Psychics kept busy in faltering economy

As a psychic, Beth Bennett is used to people asking her questions about love and health.

As the recession has worsened, however, an increasing number of her clients are asking her to predict their financial and workplace fortunes, much more so than in the recent past.

“I’ve had people afraid of losing their homes to foreclosure and a huge number afraid of losing their jobs,” said Bennett, who works at the Inner Space, a metaphysical center in Sandy Springs.

A number of local psychics say more and more of their clients are looking to them for advice on some of the most basic and personal of financial and professional matters.

Maxine Taylor, who lives in Marietta, bills herself as an astrologer and a healer. Taylor has appeared periodically on CNN and has a client list that includes corporate executives.

What has struck Taylor and others, though, is the near-desperation of their clients. In good times, the triumvirate of things people are most concerned about is usually love, health and money. Now it’s money, jobs and money, Taylor said.

“I have one client who has a multimillion-dollar corporation, and she didn’t make money this month,” Taylor said, “so she came to me for advice. The fear out there is just so sad.”

At Phoenix and Dragon, one of Atlanta’s biggest metaphysical centers, owner Candace Apple said that clients are booking shorter, less costly readings, but books about attracting wealth are selling really well. Meditation and stress reduction classes are booking full, she said.

“They are not asking what number to play on the lottery or where to invest their stock,” Apple said. “They should be going to their financial adviser for that. But they are trying to find ways to cope.”

Erin Michael Finn works as a channeler at Phoenix and Dragon. He’s done psychic work for 20 years, but now he hears a different pitch in his clients’ fear.

“It’s ‘Am I gonna have a job in a year? How can I keep it? Is my spouse gonna have his or her job in a year? Do I take my kids out of private school?’ Some people have even asked, ‘How much money do I spend for Christmas?’ ” Finn said. “What people are asking me are things they’d probably ask their therapists.”

People do these things, in part, because they believe “that there are ways to get insight beyond common sense,” said Dr. Charles Raison. Raison is a psychiatrist and clinical director of the Mind-Body Program at Emory University.

But there’s also a little bit of science behind such behavior. The human brain is wired in such a way that it propels people to any mental port in a storm, Raison said. Right now, Americans are in the middle of a perfectly stressful economic storm.

“Numerous studies have shown that the human brain does not do well with stress and does very poorly with bad surprises, shock and uncertainty,” Raison said. “But if you have a little bit of a sense of what’s going to happen, you gain some control. So people have been reading the entrails of animals and casting dye for centuries to gain knowledge about the future to help them cope.”

While Sherry Henderson doesn’t cast dye or read entrails, she does read tarot cards. Henderson is director of the Inner Space. Like Finn, she’s heard the jobs and money questions from client after client this year. Some who are corporate figures or business owners have even asked her if they can avoid laying off workers, she said.

She turns to the cards for them, trying to give a little hope, trying to help people see the road ahead.

“We can’t change the future, but we can give them the warning signs,” Henderson said. “Then it’s up to them.”