At Oakland North, a project of the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, reporter Alyssa Fetini asks the pressing question: “Psychics are ubiquitous in Oakland, but are they for real?.”
Fetini interviews several store-front “psychics,” as well as the proprietor of the Berkeley Psychic Institute, which purports to train anyone to exercise psychic powers. After allowing the psychics to offer their own claims, she gives UC Berkeley psychologist Kyle Jennings a chance to respond. “Psychologists,” Jennings explains, “would not believe that a person was actually psychic.”
Fetini then reviews some of the recent reports of psychics defrauding customers (as previously reported at BAS).
Director of the Berkeley Psychic Institute Richard Pozzuto gets the last word, denying that his trainees have anything to do with such scams, insisting “we train people to find their own answers.” The Institute’s website refers to its programs as “psychic kindergarten.”