The Medium Test

Great Debates
1

I was watching an eopisode of the shield the other day and the story featured this psychic who had convinced a client to remorgage her house to pay for more sessions. The client believied that the psychic could contact her dead husband and she was willing to pay whatever it took to continue “receiving messages” from him. I think preying on the berieved in this manner is one of the lowest forms of con artistry and I came up with an idea to stop it. The law would make all “psychic” practises of this nature illegal without a license. The only way a medium can get a license is to demonstrate their “talents” under labratory conditions - something no one has ever been able to do. The punishment for practising without a license would be a fine great enough to make it uneconomical to continue practising.

What would be the pros and cons of such a law?

2

Some people will quickly try to apply it to televangelists and it will cause an uproar on First Amendment grounds. Only the Communists will gain.

3

For entertainment purposes only!

4

One problem is that courts sometimes strike down those kinds of laws on First Amendment grounds.

A bigger problem is that, even if you make it against the law to claim to receive messages from someone’s deceased relatives, you still have people wanting to receive messages from their deceased relatives and believing that a medium can get such messages for them. If they can’t go to a legal medium, they might go to an illegal one instead, and it’s going to be even harder for them to get any redress if they are defrauded by an illegal medium. It could even make things worse, because the law would drive out the mediums who respect the law and want to help others, but would not drive out the ones who don’t have any respect for the law or compassion for others.

5

I agree. That will probably happen immediately. Televangelists, particularly faith healers, are an even greater danger than mediums. When someone like Pat Robertson says something like “There’s a woman in Cincinatti with cancer. God is clearing that up right now”, he runs the risk of numerous women in Cincinatti deciding to miss their next chemo appointment because they think Pat was talking about them. Pat doesn’t care, of course, because he’s a con man, but the law still protects him from prosecution. This is clearly evil, but because Pat purports to be a figurehead for an established religion, you can’t infringe on his freedom of speech without contravening the first amendment.

How can we solve this problem? I can think of two ways. The first would be to bite the bullet and simply revise the 1st amendment. Something like “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the non-commercial exercise thereof”. Non-commercial would be defined as “Engagement in for-profit transactions for which the recipient would receive no empirically verifiable commodity”. This would exempt counsellors and psychiatrists whose advice is grounded in behavioural theories with a proven track record of success while, at a stroke, bringing a host of reprehensible practises under the purview of the law. It also wouldn’t infringe on freedom of speech, as such. People could still claim to heal the sick or communicate with the dead provided they didn’t charge for their “services”.

All right thinking people know that mediums trade in lies, and that the televangelist’s blessed vials of holy water aren’t even fit to drink. My proposed revision is far, far, from perfect, but it would prevent mediums and televangelists from bilking the old and sick out of their savings in exchange for nothing but flat out lies and empty promises. It also doesn’t prohibit televangelists from performing certain functions. They could still request voluntary donations for their ministries, they could still serve as spiritual figureheads around which the faithful could congregate, and they could still pretend to speak for God in a general sense.

Still, I know that even if my proposed revision was perfect, it would never, ever fly. The 1st amendment is held in such high esteem that people would object on principle to even the slightest tampering.

The second solution would be to draw a line between mediums and televangelists. It could be argued that, since psychics aren’t endorsed by any recognised religion, they don’t qualify for 1st amendment protections.

My law does provide a way for mediums to continue making money from practising. All they need do is prove their skills under laboratory conditions. If they can do that, there’s no problem. Of course, they can’t do that, but the invitation is open. The licenses and laboratory testing would be free so there would be no reason not to participate. People who go to mediums genuinely believe they can communicate with the dead. They don’t take this on faith, which is why mediums have to go through these silly pantomimes where they pretend to go into trances or feign bodily possession and suchlike. When it becomes clear that nobody is qualifying for certified psychic practitioner licenses, people will hopefully opt for a cheaper kind of self-delusion. Medium’s could also continue to operate without a license provided they didn’t charge for their services.

To be honest, I think mediums fall into two groups: The self-deluded mediums who genuinely believe they can talk to the dead, and the straight-up con artists. The con artists would probably go underground like you say, but there would at least be penalties in place. If charges were brought against them they would have to either (a) prove their abilities under laboratory conditions or (b) prove they weren’t actually engaging in psychic practises. Both outcomes would end up driving away customers.

As for the self-deluded mediums, they’d probably step forward to take the laboratory challenge. They’d end up being quickly disabused of their notions and, while this would undoubtedly hurt, at least they wouldn’t be able to drag any grieving widows down with them.

6

This is a rather callous reaction, but if people are getting conned by fake mediums and psychics, why is it the government’s responsibility? If it’s not psychics, it’s Nigerian bankers, or the latest pyramid scheme or diet craze. There’s a lot of stupid people out there and you won’t stop them from getting scammed. Even in the case of a bereaved spouse, if they could get conned before, they only need another line mentioning that they’re underground to save costs or because the tests are biased or any number of other explanations.

Also, how exactly do you test a psychic? Clearly, countless people still believe in psychics despite the lack of laboratory evidence. Many of the claims, as I understand, revolve around the tests being biased. I seriously doubt you could come up with a test that would both encourage people that it’s a fair test and would convince those who practice being a psychic or use psychics the results are meaningful.

This question really comes down to ethics. If the medium as mentioned in the OP is a con artist, then fine. If the medium legitimately believes he’s a medium, then either the person with whom he was speaking, the dead husband, is an idiot for convincing his wife to mortgage the house to keep talking to him, or the medium himself is unethical for either placing or encouraging a thought like that. So, either the medium was unethical, some of those involved are idiots, or most likely, both.

7

If it’s pink throughout it passes the medium test.

8

Personally, I think that I’ll continue to support free speech, if it’s all the same with you. (Or even if it isn’t.)

But your posts have made me curious. If your ideas were implemented, who would decide what “laboratory conditions” are and what constitutes a “proven track record”? What would be the punishment for saying things that you don’t approve of? Who would be in charge of monitoring individuals to make sure that they didn’t say things you disapproved of?

Also, you are aware that The Shield is a work of fiction, are you not?

9

But there’d be a huge outcry over the government trying to say some religions are “real” and others aren’t, from members of the religions deemed not recognized as well as from civil libertarians.

I think you’ve got too much faith in the rationality of humans. These people want to believe that a medium can tell them that everything is OK with their dead relative. They want to believe that death is not final. That’s a powerful human desire, and people are going to come up with all kinds of rationalizations as to why their medium isn’t a fraud, even if she can’t pass the government test.

Some practice of giving “gifts” to the medium would undoubtedly spring up.

You underestimate the human ability to see what they want to see. Read James Randi’s book Flim Flam for an example. He did laboratory tests on a whole bunch of people who claimed various paranormal powers. He proved that every one of them did not in fact have those powers. I don’t think any of the people who had been claiming paranormal powers accepted that their failure at his tests meant they did not, in fact, have paranormal powers. At least none of them admitted it to him, if they did.

The mediums who can’t perform under laboratory conditions will think of some excuse or other why their powers didn’t work that day. Humans are good at convincing themselves that what they want to believe is right.

10

Many versions of the scams you mention do actually result in federal prosecution. But I think if the scammer uses the appropriate disclaimers (“For entertainment purposes only”, “results not typical”, etc.) they can often stay just within the letter of the law while still ripping people off.

Edited to add: While it’s true that there will always be more scammers to take advantage of people, I still think the government ought to do their best to put the ones they catch in jail. I mean, there will always be more murderers too, but it’s still worth it to try to stop the ones you can stop.

11

Are you similarly opposed to the FDA regulating the speech of drug manufacturers? If someone advertises a pill that they claim cures heart disease, is it a violation of their free speech rights to ask them to provide research to back it up?

12

There’s an important distinction here. It’s one thing to pay $50 for a session with a psychic, or a to buy that nifty exercise routine you saw at 2 AM on HSN, it’s another thing to, as put forth in the OP, remortgage your house because you’re paying thousands of dollars to a medium or because you got scammed by some Nigerian banker. The question is, where do you draw the line.

For instance, I’ve paid to see psychics on multiple occassions. Do I necessarily believe they have better abilities? No, it doesn’t matter because, as was said upthread and bears repeating, I will hear what I want to hear, and even if they are scamming me, I still generally have fun and have never felt gipped (NPI) out of my money.

It’s a lot harder to talk about scams when you’re dealing with this sort of thing, because someone is really only scammed if they felt like it wasn’t worth the money. Say someone paid a large sum of money over a period of time to talk to a scamming medium. Maybe he’s just doing cold reading, but if the person got comfort out of it, as I’m sure most people who do it do, and they’re comfortable paying that money for that comfort, should it be illegal?

That is, unlike a scam like the Nigerian banker, where there’s an obvious point where you’ve been defrauded because your bank account gets emptied or your identity gets stolen, when is it psychic fraud? Obviously, you have the extreme example put forth in the OP, but since it is from a TV show, I’d be interested to know just how common those sorts of cases are in real life before we get all up in arms about people paying for a consultation with a psychic.

13

Isn’t this the same as going to a Las Vegas casino? The laws of mathematical probablility say that you will lose-yet you persist.
One should be aware of why you are spending your money.
maybe the lonely widow was getting her money’s worth?

14

You speak as if there were no existing restrictions on freedom of speech. In fact, there are plenty. Crank calling 911 is not a valid exercise of your right to free expression. If you decide to scream “BOMB!” on an aeroplane, you can’t hide behind the first amendment afterwards. Slander and libel laws exist for a very good reason. In short, your right to free speech is not, and never has been, completely unequivocal. This is as it should be.

The restriction prohibiting merchants from telling egregious lies about their goods and services is particularly telling. People selling a product are forbidden from attributing to it any false properties. If, for instance, you were to use your freedom of speech to convince me that you ran a charity, and that money I donated would go to a worthy cause, you would be indictable if the charity turned out to be a scam. Mediums are a little bit like phony fundraisers. In both cases, the con-artist preys on the gullibility of his mark. In both cases, the dupe is tricked into giving money to someone in exchange for nothing more than a few comforting lies. In both cases, the dupe receives in return some reassurance that he is supporting a valuable and much needed service. In both cases, the only real winner is the conman. I recognise that there are some distinctions between mediums and lying merchants. In moral terms, however, they’re not all that different. They both use their freedom of speech to hurt and take advantage of people.

All right thinking people know that mediums who claim to contact the dead are either (a) deluded, (b) merciless frauds, or © both. Enacting laws prohibiting the predatory practises of these nutcases and grifters should be a no-brainer, especially when you consider the vulnerability of their clientele. Unfortunately, as Skald The Rhymer noted, when you take mainstream religion into account there arises a constitutional complication.

There is no empirical evidence to support the existence of God. None whatsoever. In evidentiary terms, the faith-healer who claims he can cure cancer via the television (the example I gave of the woman in Cincinatti was a real one) and the medium who claims he can delve into the ether and contact great-aunt Mabel are on an equal footing. Any laws aimed at restricting the practise of mediums on evidentiary grounds can be equally applied to those select religious practitioners who invoke God to take advantage of people in similar ways.

Unfortunately, the Constitution specifically states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or abridging the free exercise thereof. Cultural reverence for mainstream religion has prevented certain pre-existing restrictions on freedom of speech from being applied to obvious religious frauds. That’s why I can’t go on TV and sell bottled water as a cancer cure, but someone like Peter Popoff can.

Widespread acceptance of mainstream religion makes it very difficult to enact any laws targeting mediums, not because of the harm done to the pocketbooks of the mediums themselves, but because of the risk of such a law infringing on the Constitutional clause protecting the free exercise of religion. Of course, if certain preachers weren’t so similar to mediums in their ruthless, mercenary, and entirely profit-driven manipulation of vulnerable people, this wouldn’t be a problem.

I have suggested two solutions. We can either revise the first amendment or we can draw a line between faith-healers and mediums and argue that mediums don’t qualify for first amendment protections in the same way. Your argument implies issues with the first solution. To this, I would simply say that I am not advocating anything particularly new. I’m just advocating a restriction on the freedom of speech of certain individuals which, in the spirit of our existing restrictions, aims to prevent people using their freedom of speech maliciously and for personal gain.

In this context, “laboratory” is just another way of saying “scientific and impartial”. There are numerous, clearly defined guidelines for ensuring impartiality in the laboratory. Tests would be run by reputable scientists, and checked by other, unaffiliated, reputable scientists.

That would depend entirely on the discipline under discussion. If you give me some examples I could try to elaborate.

Please don’t try and make this about me. Every day, innumerable people hop onto their pedestals and spend all the live long day saying things that I don’t approve of. I’m not, and never will be, at all interested in legislating against them. My concern is restricted to mediums, where a case can be made that they are using their freedom of speech to directly hurt people. And, I remind you, I am entirely opposed to making so-called psychic communication illegal. I would just require practising mediums to acquire a license first. Under laboratory conditions. Which would present absolutely no problems to any genuine medium.

Again, it’s not about me. But, as in all legal matters, the buck would stop with legislators.

15

As you say, there are currently more religions in America than are currently officially recognised by the government. Those religions aren’t making a great deal of noise right now. I don’t see why legislation against mediums, against competitors, would get them too riled up. While some civil libertarians certainly wouldn’t like it, others may see it as I do - as merely an extension of the spirit of pre-existing free speech laws to prevent vulnerable people from getting bilked.

Moreover, the text of my proposed legislation would not categorically declare all mediums to be frauds. It would merely require they obtain a license prior to engaging in psychic practises. Of course, mediums are frauds, and the laboratory testing would expose them as such.

I agree. Some people will continue to use mediums no matter what evidence you show them. Mediums have been around since forever and no amount of legislation is ever going to stamp them out entirely. However, I think my proposal could go some way towards reducing the overall harm that they do. People going to a medium have different expectations from people going to, say, a Catholic mass held for a deceased relative. People expect the medium to contact their loved ones on demand. For them, the proof of the medium’s abilities is right there in the pantomime laid on for them. If the pantomime is undermined, some people will see sense. They may well continue to believe that death isn’t final, and I don’t have any problem with that, but hopefully they will choose a way of channelling that belief which doesn’t require they fork over hard earned cash to a medium who ultimately gives them nothing but false hope in return.

Probably, but only time will tell if that practise undermines my legislation to the point where it becomes unworkable.

First of all, thanks for the recommendation. I’ll check it out. Secondly, I’m aware that confirmation bias is a real problem. You’re quite right that some people will jump through whatever bizarre hoops are necessary to continue believing what they believe at the moment. However, I do hope that my proposal would limit the damage. While I accept that there is no doubt some self-deluded mediums would continue practising, I am optimistic that some would genuinely have their eyes opened. Moreover, I am optimistic that a law undermining the credibility of existing mediums would dissuade some people from becoming mediums in the first place. I should, however, qualify this by repeating my belief that genuinely self-deluded mediums are in a minority, and that the majority are actually just in it for the money.

16

Oh, well, now I have to support this idea.

17

Exactly what I was HOPING you’d say.

18

While I don’t believe that mediums (“media”?) are able to contact the dead, if I did believe, their lack of ability to demonstrate their talents under laboratory conditions wouldn’t stop me from believing. I’d just assume the dead husbands want some privacy when they talk to their wives, and don’t want to be part of an experiment.

19

Most everything that’s illegal now doesn’t stop happening too, should we legalize other predatory things like muggings and store hold-ups?

20

There are many professions that are licensed, and the practitioner can’t get a license without demonstrating competency in the field: lawyers, doctors, therapists/counselors, barbers, the list goes on and on.

I don’t see any fundamental difference in demanding that a medium demonstrate ability, from making a potential barber do so. The definition of the test is trickier, but I bet we could deal with that.