I’m harbouring a magical elephant (From Worcester News)

Is there anybody there?!!

Well in a society where the RC church is claiming that miracles really happen why should we pick on the spiritualists?

Flip the bottom lip, Bob - it helps, my friend, it helps.

Tell me, also - why do psychics need to ask your name?

Probably the same reason doctors knock on your hospital door - they are going to see you naked, anyway!

I believe in miracles that one day the people of this once great Nation in stead of sleep walking down the road to extinction will wake up.And become free of that cesspit called the EU.Some times I see pink elephants that after having chat with my psychic

@ Logik,
I'm here.


@ Forthright,
I do think the law should be consistent on this issue, and indeed the longer established religions make equally daft claims. However they don't tend to make obvious charges for services in the same way that mediums owning shops or working in tents or operating phonelines do. (I'm not sure whether actual Spiritualist Churches charge or not.) I can imagine in an interesting test case in which donations made at services where the Eucharist was received might look suspiciously like payment for a fraudulent promise, but of course it's highly unlikely to produce results. That doesn't mean that the new consumer regulations aren't a good thing though. Perhaps they can't be applied to traditional churches because they don't overtly charge for services (with the possible exception of exorcism?) however these regulations may still help to fight an insidious and growing industry of magic-peddlers.


@ Common Sense,
Bottom lip?
They have to ask your name, they also can't do anything that has an immediate quantifiable result. They can rake up information on individuals when they have time to research, and they can "cold read" a room full of people, and they can "heal" people with less tangible diseases, but they can't guess my PIN or claim James Randi's famous prize or heal amputees or the mentally ill and so on. The limits of their so-called "powers" are identical to the boundary at which things become truly empirically measurable.


@ Cromwell,
Not sure what your last sentence means, but I like to assess legislation - just like I like to assess truth claims or scientific theories or works of art - on the basis of their own merit, not on the basis of where they come from. It matters not a jot to me that this is an EU regulation. It could be a decree from Mars and I would still think it made sense, in and of itself, to apply the same protections to consumers of "psychic" services as they receive in other areas of the law.

Oops sorry that last sentence should have read." Some times I see pink Elephants when Iv had a beer or two with my SIDE KICK" Sorry