Is still a fraud.

Laura Day is a psychic, although she calls herself an “intuitionist.” What’s an intuitionist? Well, it’s someone who can access information not available to the senses. On Day’s website she offers advanced intuition techniques that include telepathy and clairvoyance. In other words – she’s a psychic.

The only difference is in marketing. Day’s clientele are not the middle-class moms who want a quick tarot card reading. They are not the desperate parents who turn to the chain-smoking Sylvia Browne for a glimmer of information on their missing child. They are not the new-age types who go in for crystals and head scarves.

Day caters to corporations and celebrities. So she attires herself accordingly and calls herself an intuitionist instead of a psychic – to give a bit of cover to executives who might be a little embarrassed about making business decisions based upon magic. The scam works – she claims she gets 10k a month per client and holds down five clients at a time, raking in millions.

The fact that she is a somewhat attractive woman probably has something to do with her success. I suspect she has some charisma and is good at slinging the BS. At least those are far more plausible explanations than what she claims – intuitive powers.

Now, I have nothing against the notion of real intuition – our brains can process information without us being consciously aware of it. Sometimes we make leaps of logic we cannot fully explain. The pieces just fall into place, the picture becomes clear, the pattern emerges – all apparently without our conscious effort. But this amounts to an extrapolation from available information. The human brain is particularly good at pattern recognition – including recognizing abstract patterns, patterns of ideas or cause and effect. This is real intuition.

Day may be employing some of this. She may be good (like any salesperson or cult leader) at sizing people up and making shrewd observations about them. People who are astute observers of the human condition can often make their way on their talent – using it either for good or for evil. None of this gives day supernatural powers nor makes her qualified to give advice about subjects on which she has no knowledge or expertise.

You might say, so what? She’s being paid to make observations, and maybe she’s good at it.

Well, I would have no problem if she sold herself as a consultant – an outside observer who can help executives identify problems of interpersonal working relationships or the like. But she doesn’t. The con is in selling herself as an intuitive, someone with special access to hidden knowledge that will give her clients an edge. Everyone knows she’s a psychic (wink, wink, nod, nod, you know what I mean), no matter what she calls herself.

The secret of Day’s success lies largely in favorable media coverage. Like Sylvia Browne, she had a media angel to propel her into her millions. The favorable coverage continues. This CNN article, written by the entertainment reporter, Lola Ogunnaike, is a disgustingly gushing and credulous report. There isn’t a hint of journalistic skepticism. Even though this is just the entertainment reporter, Day still gets to splash on her homepage that she was featured in a CNN article – chaching!