Midnight Therapy : Late-Night TV Is the Land of the Psychic Hot Line, But Just What Are We Tapping Into?

It’s the middle of the night and the upbeat infomercial host beckons with tales of romances about to happen, careers ready to take off and riches waiting to be discovered.

And it be all yours for just $3.99 a minute.

Channel hop late at night and it’s impossible to miss one of these 900-number psychic phone lines, currently raking in millions of dollars a year.

The format usually includes celebrity hosts or guests, an overly enthusiastic studio audience and compelling testimony from callers about how their psychic’s powers of clairvoyance helped them.

As hokey as they may seem to some, these infomercials have had an undeniable effect, taking psychics out of the shadowy, hocus-pocus world of the supernatural and marketing them as friendly advisers on a happy, brightly lit talk show. Television has given them legitimacy and technology has made them accessible to anyone with a phone.

But something else may be fueling this popularity. Many who call these hot lines are lonely, vulnerable, worried people who are depressed or in crisis situations, with no one else to reach out to but a stranger. The psychic becomes a therapist by proxy--and at $4 a minute, that can mean hundreds of dollars per call.

Although some people swear by their psychics, there’s no guarantee that the information they give is or will come true. After all, as the common infomercial disclaimer goes: “For entertainment purposes only.”

While the Federal Trade Commission sets guidelines for the 900 industry and the Federal Communications Commission regulates it, the job of determining if psychics are legitimate falls through the cracks.

According to the Better Business Bureau--serving Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino counties--approximately 25,000 inquiries and 3,000 to 4,000 complaints have been received about the 900-number industry in the last three years; there is no breakdown for psychic hot lines. (Under the heading of psychics, palm readers and horoscopes, there have been about 5,000 inquiries and about 200 complaints.)

Says West Los Angeles psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Borenstein, “The issue I’m concerned about is that [in consulting a psychic] it might delay these people in getting the help they need. They’re trying for a quick fix, which is all too common.” Some of these situations could end in tragedy, he adds, should the caller have serious psychological problems.

“It’s an unfortunate situation that these individuals are using psychics as a substitute and aren’t aware of the resources available at an affordable price and in the right setting,” he says. “But some people think that if it’s something they can get fixed through a phone call, they can get advice that makes everything right and they can continue to deny that they have a problem.”

The best known of the infomercials is the 4-year-old Psychic Friends Network, produced by the Baltimore-based Inphomation Communications and rated No. 1 by Jordan Whitney Inc., an independent firm that ranks infomercials. Its co-hosts are singer Dionne Warwick and Linda Georgian, Warwick’s longtime personal psychic, who is referred to in her press kit as “the fastest rising psychic and meta-motivational mind-power speaker.” She is also the author of “Your Guardian Angels: Use the Power of Angelic Messengers to Enrich and Empower Your Life” (Fireside Books, 1994).

The show debuted in 1991 while the country was riding “little waves” of interest in psychic phenomenon and the supernatural, says Robert Hoffman, Inphomation’s senior vice president of television production and business affairs.

Those little waves grew, he says, when “we sort of married an interest in the spiritual and the New Age with available technology. . . . It’s no longer New Age--everyone’s calling a psychic. It’s broader, wider, more massive.”

So massive that Inphomation’s annual sales figures topped $100 million in 1994. The company does other infomercials and direct-mail marketing, with “Psychic Friends” accounting for about half of the sales.

Hoffman says the Network’s psychics are pulled from a pool of 1,500 to 2,000, and are screened for prior experience in private practice, psychic fairs and Tarot card readings. “We have them do trial readings before anybody’s hired,” he says. “We’ve never trained anybody to be a psychic.”

The next most popular psychic 900-number infomercial, according to Tustin-based Jordan Whitney, is the 2-year-old “Your Psychic Experience,” hosted by Kenny Kingston, who is no stranger to television. His TV career as a clairvoyant dates back to “The Merv Griffin Show” and beyond.

“Twenty years ago,” says the L.A.-based Kingston, “myself and Jeanne Dixon were practically the only psychics on television. . . . We were called fortunetellers, Gypsies. Now we have the very elegant term of ‘psychic.’ ”

The response Kingston gets from callers assures him there are countless people across the country who take psychic abilities seriously.

He admits the gig is lucrative. “Extremely. Oh sure, “ says Kingston, who started his career charging $5 per reading. (Most infomercial hosts get a fee plus a percentage.)

When his infomercial was new, Kingston says he screened the 150 to 200 telephone psychics. Now that the psychics number 400, his staff does the screening, while he still monitors the lines.

“We listen carefully to make sure [no one] gives out any sort of gambling information or on the lottery and things. That isn’t the reason for the gift.”

But not every psychic longs to be an infomercial fixture. Char is a nationally known psychic and frequent talk show guest who charges $400 an hour for an in-person reading, $285 for a phone reading, and is usually booked six months in advance. She is no fan of 900-psychic lines, saying she’s turned down several offers for her own line, a la Georgian and Kingston.

“I can only be responsible for what I say and what I do.” she says via phone from her home in a Detroit suburb. “I could never put my name on what other people are doing. . . . Maybe some psychics that are on hot lines are good, but you can’t monitor them all day. And you’ve got to be careful of your source of information. The messages the psychics are getting, if they’re talking to the spirit world, can come from a good or evil place.”

Telephone psychics aside, Char says she sees Americans becoming more willing to embrace the unexplainable.

“We’re changing from a material world to a spiritual world,” she says. “More and more people are having sightings of angels. I feel that there’s an energy going on that people are tapping into.”

Indeed, bookstore shelves are packed with personal accounts of past lives, angelic encounters and near-death experiences--books which, 20 years ago, would have been dumped in the seriously weird section. Television has also fueled this fascination with such shows as NBC’s “The Other Side” and Fox’s “The X Files.”

Nor are all in the scientific community shunning psychics and healers.

“From the research that’s been done in parapsychical and psychical research there is such a substantial body of evidence . . . that this has become increasingly less controversial,” says Patrice Keane, executive director of the 110-year-old American Society for Psychical Research, a New York City-based paranormal and education organization.

“There are many frontier scientists who are exploring the mind/body boundaries where consciousness and matter interact. . . . We are no longer classifying people who have these [psychic] experiences as having a problem, but potentially as having a gift,” she says.

But an interest in paranormal activity isn’t the only reason people have been taking psychics more seriously. Psychics have taken on the role of surrogate therapists, listening to people who are depressed, lonely or in crisis situations, people who can’t or won’t make use of mental health facilities.

“In the still of the night it’s just very good to listen to somebody’s voice and to be able to tell them what’s really happening with their lives,” Kingston says.

Dr. David Feinberg doesn’t mind that some of his patients have consulted with telephone psychics. In fact, the director of the child and adolescent outpatient department at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital feels in some cases it can be a sign of progress.

“With a couple of patients in particular I was thrilled that they made the call because they have difficulty in making connections,” he says. “It was not your appropriate interpersonal relationship, but it was a step in the right direction and I saw it as progress. The questions they were asking were the questions we were dealing with in therapy. . . . It’s very non-confrontational and you have a lot of control over the interaction because you can hang up the phone.

The problem, adds Feinberg, is quality control--how to be certain that the psychic on the other end of the line is doling out useful, sound information.

And that’s what troubles magician James Randi. Also known as “The Amazing Randi,” he has spent many years debunking paranormal phenomenon. His word to the wise: Don’t believe everything you see--even if it is on television.

“There has never been any evidence of any psychic powers,” he maintains. “The popular misconception is that there are psychics and the only thing they can do is listen like a friend and pat you on the shoulder. That’s the extent of the comfort they can provide.”

But is it so bad to rely on a stranger’s advice, even if you can afford the hefty phone bill that may be the result?

(Most phone companies will work with customers who cannot pay a large 900-number bill. Pacific Bell, for instance, usually forgives a 900-number bill one time only. For subsequent calls, they offer a payment schedule on a case-by-case basis. While they won’t cut off phone service for non-payment, they may add a 900-block. And in a worst-case scenario, the bill may end up with a collection agency.)

“But can you afford giving up your emotional security?” Randi asks. “You unload everything on them, and they say, ‘OK, it’s all being taken care of by divine forces.’ . . . If you’re in touch with reality it won’t bother you.

“Television makes it more legitimate, absolutely,” he continues. “And the fact that it’s being hammered at them all the time, as with any advertising, does give apparent legitimacy.”

Randi does believe, however, that the psychic infomercials may have hit a saturation point. He adds that he doesn’t favor legislation to stop the shows, but advocates education--”so these things die of attrition.”

But don’t look for the major psychic lines to burn out any time soon.

While this isn’t quite interactive television, Inphomation’s Hoffman thinks that may be only a few steps away.

“This is immediately communicating after seeing something on television. I think people will respond if you give them something they’re interested in and it’s offered to them right”