The curtain glows under ceiling lights, and a soft cream-colored screen guards the privacy of clients who slip inside. On a glass panel by the door, bold white letters offer quiet assurance: Shahbaz, Astrologer & Palmist.
Shahbaz Anjum has worked in Shop 2-A inside the Pearl Continental Hotel in Lahore, Pakistan, for 24 years. He does not advertise. Yet rich and poor, believer and skeptic, come to him for luck, direction, a glimpse behind the veil.
“I help people,” Mr. Anjum said. “That’s all. I don’t claim to heal, and I certainly don’t do black magic.”
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He felt compelled to make that distinction as the Pakistani government moves to crack down on occult practices that lawmakers call a threat to the country’s social fabric.
A bill approved by the country’s Senate in March would impose prison terms of up to seven years and thousands of dollars in fines on people who provide a vaguely defined set of supernatural services.
