UPDATED::Why do so many Russians turn to psychics? - BBC News

UPDATED:: to add  The world of psychic Alexander Sheps

_____
Large numbers of Russians are consulting mystics and psychics - up to a fifth of the population has done so at least once, according to one polling organisation. And there are signs that this tendency is increasing amid economic crisis and conflict in Ukraine.

I have never visited a psychic. So as I stand in the huge metal lift of a multi-storey building in a Moscow suburb, I am filled with curiosity, scepticism and some trepidation. My appointment is with Alexander Sheps, a celebrity psychic.

I grew up in St Petersburg, the city once home to Russia's most famous psychic, Rasputin.

But Sheps looks nothing like the bearded beady-eyed priest. Young and tall, he is rather as I would have imagined Count Dracula in his youth, but more softly spoken. His black T-shirt sports a picture of a ghostly skull.

Sheps is a winner of the The Battle of the Psychics, a reality TV show that attracts more than four million viewers per episode in Russia, even now into its 16th series.

"My main focus is communicating with the dead. I practise the art of magic,

I practise ritual magic, spells. I can search for people who have disappeared," he tells me.
,,,
Psychics and the occult are officially anathema to the Orthodox Church, but deacon Andrei Kuraev, who has spent the last 25 years discrediting psychics, say it's not that surprising that some believers put their faith in charlatans.

"You can be Orthodox and a murderer, you can be Orthodox and a burglar," he says. "No-one can force a person to be logical. That's why completely incompatible ingredients co-exist in people's heads, like ice-cream with mustard."
,,,
She gave him bad news. Sergei's friend was dead.

"The psychic described in detail what wounds, how he died, at what time of day, what was around him," Sergei recounts. But at the same time she said she felt something was not quite right and advised him not to speak to the friend's family.

Two months later news came through that the friend was still alive, but Sergei remains impressed with the psychic's powers. It transpired that another mutual acquaintance had died while wearing Sergei's friend's coat - and this, to Sergei, made some kind of sense.

Why do so many Russians turn to psychics? - BBC News

See also:: Russia's New Mystics

Witches, magicians and healers have built a multi-million dollar industry in Russia. Olga Smirnova investigate why so many Russians believe in the occult while the Russian authorities are trying project the image of Russia as a modern country with the Orthodox Church as the dominant system of belief? 

Olga will step behind the scenes of the TV programme the Battle of the Psychics which has attracted multi-million audiences, and speak to participants who are asked to investigate murders and disappearances, which the Russian police are unable to solve.

She will travel from Moscow to her native St Petersburg, where she grew up surrounded by images of Russia's most famous mystic, Rasputin, to find out how educated, middle-class Russians are turning to the black arts for spiritual guidance and how it highlights Russians’ popular reaction to the economic and social crisis in Russia, providing a new angle on it. What does this says about the efficacy of Putin’s use of the Orthodox Church to unify Russians.