# The Superstition Industry: Does it exist in the developed world outside the U.S.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 9, 2008, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885 "2008-11-09T06:20:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/41 "2008-11-10T15:52:12Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > My question: since both countries have government-run health services, why do they fund this (obvious) quackery? Because people want it. And because homeopathic practitioners successfully lobbied for it. > [@](#): > > Can you sue your homeopathic “physician” (in France) if he misdiagnoses/mistreats your fatal case of cancer? No, you’re dead. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/42 "2008-11-10T18:51:37Z")
> [@Westrogothia](#): > > Organized religion isnt doing to well in sweden either. How about Islam? ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/43 "2008-11-10T19:30:14Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > This brand of quack medicine seems to be very popular in France, less so in Germany. My question: since both countries have government-run health services, why do they fund this (obvious) quackery? Can you sue your homeopathic “physician” (in France) if he misdiagnoses/mistreats your fatal case of cancer? Not necessarily the case. It’s pretty big in certain parts of Germany, especially in the “_Bad_” belt of Germany. That’s _Bad_ as in Baths/springs. These areas have long histories as health retreats for Europeans origininating from the supposed restorative properties of their curative springs. Don’t know about anyone elses experiences with German Doctors, but my Mom went to a supposed licensed Doctor in Germany for a bad flare up of her asthma and Emphysema, and the treatment administered was to draw blood and reinject it back into her along with some herbal drops to take home. And an admonishment to her American doctors who had never given her the reinjections of her own blood, and a recommended course of treatment of continued reinjections. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/44 "2008-11-10T19:55:26Z")
What about local laws? I’ve run across many references to laws banning or restricting fortune telling in the USA in old books, movies, and television shows. They used to be more vigorously enforced. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/45 "2008-11-10T20:18:10Z")
[Belgian airline forced to change its logo](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6383171.stm) because its having 13 dots scared some passengers. [Shamans in Taiwan](http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/10/asia/shaman.php) ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/46 "2008-11-10T20:22:09Z")
WRT the OP I don’t recall seeing many tarot/palm reading/forturne telling type places here in the Greater Boston Area. There is one in the suburban town I live in, some lady apparently will do palm reading and has a sign in her window advertising it. It is reallly quite unusual though, I can only recall seeing maybe one other such sign in the last 20 years. Og knows that kind of thing is not on my radar screen though, there could well be others out there. The crystal/New Agey type stuff is somewhat more common, I think there are a few such places around, in Cambridge and maybe the touristy areas of Boston itself. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/47 "2008-11-10T20:55:04Z")
As for the Netherlands: > [@bonzer](#): > > Most British cities will at least have some New Age store/bookshop that provides a venue for advertising such services, though in most cases those advertising don’t seem to be working out of the same premises. We have those ads to, but they seem to be for a “softer” kind of superstition, like little notes offering “spiritual retreat weekends” or " holistic massage therapy". These also hang in organic food stores. There are stores for new-agey stuff in every Dutch major shopping mall and shopping centre. They sell incence, crystal pyramids, gemstones, sage to burn, massage stuff, little Buddha statues, postcards with glurge or medieval stuff or elves. Mostly stuff for interior decorating and little gifts, really. > [@astorian](#): > > Bear in mind, there are VERY different sets of clientele for different sorts of “superstition industries.” > The old-fashioned palm readers, astrologers, and Gypsy fortune tellers have always attracted low-rent, blue-collar, ill-educated customers. > On the other hand, the people who are into Wicca, crystals, past life regression and other New Age crap tend to be well-off financially and very well educated. My mom worked as a past life regression therapist for a couple years. She worked out of her home, and she could have made a living out of it. There even was a a Dutch official membership organisation for Regression therapy, with standards and complaint procedures and educations and everything. Including fights and schisms in the leading committee. Homeopathy is huge here too, and similarly officially regulated. > [@sailor](#): > > In Spain fortune tellers have gone high-tech and they have TV programs where people call in and on the screen they have a toll number where you pay through the nose by the minute. We had those too, but IIRC, they were outlawed. We also have adversitements for those in the lower education. gossip rags. Classic palm-readers and healign doctors don’t have brick and mortar stores in the Netherlands, but I do get a little card sized advertisement for their services in my mailbox about once a month. They do seem to operate from their own homes in our Surinam and African ghettos in Amsterdam. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/48 "2008-11-10T22:20:24Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I have a nagging suspicion that a significant percentage of these types of businesses exist for the purpose of laundering money. I would think it would be the perfect “front” business. I doubt it in the extreme. In many states, fortunetelling and the like is barely legal as it is. Here in Philly, the cops often watch psychics for scams( I mean like ‘bring the money to get rid of the bad luck. I make it look like I burn the money, but really I burn newspaper and pocket the cash’ scam). So you’d have a business the cops would already be paying extra attention to, and looking for an excuse to shut down. Not a very good front, is it? ---
**Author:** ![mbedell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mbedell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbedell)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/49 "2008-11-11T23:57:13Z")
Superstition is alive and well in the Phillipines. ---
**Author:** ![dinoboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@dinoboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dinoboy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885/50 "2008-11-12T17:24:05Z")
The good news is that all this belief in non supported superstition is on the decline and science is finally rising to an honored and respected position in society! Well, at least that’s what my psychic tells me. 😃 In actuality, this has turned out to be a pretty depressing thread ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-superstition-industry-does-it-exist-in-the-developed-world-outside-the-u-s/471885.md?page=2)