Bells Are Ringing!

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From my impression, there seemed to be three huge corporations that owned three or more lines each. And the psychics who worked for one of these companies worked for them all. I quickly learned to catch that little whisper in my ear at the beginning of each call. It was to alert me to which number the caller dialed so I would answer the phone correctly. "Thank you for calling the Zodiac Hotline.." "Thank you for calling Astrology Readings." All me.

I became further disillusioned but still wanted to believe I had a great job at a good company. But it was getting harder. I had a regular caller, Champagne, on the Psychic Friends Network. She called in every day at 11 o'clock and always requested me. She had the same two questions for me every day: "When is my husband getting out of jail?" and "When am I getting my welfare check?" One day, I couldn't take it anymore. I said, "Champagne, the next time you want to call me, I want you to take $50, open a window, and throw it out. Because that's what you're doing every day. It is a complete waste of your money." She hung up on me in a huff, and that was the end of Champagne.

Every now and again, I'd get the frisky callers. I'd be saying, "As I'm turning over the cards, I see." and they'd be interrupting every five seconds: "What are you wearing?"

Most of the callers really started to depress me. The last straw was when I started getting calls from people saying, "Sean, I got your letter saying you really needed to speak with me urgently." and I'd say, "What are you talking about? I didn't send you any letter." They'd insist, "I have your letter right here. You're Sean at extension 5842, right?" I didn't worry about it too much until one day when I got a call from a woman who was livid.

"You sent my husband a letter, Sean. You said that you have important things to tell him about love and life and money." She paused, then really screamed, "My husband's dead! He just died of cancer! He was desperate. That's the only reason he would have called you! You don't have any fucking thing to tell him about love or life!" She really went off on me. I couldn't figure what all this letter stuff was about, so I called the line myself and posed as a caller. And 10 days later, I got a postcard in my mailbox, saying, "Dear Dougall, Your psychic Tom at extension 4821 needs to talk to you immediately about urgent matters concerning."

I felt like a hooker. The ploy disgusted me. To this day, I believe that working one of those lines is one small step above being a prostitute. Those letters sent in my name were the end of it for me. Several years later, when I had achieved some success in the psychic world, I was offered my own psychic hotline. I turned it down flat. More than once, I have been offered a lot of money to lend my name to one. There is not enough money in the world for me to do something like that. Ever.

Those corporations were making millions and millions of dollars. They had more than 1,000 psychics working for them. The psychics were paid 15 cents for every minute they were on the phone, while callers were being charged $3.95 a minute. The biggest check I had ever gotten was for $195. My whole experiment with psychic hotlines lasted about 6 months, and over those 6 months, I tried working for them all. For a long time, I just couldn't let it go-the idea of doing my work, being psychic and helping people, from home, and the lure of good money. I kept thinking that I just had to find the right line and it would be the perfect job, but there was no good one.

In my view, the Miss Cleo line was the worst. The worst. Apparently, as long as you had a heartbeat, they'd hire you. It later came out in a lawsuit against them that the United States government used to list them as an employer for people on welfare. Working a psychic hotline had become a guaranteed job. So while people in the media were investigating these hotlines and exposing their shams, the government simultaneously fielded complaints and used the hotlines as employment opportunities. The authorities knew that all of those people couldn't have been psychic. They should have been steering the people to phone sex lines or telemarketing, opportunities in which the consumer isn't paying for any particular talent.

And, man, these companies were raking in the bucks. In the middle of the night, my private line used to ring and ring, and when I finally picked up, there would be an automated voice saying, "Please log in now. The system is very busy." They were making tons of money.

Of course, the whole psychic hotline craze collapsed eventually in a maze of lawsuits. But I was done with it. I felt cheapened and abused and embarrassed. I was completely disheartened by the whole experience. Oh, there were talks around Dallas with friends of mine about starting our own line and doing things correctly, but I just couldn't see how it could be done. There's a reason it costs so much a minute-setting up the 900 number, getting advertising..It takes a corporation. But if you had the capital to get started, you could make millions. Many did. Supposedly when the Psychic Friends Network started, they had only 50 psychics working for them, and they made comfortable money and had decent hours doing what they loved. But then everyone got greedy and it all went crazy.

I have experienced every aspect of being a psychic. Part of the reason I'm so confident in my abilities now is that I know what it's like to be treated like a fortune-teller. I know what it's like to be sitting hunched over your coffee table with a lit candle, waiting for your next call to come in. I know how it feels to sit behind a card table in a small New Age bookstore in a strip mall, hoping to get a $10 reading.

The whole psychic hotline experience was a big lesson for me: I know that even something as sacred as a psychic connection can be exploited for excessive profit, to feed someone else's enormous greed for cash.

More than anything, psychic lines taught me the power of television. So many people believe anything they see on TV. Anything! I understand that Dionne Warwick now has it written into her contracts that when she makes any kind of appearance, no one is allowed to ask about her psychic line. You are not allowed to even mention it. I can certainly understand why she might want to distance herself from it all.

Right around this time, I was praying hard. The psychic hotline thing was clearly over for good. My dad's financial assistance was going to end very shortly, and though I had a growing following, I wasn't making enough money to support myself as a psychic. I needed an answer.

Three weeks later, I got a call from the Dallas Observer, saying they wanted to come take a picture of me to accompany an article they were writing about me. I had been named "The Best Psychic in Dallas." Now, why hadn't I seen

in my future?