Why Do People Go to Psychics?

The reasons why people decide to go to a psychic are very personal. It may be just for a bit of fun or it could be for a more serious reason. Common reasons for getting a serious psychic reading include needing to connect with a loved one who has died or getting advice about different areas of life (such as careers or relationships). Yet when you look at these reasons you might notice that there is a bigger answer to why people have psychic readings.

Psychic readings deal with the unknown. Do loved ones exist in some way after death and how? Is this person really my soul mate? Is this new job what I'm needing right now? Psychic knowledge brings information and answers from a source of knowledge that people think they cannot access themselves (despite intuition being a good source of information about what we do not consciously know). People may also want more knowledge than they believe they can gain even with well tuned intuition. When people go to a psychic for entertainment they are also playing with the unknown - just in a different way..

The unknown can make us feel curious or scared. (Some people may even find they feel a mix of interest and fear when they are confronted with the unknown.) Feeling anxious or curious is something that can send us on the search for information. Another common emotion that can make us search for information is grief. Death itself is a mysterious part of the life cycle. This topic alone can make people wonder about what happens after we die. The loss of a loved one can make us look into the unknown as we need to re-establish that connection with our loved one or at least understand what has happened.

These are all things that motivate people to seek psychic knowledge. Regardless of your beliefs about whether psychics provide real information or not a person who seeks such knowledge is not being immature or irrational. They are just seeking knowledge in a different way. It's only when we over-ride our own knowledge and instincts to accept the word of a psychic, or become dependent on such knowledge, that we need to be concerned. This issue is totally different to whether or not psychics are "real" because even if a person is seeing an accurate psychic - depending on such knowledge at the expense of your own knowing is not a good path to take.

Photo: Tarot of the Bohemians by Contemplicity (Flickr Creative Commons)