
Next, the students are taught how to prove they’ve contacted the correct dead person. Hmmm… mistakes can happen. Kind of like getting your neighbor’s mail in your box. Oops. But it’s the last bit that confuses me most: students are taught how to provide “proof of life.” Of a dead person? Is there life on the “Other Side”? From my perspective then, as an afterlife-nonbeliever, the school teaches how to scam. It is a school of scams, a college of cons, if I comprehend the concept correctly.
Or perhaps I need spiritual help.
Just last month, Psychic Gina was arrested in Fort Collins, Colorado, for bilking $37,000 from a client, with the collusion of her accomplice husband. Psychic Gina Marks is a member of another Marks family’s fortune-telling business; if and how they are related to Rose Marks is unknown.
Who would pay a psychic thousands of dollars for aura-cleansing, curse-lifting, love-finding, or to get through the ordinary difficulties of life? Usually those desperate in the areas of love, loss, health, or career. In the usual progression, the victim visits a psychic storefront for an inexpensive palm reading. Talented fortune-tellers assign homework to their clients, and persuade them to return repeatedly for convoluted rituals that escalate in price. Often, the psychic promises that the funds will be returned when the client’s problems are solved. Countering the failure of promised results, psychics convince clients to return by threatening certain catastrophe, calamity, and misfortune.
It is these advanced fortune-making skills I’d like to read about in the psychic schools’ syllabus: the inveigling, up-selling, cold-reading, deceit, and trickery. Which classes teach those vital skills? What about marketing, costuming, decor, and special effects?
The Psychic School in northern California offers many classes, all by telephone. One is Create Magic and Miracles. Is that the one in which you learn how to make teacups tip over and tables float? Most classes are $200, or you can take the two-year Teachers Program for $4,800. The Psychic School’s site carefully describes each course as self-healing, self-improvement, self-knowledge, and self-awareness. You study to be a psychic in order to read only your own chakra, energy, and dead people, right?
See your money-making abilities skyrocket
However, the Psychic School does point out that “with the development of your clairvoyant abilities, the decisions through which you create your life come with ease, your creativity and money-making abilities skyrocket….” I take that to mean that as a graduated “psychic” (the Teachers Program ends with a “Psychic School Certificate of Graduationg” [sic], there’s no end to the creativity you can use and fees you can charge to scam your clients. Becoming a clairvoyant, you will “create a life filled with insight, creativity, and miracles.” Sounds great!
Let’s have a look at the Berkeley Psychic Institute’s Clairvoyant Training Program, which the institute also refers to as “psychic kindergarten.” It must be child’s play! But no. It’s a two-year, four-phase program of intensive learning and “hands on training from high caliber gifted psychics,” and concludes with “Uncovering your deepest challenges, moving through the fire and slaying the dragons.”
Berkeley Psychic Institute operates the DejaVu Psychic Hotline, where graduates can get instant employment doing telephone and email readings. Email readings? Yes, for $25, one can order an “Email Trance Medium Channeled Healing.”
“We do not consider ourselves as fortune tellers. We are fortune creators,” says the DejaVu Psychic Hotline website. Whose fortunes are being created?
Arthur Findlay College, pictured above and about an hour north of London, calls itself “The Worlds Foremost College for the Advancement of Spiritualism and Psychic Sciences.” Not only can one study mediumship, but also trance mediumship, in which “you will be connected to spirit working with spirit and supported by spirit.” Sounds complicated. And that is the clearest line in the entire course description. Is that an example of the obfuscation taught in the institute? Vital skill for a clairvoyant.
Perhaps the most important course for a psychic medium is Mediumship – Polish Your Performance. Since mediumship is learned—not an innate gift—one must study and practice to become convincing when channeling a spirit from the Other Side. This is “essential for customers not only to return but recommend you to others,” the Arthur Findlay College site says. I’m guessing there’s some overlap with trance mediumship. Arthur Findlay College is international and holds week-long sessions in a multitude of languages including Japanese, Swedish, Italian, Norwegian, German, French, and Finnish. It even markets a course especially for senior citizens.
What do Psychic Schools cost?
What does it cost to become a clairvoyant? A basic week-long course at Arthur Findlay College, say Mediumship & Spiritual Development, costs £570 (about $845) with room and board, double occupancy. Add £9 per person if you want a room with your own bathroom. With more than 80 courses available, a wannabe-psychic can spend a pretty penny.
But everyone knows that a solid education leads to a solid career. Just a few years ago, Psychic Michelle Morgan, of Tarzana, California, raked in almost a million from a single client, a young man whom she determined was suffering from a love curse. Psychic Michelle was patient; she kept her 25-year-old mark dependent on her rituals for two years, urging him to borrow more and more money to fund his psychic sessions. The skills she honed allowed her to entrap and ensnare her victims and exploit them for much more than they were worth. Like all those in her field, silver-tongued Psychic Michelle’s talent was unctuous smooth-talk, glib persuasion, and creative conning. Presumably, the 25-year-old million-dollar-client wasn’t Psychic Michelle’s only client.
So what does a clairvoyant college curriculum really teach? How does an institute prepare a student medium for a career in clairvoyance? Does it really teach curse-lifting, money-purifying, and soul-swapping? Are the students taught how to scam and con their clients? Or are the students themselves scammed by the schools?
33 Comments
Loren, thank you for your balanced perspective, and for presenting the other side in such a civil manner. Although you haven’t dragged me over to your side of the argument, I enjoyed reading your take and thank you for sharing.
As in everything else in life, there are some spiritual practitioners who would rip you off if you let them. In all we do in life it’s wise for us to use common sense, but just because there are these crazy stories of how people have been defrauded…. let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I have seen people lose their investments, homes, vehicles to unethical people and because of that people don’t stop investing or selling homes (or buying used cars). The churches I have been too all give free messages to people who attend, and free healing (not everyone is trying to separate us from our hard earned money).
When you take a class in spiritual matters it is meant to teach you a skill, just like when you sign up for basket weaving, ballet, or ceramics. You pay a fee and get a benefit – and if you do not then don’t go back, it’s that simple. Free messages have saved me from at least two mayor accidents. I have been taking courses in my area and I am learning now to tap into people on the other side after having dreams where I could see some future events. Sometimes when you hear from a loved one on the other side it’s possible to get a sense of closure and healing. Yes, it’s not for everyone, and while some psychics do feed off of what you say, there are some of us who say nothing and allow the psychic to work for the pre-determined fee. It’s good to use caution and if it sounds too good to be true then don’t proceed, and if this is not for you or you don’t believe we have access to deceased persons spirits that does not mean that it can’t be a true. If this college was a fraud it would have already gone out of business. Scammers don’t study in reputable places for the most part they come up with a plan and learn to persuade you with their words. So unless a person has taken courses at this institution how and can you honestly speak of the content? or make such a blanket statement? It seems such a person does not have the authority to make an evaluation or something they have not sampled.
David, hello. I have never been scammed by a psychic, but you’re correct that I “know next to nothing about the long history of the Arthur Findlay College,” and I do presume “it’s just set up to teach psychics how to make money.” I think I “know the difference between psychics and mediums,” but I don’t believe either is legitimate. The remaining claims in your comment don’t impress me or convince me that the enterprise is anything other than what I wrote. Still, I appreciate your insight.
The author is obviously bitter about being scammed somehow and knows next to nothing about the long history of the Arthur Findlay College and thinks it’s just set up to teach psychics how to make money. You know there is a difference between psychics and mediums right? You do know the Arthur Findlay college is over 100 years old and is the head of an organised religion called Spiritualism in the UK and acts as a Union for the 1000s of Spiritualist churches in the UK. Mediums serve at these churches for free as ministers of worship and prayer. However, the author thinks it’s just a scam college. Do you research.
Angel, thank you for your interesting comment. I’m so sorry for your loss. I have to ask you though: did you sense your niece’s death, or did you sense that she was about to have an accident? I don’t know how (or if) a psychic sense as you describe works, but assuming it does, what makes you think you could change what you perceive? If you sensed an accident, perhaps you could have prevented her from getting in the car or on the ladder. But if you sensed a death, and these perceptions are real, I would presume you couldn’t do anything about it. In other words, if you devine a death, you see that it is going to happen, and it does happen.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts and explanation.
For the record, my gripe is not with people like you who may feel and predict things, but with the commercial exploitation of people like you by a for-profit organization. Especially an organization that teaches people how to APPEAR to have psychic powers and thereby profit from them.
I feel the need to chime in from my own personal perspective. The “old me” from a few years ago would possibly believe the author of this blog the be fighting for justice for all the innocent people scammed. But, I cannot deny that I am different anymore. At age 49 the coincidence hit me too hard this time. It has come back from childhood and closer to home. I predict death. It was always accidents and death. This time my niece who was the same age as my son and unexpectedly. I was awake this time. I heard it in my head… “ she is going to die” . Days later she did. As a child , it was dreams and came true the day I woke as exactly as my dream had shown me. I cried and ran to a shop embarrassed too much to even ask a question. A Psychic lady saved me by answering before I could tell my story. She said do not be afraid. I was psychic and I was safe and loved. She gave me what I needed and never asked for a dime. I found a teacher since. ( shop owner) He is a nurse by trade. Does NOT need the money. His first class stresses ETHICS. He was self taught but has attended this college in the UK also. I am seeing, feeling, learning to interpret theses words things happening to me. I can say this is very very real. Found out I am third generation but no one ever spoke of it and was all afraid of it. I googled this college and found your article. I would never steal from another. Cannot stand dishonesty. If I can save one person with this; or help someone…. I have to try because my family convinced me I was crazy. I didn’t try to save my niece.
Miss Bambi.
While I appreciate your warnings, can you quantify your personal experiences of being involved with cults? I believe that all of us readers would appreciate that. This being said, keep on keeping on.
TTFN,
– Vincent
Thank you, Nelle, for your original and thoughtful viewpoint. I hadn’t thought of it that way… I can see how some people may get comfort (or entertainment!) from a visit to a psychic. I’m afraid that in my business, the business of thefts, cons, and scams, I tend to hear, read, and learn about many of the sketchy practitioners. The ones who want return visitors roped in and paying higher and higher fees and donations. Is it really necessary for the heartfelt, well-intended, decent practitioners to go to psychic school? I still have my doubts about those institutions. Just read their curriculums. Anyway, thanks for chiming in. I appreciate hearing your side.
Dear Bambi
When people go to speak to a psychic they go for a beyond the norm experience. Most psychics don’t exploit. They listen very carefully, are highly intuitive and offer the kind of support that is not available in mainstream. Most people turn to psychics when all hope is lost. I know for a fact that a psychic will bring in many facets of their self to help – their knowledge, their experience, their spirituality, their wisdom (because most tend to have lived life), their unique work experience. Because psychics are unique it puts them in the ideal position to value diversity and embrace a person’s issues in a non judgemental fashion. Believing in a person, knowing there are choices and embracing their beliefs and thought patterns opens the doors to miracles and original solutions. Therefore in today’s day and age you cannot underestimate the importance of psychics. I know that a few may have gone down a fake path but the majority are genuine and want to help. It is really not about the money because the efforts involved far outweigh the charges.
Stephanie, thank you for your balanced and insightful comment. As you pointed out, I’m not at all an expert on psychics, mediums, or the schools that profess to teach those skills. I am, however an expert on scams and scammy things, greed, and businesses/individuals that take advantage of the naive.
But you’re right: I’m not a believer, and I understand that my skepticism reads as insulting to one who does believe. So, apologies for offending you. And thank you for taking the time to read my blog, despite the dullness of my writing.
Bambi Vincent, I agree there are scammy schools out there, one must be decisive and do their due diligence. You did point out some facts about some scammers and a school, but that was public record and get this “it does hapoen!” Lol. Your writing is just dull and lifeless. You need alot more facts than you do just a barrage of ghastly insults. You asked if there was life after death, and the answer is YES. So I would recommend you do some serious soul searching, or do you believe you have a soul in there?But you’re clearly an atheist so why try to begrudge something you don’t believe exists anyway?And for the record, people who speak to the dead are not “psychics” , they are “mediums”. Get your facts straight.
Wow, yes, there are frauds and wanna bes but, as a psychic medium who was confused by it all I was very glad to find that there were other people that could help me understand. I have had to wade through fakers and scammers as we all do in life. This is what is known as the winding and mysterious path we are on. With my students I try to focus on their own use of abilities and when doing readings I want to know as little as possible about my client. There are keys you must find to open the doors to reality. They are not just handed out.
Clarissa, maybe you could point out some specific misconceptions or what I’ve got wrong. Your outburst of emotion has no content.
This is very disrespectful, and frankly, quite ignorant. Rant on with your brilliant self. You actually know nothing.
Thanks for your comment, Mary Meyer or Maggie. I’d be interested in hearing more about your attendance at Arthur Findlay College. How long were you there? What did you pay? And did you make a career in psychic readings?
I think it is very unfair to use the highly respected Arthur Findlay College in the way you have as
a likely place for scams. Scams, psychic or otherwise can take place anywhere including on the
net. As an ex-student of the College many years ago, I can only speak most highly about the
Lecturers, Tutors, Mediums as well as the student body itself. Please find out more about an
Institute or College and what it stands for without using it to make your point and unfairly tarnish
its reputation. I traveled half-way around the world to attend the College. I wasn’t disappointed.
It was a wonderful spiritually uplifting experience. It provided the opportunity to mix and mingle with
quality and well-informed people from around the world. The College itself is quite magnificent
and provides value for money. Another of the commentators makes the point. How many millions
of dollars are spent on Sport events and people staying at great expense in Hotels far from home to
attend these events which often result in violence and disgusting bad behaviour. Pull your Head in.
Attend Arthur Findlay College first before using it in cheap shot way to make your point.
I think it is very unfair to use the highly respected Arthur Findlay College in the way you have as
a likely place for scams. Scams, psychic or otherwise can take place anywhere including on the
net. As an ex-student of the College many years ago, I can only speak most highly about the
Lecturers, Tutors, Mediums as well as the student body itself. Please find out more about an
Institute or College and what it stands for without using it to make your point and unfairly tarnish
its reputation. I traveled half-way around the world to attend the College. I wasn’t disappointed.
It was a wonderful spiritually uplifting experience. It provided the opportunity to mix and mingle with
quality and well-informed people from around the world. The College itself is quite magnificent
and provides value for money. Another of the commentators makes the point. How many millions
of dollars are spent on Sport events and people staying at great expense in Hotels far from home to
attend these events which often result in violence and disgusting bad behaviour. Pull your Head in.
Attend Arthur Findlay College first before using it in cheap shot way to make your point.
Footballers get paid millions to run up and down grass, passing a ball…and that’s acceptable!
It’s not about having the gift or not having the gift…it’s about developing the gift.
Wow there are some seriously bigoted people in the world; dis-respecting an entire area of study and not even applying themselves to it, to see if they could get results!
I used to work in childcare – there are some incredibly wholesome, loving teachers and some downright harsh and uncaring teachers; it’s the same in every field.
Some genuine, some fake.
You’d bring down an entire college with your petty negativity. You are the thieves, the con-men.
So you chose 3 or 4 Scam Mediums to condemn the whole lot of them. And you use innuendo to condemn the Arthur Findlay College by mentioning their fees, and then linking the college to Psychic Michelle Morgan by beginning with “But everyone knows that a solid education leads to a solid career.” Thus linking the two, where there is no link at all. Presumably you could not find any proof or even solid evidence that Arthur Findlay College is indeed involved in scamming people, but sure what does the truth have to do with making a point that bolsters your own ignorant and arrogant belief?
There are indeed some people born with the psychic gift, but it can also be taught. Open your mind. Remember, science is restricted by our 5 senses. It cannot prove the existence of every phenomenon. It cannot prove the existence of love,to pick just one example. But If you have ever loved anyone, then you know it exists.
Peace and love to you xx
Good point, Ms. Insight, perhaps I should have taken CJ up on her offer of a free reading. However, as you can tell by my article, I’m not a believer in the psychic powers that CJ professes to have, so I’d hate to take her time, cheat her of her fee, and then write a negative, disbelieving report on the experience. If I’d felt there was the remotest posibility of a different outcome, that would have been been the fair route. However, it is my opinion that whatever “successes” psychic readers appear to have are due to a talent in art of cold reading—and cold reading, if done well, is indiscernible to the subject.
I would like to ask the author, if the free reading from CJ was accepted? Surely an article that highlights the negatives of any given field, would accept an insight reading from a commentator, with psychic abilities, who offers to refute this claim? Wouldn’t that provide an exciting opportunity to substantiate your findings? An opportunity to balance opinions?
Please note, Sylvia, that this article is about “psychic schools;” commercial outfits that purport to teach students the art of clairvoyance and how to profit from mediumship and spiritualism as a business. And yes, we do try to expose scammers and thieves—that’s the theme of this blog. Thanks for reading it!
Do you see doctors for any reason? If so, you may be getting scammed too. There are many who are crooked and deceitful. You better watch out. There are so many scammers in so many fields of study. Make sure to tell us about all those too.
Thank you, Patrick, for your calm rebuttal. I agree that a number of bad actors don’t represent their entire field, though some certainly tarnish their fields. However, when it comes to mediums, fortune tellers, and clairvoyants, I am beyond skeptical. I do not believe the claims this profession in general makes.
That is not to say that they’re all scammers—perhaps some fortune tellers truly believe that they can know the future or speak with the dead. But as one with a scientific mind and some education, that is impossible to believe.
There are scam artists in almost every field trying to bilk money out of gullible people. Look at all the doctors prescribing expensive medications when a change in diet might only be necessary. Veterinarians are also known to charge tons of money for procedures that aren’t really necessary. Lawyers, especially immigration lawyers, who manage to get tons of money out of people and perhaps help them not. Look at gyms that basically force people to pay up a lot of money for trainers and then when you try to get out of it, they say it’s impossible. Also, contractors that do shoddy work for way too much money. Face it. There are bad people in every field. Just because a few doctors or lawyers or contractors or what have you in any area are a rotten bunch, does that mean all of them are? One bad personal trainer means ALL personal trainers are bad? Looks like you haven’t met any real mediums who love their work and feel as if they are serving Spirit and humanity by the work that they do. Open your mind and your heart and see what new world could await you. Peace.
You have zero knowledge on what it is to be a medium but a great deal of sarcasm on something you know nothing about. Everyone on this planet including you is born with this gift but most of us turn it off in child. We all retain some intuition. Some of us have it much stronger than others and the door back to the other side can be reopened with practice and help from another medium or these courses. Not everyone is out to con someone. I have been able to hear the dead but not see them all my life. And always no when something is going to happen to someone I love. I have even predicted earthquakes the day before in my own area. But I don’t con people or use this information to hurt anyone.
If you follow science you would believe that there is no God. Yes there are many psychics who are fake and just in it to make money. However there are many psychics that are genuine and really do help people in their time of need some of these psychics do not charge a penny for follow up consultations and are contactable when the clients need someone to talk to. you may not believe in spirituality/ the spirit realm but many ancient societies practiced these arts long before we came into existence or are we going to demonize them as ancient people who were pagans or had little or no sense . Modern people claim to know so much but yet no very little I have experience very good spirit mediums/healers from different countries some good and some not so good. we have people on earth who love humanity and some that do not give a damn, but this can be applied to all aspects of human nature., So please do not demonize everybody and some people are also naturally blind and therefore lack spirituality.
This article is shockingly offensive. The fact that this shows up as you search for psychic schools is appalling and quite frankly as you mention in your article, you do need spiritual help. I am a professional psychic, dead people talk to me, I can feel other people’s emotions as clearly as if they are my own, I often avoid trouble simply because something feels “off” to me, I perform spells and energy work for people, I charge them money to do a spiritual counsel with them because, apparently unlike you, some people are actually in need of guidance and those of us who are more intune with the universe than a doorknob, unlike you, can provide that for them. I absolutely charge for my readings. It is $45 for 30 minutes of my time and never once have I had someone say that I scammed them or that I am fake. You claiming that my beliefs and gifts are fake is just as bad as me spouting my beliefs that Hell is not real, sins are just a control method because Christianity’s main goals is to keep people as sheep who don’t have their own thoughts and blindly follow the corrupt leaders with the promise of some fake “salvation” at the end of it. I, to my very core, believe that but don’t go yelling it in an article “trying to save people from the scam of paying their tithing” (an idea for your next article as you seem to be all about the defamation of people’s personal belief systems) because it is ridiculous, offensive, and just plain wrong for someone to do so. I am happy to offer you a free reading and you can write an article about how fake I am on here.
Sounds like you got an awfull lot of knowledge about mediumship! Meaning none.
Some people do have gifts and those need someone to tell them, how to handle it.
And you bashing around with no sense do make a lot of damage. You don’t help people. You just want to wallow in your own disbelief.
Not everybody grows up with a mother that is a psychic herself and there are a lot of people who suffer because there still is so called science that is simply made of beliefs itself just ignoring mountains of evidence not to be bothered because it wont fit their model of the world. And some people just full of fear, who are so numb they don’t even hear their own heart talking to them.
So I will say, because there are frauds in politics, all politicians are frauds.
Or because some people don’t like fish and chips, the whole world does not like fish and chips. Well done.
Jason, I’d guess that these schools are making a lot of money, and that’s all they care about. I must admit, I have not ever experienced dead people showing up during love-making. You said you had a “fake psychic” channel you. Maybe you should have gotten a real psychic!
P.T. Barnum said it best….the only thing these people are learning is “a fool and his money are soon parted.” Lol Or was it the “fool is born every minute.” either way the whole school thing is such a crock. If you are you are if you aren’t you pay someone to tell you you are. In reality it is a horrible thing to have to deal with. Dead people show up at bad times, when your making love for example. It isn’t something you “learn” for most it is something you do not want to have. It is irritating at best, I cannot help the dead. I cannot do anything. I had a fake psychic “channel” me a week before I was diagnosed with pancreatic issues. So I feel that real things happen without direction as the afterlife or lack thereof is without direction at best. lost souls are not orderly or they wouldn’t be lost in my opinion. But yeah the school thing is a crock put on by fakes trying to fleece fools with hopes and dreams that they have but that are unattainable for them. If they spent the time helping them find the reason they haven’t been able to let go of the person i feel that would merit real help and attencion from the ones who have this horrible affliction. Me myself at times have harder days than others. Different places cause different reactions. I live in the North California area rural. So i have a few places where the Lake Tribes inscribed on rocks and other things which are places of power and direction. But if you are not a Brujo finding the right direction at a place of power is pointless, if people do not have the ability it means nothing to them. Knowledge is given and passed through the blood and the misery of death on a massive scale…..this is more for bored housewives and rich kids. I make no money from this. I want no money, but I have helped a few people that needed it. Mainly due to it being a irritant, and by telling them what they needed to hear i ended my irritating….feelings. Like with cancer, family members, drugs things of this nature. only a few times was it something I had no realization of what I was saying until I was told. You cannot teach a kind heart, a gentle hand, soothing words. When you are dealing with the soul or Sangria of a person you must have the touch regardless, otherwise things become fake and messy. Peace upon you.
At least Findlay looks the part. Harry Potter would be right a home – maybe he is.
That is one fascinating report.