An Unhappy Medium

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Fraudulent Mediums Act, its imminent repeal, and the proposed replacement. The gist of it is as follows: the existing Act superseded the perhaps mildly archaic Witchcraft Act of 1735 (which in turn succeeded the whole “burn the witch!” nonsense), and essentially states that it is illegal to offer psychic services that don’t work unless the psychic decides that they don’t want to be prosecuted: all they have to do is say that they genuinely believe that they can contact the dead and there’s really nothing much an angry punter can do about that. The idea was to only prosecute those mediums who intended to defraud, but as a result, almost nobody was ever convicted under the Act. The new law will be a more general set of rules, that will effectively shift the burden of proof to the person who thinks they see dead people, which is of course exactly where it should be. The new regulations aren’t aimed at psychics specifically, but they do affect them. Article 5, rule 3 discusses

Commercial practices which are likely to materially distort the economic behaviour only of a clearly identifiable group of consumers who are particularly vulnerable to the practice or the underlying product because of their mental or physical infirmity, age or credulity in a way which the trader could reasonably be expected to foresee

It reminds me a little of catch-22: psychics will be allowed to sell their services only to those consumers who aren’t credulous enough to want them.

The talk mostly centres around whether or not this is an overreaction. It’s clear that many people are conned into losing a lot of money to unscrupulous mediums, but equally it’s generally agreed that it would be in some way a shame to lose, and a problem to litigate, all forms of nonsense. There doesn’t seem to be any practical way to say you can pretend to have psychic powers but only if you don’t sell your services to the vulnerable – it’s hard to imagine what definition of “vulnerable” would fail to include someone that gullible. I feel like this is something I should have an opinion about but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to give a shit.

I’m more-or-less always in favour of generalised laws over specific ones: a well-written generalised law can not only catch a crook, it can catch an entire class of crook, and it can catch a whole raft of future crooks committing crimes that haven’t even been invented yet – or even common crimes that haven’t been identified as crimes yet. That these laws have unforeseen consequences is their greatest strength.

A group called the “Spiritualist Workers’ Association” (really) is predictably angry about this. They say, and this is really my primary reason for not giving a shit if their whole industry gets banned,

It would seem that saying that it is a scientific experiment in which the outcome cannot be satisfactorily predicted is one way to stay within the legislation. Another is to class it as entertainment. ... Mediums and healers believe they are communicating with Spirit. We do not believe we are conducting a scientific experiment. To have to stand up and say so is a denial of our beliefs. It is also sending out a message to the public that we do not believe what we are saying and doing. If we don’t have the courage to stand up and say that we believe what we are doing then how can we expect the public to take us seriously?

Oh, grow up. You don’t believe any such thing. If you believed in it, then you’d have done some scientific tests long ago, proved it, collected a million dollars from James Randi and a Nobel Prize, and then gone right ahead and made an advert saying “Madame Spurious is scientifically proven to predict the future! 95% accurate in trials!” This would also protect you from any liability under the new regulations. There’s no downside – I have emailed the SWA to suggest this approach, and I’ll let you know if and when they reply. (There’s always a chance that, like some of the more demented homeopaths and other quacks, they believe that it’s true but won’t register in a scientific test, but you can’t legislate around the beliefs of morons, even if it was your crappy school system that did for them – seriously, if science education was better then a lot of these problems would go away.) Essentially, they’re arguing that because they think their service is effective, that should be enough for punters, the government, and the courts. I find it hard to imagine the anarchy that would erupt if all industries were regulated that way, but I certainly wouldn’t like to end up in a hospital in that country – not least because these same psychics also dabble in a bit of so-called “psychic healing”: a trade where you find someone who is seriously ill and probably scared and out of options, and you charge them for a cure that even a child could tell you doesn’t work. The contempt I hold for these people is more than enough that I would actually be quite amused to see them all imprisoned.

The ringleader of all this seems to be “Carole McEntee-Taylor, a spiritual healer and general secretary of the newly founded Spiritual Workers’ Association”. She further demonstrated that they’re all a bunch of fakes when she said this, in a speech to her new Association:

Like many people we knew nothing about the proposed changes in legislation until we read a letter from Stephen Watson in the Psychic News in November. We were extremely concerned about the changes, but also that most people in the spiritual movement didn’t seem to know about it.

I can see how that would be concerning. (They really should have cottoned on by now to the fact that unless they start complaining the week before the story breaks they’ll get nothing but sarcastic responses. Honestly, these people can’t even read the past.)

As mediums, when you are giving messages you believe that you are talking to the loved ones of those who have passed over and that when you sit in meditation you are talking to your guides. As healers you believe that when you are giving healing you are channelling energy from spirit. Do you believe that when you give messages, readings and healing you are conducting a scientific experiment or that it is just entertainment? OK. So if we all believe that what we are doing is communicating in some way with Spirit why shouldn’t we say so?

Because it’s not true! What part of that is hard to accept? If GlaxoSmithKline believe that their new drug cures the common cold they don’t get to say it works until they’ve proven it. If Sony think their new TV works but it turns out that it doesn’t, they’re still liable. What the fuck makes you lot so special? Apparently nothing:

If we believe in what we are saying then why should we be made to deny these beliefs? If we believe in what we are doing then why should we feel that we have to hide? If any other group was made to stand up publicly and deny their beliefs there would be an outcry. Why should we be any different?

This is a common brain failure: it would of course be a terrible thing if anyone was made to deny their beliefs (or lack thereof). It happens, mainly in Islamic countries, and it’s just awful. But this isn’t the same as that: this is simply saying that if you want to take people’s money on the basis of those beliefs you should have some evidence to back them up with. That’s not unreasonable in the least. And I bet McEntee-Taylor would be the first to complain if her husband was killed by a maverick doctor with a hunch.

The SWA will continue to campaign to be the governing body because we believe that the best way to carry on working for spirit is to stand up and say so. We are proud to be spiritual workers. We are proud of our beliefs and we will not deny them. We will do this for our children and their children and for all those people who do believe.

Or “victims”, as they’re alternatively known. Putting a group of people who think they have psychic powers in charge of regulating psychics sounds like the thinking of Havelock Vetinari to me – which works on the Discworld but here would be almost literally the blind leading the blind.

This is, of course, just a symptom of the far wider problem that people seem these days to think that it’s okay, even commendable, to believe in total bullshit and act all offended if anyone should presume to question it, but the utter hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty and vacuity demonstrated by McEntee-Taylor and her band of merry morons is so offensive that I think it warrants a special mention.

McEntee-Taylor is trying to justify her nonsense by calling “spiritualism” a religion. She thinks that if it’s labelled “religion” then that makes it okay to scam people. For my part, I’m positively looking forward to the first time someone uses the new regulations to prosecute a religious organisation for soliciting donations on the basis of totally unfounded myths – unless of course it has a religious exemption. I didn’t see one but it wouldn’t surprise me much. That kind of exemption would be pretty moronic – if you need it then you shouldn’t have it – but such is the over-privileged state religious nonsense finds itself in.