Though I’ve consulted more than my share of channelers, psychics, astrologers, and the like over the years, I’ve never felt it was a compulsion—just a quirky thing I do every so often when I look to the stars and say, “What is going on up there?!” and hear no answer. But I can see the appeal in handing over the task of figuring out your life to someone else on a regular basis. That’s exactly what struggling, psychic-addicted actress Sarah Lassez did, according to an article [1] in yesterday’s New York Times [2]. At her worst she spent over $1,000 a month on all kinds of future-lookers. Most of the time she sated her jones on the web, where she found a slew of psychics she could call any time for $4.99 a minute. Sometimes she would call six times a day—even though their predictions usually didn’t pan out.

Now that Lassez is clean, she’s written a book, Psychic Junkie, A Memoir [3], which comes out this summer, and launched an accompanying website/online support group, psychicjunkie.net [4]. As an actor, Lassez knows that Hollywood is notorious for its dependency on such services. “L.A. is full of control freaks,” Justeane Kenzer, a Hollywood clairvoyant, told the Times. “Everyone just wants to know how their thing is going to turn out.”

For those of us who get ready for the Oscars not with a gown, but a bag of popcorn, James Alcock, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto––and “confirmed skeptic”––told the Times that most Americans believe in the paranormal and that people with religious backgrounds often live simultaneously in “rational” and “transcendental” worlds of thought. He (rather patronizingly, I think) added that faith in the paranormal can offer comfort and empowerment.

As a semi-skeptic (I mostly believe in the paranormal, just not in everyone who sells it), I think sometimes it can actually provide answers. But I also believe that very often we have them already ourselves. I simultaneously embrace the notion of destiny and of doing the work—two quotes on Lassez’s site summarize this well:

“Living in the moment means letting go of the past and not waiting for the future. It means living your life consciously, aware that each moment you breathe is a gift.”—Oprah Winfrey

and

“The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day.”—Gloria Steinem