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Psychics forsee big trouble over new laws
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Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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LONDON (Reuters) - Fortune-tellers, mediums and spiritual healers will march on Downing Street on Friday to protest against new laws they fear will lead to them being "persecuted and prosecuted."
Organizers say that replacing the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 with new consumer protection rules will remove key legal protection for "genuine" mediums.
They think skeptics might bring malicious prosecutions to force spiritualists to prove in court that they can heal people, see into the future or talk to the dead.
Psychics also fear they will have to give disclaimers describing their services as entertainment or as scientific experiments with unpredictable results.
"If I'm giving a healing to someone, I don't want to have to stand there and say I don't believe in what I'm doing," Carole McEntee-Taylor, a healer who co-founded the Spiritual Workers Association, told Reuters.
The group will deliver a petition with 5,000 names to the prime minister's office, although Gordon Brown is away in the United States.
With the changes expected to come into force next month, spiritualists have faced a barrage of headlines gleefully suggesting that they should have seen it coming.
But many don't see the funny side. They say the new rules will shift the responsibility of proving they are not frauds from prosecutors and onto them.
"By repealing the Act, the onus will go round the other way and we will have to prove we are genuine," said McEntee-Taylor, from Essex. "No other religion has to do that."
The British Humanist Association, a charity which campaigns against religion and supernatural beliefs, said stricter regulations were overdue because the current laws don't work.
"It is misleading for spiritualists to claim that, as religious' practitioners they should not be regulated under consumer laws," said Chief Executive Hanne Stinson.
"The psychic industry is huge and lucrative and it exploits some very vulnerable, and some very gullible, people with claims for which there is no scientific evidence."
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If Jesus was selling miracle faith healings a a few hundred quid a pop, then yes.
My thoughts too. Then they could have protested before the government men even thought about it. Is this fact enough to prove their falshood i wonder.
:thumb:
I agree there should be some kind of protectection for the vulnerable, it is my experience that some people don't get enough help from conventional sources and often turn to alternatives some of which may not be very helpful. However if everything had to be given the stamp of approval by scientificaly proven methods that would rule out religion too.
Religion's purpose isn't to make money. Theoretically, at least. It doesn't have the same payment/service setup of a spiritual healer. I think a much more interesting question would be how this will effect the role of certain alternative treatments on the NHS, which are equally devoid of evidence as so-called faith healers.
which is fine, it's about fraudsters ie people who make money from it
do you get those spritualist healer things through your door from people who claim they can solve and help your problems, financially as well as emotionally
it's there to deal with them
the old law, was the one that replaced the withcraft laws from the 17th century, and to date i believe noone has been prosecuted from it, because you had to prove that person knew they were a fake, which is impossible to prove without the person admitting to knowing they're a fake
Religion is about cause ...effect and finale. IT's ABOUT AN INTELIGENT designer with a plan...MAN. oopsps
What realy gets me about all this stuff ...more so the talking to dead relatives ...is that the people who believe your grandma is trying to contact you also believe the theory of evolution.
No purpose no design. Fine.
But then on top of this accident ...a place was accidently created ...theres that word again ... created ...a place was accidently created ...where our thinking longing feeling communicating minds can go to ...while the physical bit turns to dust ...come on!
Scientology?
You could postulate a myriad of ridiculous hypothesis with the qualifier "for all we know".
The universe is just the ejaculate of a giant randy space-monkey.....for all we know.
Presumably the reason it's not a recognised religion in Europe. At least some of it.
Worra load o bollox!