I paid a stranger online to find my soulmate

Freelancer website Fiverr has a thriving ‘Astrology and Psychics’ section. For IRL, Josie Adams reviews some of its offerings.

Fiverr has been around since 2010, and over the past 12 years it’s developed alongside – and perhaps even helped usher in – the gig economy. Working from short contract to short contract, or “gig to gig”, is nothing new for many creatives. But thanks to remote working and websites like Fiverr, it’s booming across plenty of more traditional fields.

Thousands of freelancers use Fiverr to get gigs: translation and graphic design are probably what it’s best known for, but this is the internet. There’s a freelancer for everything. You can hire someone to draw furry art, create a mortgage payment schedule, or say a rosary for you. 

There’s plenty to be said about the gig economy, and the exploitatively low rates some professionals are forced to set thanks to online competition. But there’s one small section of Fiverr that has developed as the perfect side hustle: psychic services. Very few people make a full-time living off their magic powers, and many would struggle to find a deep pool of customers. The internet is changing that.

If you browse Fiverr’s Astrology and Psychics section you’ll find almost 15,000 magical services available. Many have thousands of reviews, suggesting customer demand is just as high as this supply. But can you really cast a spell via a computer? And how well can someone predict your future without ever seeing you?

This is a product review of three Fiverr psychics – I picked them based on low cost and a quick turnaround time, and it turns out they’re just as good as real-world magicmen. Interpret that however you wish.

Gig 1: Tarot reading

Tarot is a staple of the commercial magics. There’s a tarot card reader at farmers markets, fairs, and there’s probably one in your friend group. In mine, it’s me. But they’re always very tangible – you shuffle your own cards, and the reader will loom over a tiny desk to stare into your face crevices, trying to suss out if you’re deeply miserable, or a smoker, so they can offer some helpful advice. 

Online, there’s no chance the psychic can cold read you or ask leading questions. You just send some cash over the tubes and get a basic three-card draw.

Chris, a UK-based cartographer and “the hardest man in tarot”, had five-star reviews and a strong psychic lineage. “I have Indigenous Highland Gypsy heritage and the Tarot runs in my blood,” said his ad. “No medical or pregnancy questions please.”

I coughed up $13.43 total, and 18 hours later Chris provided me with a video tarot reading that went for over five minutes. It was filmed in a small, dimly lit room, and he kept saying my name. He was curious about life in New Zealand. He asked me questions I couldn’t answer. It felt inappropriately intimate, and I recommend Chris’s services to single people only.

I won’t upload the video here, both because it’s a massive file and because it feels like it was just for us. But the gist of it: I’ve been searching for growth, but instead I need to take a path that reduces stress. Toward the end of the year I will go on holiday to a snowy place that reminds him of the music video for Disintegration by The Cure. I might elope.

Serenity, a snowy Christmas, and eternal love? Five stars for Chris.

Gig 2: Draw my future husband

For less than $15, Neo, a China-based mentalist and astrologer, will draw my soulmate. Neo claims to have more than 14 years of experience in the field of soulmate envisionment, and a degree from Kyiv State Linguistics University. Their reviews are wonderful:

“More than I had hoped for,” said one. “More than I was expecting,” said another. My hopes and expectations were now through the roof. Would my future husband be Chris the tarot reader?

It only took 12 hours for Neo to read the stars and figure out who my soulmate is. In the very detailed description that accompanied my picture, Neo explained that the better the drawing looked, the less accurate it was: each subsequent refinement reduces accuracy by 5-10%, they claimed. Either it was going to look like shit, or it was not going to look like my soulmate. I appreciate the wiggle room here as much as Neo does, I’m sure.

In the description of my future husband, Neo told me he would “fear nothing”, be “socially responsible”, and have many friends. “This may make you feel neglected sometimes,” Neo warned.

The image Neo sent was of Mr Darcy, who has one friend and fears many things.

I am not a professional soulmate artist but I strongly suspect this drawing is a filter over a photograph. Unfortunately I can’t find this handsome young man via reverse image search – if you’re out there, please contact me so we can elope.

A quick and detailed service but, I suspect, no magic powers involved. Three stars.

Gig 3: A spell to get out of debt

Yes, I paid a stranger on the internet to get me out of debt. Yes, this internet stranger tried to upsell me so I would get into more debt to relieve my debt. Unfortunately for shilohcyrus7, I spent all my spare cash on cryptocurrency and only had enough for the $8 basic package: a single cast spell that appeals to the law of attraction, the great spirit, and the ever-abundant universe.

The debt I would like addressed: my $40,000 student loan, and the $250 I owe my sister for an Airbnb. It was a big ask, but my doubts were irrelevant: “Your faith would be nice to have, but is not required,” said Cyrus, who claimed to represent something called the “12th Council SW7” and its Ascended Masters. At 3pm Eastern Standard Time (USA), on Monday May 30, my spell was cast “with positive energy and love”. Only hours later, I received an email from the IRD: a notice of direct credit. Yes, the Ascended Masters themselves had got me a tax refund.

I received $220 within 12 hours of purchasing this spell, and cannot wait to see more abundance manifest. In their confirmation of spellcasting, the council implored me to make a public declaration. “If you declare your current need or future wish as if it has already taken place, you will no longer be mastered by lack, loss, misfortune, problems or anything else.”

I am publicly declaring here: I have no problems. I do not have a student loan. I do not have an urge to buy Bitcoins.

Paid for itself 15 times over, five stars.