A psychic knows things about the present or past through extraordinary means.
A fortune teller knows the future.
Naturally, a fraudster would claim to be a true believer, so I’d imagine the burden of proof would be very difficult to obtain. Have there been any significant cases which resulted in a conviction?
Also, it’s my personal experience (and confirmed by the NatGeo show) that witchcraft & black magic only work if the “victim” of the spell also believes it works. Some people have become deathly ill or even gone crazy after believing they’ve been “hexed”, regardless of whether any “real” magic was used against them.
I predicted you would say that. 
South Africa:
Note for the mods re. large quote: SA laws are not copyrighted.
They should be prosecuted for adding the pretentious “K” to the end of “Magic.”
In Britain, a woman was convicted under the Witchcraft Act 1735 in 1945. It’s quite an interesting story in itself, having to do with wartime security. The Act itself was repealed in 1951
Except that the 1735 Witchcraft Act had repealed all the English and Scottish laws against witchcraft, replacing them with the offence of fraudulently pretending to have supernatural powers. In other words, just like the Canadian law cited by Malthus.
Absolutely. It would be up to the prosecutor to prove that the magician intended to defraud.
Yeah, as noted, the section criminalizes fraudulent intent and action. The problem here is really no different from that of any other sort of fraud - the only difficulty is proving that the wizard or witch or whoever is only pretending to have powers as a tool of fraud. In theory that could be difficult, but in practice it is often not really too difficult to see whether someone is acting as a scam artist, preying on the vulnerable, or acting as a legitimate “spiritual advisor” or whatever. The context of their actions often demonstrates the difference beyond any reasonable doubt. Your legitimate spiritual advisor usually doesn’t suck their “client’s” life savings out of them …
Here’s an article of someone recently charged under this section:
Per the mentions of Saudi Arabia upthread, Islamic law is pretty harsh on witchcraft and I presume that wherever Sharia is enforced witchcraft is punished.
Palestine: http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME.XEF71828.html
Originally meant to distinguish occultism from prestidigitation.
I dunno, just thought it might be an interesting story for someone to read. Sorry for not being rigorous enough.
Convince me of this. Until then, I will consider the final “K” to indicate pretention on the part of the user.
Debunk.
(Note that that source points out that although it’s widely believed that Crowley was referring to stage magic/conjuring/prestidigitation when he spoke of “counterfeits” of the “true science of the Magi” which he preferred to distinguish with the archaic spelling “Magick”, Crowley himself never actually defined what he meant by those “counterfeits”.)
Not much of a debunk
May not be much of a debunk, but the wiki entry isn’t much of a case either. I’m willing to accept that it was an outdated spelling from the days before Dr. Johnsons good work. But to accept it’s validity based on one old quack is hardly better.
That’s the layman definition, but what is the definition under the law? I can’t find anything in [Wisconsin] State Statutes the differentiates the two.
Yeah cite? Which is not a news report. A Statute perhaps. Case law? No fan of Saudi Arabia, but I have a lurking suspicion that the cases involve fraud and extortion. I know for a fact that across the middle east and S Asia it is not unknown for people to consult “sorcerers” and get advice with respect to their conduct. Snake oil medicine, amulets, curses written on paper do a flourishing business. A few years ago a man in Islamabad was prosecuted after he sold a concoction which was supposed to cure impotence, all it actually did was make people violently sick.
Ok, here’s what I could come up with quik’n’dirty: the actual Quran doesn’t mention the subject but it’s mentioned in the Hadith, the “sayings” attributed to Mohammed. What is condemned is “Al-Naphathati Fi Al-Uquad”, usually translated in English as “Black Magic”. It carries a connotation of trafficing with demons, especially to supernaturally inflict harm on others. A much lesser offence, considered un-Islamic but carrying no specified penalty, is "Istiqsam Bi-Alazlam”, which emcompasses things like fortune telling and what we might call “psychic powers”. Furthermore there are debates over what some call “weak Hadith”, rules that are supposed to take circumstances into account rather than be inflexible iron dictates.