The Marketing of Psychics

So, last week we got a PR email in from a website apparently run by Russell Grant, a chubby camp guy from the UK who is famous for being one of the most public faces of Astrology. Now anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to work out that any influence the planets and constellations have on your own specific day to day life, is zero. In fact the only way they could actually manage to give you a bad day, is if they got thrown out of orbit and hit you on the head.

But some people still believe that the constellation they were born under, or at least were according to Astrology since actually this pseudoscience isn't even accurate for a lot of people when it comes to that fact, and position of the planets really affects them, or the resulting predictions are a bit of fun to read. Newspapers, well the crappier ones that most don't even deserve the title, still carry this daily rubbish. So do many glossy women's magazines, despite the fact that most people can't even tell you in a blind test for a day gone by which of the entries was their star sign.

Anyway, this aforementioned piece of PR was promoting a website presumably owned by Grant, supposedly filled by "Psychics and Mediums" who are offering advice to more and more business owners. Yes, that is right, apparently rather than use their brains and work out how to survive this tough recession and economic climate, people in business are falling over themselves to consult psychics. This band of people who if they really had any ability would be rich on gambling earnings, are apparently now offering business advice.

Or at least this is what we are being led to believe by this PR material, however I do happen to know that many psychics do what is called false advertising. They claim to have done everything from help detectives solve murder cases, to advice famous people on their love lives. However, as ever, if you actually dig into the PR they dish out, you will find whilst blatant lies are well hidden, facts are also thin on the ground.

So when this PR email came in, I thought I'd send a reply asking a few questions that hopefully they could answer. These weren't complicated, and surely if you are basing a press release on anecdotes and reports, you'd keep a list of where you got them from.

Below is the email I sent, complete with the fair questions I asked that nobody at the other end seemed to want to answer. I even resisted being really snidey and asking what someone who specialises in Astrology could possibly know about a supposedly different field of what I would describe as bullshit, that being Psychic ability and Mediumship.

Russell Grant wrote:
>  More and More Business Owners are turning to Psychics
>
>
>  Russell Grant Astrology, the leading authority in over 30 years of
>  Astrological advice has been nurturing a carefully selected team
>  of Psychics and Mediums for some time now - selected from the best
>  psychics throughout the UK; only a very small percentage of readers
>  who ask to join the team are ever accepted after various tests from
>  Russell himself and members of his team.
>

Hi!

I'm, just wondering what sort of tests Russell uses to determine the psychic ability of his members?

>  1 in 3 calls used to be regarding a love related matter - until it
>  was evident over the past few months that more and more business
>  owners have been calling up to get advice during this tough climate;
>  Russell's psychic team at http://www.russellgrantpsychics.co.uk state.

Do you have a percentage of which calls are now relating to business matters?

>  Using psychics and mediums for business use is not unusual, in fact
>  they are usually employed to suss out prospective employees, solve
>  mysteries within the workplace or indeed work hand in hand with
>  astrologers and Financial Directors to plot the business moving forward.

Do you have any examples of the above?

>  "Many worried self-employed men and women have been calling me during
>  the past few weeks" one Psychic commented, "I was very pleased to be
>  able to guide a number of people into opening their minds to other
>  avenues within their businesses to limit the losses they have been
>  facing over the past few months".

Again, do you have any examples of the above?

>  In addition, it has been reported that Church ministers have seen a
>  significant rise in attendance amongst bankers, analysts and other city
>  workers at the lunchtime services within the financial districts in London.

Do you have a citation needed for this report?

TIA!Needless to say it is now one whole week later, and I never got an answer to my query, not even an acknowledgement that I'd made one.

This Week's Videos

A bit of a theme this week, cultural differences, which are actually the biggest thing that distinguishes various groups of people, not their DNA and colour. The first offering is a clip from Larry King Live, featuring an interview with Steve Harvey, an idiot who is not only prejudice against atheists in a way the latter aren't against those of a religious persuasion, but also someone who doesn't understand evolution.



Here in the UK, as a populous we are pretty anti-extremism in most of its forms, whether it be racial hatred, sexism, homophobia and of course religion. Believe what you like, but go shoving it down everyones throats and most of us would rather you just go away. America has a different culture, which seems to not just tolerate these sort of people, but give them air time and radio shows.

Which leads us on to journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell talking about why Koreans didn't used to make the best airline pilots, and how cultural differences can be used to show why some countries do better at some things than others.