In the Crystal Ball:  More Regulation for Psychics

Starting this week, fortune tellers in Warren, Mich., must be fingerprinted and pay an annual fee of $150 — plus $10 for a police background check — to practice their craft. The new rules are among America’s strictest on palmists, fortune readers, and other psychics — and part of a growing push to regulate a business that has never been taken, or overseen, very seriously. But officials in Warren, a town of 138,000 near Detroit, say it’s time to weed out tricksters. “We had no mechanism of enforcement to protect people against unsavory characters,” Warren City Council member Keith Sadowski says. “We want to be sure there is some recourse in case we do get somebody who is not legitimate.”

Regulating an industry that deems itself clairvoyant, has no standard education requirements and yet rakes in cash for revealing spiritual truths may itself be an act of faith. It also might make good economic sense: just over one in seven Americans consulted a psychic or fortune-teller in 2009, according to the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life. That could be 30 million or more of us.

Municipalities are now struggling to manage such activities. Annapolis, Md., only issues what it calls “fortune-telling licenses” if its police force concludes the applicant is “of good moral character.” Last year Will County, Ill., decided to count fortune tellers as official businesses, along with tattoo parlors and dog watchers. Three years back, Salem, Mass., famous for its 17th Century witch trials — and something of a magnet for spiritual artisans — tightened its rules on background checks for psychics, while easing its cap on the number of local fortune tellers allowed in town.  Read Article

By Elizabeth Dias