Ashley Branton lays out tarot cards in the back of her shop, Velvet Witch, in Norfolk, Va., Thursday, June 13, 2024. The city of Norfolk recently repealed its 45-year-old ban on “the practice of palmistry, palm reading, phrenology or clairvoyance, for monetary or other compensation.” The 1979 ordinance was not being enforced, however, and the psychic services industry is growing.
Jokes aside, the city's repeal comes as the psychic services industry is growing in the U.S., generating an estimated $2.3 billion in revenue last year and employing 97,000 people, according to a 2023 report from market research firm IBIS World. “Ever since COVID, people have been carrying this weight. They’re just carrying so much,” Branton said.
“I always had interactions with spirits,” she said. “I’ve always been an empath. I can feel people’s energies."“I'm very proud of that,” she said. “There's going to be scammers and people out here doing this for just the money. Obviously, this is my way of living now. But it was never about money for me.”
The American laws took hold in the mid-19th century, an era of growing concern about fraudulent business practices, McCrary said. But the Spiritualism movement, which often involved channeling the dead, was also growing in popularity, particularly among the middle and upper classes. Such laws faced little scrutiny from the courts at first, said David L. Hudson, a law professor at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a fellow with the Freedom Forum think tank in Washington.