Bogus psychics taking advantage of the economic crisis

By Gin Kurniawan

SURABAYA (JP): Crisis does not always mean sluggish business. On the contrary, while many are complaining about the protracted economic crisis, psychics are making a lot of money.

The past two years may be called the boom time for psychics who practice in modest houses in remote areas to star-rated hotels in big cities such as Jakarta and Surabaya.

"In this hard and uncertain time, many need something to hold on to in order to protect themselves supernaturally," said Ki Sunarto, a spiritual practitioner and an observer of the psychic world.

However, to psychiatrist Dadang Hawari, the phenomenon reflects the confusion that has engulfed the community as the crisis has eroded people's self-confidence. Viewed from the religious point of view, he said, this is seen as a symptom of faith erosion, apart from the fact that there is a belief in our society in the effectiveness of a psychic.

Meanwhile, many people have taken advantage of the phenomenon by opening a practice as a psychic, which is easy to do as the service is not regulated.

"You can do so as long as you can talk well to convince other people," said Ki Sunarto.

Many self-styled psychics boldly advertise their services in the mass media. They have strange names such as Ki Macan Loreng ( The Striped Tiger), Ki Joko Bodo Si Manusia 1000 Aneh (The Stupid, A Man With A Thousand Peculiarities), Nyai Kembang Sore (Madame Evening Flower), Jeng NanikGreng (Nanik, the Fascinating Lady) and so forth. To convince people further, they, disregarding all the risks, they claim to have titles such as Prof., Dr., or even Haj. which upon further investigation, will prove to be fake.

Generally, they offer the same services: curing all diseases without surgery, finding your life partner, helping you get a promotion, getting rid of evil influences, and so forth. Some have openly said that they are ready to practice black magic.

Advertising is an effective medium of promotion. By exhibiting their "extraordinary" skills, people are attracted and flock to their places. This profession has resulted in a list nouveau riche.

Mbah Lana, claiming to be Kiai Sakti Tuban (someone with great supernatural powers), has never imagined that he will have enough to live as he does now. Only in a relatively short span of time, he has built an imposing house and owns three luxurious automobiles worth hundreds of millions of rupiah.

"I would like to have five automobiles in my house. I will be soon getting a BMW," said Mbah Lana, a father of three, proudly pointing to the three automobiles parked in a row in front of his house.

"It is nice to be a psychic. Money comes easy," he said openly. "I should have started my practice much earlier," he added.

As if taking his revenge on the poverty that he used to live in, Mbah Lana said he was doing his best to earn as much money as possible from being a psychic, a profession he took two years ago. He said he could earn an average of over Rp 200 million a month.

He said more people started coming to him after he had placed an advertisement in a number of tabloids and a magazine on mysticism in mid-1999. "After advertising my services, I have got more clients. Some of them have placed their order by mail," he said.

Meanwhile, Bambang Yuwono, a psychic calling himself Si Tangan Sakti (The Hand with Divine Powers), has turned his house, which just two years ago had plaited bamboo walls and on the verge of collapsing, into a three-story structure, the construction of which he spent a billion rupiah. Bambang, who began to intensively advertise his services in mid-1988, also has a few cars worth over a hundred million rupiah each.

Nyi Tantri, who calls herself The Indonesian Queen of Magical Charm, gave up her job as a civil servant in a government agency in Surabaya three years ago and declared herself a psychic. In her new profession, she earns a lot more money and has bought a number of houses and luxury cars.

Edy Rusmanto, popularly known as Boss Edy, is the self-styled God of Medicine and The Gatekeeper of the Supernatural Cosmos from Pati, Central Java. Pot-bellied and dark-skinned, Edy, who usually wears an earring in his left ear, has made his wife, his father, and dozens of his followers take up the same profession too.

Victims

With the growing number of people claiming to be psychics, the public must exercise extra caution when seeking their services because many of them are simply after your money.

Mrs. Diah, 43, a young entrepreneur in Jakarta, said she had been duped by a psychic living in Yogyakarta. Being heavily indebted, Diah visited a psychic she learned from an advertisement. "I was told that I must take a ritual kungkum bath every Thursday night," she said.

The psychic said this ritual bath would work wonders as money would supernaturally appear. Strangely, the money would only appear after she had given the psychic some money as "bait". After she had deposited the money into the psychic's bank account (possible also through a bank transfer), the psychic gave her a cloth-wrapped box. This box was for the magic money to appear.

"I was told the bigger the amount of the money given to the psychic, the bigger the amount of magic money there would be," said Diah.

She was convinced that the psychic would help her because she saw dozens of other people in the psychic's house doing the same thing. Unfortunately, after a few months of doing this ritual, the promised magic money never materialized.

"I have become even more indebted and the promised money have never appeared although I had given millions of rupiah to the psychic in the hope of getting hundreds of millions of rupiah," she said.

She realized that the psychic had duped her. After she threatened to report this fraud to the police, the psychic returned the money to her.

Permadi, a psychic who is also a member of the House of Representatives from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, has advised the community to make a distinction between real psychics and bogus ones. "I wouldn't call people advertising their services in the mass media psychics. Bogus psychics are a more apt name for them," he said.