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Underground > Temple >

Psychic Professionals: $10k/mo for intuitive counseling.

18:24 / 01.07.08

I was just handed a folder containing a Newsweek story about Laura Day, a single mom from Manhattan who consults with software corporations, hedge fund managers, Hollywood producers and top attorneys.

She doesn't have any special training. She's a professional intuitive.

Day is one of a small but expanding cadre of corporate psychic consultants—the professionalized face of an occupation better known for hokey headscarves and crystal balls. Rebranded as "intuitionists" or "mentalists"—terms more palatable to mainstream America—psychic advisers in recent years have been crossing over into the world of legitimate business, where they are used by decision makers in law, finance and entertainment looking for an edge in a down economy.

and

Today she trains members of the Harvard Business School Network of Women Alumnae to use their sixth sense. In one of the Harvard group's monthly sessions, recalls participant Karen Page, the women were asked to intuit the mystery item in a brown paper bag. Without touching or sniffing it, they came up with "yellow," "sour" and "fruit" for what turned out to be a lemon. She's also advised celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Demi Moore. Working entirely by referral, Day says she has earned more than $10 million in the past 15 years.

Good lord, says I.

How can *I* do this?

What kind of marketing plan does one need to make this work?

19:07 / 01.07.08

Interesting story, but your link does not worketh.

Closed for Business Time

19:08 / 01.07.08

JUST DO IT

Do it with style, do it with grace, do it with humility and a sense of humour but

JUST FUCKING DO IT

- Rex Feral

20:09 / 01.07.08

Link, now awaiting editing into my first post.

I can do the intuition part, it's the clients I need, man! SEND ME CLIENTS!

11:06 / 02.07.08

Can you teach other people to use their intuition though?

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:40 / 02.07.08

I think you probably have to pay your dues - so, you know, read the papers, wait until there's a report about a local family whose child has gone missing, and then phone them up and tell them that the spirits are giving you clues about how to find him or her. Exploit human misery and desperation for a few years, then use the cash to buy a suit and go legit.

12:16 / 02.07.08

Exploit human misery and desperation for a few years, then use the cash to buy a suit and go legit.

The article doesn't suggest that's what Laura Day did though.

I wonder if the companies which are employing people for this purpose have done any research into the success rate of them. If huge stacks of cash are involved then Laura and her associates in the intuitionist business had better be getting a statistically higher number of hits than someone who's just out-and-out guessing.

15:47 / 02.07.08

Control groups are for middle management. I'm talking CEOs here!

The key seems to be to know a hedge fund manager.

I'm going to have to hang out in Manhattan, aren't I. In a really *nice* suit.

15:57 / 02.07.08

I've been asked, in fact hassled, to teach more people how to dowse. I like framing dowsing under what Sig Lonegren calls 'gnowing' bringing the right brain systems online to work with the left brain systems.

So suddenly I'm getting paid to teach classes in my local area. Professional dowsers make a good living working both to educate about and correct geopathic and technopathic stress. Some of the people I have taught an intro class to have then asked me to do professional work for them. I don't consider my level of training to be high enough to charge much (or anything in most cases) because I need to clock the hours. But there's a definite connection between getting out there teaching and networking to get clients.

Closed for Business Time

15:57 / 02.07.08

Here's what to do: Hang out in the richer part of Manhattan wearing a great suit. Approach everyone who might look like a hedgefund manager, tap them on the shoulder and say "You're a hedgefund manager. I know how you can double your earnings." Sheer math proves that sooner or later you will strike gold!

16:04 / 02.07.08

1.Make some predictions a market trend.
2.Send predictions to yourself via sealed registered mail.
3.Wait for predictions to come true.
4.Buy, cheat or steal your way into a meeting with ceo of a relevant company (There are often networking meetings that one can attend.)
5.Have them open the sealed dated letter in front of you and then tell them you can do that on a regular basis. For a price.

As flip as I try to sound, and even though it's not all that easy to get an ear of a ceo to sell yourself, I'm serious about the method... It offers proof of your intuition or ability to nail market trends in advance. All you need to do is sell yourself once you make a contact.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:37 / 02.07.08

If you can genuinely and successfully predict a market trend, invest. If you did as Freektemple suggests then, assuming that you can get to the Chief Executive in question, which you would not unless he or his support staff were cretins, then the Chief Executive, assuming he was not a complete cretin, would ask you how he could be sure that you had not sent a number of sealed, registered mails to yourself, each describing a different possible outcome. He would then ask you to leave.

16:47 / 02.07.08

If you can genuinely and successfully predict a market trend, invest.

Amazing advice if you have the scratch.

Good point about the multiple possible outcome posts... Didn't think of that angle. I was thinking of a job-hunters foot-in-the-door approach, I didn't think in a ceo's bs-detector, sceptic point of view.

As a ceo, I guess I'd be a cretin.

17:04 / 02.07.08

You're all wrong. The Laura Day way is to first write a bestselling book (Practical Intuition), get it featured on Oprah (in 2001), then begin charging big corporations $10,000 a month for what you already described in your $16.95 book. That's how she did it.

On the practical side: I'm sure that being adept at cold-reading techniques, as well as some neurolinguistic programming, wouldn't hurt.

My favorite bit: "I don't want to see what he did with that girl until 2 a.m.," she says. "But I can."

It must really suck to have a psychic mom!

20:13 / 02.07.08

Yeah, there's some more fun stuff in the video, too.

The book angle seems to be the way in. I'm not sure people in other lines of work than mine realize just how much of this stuff gets created, though. I wonder how her book got on Oprah's desk.

(And not, say, Do Dead People Watch You Shower? which has a much more pleasing title. To me.)

NB: This is a real book that I did not make up.

23:35 / 02.07.08

Control groups are for middle management. I'm talking CEOs here!

The key seems to be to know a hedge fund manager.

I'm going to have to hang out in Manhattan, aren't I. In a really *nice* suit.

Well, you could always look into dealing cocaine. If the product's solid, no one's going to mind much if you seem like a member of the Arcade Fire.

06:50 / 03.07.08

Grant - that is so funny, I actually just picked that book up on a whim and read it. It's very cute. Presuming she's not making shit up entirely, she sounds okay to me, but I tend to give people the benefit of a doubt if we've never met (which isn't the same as depending on them).

--Ember--

14:57 / 03.07.08

She seems very sound, actually. I didn't read up on her techniques, but I wouldn't be surprised if they provided solid results.

It's the marketing and presentation. Hoo. Whoah.

--

Oh, wait, you mean the NJ medium! Yeah, that's a great book. She's a lot of fun.

11:20 / 06.07.08

Know what's worse than a psychic mum?

A psychic partner!

...

I agree, it's all about the packaging... to me, she sounds like she's a motivational speaker. They earn bucketloads if they're hired by companies. Perhaps she does have something going on there in the extras department, but really, she's not a bug-eyed deodorant-less phone psychic who believes in fairies.

In all outward appearances, she's normal, and she has the right charisma and words to sell her product. Put together a package as though you were a motivational speaker and approach companies and tell them how you'll help them increase their efficiency or profit levels by 150%, and be prepared to back your words up.

BONUS POINT: Make a reference to Laura Day in your application, to get them tuned into the news. 'If it's in the newspapers, it must be true!'

22:23 / 10.07.08

I think the best way to go about it is to present yourself as the head of a small "intuitive consulting firm". Credibility in numbers, Grant. Initally offer high-profile pro bono work and scrap for media exposure. Make sure to tap enough corporate lingo buzzwords to give the actual decision-making suits a handle on your pitches. Try appealing to the atmosphere of commodity concern in the current economic climate. For instance, dowsing for water is fine (certain vinatges of water being sold for $15/liter these days) but what about dowsing for oil?

As an addendum to my suggestions, once you get the ball rolling on this firm, you'll need qualified intuitives with a proven business track record. I humbly submit myself for consideration. I have practical experience, Grant. I have prophetic dreams. I have mind-bending machines. I give a hell of a motivational speech. I cut a fine figure in a dark suit. I think, if you really consider it, you know I'm the man for the job.

So now all you need is a name for the firm.

13:44 / 11.07.08

Got me Googling Paul Clement Brown, MIT graduate and petroleum dowser.

A firm, eh?

Hmmm. Businesslike. Sixth First Consulting?

18:47 / 11.07.08

Review the career of Doug Rushkoff, who went from writing hippie crap like Free Rides to zeitgeist stuff like the GenX Reader and Media Virus to business consultant.

(Then professor, documentary producer, Psychic TV keyboardist, comic book writer, etc. And back again.)

Then emulate.

Princeton degree and Internet boom optional. Maybe.

I still don't know how the hell he got away with it . . .

02:36 / 12.07.08

I still don't know how the hell he got away with it . . .

There's a sucker born every minute, right?