A Crackdown On Psychic Services

By James Donahue

News reports have been appearing about governments that are adopting ordinances restricting and controlling the business of psychic services that have been growing in popularity.

Even Time Magazine took a look at this issue, noting that the City of Warren, Michigan now has a low on the books requiring fortune tellers to be fingerprinted and to pay an annual $150 fee for a license, plus $10 for a police background check, before they can practice their craft.

The Time story said the Warren ordinance is among a growing number of such laws going into effect in towns and townships not only in the United States but in Europe designed to regulate a growing number of “psychic” businesses that include palmists, fortune readers, astrologers and mystics who are operating storefront shops or working on the Internet and making a living on their trade.

Warren officials say the ordinance is an attempt to “weed out the tricksters.” The implication here is clear. The law makers of Warren, clearly influenced by the Christian agenda, either do not believe in psychic functioning or they worry that the field of practicing psychics has been infected by crooks and slight-of-hand artists who will do anything to make a fast buck.

Indeed, both problems exist.

In Salem, Massachusetts, the old city remembered for the infamous witch trials, adopted an ordinance in 2007 that not only requires “readers” to be licensed, but to practice only in their own homes. They are prohibited from operating from storefronts or at public gatherings.

The new Salem law replaces a previous ordinance that was designed to drive psychics out of town. The quest for the tourist dollar, however, apparently brought about the change in the law. City promoters have been working to promote Salem as “Witch City,” a family-friendly place and an arts and culture seaport.

According to stories in the BBC, mediums and spiritualists in European Union countries are facing new Consumer Protection Regulations designed to protect the public from tricksters that promise good fortune, talking to the dead and magical healing. The laws make it possible for such practitioners to face legal action from disgruntled customers.

The spiritualists are now forced to issue disclaimers in promotional. They have to say they are conducting scientific experiments and results are not guaranteed. The only way to get safely around the EU rule is to offer the psychic service without charge.

The Time story raises the question of how to draw the line between reasonable safeguards and “oppressive control over speech and commerce.

Indeed, this is a problem when people with natural psychic gifts attempt to use these gifts for the benefit of others. We once knew a talented psychic who believed that such gifts were never to be used for personal gain, and that may be true.

There also is a belief that all humans have the ability for telepathic communications, self healing, going out of the body and communicating with spiritual forces on the “other side,” but that most of us have either forgotten these abilities, or been prohibited by outside forces from using them.

If the story is true that we have been forced into an artificial materialistic world and a form of enslavement by alien forces that control governments, money and power, then it should be no surprise that those of us who are waking up and discovering our natural psychic talents are now being controlled by laws on how we can use them.