LOL, first heard this on the radio, now here's an article about their fate in NY:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000128/aponline060032_000.htm

New York Provides Psychic Training

The Associated Press Friday, Jan. 28, 2000; 6:00 a.m. EST

NEW YORK  So you want to be a psychic? No problem. New York City is recruiting welfare recipients to work from home as telephone clairvoyants.

And for those who aren't gifted with prophetic powers, the city offers job training.

The effort began last April and has led to 15 people on welfare being hired by a company called Psychic Network, said Ruth Reinecke, a spokeswoman for the city's Human Resources Administration.

What does it take to be a telephone soothsayer? A recruitment flier says qualified applicants must be on public assistance, have "a caring and compassionate personality" and the ability "to read, write and speak English."

The jobs have a minimum starting salary of $10 per hour, plus bonuses, the flier says.

The New York Times reported today that Business Link, a division of the HRA, finds and trains workers from welfare rolls and puts them in touch with businesses needing employees.

Ms. Reinecke said applicants were trained to read tarot cards at the city's Business Link office by a Psychic Network representative. Efforts to locate and contact the Psychic Network were unsuccessful, the Times reported, saying a New York telephone number was disconnected last July.

Self-described psychics were unhappy by the city's effort.

"You're talking people with problems that not even a soap opera can list, and you're giving them to people who are only interested in $12 an hour," said Judy Ann Canizzaro, who recalled handling calls as a telephone psychic from a drug-addicted mother threatening suicide and a woman who had suffered a miscarriage.

Ms. Reinecke defended the recruitment: "For those who performed in the job, the pay is rather good and it's attractive to be able to work out of the home for the mothers who have young children."

) Copyright 2000 The Associated Press

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 30, 2000

Answers

Sheesh. Whats next? Phone sex maybe? LOL

-- David Whitelaw (Dande53484@aol.com), January 30, 2000.

David

Just as soon as Pres. Hillary is elected ~:O)

-- justme (justme@myhouse.com), January 30, 2000.

ROFLMAO good one. :o)

-- David Whitelaw (Dande53484@aol.com), January 30, 2000.

BTW, "...the city offers " means YOUR tax dollars BUY...

And for your Christians paying taxes to this city, this is what the Bible calls "craft". Meaning "separation of church and state" doen NOT apply to the satanic church. Go figure.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 30, 2000.

Oh, the plot thickens.....just found this reversal:

http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-01-29/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a- 55074.asp

From: News and Views | City Beat | Saturday, January 29, 2000

Phone Psychic Called Off As Welfare Job

By FRANK LOMBARDI Daily News Staff Writer

fter seeing their futures clouded by controversy, city welfare officials yesterday quickly hung up on recruiting welfare recipients to become telephone psychics.

The about-face by the Human Resources Administration came as welfare advocates and a ranking councilman railed over a published report that the agency had been recruiting would-be psychics since last April.

Through Human Resources efforts, including the use of a city office for training sessions, 15 welfare recipients had been hired to work from home as telephone psychics by a company called the Psychic Network, according to The New York Times. A city recruitment flyer promised a starting salary of $10 an hour, plus bonuses.

Critics of psychic hotlines  which are often advertised on cable TV stations in the middle of the night  say they are consumer ripoffs that prey on vulnerable callers and cash in by making them run up large phone bills.

The Manhattan telephone number for the Psychic Network has been disconnected.

At first, Human Resources defended its recruitment of welfare psychics as Mayor Giuliani's office steadfastly declined to comment.

But by midafternoon, Human Resources issued a terse statement saying it couldn't see working with the Psychic Network any longer.

"Though the HRA believes people should have the freedom to choose their own employment, HRA's Business Link (a Human Resources division that helps welfare recipients get private jobs) has decided to not include the Psychic Network as one of its participants," the statement said.

Shortly before Human Resources issued its statement, Councilman Stephen DiBrienza (D-Brooklyn) told reporters at City Hall that turning welfare recipients into telephone psychics was "bizarre" and "disturbing."

"New Yorkers want people to go from welfare to work," he said. "But I don't think they want their tax dollars spent on moving welfare recipients into psychic hotline jobs dealing ... with other folks who are often at wit's end themselves."

Giuliani has often boasted of moving nearly 550,000 people off the welfare rolls since he became mayor. But critics contend that few former welfare clients got meaningful private jobs.

As chairman of the City Council's General Welfare Committee, DiBrienza has often clashed with Human Resources Commissioner Jason Turner, including attempts to identify the private jobs that have been found for welfare recipients.

"Now I know why they stonewalled," DiBrienza said.

Marc Cohan, a lawyer for the Welfare Law Center, wondered whether the city would graduate to supplying voices for X-rated hotlines. "That's the logical extension," he said.

Liz Krueger, assistant director of the Community Food Resource Center, reacted with mock dismay to the news Human Resources had tuned out the Psychic Network.

"If it really paid $10 an hour, it's one of the best jobs they ever found for anyone," she said. "The average jobs pay $6.50 an hour for 25 hours a week, and those who get them are worse off then when they were on welfare."

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 30, 2000.

Telephone psychic training doesn't violate separation of Church and State because they aren't part of any church. The Satanic Church has disavowed telephone psychics strictly speaking, and anyway, witches aren't actually Satanists.

-- Anita (anelder@aol.com), January 30, 2000.

This is very sick...

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 30, 2000.

Hokie,

Gotta disagree. Premonition and/or psychic ability is not 'craft' and it is not tied to any one religion. It's a gift some have and some don't. I've always wondered why when it happens to a devout worshipper of any religion it's a "vision from God" but when it happens to anyone outside that religion "it must be the devils work".

And with regards to using tax dollars to sponsor a religion, specifically what aspects of a "Psychic Phoneline" operation can be considered religious?

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), January 30, 2000.

Sorry folk but the Church of Spirituality DOES exist. It is headquartered in the Home of American Spirituality, Lilly Dale, NY.

This IS a violation of Church and State as this sets up one church as being sponsored by state TEACHING!!!

C Who figgers the ACLU is just a bunch of peope withWAY tooo much time on their hands

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 31, 2000.

Chuck,

If the Church of Spirituality needed janitors and the state paid for them to be trained, would you still consider it a violation?

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), January 31, 2000.

Good points you raise, TECH32. True psychic gifts pop up in members of all religions, though not all religions are as culturally comfortable with them as others. Irish grannies with the Second Sight can be devout Catholics all the same, for example.

These phone psychics have no religious component, and are disavowed by those who respect psychic abilities as being one of the many talents that the Divine has graced us with. While use of phone "psychics" may be a more empathic way of having a shoulder to cry on than buying a lottery ticket, it still is a cynical way of ruthlessly separating those who can least afford it from their money.

From what I hear, most phone psychics don't make anything near $10 an hour. Hokie, you weren't being briefly tempted to quit your day job for this, were you? There is such a wellspring of pain and fantasy life out there that these phone lines tap into. So many people disconnected from life and each other that they don't know how to access their own wisdom, or the wise ones around them, but have to whisper to strangers who string them along.I shuddered to hear of those in need of guidance being palmed off on amateurs with no training or aptitude. There is something so very wrong with this. But as a New York State resident, my feeling is it's about par for the course for the Giuliani administration...

-- Firemouse (firemouse@fcmail.com), January 31, 2000.

Sorry you couldn't hear the tone of typing.

I HATE the ACLU for what they have succeeded in doing to the First Ammendment.

And, there is a GREAT difference in training janitors who will work for a church or wherever and training a medium. or a priest or minister. Most if not all mediums at Lilly Dale are considered ministers in the Church of spiritualism.

C

If you are at ALL sensitive to paranormal, you GOTTA go to Stump at LillyDale sometime. AWESOME.

C

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 31, 2000.

Chuck,

But they are basically training them to be phone operators with a 'caring and compassionate' script handy. I didn't see anything about training them to be priests or ministers or about making the trainees 'worship' in any way. And no one can be 'tricked' into worshipping. For that you need conscious choice. Even if they DO call them ministers, are they really? What specifically would/do these 'ministers' do that is religous in nature during a psychic phone call?

If I had to guess I'd say this is a tax scam. You know, claim you're a minister and you don't have to pay taxes on the money you make (wink, wink). Something along those lines to entice the employees to do such scummy things to other people.

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), January 31, 2000.