According to unofficial world statistics, more than half of people over thirty have at least once in their lives turned to a magician, psychic or fortuneteller for help. The Internet is replete with ads about people who are able to solve any problem, see the future, eliminate a rival and remove corruption. Programs, films, rating shows are shot about them. Supply creates demand - many seriously believe that "passes" can radically change one's destiny. To what extent is all this justified and what do scientists and psychologists think about "supermen"?
A friend who visited one of the Minsk psychics a few years ago is confident in her gift of a seer. She was able to accurately predict all the main events in the life of her client, warned which of her colleagues "sits down", casually damaged her rival and took "just a hundred conventional units" for the rite from someone else's envy.
There is no shortage of predictors today. We type in a google search engine the search words: “I am looking for a fortune teller Minsk”. The third of the opened links located on the ru domain is the one that we need. The usual “resume” for such cases: “Hereditary fortune-teller with extrasensory abilities, experience of more than 20 years. I will help you get rid of the disease, return your beloved, discourage your rival. I only practice white magic! Further - sincere reviews from people for whom Elena allegedly saved the family, made the correct diagnosis and predicted great personal happiness. Standard, no zest. The NG correspondent decided to make an appointment. The entrance fee to the fortune teller's abode is $ 50, it is possible in euros.
The first impression was mixed - an ordinary residential area, an old house, a spattered entrance.
There were unexpectedly many people in the apartment. In addition to Elena's huge family, there are also visitors. After a while, the hostess herself appeared, seeing off the tear-stained woman: "Calm down, dear, everything will be fine!"
Finally it was the turn of the journalist. The session took place in a small room. Nothing special, not even a witchcraft entourage. Throwing out the Tarot cards, the soothsayer pulled out one of them and asked: “Divorced? You have two children and now there is no opportunity to get a job? " All this turned out to be, as they say, a finger to the sky. “I thought so,” the occult pro uttered without hesitation and drew out another card. Then everything went on a knurled one - a description of childhood, youth. Strange, but true: an unmistakable hit with an indication of the problems that had to be faced in more than thirty years. Very unconsciously, as if in passing, Elena asks leading questions, after answering which she continues to “read” the fate of someone else's. The funniest part begins when the "shaman" starts discussing health. Those diseaseswhich are confirmed by doctors, the "psychic" does not see at close range. But he calls others, allegedly the result of damage induced by the rival. And then he offers a solution to the problem: an expensive ritual with voodoo dolls, purification with special water (which can be purchased even today, the cost of a half-liter can is 50 rubles) …
Of course, the NG correspondent did not do any of this. The general impression of the visit remained twofold: it seemed that a lot came together, but the feeling that the experienced "healer" had worked as a competent manipulator and an excellent psychologist, having read on the client's face most of what she later passed off as fortune-telling.
Impressions are impressions, but what do scientists think about this? We turned for clarification to the Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Institute of Physiology of the National Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Vladimir Kulchitsky, who is studying what the human body is capable of.
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- Vladimir Adamovich, does science allow the existence of people with abilities that are commonly considered paranormal?
- Science admits the existence of the unknown. Scientists are just accustomed to objectively understanding the essence of phenomena. But so far not a single "superman" has been able to provide convincing evidence of their talents. Fun fact: in 1996, the James Randy Foundation (JREF) was established in the United States. At the moment, the prize for a psychic who dares to demonstrate and prove his abilities in front of a scientific audience is more than $ 1.1 million. Agree, this is a very solid jackpot! But here's the bad luck - no one has yet received it. Although there were attempts. For example, Uri Geller, who allegedly bent the spoons with his gaze and started the clock at a great distance, was quickly exposed and even fell into depression for a while. On my own I will add: unfortunately, this fund did not exist in the era of Nostradamus and other predictors. It seems to me that then the question of psychics would have been closed already in the Middle Ages.
However, the possibilities of neural networks are truly endless. That there is only one our ability to think. It generates ideas that at first seem supernatural (space exploration, organ transplantation, decoding of the human genome, and so on), and then take on practical embodiment. This, it seems to me, is the real miracle - our unique ability to create and learn.
- Many people believe in the special abilities of the so-called whispering grandmothers.
- I will not argue - the effects of ritual actions are proven.
But they are not based on the unusual abilities of "healers". This is a kind of self-hypnosis, the placebo effect - unique mechanisms that we trigger in our body. Such well-known scientists as Bekhterev, Sechenov and Pavlov paid great attention to the ideas of “nervousism”. The bottom line is that our central nervous system is capable of self-regulation.
Please note: none of the shamans or healers managed to rid the house of cockroaches, bugs or fleas with the help of conspiracies. But the so-called expulsion of evil spirits, and often in front of relatives, occurs quickly. What's the trick here? The fact is that the patient's brain after the rituals (in the event that the person deeply believes in the "shaman") begins to control the organs and systems of the body more effectively, which contributes to recovery. Let us recall the well-known saying that the wounds of the winners heal faster than those of the losers. That is, the main thing is a positive attitude. After all, a placebo also turns out to be effective only if a group of patients is explained for a long time the amazing healing properties of a new drug. If you try to experiment with cockroaches in the same way, there will be no effect - they simply will not understand what a placebo is. Hence the conclusion: in both the first and second cases, it is not the healer and not the “empty” medicine that works, but our brain.
There are much more examples when magicians, psychics, hereditary witches and others like them simply fool their clients than there are stories of real help provided by them. One of the Russian TV channels (which we also broadcast) aired a cycle of programs, where all those who called through the phone indicated on the screen were given the opportunity to ask a psychic a question for half an hour. They bother the seer for reasons that have set the teeth on edge: how to cure alcoholism from a husband, to remove the "celibacy crown" from a daughter. One of the most popular questions is what is wrong with health? Having made several passes with his hands directly to the camera, the miracle man gives out the diagnosis without any problems. Then he advises what treatment you need to undergo. Further - impersonal words of gratitude addressed to the higher powers and talent of the magician from the callers. Maybe,For some of them, what they hear will really help to decide on a narrow-profile specialist who needs to be contacted in order to get rid of ailments. But what about when people with advanced cancer go to psychics, despising the surgery recommended by doctors and hoping for a miracle of healing?
Not so long ago, our compatriot, after watching programs like "The Invisible Man", "The Battle of Psychics", "Psychics are Investigating", turned to a "strong psychic" to help solve the accumulated health problems, with poor energy in the apartment, etc. The cautionary tale of gullibility and cold-blooded fraud ended sadly: the woman's health was “looked at remotely,” immediately determined that “everything was very bad,” and began to beg for big money. At the same time, everything looked serious from the outside: some research institute in Zelenograd, its own website, phones, positions. As a result, the Belarusian woman is deeply in debt, an apartment is laid. And the health problems remained as they were.
Another recent example: a 57-year-old resident of Volkovysk was seduced by an advertisement for another "healer" from the TV screen, which allegedly helped cure people of alcoholism. It was proposed to conduct therapy sessions at a distance. As a result, for the “treatment” of a relative, the woman sent over 36 thousand dollars and 250 thousand Russian rubles by mail to “psychics” in six months.
It will not be an exaggeration to say that fortune-tellers, psychics, herbalists, tarologists, healers and others like them have existed at all times. During the heyday of the USSR, occult "magicians" for obvious reasons preferred not to advertise their activities. Their heyday fell on the period of perestroika, when Chumak and Kashpirovsky “treated” us from the TV screens, and almost every district or city had its own “famous healer”, to whom a desperate, confused and puzzled people came to him. Advertising of this kind of services in newspapers and on TV cost mere pennies, and often was generally free.
The decline in interest in such controversial people, however, far from final, came at the beginning of the 2000s. And since 2008, Belarus adopted amendments to the Law "On Advertising", which prohibited the promotion of the services of hypnotists, psychics, fortune-tellers, spiritualists, astrologers, sorcerers, soothsayers, and other persons declaring or considering themselves capable of predicting events, influencing people, their the spiritual world, property, the environment through the use of supernatural abilities or powers.
The Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade clarifies: this applies to absolutely all means by which advertising can be placed, regardless of whether it is a newspaper, the Internet, television, radio, an advertisement on a pole, or a situation when a person just walks down the street and offers his services …
In addition, representatives of the occult-magical practice actually have no opportunity to legally register their activities. In the National Classifier, where individual entrepreneurs can define their sphere, there is not a word about tarologists, psychics and healers.
Nevertheless, the cunning "magicians" found the necessary legal loopholes. Some urgently "retrained" as psychologists, others register their sites on Russian domains and continue to invite clients in Belarus (however, some do not bother at all and create portals with the by domain, disregarding all laws), others rely on the always effective word of mouth, fourth combine the two previous points at once.
- All fortune-tellers and psychics who decide to work legally and register an individual entrepreneur indicate another type of activity when registering, - explains lawyer Andrei Kolesnikov. - However, in any case, if an individual, be it a psychologist, cultural expert or massage therapist, uses fortune-telling, magic, hypnosis, etc. as an active method of deception, as a result of which he takes possession of the victim's money or property, such actions will be classified under Article 209 of the Criminal Code of the Republic Belarus as a fraud. The problem is that in some cases it is very difficult to prove the guilt of the "healers".
Of course, the question remains: if we do not allow us to advertise the services of all sorts of charlatans, then why are there programs with their participation and publications about them? The fact remains: neither in Russia nor in Ukraine advertising of psychics is prohibited. So, from a legal point of view, everything is correct? Another thing is that since we now at the beginning of each film write that this content contains scenes of smoking, which is dangerous for our health, it may make sense to somehow warn the population about the possibility of deception, fraud before broadcasting all these investigations, which are psychics? Otherwise, it turns out that the salvation of drowning people in their own naivety and suggestibility is the work of the drowning people themselves.
SPECIALIST COMMENT
Mikhail Dernakovsky, psychologist:
- People who suffer from serious diseases, suffer from problems that require, but do not receive solutions, and constantly go only to healers, rejecting official medicine and their own responsibility for their future, are somewhat reminiscent of casino players. They hope for a result that is extremely unlikely, but everyone spends and spends their money.
What is the reason so many of us willingly allow our belief in miracles to be exploited? First of all, in the structure of values of a particular person and in his education. And also in the presence of clearly formed beliefs based on reality and the ability to think independently. A huge number of people do not know how to make inferences and build long logical chains. It is good when a person has, for example, a medical education, and he can easily understand: what he is told is complete nonsense. Otherwise, under the influence of many examples and references to authority figures, one can succumb to suggestion or deception and lead on the promise of a miracle. In addition, much depends on the personal charisma and charisma of the manipulator. Clients can fall in love with a charlatan and are ready to extol him, forming something like a fan club,glorifying his "miracles" and infecting other people with his faith in him.
To protect yourself from the harmful effects on consciousness, you need to remember: every person always, in all situations, has the right to pause and think, to postpone any decision for a day or a week. The fog of emotions sooner or later dissipates, and we begin to think soberly.
If an outsider shows us signs of attention and does something to earn trust, you need to react very carefully to his requests and critically - to reviews and recommendations, as well as to titles that are not supported by documents.
When protecting against conditions, for example, increased susceptibility, one should refrain from consuming any food or drink that strangers or fellow travelers want to treat.
In the case of hypnotic guidance (gypsy hypnosis), it is recommended to move, not freeze (since hypnotic sleep is associated with immobility), interrupt the interlocutor, ask clarifying questions, be able to refuse not only in words, but also in deeds.
TO THE POINT
The market for services of occult magicians in Belarus is rich and diverse. This can be seen by setting the phrase "How much does it cost to remove damage or evil eye" in the Google search bar. There and then, your attention will be offered dozens of advertising sites with detailed descriptions of services, in some places even with prices.
For example, a business forecast will offer you no less than $ 450. Removing the "crown of celibacy" will cost $ 150. For some specialists, an appointment is made online, the cost of one consultation is from $ 100. Contractual prices - for rituals of black magic, clairvoyance, healing from serious illnesses, amulets, spiritualistic séances, cleansing of homes from dark forces.
Agree, with such a price list, it's not so scary to break the law: the size of the fine is a drop in the sea of daily earnings.
What Nostradamus predicted
The most famous predictors in the history of mankind are Michel Nostradamus, who lived in the 16th century, and the Bulgarian seer Vanga, who died in 1996. However, there are questions to each of them. For example, despite their popularity, the predictions of Nostradamus are vague, they do not have exact dates, they are scattered in an incomprehensible order and have many interpretations. Therefore, they are often adjusted to the events that have already happened. Among the famous are the French and October revolutions, the death of the Romanov dynasty. By the way, during his lifetime, Nostradamus was regularly accused of fraud. They say that is why he “encoded” his messages in such a way that few people can still understand them.
Vanga was blind and said that she saw a window in her head, in which, like in a film, events were shown, and a certain voice sounded from above. It is believed that about 80% of the prophecies come true, including the collapse of the USSR, the sinking of the well-known submarine "Kursk" and much more. Most of them were interpreted for her by other people, not documented and, like Nostradamus, is very vague.