Final: Ethics in Spirituality

 

 Ethical Advertising in Spiritual Business and Media

This topic is coming from the perspective of a professional psychic, I think it’s relevant and important to discuss ethics in spiritual media and businesses. I started my spiritual business in 2018 by advertising on social media about astrology and tarot readings, over time I gained a lot of loyal customers, who some I’ve been reading for years. I have noticed in the years of practicing this there has been a lot more spiritual apps and businesses designed to help connect people with psychics. I’ve worked for three different psychic hotlines, one of which I will be focusing on in this final paper because of their shady advertising practices and training tactics. 

This particular psychic hotline, I’m going to change the name of for anonymity, we will call it Two Moons. I worked at Two Moons for about four months, and it was the worst experience in my spiritual practice. Most psychic hotlines have a pay per minute model which incentivizes psychics to keep people on the phone. In fact, this company penalizes the psychics for not keeping customers on the phone longer than 30 minutes, all while paying less than a dollar per minute. After about a month I begin to understand how this company would attract their customers, I noticed that every time I took a call they would ask by name where is the original psychic who sent them the email… turns out Two Moons would send a generic video to all of its clients of a lady doing a tarot reading. Her reading is always about hot button issues like love, exes, and money, however, she would always leave the reading on a cliffhanger and tell them to call to finish the reading. 

When I realized how this company operated behind the scenes, my moral side began to question whether it was a good place for me. Here are some of the unethical practices that led me to quit working for Two Moons.

Exploitative Topics 

One of the major things that I didn’t like is that in the training I was instructed to always leave them wanting more don’t go for the happy ending because that would end the call they literally instruct us to dig into topics and play up the negatives because it will keep the people wanting more. In my own personal practice, that’s not how I work I am a solution oriented tarot reader and I always look for the positives. The topics that the lady reads in the videos are always about love and money, more specifically heartbreak, and not having enough money to enjoy life, she claims to be able to share insights that will be able to help you in those areas of life (but only if you call). I think that is exploitative because many of us don’t have a lot of money and are not happy in relationships and they are targeting those people. 

Deceptive Advertising 

The use of the incomplete reading video that is sent to the clients is deceptive, These clients are expecting to hear directly from the lady in the video. When I am asked, where is she? I Was trying to say that she was busy with a call, but I am a part of her handpicked psychic team. Most of the time this started my reading off negatively because I’m not who they expected, some even refusing my service stating they will call back when she is not busy. It’s also just not that smart of an advertising tactic, my reading is not going to mirror the generic reading they received via email therefore furthering the clients confusion, making them doubt the whole thing altogether. 

Financial Greed 

In training it is made painfully clear that time is money, it was constantly repeated “Keep them on the Phone”. After a call makes it to an hour, your rate raises from around 30-50 cents a minute to over a dollar per minute. However, after an hour of talking to these customers about love and life and having them question why you’re not somebody else and if the information that you’re giving them is true, it is exhausting! It really made me consider not even taking calls anymore because if I didn’t keep them on the phone for a certain amount of time, I was at risk of losing the job anyways. This goes against my morals, because although I do need money, I am not in this business only for money I want to be a genuine source for guidance. 

Lack of Transparency 

This company has a free for the first few minutes type business model the amount of time varied, but I think it was around 10 to 30 minutes free. In the training, we were advised to ignore the prompt that lets the customer know that they’re free minutes were up, literally We were told to try to talk over it or get to a juicy part in the reading so that they want to continue past the free minutes. This is unethical and can mislead callers into spending money that they may not be able to afford to. 

Targeting Vulnerable People 

These ad campaigns are likely targeting people who are emotionally vulnerable. In my time taking calls, I noted most callers were older like 50s plus, most divorced, and a lot of them were also unemployed. I also noticed that most were of foreign descent from their accents. I believe Two Moons target people who are seeking guidance and experiencing hardships. This is completely different from my own personal business because people seek me out I don’t seek them out, I firmly believe those who need me will come across me and resonate with my energy. I don’t have to find people to manipulate to make money. 

Overall, I do not agree with how this business ran its operations, trained its psychics, or advertised to its clients. Practices and businesses like this is why people think that psychic readings are a scam and it’s harmful to people genuinely seeking out spiritual guidance. 

If you’re looking for a psychic with a strong moral compass, skills and intuition look no further, my website is magicallybree.com