To find a clairvoyant, a medium or a marabout, a few clicks on the Internet are enough. After a quick search, hundreds of sites promise to solve our problems. On one of them, we are assured of help for “lasting love”, “fidelity”, or even “protection against bad luck”. After a call and a few texts to the number displayed, the marabout gives us an appointment in a summarily furnished apartment, which he describes as his office.
We pretend to suffer a sentimental disappointment. The consultation only begins after paying it, 50 euros in cash. He gives us his diagnosis after drawing the outline of our hand on a sheet of paper: “You came to see me at the right time, because his feeling is not like before.”
Very quickly, he says he has a solution to bring back the loved one. But for that, it would be necessary to consume a product presented as “magical”, the recipe of which he does not want to give until he is paid more.
I have to buy a product that costs 500 euros. We’re going to go down next door and withdraw some money.
A marabout during a consultation
We are ending the consultation, but some victims let themselves be drawn into contact with a marabout for many months. This is the case of a retired woman whom we met. She called one in 2019 after losing several loved ones, and then said she fell under his spell. She confides:I was desperate, I wanted to know what was going to happen to me. When I saw this on the Internet, I said to myself that for 30 euros I risked nothing. It was 30 euros, after that it was 200, then one thing led to another 1000 euros.“
In one year, the victim claims to have paid nearly 120,000 euros to the marabout she consulted. She lost all her savings despite a total lack of results according to her.
I eliminated quite a lot of things because I could no longer afford what I had to pay. I fall back to zero, it’s as if I had done nothing.
The retiree filed a complaint for breach of trust, the case is ongoing.
In the offices of the National Institute of Divinatory Arts, files of presumed victims of clairvoyants and marabouts pile up.
According to the president of the association, Youcef Sissaoui, 1 to 2 million euros are extorted each year from vulnerable people. He calls for the regulation of so-called divinatory professions in a letter sent to the Minister of Justice last July.
These professions are left to themselves, without control and without surveillance, allowing individuals to exploit, with impunity, a fragile and vulnerable population.
Youcef Sissaoui, President of INAD
According to him, the regulation of these professions begins with “authentication of professionals, legally declared and clearly identified“.
Already in 2010, the Ministry of the Economy admitted to the association its helplessness in the face of the situation. In particular, he lamented that “the granting of a professional card would come up against insurmountable legal obstacles under both national law and Community law”.
For its part, the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses indicates that it processed 24 reports related to the occult sciences in 2021.
Among our sources:
– Letter from INAD to the Ministry of Justice, July 2022
– Response from the Ministry of the Economy to INAD, 2010