The role of a fortuneteller is to help customers convert bad energy into good energy by listening, comforting, analyzing, and suggesting. From this point of view, the divination of the “metaphysics school” and the psychology of the “science school” have the same goal in different ways, both of which are psychological guidance. This article is from the WeChat official account: new Weekly (ID: new-weekly) , author: Ying Bao, photography: new Weekly APP Kong Daji (except for signature), head picture from: Visual China
“Should I choose male A or male B?”
“The company is laying off employees, will I be fired?”
“I don’t want to have a baby, how can I convince my mother?”
A group of young people gathered in a corner deep in the Guangzhou CBD, anxiously asking questions to the crystal ball. The person sitting behind the crystal ball is the fortuneteller Qiaojun, a hypnotic astrologer who has been in the industry for 5 years.
Divination, this kind of “metaphysics” that was not seen by mainstream culture in the past, during this year’s epidemic, once rushed into the public eye, showing a very high degree of topicality and attracting money.
On Weibo, #塔罗牌占卜# has been viewed over 2 billion times and over 3.64 million Weibo participated in the discussion;
On station B, related content has been played millions of times, and one of the videos predicting the “geometry of this life” attracted 3.62 million views;
Search for “divination” and “tarot” on Taobao, and explain the price of a card, as low as 30 yuan and as high as 380 yuan. Even so, a single store can still attract tens of thousands of people to purchase services.
On a certain platform, a short video with a simple draw without an announcement of the result can attract 1.4+ million people to watch and 23,000 likes . /Platform screenshot
Income instability, increased possibility of unemployment, serious involution, and boredom at home for more than half a year, many people are swinging around in confusion and eagerly seeking emotional outlets. Divination, which cannot be explained by science, is the best choice for them——
“I don’t want to predict the future, I just want to use “God’s Will” to confirm that my choice is right.”
1. Underground psychological healer
Under pressure, everyone is a little sick. Insomnia, irritability, anxiety, slow thinking, long nights dreams… all kinds of abnormal factors in emotions will jump into our brains every once in a while.
In Qiaojun’s work room, there are people crying every day, and the status of tissues is comparable to that of crystal balls and tarot cards.
Contrary to conventional understanding, the reason why people lose control of their emotions is not to pry into the bumpy fate in the future, but the unforgettable past.
Qiaojun sat at the divination table, met countless people who were extremely bereavement, and heard countless life stories.
Qiaojun received a girl, and all the tarot cards she drew were related to death——People always have both optimism and pessimism, like this reflectionThe “bad energy in the body” card indicates that the girl’s spirit has gone to extremes.
When asked if she ever thought of leaving this world, the girl’s voice began to tremble, and she raised her sleeves to show the wound on her wrist. During her confession, Qiaojun clearly felt the energy in the air fluctuate violently, until she vomited all her thoughts and her emotions became calm, the energy calmed down.
“The solution to the card is only the first stage.’Cleaning bad energy’ is the highlight of divination.” Divination believes that everything has interconnected energy, such as feeling a pair of eyes staring at you behind you, Feeling irritable for no reason in a crowded subway car, and walking into a quiet office can feel that someone was arguing just now…These messages are all energy delivered to you.
“There is no difference between good and bad energy. It only depends on how you understand it. Just like some people think that being scolded is receiving bad energy, some people think that they can take the opportunity to learn lessons and receive good energy.” The role of a fortuneteller is to pass Listening, comforting, analyzing, suggesting and other methods help customers convert bad energy into good energy.
From this point of view, the divination of the “metaphysics school” and the psychology of the “science school” have reached the same goal by different means, both of which are psychological guidance.
The crystal stone in the wooden lattice is a tool for “energy connection”.
Before becoming a fortune-teller, Qiao Jun has passed the qualification of hypnotist, which facilitates the “cleansing of energy”-when it is found that language mediation cannot solve the customer’s confusion, or the other party cannot open their heart in a sober state At times, she will seek advice from each other and try to do hypnosis.
“Hypnosis is to dig deep into the root of the problem.” We all have some unexplainable fears, such as weakening of our legs when we see a giant object, and never being bitten by a snake. She was afraid of snakes from the bottom of her heart, and so on, Qiao Jun once met a girl who “has severe premarital anxiety and even tried to commit suicide.”
During the hypnosis period, Qiao Jun discovered that her multiple fears of love, marriage and family life were all converged on the point of “native family”:
Not long after the girl was born, her parents separated and reorganized their families. She was fostered in a relative’s house since she was a child, and she was “supplied out of the house” and moved to another relative’s house every once in a while. As a result, she formed a distorted family concept and believed that she could not get married like a normal person.
After meeting someone who truly loves each other, her rejection of marriage and the desire to stay together for a lifetime have formed two competing forces, which finally made her burst out with the idea of ”want to die”.
“The idea of’unable to get married’ was instilled in her by her native family. However, she misunderstood her life truth in a subtle way. After eradicating the root of the problem during hypnosis, she finally reconciled with herself and became happy I’m getting married.”
Before divination and hypnosis, Qiaojun will light candles, perhaps to gather fire elements, perhaps to create a sense of mystery, or perhaps to make anxious Uneasy customers find a sense of peace from the silent flame.
Qiaojun, as well as many fortune-tellers, actually have a psychological foundation, but they are confusing because of closed doors, one-to-one services, legends of gods and ghosts that have been circulating for many years, “crystals” and “energy connections”. The nouns are draped in a mysterious and controversial cloak.
But Qiao Jun feels that divination is misunderstood as “a nonsense game”, and instead provides an alternative treatment for people in need of psychological help to avoid worldly vision.
“No one wants to admit that they are’ill,’ let alone see a psychologist, because in China, this is a very serious expression.” But the problem is buried in the heart for too long, and one day it will explode.
“A person is found to see a psychiatrist. For whatever reason, they will beOn pointing, but if he goes to divination, everyone will only think that he is ‘playful’. “
Perhaps, a fortuneteller is a mysterious “underground psychotherapist”.
On one wall of Qiaojun’s studio, there is a totem of “Sun and Women” hung with the meaning “Understanding that happiness is a choice” The Sun Tarot cards are very similar.
Second, the industry has great potential, but it is unstable
The “fortune-telling economy” has a huge user base in China.
In 2003, the China Association for Science and Technology conducted the third “Opinion Survey on Unknown Phenomenon and Related Issues” for people aged 18 to 69 across the country.
The results show that entering the 21st century, 38.6% of people in my country still believe that “seeing Feng Shui” makes sense, 20.4% believe that special functions exist, and 11.5% believe that life has reincarnation. This means that more than a quarter of Chinese people are potential users of the fortune-telling industry.
Time slipped to 2011, and “fortune-telling culture” is still flowing in our blood. According to Purdue University (Purdue University System), there are 145 million people in China who believe in Feng Shui, 141 million people in the God of Wealth, and 362 million people in the past. Fortune-telling or seeing photos within 12 months.
According to a survey report released by the China Association for Science and Technology in 2019, Chinese citizens with scientific literacy accounted for 8.47% of the population, which is more than 91% The Chinese are not scientifically literate. /”Scientific Literacy Survey of Chinese Citizens”
The foundation of cultural concepts is so strong. As a branch of the “fortune telling economy”, the divination industry has developed into a certain scale in just 15 years since the broadcast of the numerology variety show “Tarot Magic Heart” in 2005, which is reasonable. thing.
It’s just that, compared to the grandparents’ generation of “jumping gods” and “Waiting Guanyin”, the divination technique introduced from the West with its own “foreign gas quality” is more attractive to young people.
People who are looking for Qiaojun for divination are between 22 and 35 years old, have a large proportion of undergraduate and junior college degrees, are mainly women, and most of their help-seeking problems revolve around emotions and work.
“People over the age of 35 or undergraduate degree, except for business feng shui, most of them do not believe in destiny, but choose to believe in themselves; people under 22 years of age or junior college degree, their lives are relatively simple, I don’t have too much trouble, and I feel that divination is too expensive. As for gender differences, it is because women are more sensitive than men, and they are more likely to be unable to think about it and need more psychological comfort.”
The short domestic development history and the young user group determine that the people engaged in the divination industry are generally younger.
According to Qiao Jun, the fortune-tellers in Guangzhou are between 25 and 33 years old, and most of them start their careers based on interest——
When they were young, they fell in love with divination under the influence of cartoons and novels, so they bought related books to learn spontaneously and turn them into their own business.
From the A side, fortune-telling is a passionate and dynamic industry; from the B side, fortune-telling is a zero-threshold industry that does not require textual research or “masters lead the door”.
“Many people have only read one book and didn’t even understand the ‘Energy Connection’, so they said they were fortune-tellers. This would mislead many people who really need psychological mediation.”,Qiao Jun believes that a fortuneteller who does not know how to analyze the psychological state of customers, but only knows the intention of repeating the cards and allowing the other party to sit in the seat, is not a good fortuneteller. “Even if you can tell the other party’s troubles, what can you do? Any substantive suggestions”.
Unfortunately, the current divination industry is still in its early stage of chaos. There is no set of standards for judging the professionalism of divination or customary professional codes. It is just the communication between the lines. It is only composed of who plays well with whom. In a circle and occasionally meeting offline, there is no person or association that can “gather scattered sand together.”
Each tarot card contains many meanings. The fortune-teller needs to “connect with energy” with customers, and interpret different content for different moods .
The industry is not yet on track, and insiders are inevitably in an unstable environment.
“Most of the fortune-tellers are part-time. It is a common phenomenon for the main business to open a beauty salon and set up a corner in the store to fortune-telling for customers. As for the god-level fortune-tellers, the main source of income is to teach classes, write articles, and write Books and divination are also their side jobs.”
“Everyone calls themselves a fortuneteller” has led to a thin market, and the time-consuming divination has led to a limited number of customers. This is the reason for the instability of the income and career development of the fortuneteller. It is also a problem facing the industry at present——
When an individual is unable to develop a career wholeheartedly, how to promote the overall development?
Qiaojun is also a part-time fortuneteller, “you have to wait for a certain amount of clients before you dare to do it full-time.” /Picture courtesy of Qiao Jun
3. Arbitrary charges, random sects
Qiaojun has two charging standards.
One is ordinary divination, 80~90 yuan to answer a question, it is estimated to take 15~30 minutes, if you need to continue to ask, you will be charged according to the number of questions; the other is hypnosis, the price is 2000~ Between 3,000 yuan, it is expected to take 6 hours.
Qiaojun can receive about 90 ordinary divination customers, or 6~7 customers who need hypnotherapy every month.
Actually, she earns more than many white-collar workers in 996. But if you pay more attention to shopping and short video platforms, you will find that her pricing is only in the mid-range–
According to Yiyu’s observations, the booking quotations of the Tarot UP owners at station B are concentrated between 400 and 800 yuan per hour; on Meituan, there are merchants priced at 360 yuan for half an hour and 1,805 yuan for 1.5 hours; I have interviewed a fortune-teller from the media “Internet Pointing to the North”, and the other party said that “200 yuan for 10 minutes” would cost 1,200 yuan per hour.
A public quotation from a fortune teller. /Official account screenshot
One time for divination, ranging from tens of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The charging standards of fortunetellers vary greatly. One is related to business ability, and the other involves the largest chaos in the divination industry——
Arbitrary charges and no standard pricing.
“NoWe have established charging standards, and the prices are set by ourselves. “Qiaojun also hopes that there will be a set of supervision and restriction rules. “Considering the different rent and publicity costs, it is normal for prices to fluctuate. But fortune-tellers who only understand the meaning of re-reading cards, dare to collect a few hundred yuan, which will make the market more chaotic.
The second largest chaos in the divination industry is the existence of various strange schools.
“The divination book is not divided into genres. There are only different categories such as hypnosis, astrology, Taoism, Buddhism, etc. In recent years, some independent schools have suddenly emerged.” Qiao Jun felt that if it was only used for academic exchanges, it would be harmless, but there were some people. Want to experience the feeling of being advocated, “He believes that right is right and wrong is wrong, and the members below are not allowed to question.”
In order to make members surrender to themselves, sect leaders will also formulate various rules that break the normal way of thinking, such as asking them to enter one door, to speak a long paragraph, enter the next door, and repeat this paragraph; At 12 o’clock in the night, go to the cemetery to meditate for an hour; kneel on the floor and accept the touch of the senior brother and sister.
“Over time, this kind of behavior full of personality worship can easily evolve into group brainwashing, which is quite dangerous.”
For young people, divination is a “game” that can satisfy curiosity and vent emotions;
For fortune-tellers, the huge user base, unique cultural labels, and free working hours are the irreplaceable charm of this industry.
As early as the beginning of this year, there were media predictions, divination, and the metaphysics content industry behind it, which will become new outlets.
Maybe this sentence will become a reality in the near future, but at present, the fortune-telling industry must first face the lack of supervision and restriction rules, and put an end to a series of chaos such as arbitrary pricing and arbitrary establishment of sects.
When all of this is completed, divination may become an industry that is truly accepted by the mainstream society.
Qiaojun is a pseudonym in the text
This article is from WeChat official account: New Weekly (ID: new-weekly) , Author: Ying Bao , Photography: New Weekly APP Kong Daji (except for signature)