NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Ashley Branton has made a living as a psychic medium for seven years, helping a growing number of people facing difficult choices about toxic relationships, buying a home and moving abroad. stranger.
And while tarot cards are never wrong, she says, they didn’t see this one coming.
The Norfolk, Va., city council this week repealed a 45-year-old ban on “the practice of palmistry, palmistry, phrenology, or clairvoyance, for monetary or other compensation.”
It turned out that guessing was a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison.
“I didn’t even know that was a thing,” Branton said with a laugh Thursday among the crystals at her Norfolk boutique, Velvet Witch, where she also does tarot readings and psychic healing. “I’m glad it never happened to me.”
It’s unclear why this Chesapeake Bay city of 230,000, home to the nation’s largest naval base, rescinded the 1979 ordinance. Versions of the ban had existed for decades before that.
Norfolk spokeswoman Kelly Straub said in an email that it was repealed “because it is no longer in use.” City council members said little during their vote Tuesday, although one joked that “someone predicted this was going to pass.”
All joking aside, the city’s repeal comes as the psychic services industry is growing in the United States, generating an estimated $2.3 billion in revenue last year and employing 97,000 people, according to a 2023 report from market research firm IBIS World.
In late 2017, a Pew Research Center survey found that most American adults identify as Christian. But many also have New Age beliefs, with 4 in 10 people believing in the power of mediums. A 2009 survey for the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life project found that about one in seven Americans had consulted a medium.
Branton, 42, who previously worked as a makeup artist, said the market for psychic mediums is growing because social media has fueled awareness. Aversion to organized religion also plays a role, as do political divisions within the country and a growing sense of uncertainty, particularly among millennials and younger generations.
“Since COVID, people have been carrying this weight. They carry so much stuff,” Branton said.
“And people are starting to do inner work,” she continued. “They are starting to take care of their mental health. And they begin to deal with the spiritual aspect.
Branton said she considers her work a calling. Psychic gifts run in her family, and she has had them her entire life.
“I’ve always had interactions with spirits,” she said. “I have always been empathetic. I can feel the energy of the people.
Branton said she built her clientele through word of mouth, without any advertising.
“I’m very proud of it,” she said. “There are going to be scammers and people here who will do this just for the money. Obviously, this is the way I live now. But for me, it was never about the money.
In 2022, AARP warned of fraudulent psychics who prey on “people who are grieving, alone, or struggling emotionally, physically, or financially.”
And some bans remain in force. In October, the police chief of Hanover, Pennsylvania, told a witchcraft-themed outlet that any complaints about tarot card readings would be investigated. The New York Times reported.
The police chief cited an old state law that prohibits predicting the future with money. In 2007, the city of Philadelphia invoked the same law when it shut down more than a dozen psychics, astrologers and tarot card readers. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Prohibitions on fortune telling stem from anti-witchcraft and anti-vagabond laws in England in the 18th century, said Charles McCrary, a professor of religious studies at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The U.S. laws took effect in the mid-19th century, at a time of growing concern about fraudulent business practices, McCrary said. But the spiritualism movement, which often involved channeling the dead, was also gaining popularity, especially among the middle and upper classes.
“There was something about these white women spiritualists that I think troubled a lot of people,” McCrary said.
“Part of what made it threatening was that it couldn’t be seen as something poor people do or something for marginalized people,” he added. “It was very popular. So more mainstream Christians found this particularly threatening. And a lot of people were Christians and also did seances.
At first, such laws received little scrutiny from the courts, said David L. Hudson, a law professor at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a member of the panel. reflection Freedom Forum in Washington.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld a 1928 state law that regulated divination, writing that “free speech is not a license to say whatever one pleases, free from criminal liability.” or civil.” Other courts held that fortune telling was commercial speech, which received no First Amendment protection until the mid-1970s.
More recently, courts have increasingly viewed bans on fortune tellers with skepticism on First Amendment grounds. The Maryland Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that fortune telling for hire was a protected free speech.
“We’ve come a long way, both in terms of social norms and social acceptance,” Hudson told the Associated Press, comparing psychic readings to tattoos. “But there has also been a massive expansion of First Amendment law…It is very disfavored to completely ban a medium of expression.”
Even though Norfolk’s ban has been all but forgotten and is no longer enforced, Carol Peterson is relieved by the repeal. She owns the Crystal Tournesol, a store in Norfolk that offers tarot card readings and vibrational sound therapy. She is also a civilian geologist for the Army.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I could get a first-class misdemeanor,’” Peterson said.
“People have this misconception that tarot is evil or demonic,” Peterson added. “But you help people tap into their highest self for their journey. And if people were more curious instead of judgmental, I think they would be pleasantly surprised. »