By Tim Binnall
Russia's protracted war with Ukraine has proven to be particularly fruitful for the country's mystics as desperate residents have increasingly turned to clairvoyants for answers about the fate of their loved ones. Since the full-scale battle began over four years ago, the "esoteric services" market in Russia has reportedly grown 20-30 percent annually and is now a staggering $27 billion industry. "I first received requests from military families in February 2022," one tarot reader revealed, "now I have five or six sessions a day." Clients often turn to clairvoyants in the hopes of learning how their loved ones have fared in the fight as maddening months of silence stretch on without any answers from officials.
Others have enlisted mystics to cast protection spells over their relatives engaged in the battle, and widows of fallen soldiers have turned to psychics to send a message to the departed. The remarkable trend is reminiscent of the rise in spiritualism around the American Civil War when many families were gripped with similarly haunting uncertainties. On the media front, despite countless Russian psychics offering incorrect predictions about when and how the war would end, interest in their insights has only increased as the conflict stretches on and many so-called soothsayers have become unlikely celebrities in the country.
Meanwhile, the dramatic rise in mysticism has not been lost on the Russian Orthodox Church, which decried such "devilish" practices and called upon the government to "counter the mass spread of occultism among the population." To that end, a ban on "occult rituals" was enacted last July, but it appears to have had little impact on the esoteric industry. Ironically, in a testament to the universal nature of the 'dark arts,' the situation in Russia has been mirrored in Ukraine, where residents have also turned to psychics to tell them how their loved ones are faring. As such, one imagines that interest in mystics, fortune tellers, and other soothsayers on both sides of the battle will only continue to increase until the conflict finally comes to an end.