Here in Britain many are up in arms over the government’s decision to repeal the Fraudulent Mediums Act. Last month a petition with over 10,000 names was delivered to Downing Street in protest, demanding that the existing law be left in place. The signatures, however, didn’t persuade the government to shelve its plans and the act has been stricken down. So now what?

If you believe what you read, psychics, mediums and even healers should be running for cover. Litigation could be coming from any direction. Gaol might follow. Doom and gloom definitely. Worse? Highly likely according to many sources. Reporters in reputable newspapers have made their own predictions – that psychics will soon face lawsuits. While I'm not a practising lawyer, I do have something of a legal background, so I decided to do some digging to try to uncover whether the situation is really that bad.

For those outside of Britain, let’s start with a bit of background. The Fraudulent Mediums Act was enacted to replace the Witchcraft Act of 1735. The latter made all acts of divination and fortunetelling as well as communication with spirits illegal, punishable by fines and imprisonment. However, in 1951 that changed.

The across-the-board prohibition was repealed with the Fraudulent Mediums Act, which made it law that no medium or clairvoyant could make money by the use of trickery or deception. Anyone alleging such fraud would have to prove their case — as in the case in most litigation. Such was the state of the law until this year.

With a stated goal of bringing UK legislation in line with EU directives, the British government announced that it was abolishing a number of laws, including the Fraudulent Mediums Act. The legislation enacting the repeal is the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

The change that has provoked the loudest outcry has been the fact that under the new consumer protection legislation the burden is now squarely with the defendant. In other words, if challenged a medium would have to prove themselves genuine – or so many in the Spiritualist community have asserted. But would it? What does this law really state? Who is it aimed at? Do mediums, as many have suggested, now have to claim that readings are “scientific experiments”?

Having read the legislation along with the guidance that the government provided to accompany it, I have to say that I feel that this is a storm in a teacup. In my opinion, the people whom this law will stop deserved to be stopped!

This legislation has been enacted to protect consumers from unscrupulous practices. It’s targeting people making wild claims and duping people into making purchases under fraudulent circumstances. Moreover, it’s intended to catch people making invitations to tender – not psychics giving readings. The only way I could see any psychic being caught under this law would be if they put something on their website like this – “buy a reading with psychic Sam and you’re guaranteed to be happy, lose all that extra weight, find the perfect lover and become a millionaire”. It’s this sort of claim and blatant misrepresentation that the law is referring to.

Additionally, the law refers to what an average person would do based on the information. So if a psychic’s client sells their house based on their reading, the test put forth in the law is whether an “average” person would have taken that course of action. In the example above, I would argue absolutely not. Even though I’m a professional psychic, I appreciate that the “average” person out there doesn’t put sufficient weight on their readings that they would make major decisions in their lives based SOLEY on a reading. Are there people out there who would or do? Of course there are. But I would imagine that a successful argument could be made along the lines that such a person is NOT representative of the AVERAGE person and therefore is not covered by the legislation.

But most importantly, psychics, mediums and healers need to understand that these consumer protection regulations do not give an individual a cause of action. What I mean by that is that a client could not sue a psychic, medium or a healer under this law. The government has given that power to an enforcement agency.

In such a scenario, it would happen like this. Let’s say a psychic gives me a reading. I wanted to claim that the psychic made a misrepresentation or acted in a deceptive or fraudulent manner in the course of the reading. I could not get a lawyer and sue the psychic. Based on the new legislation, I could only go to the Office of Fair Trading and lodge a complaint. They would then assess my complaint to determine whether it was worthy of pursuing. If so, it would be the standards agency coming after the psychic, not the client.

The highest fine under the new law is £5,000 and/or 2 years in prison. It might sound like a lot but you have to consider the context of and purpose behind the legislation. Such penalties would only be imposed on the really, really, really bad, bad, bad people making lots and lots of money off innocent victims. Here I’m referring to the likes of the psychic postal scams.

If a psychic, medium or healer did something egregious, there has always been legislation under which you could sue. That’s not changed. If they sexually assaulted, coerced or made some wild and ridiculous misrepresentation to a client, there have always been protections in place – regardless of the Fraudulent Mediums Act. So, I say again that in a way nothing’s really changed.

What arguably has changed is that perhaps the government will now have sufficient motivation and teeth to go after those who are truly engaged in fraud, trickery and deception. After all, those bad apples create misery for their victims and make being a legitimate psychic a much tougher job.

In any case, I don’t see how these new consumer protections will impact genuine and legitimate psychics, mediums and healers. If anyone out there has read the regulations and spots something that I’ve missed, please drop me a line. But from what I’ve read, I should think that the community should welcome such protections for our clients.

For those interested, you can read the new law here and peruse the accompanying guidelines here.

With my readings, I aim not just to be accurate but to guide my clients so that they are in a stronger position of knowledge and power after the reading than they were before it.

If you’ve never had such a reading, then you owe it to yourself to book a reading with me. Check out my range of psychic services here. A reading with me could bring the answers, advice and insight that have been eluding you for far too long.

As always, feel free to email me with any comments, suggestions or feedback. And don’t forget to join me and the rest of the PsychicBridges community in the Psychic Chat forums!

Thanks again for all your support and until next week,

Kindest regards,

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