Occultism: 6 billion turnover for magicians, fortune-tellers and healers

The crisis and price increases are not stopping the occult. On the contrary, the sector's numbers are growing, especially online. In Italy, around 12 million people, or 20% of the total population, knock on the door of magicians, fortune-tellers, occultists and healers seeking support or comfort. Each spends, on average, EUR 500 a year, a total of around 6 billion.

The data emerges from the 2024 report of the Anti-Plagiarism Observatory that, after ten years, and on the occasion of the association's thirtieth anniversary, presents the new dossier with numbers that indicate a growing phenomenon "also thanks to social networks and the web" where 90% of consultations are recorded online and only 10% in person". "In thirty years of activity we have received about 28 thousand reports, we collect about a thousand a year, almost all of them anonymous, but the submerged number is decidedly greater," emphasise Giovanni Panunzio and Alfredo Barrago national coordinator and president respectively of the Anti-Plagiarism NGO Observatory. The loneliness and the ease with which social networks make it possible to approach and get to know everything about people make the phenomenon even more widespread. Often there are even those who use avatars and, after getting the money, disappear'.

Around this world, as emerges from the data collected by the report, there is a money turnover worth 6 billion euros, calculated on the basis of an average expenditure of 500 euros per year per customer, totalling 12 million. Reading the data by region, one fact emerges: the highest number of magicians, seers, mediums and healers is in Lombardy (2.5 thousand) with 180 thousand customers and an expenditure of 90 million. This is followed by Campania with 2.2 thousand operators, 150 thousand customers and an expenditure of 80 million. In third place was Lazio with 2 thousand operators, 140 thousand clients and an expenditure of 75 million. As the report shows, there are 20 thousand occultists in the studio with a pool of 1.2 million clients and a turnover of Euro 600 million. That is 10% of the total. The remaining 90 per cent of revenue 'comes from online or telephone contacts'. 'The ratio of in-person consultations to distance consultations,' we read further, 'has almost reversed in 15 years. The surge began in 2020 with the pandemic-related restrictions that resulted in only 1 in 10 in-person appointments.

Those who turn to occultists, magicians or cartoonists are, in 68% of cases, women. The report notes that 'in the face of possible frauds, threats, circumventions, sexual rituals, abusive exercise of the medical profession and mental manipulation, only 3% of the victims file a complaint'. The dossier also highlights another aspect: the issue of taxes. A reading of the data shows that 'tax evasion is reported to be 98 per cent. "Only 2 per cent of the clients," the report emphasises, "state that a regular tax document was issued, 54 per cent, an anonymous receipt, 44 per cent nothing".