Key figures: About 3 in 10 U.S. adults (30%) consult astrology, tarot cards or a fortune teller at least once a year, and 40% say they believe in psychics, according to Pew Research Center. Yet only 1% rely a lot on these practices for major decisions, and controlled experiments have not found reliable evidence of psychic ability.
Below you will find every psychic statistic with its year and a link to the original survey, report or court record, grouped by topic. Jump to: How many people consult astrology, tarot and psychics · Why people use them · Belief in astrology · Belief in astrology in the UK · How many people believe in psychics · Belief in communicating with the dead · Communicating with the dead: UK · Reincarnation · Psychic industry size · Tarot statistics · Astrology app statistics · Psychic scam statistics · What science says about psychic ability · How to cite.
Psychic statistics at a glance
- 30% of U.S. adults consult astrology/horoscopes, tarot cards or a fortune teller at least once a year. (Pew Research Center, 2024)
- Four in ten U.S. adults believe in psychics (40%), and about six in ten hold at least one of four New Age beliefs. (Pew Research Center, 2017 survey)
- Nearly half of U.S. adults (48%) believe in psychic or spiritual healing, the most widely held of eight paranormal beliefs Gallup tested. (Gallup, 2025)
- 27% of U.S. adults believe in astrology, statistically unchanged from 29% in 2017. (Pew Research Center, 2024)
- The U.S. psychic services industry is worth an estimated $2.3 billion in 2026, after growing at a 5.5% CAGR over 2020-2025. (IBISWorld, 2026)
- In the 'Miss Cleo' psychic hotline case, operators agreed to forgive an estimated $500 million in consumer charges and pay $5 million to the FTC. (Federal Trade Commission, 2002)
How many people consult astrology, tarot and psychics
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 30% of U.S. adults consult astrology/horoscopes, tarot cards or a fortune teller at least once a year. | 2024 (survey Oct. 21-27, 2024; n=9,593) | Pew Research Center |
| 28% of U.S. adults consult astrology or a horoscope at least once or twice a year. | 2024 | Pew Research Center |
| About 1 in 10 U.S. adults (11%) consult tarot cards at least once a year. | 2024 | Pew Research Center |
| 6% of U.S. adults consult a fortune teller at least once or twice a year. | 2024 | Pew Research Center |
| Nearly a quarter of Americans ages 18-29 consult tarot cards at least once a year, and 14% of adults under 30 consult a fortune teller. | 2024 | Pew Research Center |
| About half of LGBT adults (54%) consult astrology or a horoscope at least annually, and 33% consult tarot cards. | 2024 | Pew Research Center |
Why people use them
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 20% of U.S. adults use astrology, tarot or fortune tellers mostly 'just for fun', while 10% do so mainly because they believe the practices give helpful insights. | 2024 | Pew Research Center |
| Just 1% of U.S. adults rely a lot on astrology, tarot or fortune tellers when making major life decisions (another 5% rely a little). | 2024 | Pew Research Center |
Belief in astrology
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 27% of U.S. adults believe in astrology, statistically unchanged from 29% in 2017. | 2024 (vs. 2017) | Pew Research Center |
| 43% of U.S. women ages 18-49 believe in astrology (women overall 35%, men overall 18%). | 2024 | Pew Research Center |
| 55% of U.S. adults say they do not believe in astrology. | 2025 (May 1-18, 2025) | Gallup |
| Only 8% of Britons and 14% of Americans believe horoscopes can predict the future. | 2015 | YouGov |
Belief in astrology in the UK
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 23% of Britons say astrology is at least probably real. | 2025 (article published July 22, 2025) | YouGov |
How many people believe in psychics
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Nearly half of U.S. adults (48%) believe in psychic or spiritual healing, the most widely held of eight paranormal beliefs Gallup tested. | 2025 | Gallup |
| 39% of U.S. adults believe in ghosts. | 2025 | Gallup |
| Since 2001, belief in psychic/spiritual healing and in clairvoyance has each fallen 6 points, and belief in telepathy 7 points. | 2001-2025 | Gallup |
| In 2005, 41% of Americans believed in ESP, 26% in clairvoyance and 73% believed in at least one of 10 paranormal items. | 2005 (June 6-8, 2005) | Gallup |
| Four in ten U.S. adults believe in psychics (40%), and about six in ten hold at least one of four New Age beliefs. | 2017 survey (published Oct. 2018) | Pew Research Center |
| 17.2% of Americans believe fortune tellers and psychics can foresee the future. | 2018 | Chapman University |
Belief in communicating with the dead
These beliefs often surface after a loss. If you are grieving, our gentle grief reading and the encyclopedia entry on mediumship explain what people believe and what research shows.
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 42% of U.S. adults believe it is true that the dead can communicate with the living. | 2023 | Pew Research Center |
| 53% of Americans say they have been visited by a dead family member in a dream or in some other form. | 2023 (March 27-April 2, 2023; n=5,079) | Pew Research Center |
Communicating with the dead: UK
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| One in five Britons (20%) believe it may be possible to really communicate with the dead. | 2025 | YouGov |
Reincarnation
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| About one-quarter of U.S. adults say it is definitely or probably true that the dead can be reincarnated. | 2023 | Pew Research Center |
Psychic industry size
Industry-size psychic statistics are estimates from market researchers, not official government counts, so treat them as orders of magnitude.
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The U.S. psychic services industry is worth an estimated $2.3 billion in 2026, after growing at a 5.5% CAGR over 2020-2025. (estimate) | 2026 (estimate) | IBISWorld |
| There are an estimated 103,000 psychic services businesses in the U.S., up at a 2.4% CAGR between 2020 and 2025. (estimate) | 2025-2026 (estimate) | IBISWorld |
Tarot statistics
There is no public count of tarot decks sold each year; the best available evidence comes from publishers and crowdfunding platforms. If you want to learn the cards themselves, start with our 78 tarot card meanings.
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Games Systems said tarot deck sales doubled in five years and tripled in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. | 2016-2021 (reported Dec. 2021) | The Seattle Times / Associated Press |
| Kickstarter backers pledged about $21.7 million to tarot projects over 10 years, with 69% of pledges made in 2020 or 2021. | 2011-2021 | The Seattle Times / Associated Press |
Astrology app statistics
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Astrology app Co-Star had over 20 million downloads and had been downloaded by a quarter of all U.S. women ages 18-25 when it raised a $15M Series A. | 2021 | Axios |
| Astra was the most downloaded astrology app in the U.S. between January and November 2025, ahead of Co-Star. | 2025 (Jan-Nov) | Statista (data: AppMagic) |
Psychic scam statistics
Most readers who pay for a reading are not defrauded, but the largest documented cases show how much money fear-based psychic schemes can take. Use our psychic reading cost calculator before paying per minute.
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| In the 'Miss Cleo' psychic hotline case, operators agreed to forgive an estimated $500 million in consumer charges and pay $5 million to the FTC. | 2002 | Federal Trade Commission |
| A 'Maria Duval' psychic mass-mailing fraud took more than $175 million from more than 1.3 million U.S. victims; its operator got 10 years in prison. | 1994-2014 (sentenced 2024) | U.S. Department of Justice |
| Fort Lauderdale 'psychic' Rose Marks was convicted in a $25 million fraud scheme. | 2013 | U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Florida |
What science says about psychic ability
Researchers disagree sharply here. Large pre-registered replications have found no effect, while meta-analyses by parapsychologists report small positive effects that mainstream scientists attribute to methodological problems. Our guide are psychic readings real? explains the debate in plain language.
| Statistic | Data year | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Seven replication experiments with 3,289 participants found an average effect size of d = 0.04 for Bem's precognition effect, no different from zero. | 2012 | Galak, LeBoeuf, Nelson & Simmons (via Zenodo) |
| A parapsychology meta-analysis of 29 ganzfeld telepathy studies (1,498 trials) reported a 32.2% hit rate vs. 25% expected by chance; mainstream scientists dispute such results. | 1997-2008 (published 2010) | Storm, Tressoldi & Di Risio |
| A pro-psi meta-analysis of 90 precognition experiments from 33 labs in 14 countries reported a tiny effect size (Hedges' g = 0.09). | 2015 | F1000Research (Bem, Tressoldi, Rabeyron & Duggan) |
What these psychic statistics tell us
Taken together, these psychic statistics point in two directions at once. Interest is broad: astrology, tarot and psychic ideas reach roughly a third of American adults, peak among women and adults under 30, and support a multibillion-dollar service industry. Commitment is shallow: most people say they consult these practices for fun, very few base big decisions on them, and long-running Gallup trend data show belief in clairvoyance, telepathy and psychic healing slowly falling since 2001.
For readers, the practical takeaway is simple. Treat a reading as a prompt for reflection, set a budget before you pay anyone, and walk away from anyone who tells you that you are cursed or that only they can fix your life. If you want to try a reading without paying, our free psychic reading is clearly labeled as AI with cards drawn at random.
How we compiled these psychic statistics
To build this collection of psychic statistics we searched for surveys, industry reports, government records and peer-reviewed studies published by reputable organizations, opened each source and recorded the exact figure, the year the data were collected and a link. We excluded figures we could not read in the original source, paywalled numbers, undated polls and surveys of minors. Estimates are labeled. Survey questions differ between organizations, so figures from different polls should not be compared as if they measured the same thing. Last checked: October 5, 2026.
How to cite these psychic statistics
You are free to use these figures and the chart with attribution under CC BY 4.0. Please link to this page and, for each figure, to its original source. Journalists and researchers are welcome to reuse any psychic statistic here.
The Mystica (2026). Psychic Statistics 2026: Tarot, Astrology and Paranormal Belief. https://www.themystica.com/psychic-statistics/ (accessed [date]).
Download all 35 psychic statistics as CSV (statistic, data year, publisher, source URL).
Frequently asked questions
How many people believe in psychics?
About 4 in 10 U.S. adults (40%) said they believe in psychics in a Pew Research Center survey published in 2018, and 48% believed in psychic or spiritual healing in Gallup's May 2025 poll. Belief in clairvoyance and telepathy has declined slightly since 2001.
How many Americans use tarot cards?
About 11% of U.S. adults consult tarot cards at least once a year, according to Pew Research Center's 2024 survey, and nearly a quarter of adults aged 18 to 29 do. Most say they use tarot, astrology or fortune tellers mainly for fun.
How big is the psychic industry?
IBISWorld estimates the U.S. psychic services industry at about $2.3 billion in 2026, with roughly 103,000 businesses. These are market-research estimates rather than official figures, so treat them as approximate.
Is there scientific evidence for psychic ability?
No reliable evidence has been accepted by mainstream science. A 2012 set of seven replications with 3,289 participants found no precognition effect, while parapsychology meta-analyses report small positive effects that critics attribute to methodological issues.
Are psychic scams common?
Most readings are not fraud, but large cases exist. The FTC's "Miss Cleo" settlement forgave about $500 million in charges, and the U.S. Justice Department says a "Maria Duval" mail scheme took more than $175 million from 1.3 million victims.