> Can you really be ripped off by psychics? It's not like you can sue a church because your prayers haven't been answered, so I'm not sure of religion or spiritualism can be a "rip-off".
Well, I would suggest that both are a "rip off" in the sense that they offer claims without evidence.
But a distinction that I see between religious services and psychics is that religious services are not offering financial transactions in direct exchange for services. They ask for donations, and they may make claims such as "God answers all prayers", but you are typically not offering a religious leader money in exchange for some sort of quid pro quo like having a prayer answered.
A lot of "psychics" offer their "services" as "entertainment" in order to avoid claims of fraud. But the fact remains that a lot of people still believe.
My wife and I are performing magicians, and we make it clear that what we do are parlour tricks. And yet I've performed "mind reading" tricks for people in the past who were absolutely convinced that what I did was not a trick even though I presented everything as "magic tricks." It's fucking insane and deeply uncomfortable. I totally get why Penn & Teller stay away from mentalism entirely. And I think this is your point: if someone is determined to accept a faith based belief system, can they really be "ripped off" when reality doesn't deliver their fantasy.
In my opinion, it depends what you offering and the audience / demographic that you are targeting. Magic tricks for entertainment presented as tricks is one thing. A "psychic" (even one that offers a "disclaimer" that it is entertainment) who knows full well they are catering to people that want to believe it is "real" know what they are doing. It gets particularly heinous when these con artists prey on grieving people who just lost a loved one. It's hard not to view a con artist presenting bullshit to a mother who just lost her 12 year-old daughter in a car accident as not ripping them off.
> But the fact remains that a lot of people still believe.
But also, a lot of people still believe in professional wrestling. Are pro wrestlers ripping people off?
Were pro wrestlers ripping people off worse in the '80s and earlier, when they tried really hard to maintain kayfabe, including denying the existence of kayfabe?
If you pay money to psychics and they tell you the sorts of things you paid them to tell you, is it really different from pro wrestlers or stage magicians? Or should that be "psychics", "wrestlers" or "magicians"?
Answers to things don't have to be black and white, yes or no. You can also start a process up front saying it's entertainment then manipulate people to the point the initial statement no longer holds.
> But also, a lot of people still believe in professional wrestling.
Being a professional wrestling fan myself, I don't know of any, but ok I'll play along ...
> Are pro wrestlers ripping people off?
I've never heard of a wrestling fan going to a show for life changing advice, or in a desperate attempt to reconnect with their dead child. Nor have I ever heard of a professional wrestler offering such services.
And psychics don't pretend to get into long-running feuds with each other, and pretend to settle those feuds with drop-kicks and suplexes, in front of mass audiences. (At least, not to my knowledge)
Did you think I thought, and was implying, that wrestlers and psychics provided the exact same services as each other?
Well, I would suggest that both are a "rip off" in the sense that they offer claims without evidence.
But a distinction that I see between religious services and psychics is that religious services are not offering financial transactions in direct exchange for services. They ask for donations, and they may make claims such as "God answers all prayers", but you are typically not offering a religious leader money in exchange for some sort of quid pro quo like having a prayer answered.
A lot of "psychics" offer their "services" as "entertainment" in order to avoid claims of fraud. But the fact remains that a lot of people still believe.
My wife and I are performing magicians, and we make it clear that what we do are parlour tricks. And yet I've performed "mind reading" tricks for people in the past who were absolutely convinced that what I did was not a trick even though I presented everything as "magic tricks." It's fucking insane and deeply uncomfortable. I totally get why Penn & Teller stay away from mentalism entirely. And I think this is your point: if someone is determined to accept a faith based belief system, can they really be "ripped off" when reality doesn't deliver their fantasy.
In my opinion, it depends what you offering and the audience / demographic that you are targeting. Magic tricks for entertainment presented as tricks is one thing. A "psychic" (even one that offers a "disclaimer" that it is entertainment) who knows full well they are catering to people that want to believe it is "real" know what they are doing. It gets particularly heinous when these con artists prey on grieving people who just lost a loved one. It's hard not to view a con artist presenting bullshit to a mother who just lost her 12 year-old daughter in a car accident as not ripping them off.