Save Me…… from the fake fruitcakes who prey on the vulnerable on late-night TV

There was one thing that did surprise me a little about the Spanish when I moved here a few years ago. I was always under the impression that Spain, and Andalucia in particular, was strongly Catholic and that many people went to mass every Sunday and sometimes even several times throughout the week.

But the reality is quite different. While three quarters of the Spanish population identify themselves as Catholic, less than a fifth actually attend mass regularly. And among younger people, the figures are even smaller.

Now, where I live in Seville, it is the place to be in Spain if you want to see the Holy Week (Semana Santa) processions every April. They attract thousands of visitors and pilgrims from around the world. But it seems too that while for some people the processions have a deep, sincere and spiritual meaning, for the majority they are simply a tourist attraction.

The reason I mention all this is not because I want to sound off about religion – I’ll save that to another occasion - but because of the way Catholic imagery and iconography has been hijacked here by what is a completely different and ever-growing spiritual industry.

It can be found on a disturbingly high number of TV channels in Spain late at night and it amazes me that it attracts so many followers.

I speak, of course, of tarot card readers, mediums and spiritualists. While Catholicism appears to be on the wane in the Spain – you’ll pardon my alliteration there – it seems a disproportionately large minority of the population can’t get enough of the crap churned out by these charlatans who purport to be in touch with the dead, spirit guides, celestial beings and in some cases God himself (as if he isn’t busy enough answering calls from the Pope).

I’m not saying that you can’t find these nutcases in any other countries in Europe, but I know for a fact in the UK that they aren’t anywhere near as common, especially on the TV.

But here in Spain, if you flip to nearly any channel late at night you can find some idiot holding their hands up to form a cross, sprinkling powder on to an incense burner, lighting and blowing out candles, and gurning and eye-rolling as they tune into the “other side” for the myriad of even bigger idiots who actually call in to their premium rate hotlines because they believe all that shit. 

And as if they’re hoping to mop up the wandering, lost masses who no longer go to church, more often than not they surround themselves with pictures of Jesus, small statues of the Virgin Mary, crosses, pictures of planets and comets, and in at least one case, the Jewish candle holder known as the Menorah. I guess the bloke who has that is hedging his bets by trying to cash in on all the religions out there.

There’s another woman who stands in front of a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man, the drawing of a male figure in two standing positions with his legs and arms apart. What’s the message? That if you ring for a reading you too could have the wisdom and talent of da Vinci?

There’s a bloke who wears scores of beads, necklaces and chains around his neck, making him look a little bit like some Indian holy man. Then there’s a woman who regularly burns leaves in a candle and hold her arms up in a V-shape while closing her eyes and sighing as the spirits, no doubt, are summoned to her presence. Yet another reader sports a long, black pony tail and waves his tarot cards in a fan-shape in front of him, as if he’s trying to hypnotise you with the power of the cards.

There’s even a woman who drips hot candle wax on to a paper with a five-pointed star on it which she then puts under a small, hollow, metal pyramid structure on the desk in front of her. I don’t know, maybe this somehow helps her to conjure up the spirits more. She also wears a red cape, which looks like it came out of a fancy dress shop and which makes her look like a crap druid. In the background she’s got a scrolling series of pictures of planets, stars, comets and other celestial images going on. 

But that’s not all.

If all the religious imagery, hocus pocus and general shite spoken by these people isn’t enough to reel you in, some of the mediums have non-celestial sidekicks who sit next to them and who chip in when the phones go quiet. The role of these people is to “big up” the star of the show and tell viewers how wonderful they are, how many people they’ve helped and how they could solve your problems, worries and fears. They say stuff like: “Call now. Change your life. Find out the secrets that have been waiting for you all this time. Discover the things you thought you knew but didn’t know because they were hidden from you. Just one call could change everything in your life, your love, your work and your money,” as they grin sincerely and point to the premium rate hotline number at the bottom of the screen.

It’s like having a bloke stop you in the street and go through your pockets looking for your wallet, credits cards and watch while his mate stands next to him telling you how lucky you are he’s doing it.

Some of the spiritualists also have a gaggle of sunglass-wearing, polo-neck-sweatered musicians sitting behind them playing guitars and keyboards that you can only just make out if you listen really intently. They must be so proud of themselves. Hey mum, look what I do. I play soulless muzak that no-one can hear behind a fake fortune teller on late night TV. I’ve made it. I’m in the big time!

It’s not even as if these mediums always give particularly insightful advice from the “other side”. One of them this week took a call from a woman who said she was always arguing with her husband. The medium, in all seriousness, asked “Are you tense when you have these arguments?” (No, I’m laughing in hysterics because I’m so happy) “Yes, I am,” came the sad reply from the caller. “Well then try to relax and things will be better,” said the medium. And that was it. That was it!!!

I could have told her that for a fraction of the price if she’d called me. In fact, come to think of it, the stupid cow could have told herself it for free!

And herein lies the secret to all this crap.

You see, the people who believe this stuff are often, not always, but often in quite desperate situations, and are as a result, already quite open and inclined to be sucked in by the vague rubbish they’re told. They are willing, even if unconsciously, to read much more into the general comments they’re given than actually exists. So they may often come away with a perception that the reading they were given was incredibly accurate when in fact it was total bollocks. People are more inclined to find meaning and fulfillment in certain statements if they are actively looking for or demanding that link in the first place.

This propensity of the human mind to play tricks on itself, to allow itself to be manipulated and to perceive altered realities is at the heart of the success of fortune telling. What it comes down to is unscrupulous people taking advantage of the vulnerable.

In the 1940s, American psychologist Bertram Forer carried out a famous experiment where he gave each of his students an individual personality analysis, asking them to give it a score out of 5 for accuracy. The average score was 4.26, but in fact, he gave every student exactly the same general, vague description. What he revealed was that people were inclined to accept vague or general descriptions of themselves and their personalities simply because they wanted to believe the results were true. It was particularly true if the subject thought the description only applied to them, if it provided generally positive points and if the person giving it was considered to be in a position of authority. You can read more about it online by typing “Barnum Statements” into Google.

No-one has the power to tell you your future, no matter how much eye-rolling they do, how many leaves they burn, how much wax they drip on to paper or how many spirit guides they claim to be in touch with. No-one has the ability to speak to the dead. Why? That’s because they’re dead. They can’t talk.

But the more that silly, vulnerable, desperate, willing, easily-manipulated people ring in to these crap shows and believe the rubbish they’re being told, the more these people will take advantage of them. Well, if it’s what people want, what’s the problem, you might say? Because it’s fake, it’s unreal, it’s screwing people out of money they can probably ill afford and it plays on the minds of the weakest.

If I encountered one of these fortune tellers face-to-face in the street I might be inclined to do something to them that I shouldn’t (and of course I wouldn’t do as it would be totally illegal). But let’s say, hypothetically, that I did. Then I could say to them “Didn’t see that coming did you, you bastard?! Some fortune teller you are!”