Returning to Cosa Bolle, when I am in the US and surf the channels late at night, I usually come across at least one televangelist working the audience; I recall one who managed to reinterpret one of Paul's letters to indicate that "God has nothing against wealth -- indeed (looking directly into the camera), he wants us to be wealthy," and followed the conclusion with a pitch. Italy does have some of this sort of thing, but there's a lot more magic -- people who do tarot readings, fiddle with Ouija boards, and so on, dispensing advice and magical fixes to those who call in via a toll (i.e. 900) number, or offering more substantial services in exchange for more substantial fees to be paid in cash.

One of the most popular scams is the sale of winning lottery numbers, and Vanna Marchi and her daughter Stefania, who got their start selling diet potions and hair creams over the airwaves a decade ago, were doing really well with it, because they had worked in a second angle: Hex removal. If a person called to complain that the lotto numbers hadn't worked, they sent back an "evil eye detector" consisting of a half cup or so of salt that the person was to mix into a glass of water. Failure of the salt to dissolve completely meant the Evil Eye, and since it's physically impossible to dissolve a half cup of salt in a cup of water everyone who took the test had the Evil Eye. At which point Vanna & Co. offered to remove it for a fee in the thousands of dollars; if a customer did pay, they kept him or her hooked by "discovering" new problems that required expensive magical cures, and threatening the most dire consequences if the person tried to back out.

Despite occasional complaints to the courts, primarily from relatives of the bilked, their business was growing, and they'd probably still be sending out their salt kits if they hadn't tried to strong arm a grandmotherly lady; rather than pay up she called the Striscia la Notizia, a satirical news broadcast that runs during prime time and has a huge audience. The directors told her to pretend to go along with Vanna's offer, attached a microphone to her phone, and dispatched a reporter with a camera crew. We therefore got to see it all, from the woman being told how to prepare for the magical rite (wear white pajamas to bed, among other things), followed the arrival of the guy who was supposed to pick up the payment, followed by her decision to back out, followed by Stefania's telling her over the phone that she'd never sleep soundly again because of the curses gathering over her head. Extortion is extortion, and not even the deafest of magistrates could ignore this; the wheels of justice began to turn, and now the whole Marchi clan is in jail. According to the Guardie di Finanza, they bilked about 300,000 people, to the tune of 33 million Euros, which is about 30 million dollars.

In a bizarre aftertwist, Vanna wrote to Fausto Bertinotti, the head of the far-left Communist Refoundation party; the letter was leaked to the press, and it turns out she was claiming political persecution: "I come," she wrote, "from a long line of True Communists, while the owner of the channel that ran the story about me (Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister), is right wing," and added that the shut-down of her operation will put people out of work. No official response from Bertinotti, and considering the threats people are saying she used to keep them paying her, her lack of shame is astounding. On the other hand, if she had any shame at all, she wouldn't have been selling "sure fire" lottery numbers.

How big is the magic "business" in Italy, you wonder? According to the statisticians, somewhere between 7 and 8 million Italians visit magicians every year; 60% of the clients are women, on average 50 years old, and the majority never finished high school. The major problems? As one might expect, health, money, and love. Estimates of the number of magicians vary; according to Radio Maria, the Catholic Church's radio station, there are 40,000, while the magicians themselves claim to number 150,000, spread throughout the Peninsula, with a majority (50%) in the North. Big business, by any standard.

And how does this fit in with Italy's being a Catholic country? Well, actually; though the Peninsula has been Christian since the time of the Romans the Church has always had to deal with what are known as credenze popolari, old superstitions and traces of the older pagan religions, which survived primarily among the peasantry, especially in isolated areas. In particular there was (and is) a tremendous fear of the malocchio, the Evil Eye, and many immediately suspect it and take steps to remove it if their luck takes a turn for the worse. For that matter, they also take steps to ward it off; when I was a baby my parents took me to Enna, in inland Sicily (Dad was doing archaeological research), and the workmen at the excavation, devout Catholics all, told him that I should have an earring to protect me from malocchio.

Nor is the large number of magicians in the north (which is traditionally considered more advanced) surprising; during the 50s and 60s millions of poor southerners migrated north to take factory jobs, and their magicians simply followed them, joining those already present.

What is surprising is the hold these charlatans still manage to exert over people even today; one witch justified herself by saying "we give the desperate reason to hope," and that would be fine if they didn't also milk them dry; one of Vanna Marchi's victims turned to prostitution to pay her debts. With any luck, Striscia La Notizia's exposé will help keep others from falling into their clutches.

A presto,
Kyle Phillips
Webweaver, About Italian Cuisine

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