2013
A New York City psychic was sentenced to ten years in prison after a judge accused her of preying on troubled individuals. Sylvia Mitchell, who ran a pricey fortune-telling business in Greenwich Village, was also ordered to pay more than $100,000 in damages to her victims, who shared their ordeal with the court. The New York Times reports:
Both victims, Lee Choong and Debra Saalfield, wrote letters describing the pain caused by their dealings with Ms. Mitchell. Both had approached her during periods of romantic upheaval in their lives. Both testified against Ms. Mitchell, and in doing so, admitted that in hindsight, all her talk of curses and evil spirits seemed far-fetched, but at the time, unsettling. Ms. Choong said she was drawn to the parlor, called Zena on Seventh Avenue South, because it was plush and relatively pricey.
Ms. Saalfield said that the news media coverage of the case had further hurt her. At a recent wedding rehearsal dinner that she attended, she wrote, “one of the guests stared at me at great length and put an ‘L’ for loser on her face while looking at me.”
1865
P.T. Barnum, showman extraordinaire, was no fool. In the mid-1860s, he relished debunking the work of spiritual charlatans who swindled small-town Americans out of hard-earned money with the promise of speaking to the great beyond:
There is a person by the name of J. V. Mansfield who has been called by spiritualists the “Great Spirit-Postmaster,” his specialty being the answering of sealed letters addressed to spirits. The letters are returned—some of them, at least—to the writers without appearing to have been opened, accompanied by answers purporting to be written through Mansfield by the spirits addressed. Such of these letters as are sealed with gum arabic merely, can be steamed open, and the envelopes resealed and reglazed as they were before. If sealing wax has been used, a sharp, thin blade will enable the medium to nicely cut off the seal by splitting the paper under it, and then, after a knowledge of the contents of the letter is arrived at, the seal can be replaced in its original position, and made fast with gum arabic. Not more than one out of a hundred would be likely to observe that the seal had ever been tampered with. The investigator opens the envelope when returned to him at the end, preserving the sealed part intact in order to show his friends that the letter was answered without being opened!
Mr. Mansfield does not engage to answer all letters; those unanswered being too securely sealed for him to open without detection. To secure the services of the “Great Spirit-Postmaster,” a fee of five dollars must accompany your letter to the spirits, and the money is retained whether an answer is returned or not.
Rather high postage that!