The news about the economy — and more precisely the real estate market — is full of shrugs and dart-throwing guesswork about exactly where prices and interest rates will go in the coming year. So, reports the Boston Globe, a growing number of home buyers are looking to the spirit world for guidance and assistance.

From the Globe:

To clear away bad vibes caused by the swirl of anxiety, desperation, and loss encircling the market, local buyers, sellers, and agents have been turning to witches, psychics, intuits, mediums, feng shui consultants, and 2,000-year-old saints — among others — to perform house clearings and blessings, and to provide direction and a divine cloak of protection.

“Because I don’t know the history of the house, I don’t want whatever happened there to follow me,” says one buyer, who had a psychic bless the foreclosed home she’s in the process of purchasing. She also says has asked a Native American relative to give the property a booster blessing.

The psychic who originally blessed this house says she currently does about two blessings a week.

As to why a house might need a spiritual cleansing, one feng shui consultant likens homes to sponges. “They absorb human emotions,” she tells the Globe.

The consultant advises sellers on how best to arrange things — including the “for sale” sign — to make a sell more likely. “What I’m trying to do is find the reason the house isn’t selling. If there’s a negative aspect, how can I minimize it?” she says. “I do see a house as something alive. I feel it, work with it, get to know it, learn its story.”

Then there’s St. Joseph Statue LLC, a company that sells kits with 4″ and 8″ statues of St. Joseph intended to be buried upside-down near the for sale sign. Explains the company’s founder: “Some people perceive this as a good-luck charm; others see it as something much more divine.”

He claims that customers have reported receiving multiple offers soon after interring the statue.

“These are very, very uncertain times, and many people come to me, and people like me, in search of some guidance,” explains one self-described psychic adviser, who is savvy enough to add the caveat that her guidance is no guarantee for a sale. “I can only ask that any entities or intelligences that may have any influence upon the course of events to look favorably upon those who are in need of assistance.”

Bless this house [Boston Globe]

Thanks to Random Integer for the tip!

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