A Brazilian Oxford University grad has left academia to earn a living as a fortune teller.

Nayara Moura, 25, who hails from the municipality of Divinopolis in the south-eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, racked up three academic degrees before making the unorthodox career move.

After completing her undergraduate degree in History in Brazil, Moura did a master’s degree specialising in World War II History at the University of Oxford. She then gained another master’s degree in Gender Equality from the Esneca Business School in Lleida in Spain.

However, the young woman decided to ditch academia and now earns a living as a clairvoyant.

She boldly claimed to local media: “My mission is to save lives. Everyone believes what they want, but I know that many people are saved by my consultations. I am honest, I invest in my training as a fortune teller and I have clients all over the world.”

Moura does not regret her previous academic endeavours, telling local media: “I wouldn’t say that what I did before was for nothing. I was happy being an academic and publishing articles, and now I’m happy doing tarot readings.”

Moura has posted a TikTok video, viewed over 400,000 times, in which she says: “I was criticised a lot, so I had to take a stand. I said, ‘people, this is jealousy because you won’t achieve what I’ve achieved, you won’t travel where I’ve travelled, study where I’ve studied’.”

She told local media: “The truth is there’s a lot of prejudice against fortune tellers. If I had dropped everything to open a bakery, no one would have been against it.”

According to Moura, who charges BRL 700 (GBP 103) per hour of consultation: “My ‘cancellation’ gave me more money, more followers on social media, and a busy schedule.

“I manage to live well with what I currently earn, but I also make investments. I’ve already spent over BRL 7,000 (GBP 1,028) on tarot books. In 2020 alone, I did four courses on the subject, which cost BRL 8,900 (GBP 1,307).

“It’s a difficult niche, but I’ve always stood out. I recommended that a client take out health insurance, and she suffered an accident afterwards and thanked me. I get emotional remembering it.

“I also saw in the cards that another person shouldn’t buy a new house. She listened to me. Months later, the pandemic came, and the money she didn’t spend on the property ended up being used to pay employees during quarantine.”

Moura has revealed that she does not actively seek clients, nor does she compel them to follow her advice. She told local media: “People knock at my door, I don’t go to anyone’s door.”

Moura has been fortune telling for seven years but her story was surprising even before tarot became her full-time occupation.

She revealed she got into both Oxford and Harvard despite hardly speaking any English, eventually opting to study at the former.

She said of her studies at Oxford: “I didn’t speak English well, I didn’t understand any of the content. I’d record the classes and listen to them later at home. In the end I got the certificate of completion.”

Though Moura’s academic background and her current vocation seem miles apart, the young woman believes they are complimentary.

She told local media: “There’s the vocational part, yes, but without studies I wouldn’t have got anywhere.”

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