Employment opportunity!

Italy is still struggling with a shortage of exorcists, so people with a knack for spewing nonsense with an air of gravitas might want to look into it.

The Vatican has had to set up exorcism training courses to cope with demand after the number of requests for their services tripled in Italy over the space of a few years.

[ … ]

Palilla blamed the rise in demand on a growing number of people seeking the services of fortune tellers and Tarot readers. Such practices “open the door to the devil and to possession“, he claimed. However, he noted that many cases were not actually related to demonic possession, but to spiritual or psychological problems.

Priests, fortune tellers, and Tarot readers are all in the same business, of course — peddling the idea that they have access to special cosmic knowledge that can be used to align your life with the Mysterious Forces Which Rule Our Universe.

And I love the remark that, sometimes, the matter is not that a sulfurous demon has taken up residence in your vitals, but merely a psychological problem. That’s a good one: It lends an air of medical expertise to the scam, and demotes actual professionals, without the possibility of objective testing. I repeat: It’s the exact same business as a carnival fortune teller, but with a far more clever execution.

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