CORPORATE Australia is turning to the occult in a bid to boost its bottom line, employing psychics and witches as alternative business consultants.
Self-employed professionals, small business owners and executives in major, publicly listed companies are among those joining an expanding network of "covens" organised by businesswoman and self-described witch, Stacey Demarco.
The former public relations manager turned pagan and author of There's A Witch In The Boardroom said people were looking for new ways to combine spiritual values with their material success.
"There's a belief out there that you can't be spiritual and make money at the same time," Ms Demarco said.
"Our spiritual practice isn't like that."
Elsewhere, Sydney-based psychic and former lawyer, Alana Fairchild, is providing "intuitive diagnostics" sessions to large corporations, focusing on personnel issues.
Charging up to $385 per hour, she uses intuition to detect problems or "blockages" within the organisational structure.
"For me, it's all about relationships," she said.
"It's helping people go in and pick the places where they want to make changes."
She has encountered resistance to her ideas but does not believe it is any greater than the normal stumbling blocks faced by conventional business consultants.
"I think that comes with any kind of change process," Ms Fairchild said.
Fellow psychic Sally de Beche advises clients on major financial decisions based on "holographic images" of the business cycle.
"I see where the peaks are in a cycle and the best times to sell," she said.
"I think people are becoming more and more aware of what exists and more inclined to try something if the old methods aren't working."
Nick Plavsic, who runs Nest Furniture and Homewares, an importing business in Newtown, has been seeing Ms de Beche for 10 years.
"I wouldn't live or die by it but in business you need every bit of information you can get," he said.
Ms Demarco's coven meetings cover commercial issues as well as spiritual questions and also provide networking opportunities.
She dismissed comparisons with Freemasonry, arguing covens were open to all, regardless of sex.
However, like Freemasonry, coven members are reluctant to be identified and their activities remain shrouded in mystery.
"We're quite secretive because of the misunderstanding about who we are and what we do," Ms Demarco said.
In the past few years she has helped establish three large covens in Sydney and runs workshops on "business magic" from her offices in North Sydney.
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