Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T00:52:14.413Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From beyond the grave: the legal regulation of mediumship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2012

Steve Greenfield
Affiliation:
School of Law, University of Westminster
Guy Osborn*
Affiliation:
School of Law, University of Westminster
Stephanie Roberts
Affiliation:
School of Law, University of Westminster

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increased interest in mediumship. This has been part of a broader fascination with paranormal issues that has been fostered by new modes of dissemination and communication. This article focuses upon attempts made by the criminal law to regulate mediums, and, in particular, the disjunction between the ‘genuine medium’ and the ‘vulnerable consumer’. It charts historical approaches of the law and provides a critique of the current legal landscape, including the new regulatory framework under the Unfair Commercial Practice Regulations 2008, and the possibility of an action under the Fraud Act 2006. It concludes that the law has continually struggled to adequately deal with this phenomenon, and that the current regime is likely to prove similarly ineffective given the fundamental conceptual legal problem of proving what may be un-provable.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beischel, Julie (2007) ‘Contemporary Methods Used in Laboratory-Based Mediumship Research’, Journal of Parapsychology 71: 3768.Google Scholar
Cartwright, Peter (2010) ‘Unfair Commercial Practices and the Future of the Criminal Law’, Journal of Business Law 618–37.Google Scholar
Clements, Luke and Morris, Rachel (1996) ‘Fraudulent and Incompetent Mediums’, New Law Journal 146: 1574–76.Google Scholar
Collins, Hugh (2010) ‘Harmonisation by Example: European Laws Against Unfair Commercial PracticesModern Law Review 73: 89118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corcos, Christine (ed.) (2010) Law and Magic. A Collection of Essays. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cromer, Julie. (2010) ‘It's in the Cards: The Law of Tarot (and other fortunes told)’, in Corcos (2010), 1529.Google Scholar
Davies, Owen (1999) Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736–1951. Manchester: Manchester University PressGoogle Scholar
Gibson, Marion (2003) ‘Witchcraft in the Courts’, in Gibson, M. (ed.), Witchcraft and Society in England and America 1550–1750. London: Continuum Publishing, 117.Google Scholar
Herman, Daniel (2006) ‘Whose Knocking? Spiritualism as Entertainment and Therapy in Nineteenth-century San Francisco’, American Nineteenth Century History 7(3): 417–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Annette (2010) Paranormal Media: Audiences, Spirits and Magic in Popular Cullture. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, Richard (1892) ‘A Record of Certain Phenomena of Trance’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 8: 1167.Google Scholar
Hodgson, Richard (1898) ‘A Further Record of Observations of Certain Phenomena of Trance’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 13: 284582.Google Scholar
Howells, Geraint (2009) ‘The End of an Era – Implementing the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive in The United Kingdom: Punctual Criminal Law Gives Way to a General Criminal/Civil Law Standard’, Journal of Business Law 2: 183–94.Google Scholar
Irwin, Harvey (1993) ‘Belief in the Paranormal: A Review of the Empirical Literature’, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 87(1): 139.Google Scholar
Lee, Blewett (1920–1921) ‘Psychic Phenomena and the Law’, Harvard Law Review 34: 625–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Blewett (1922) ‘Spiritualism and Crime’, Columbia Law Review 22: 439–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macfarlane, Alan (1970) Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mak, Vanessa (2008) ‘Review of the Consumer Acquis – Towards Maximum Harmonisation?’, Tilburg Institute of Comparative and Transnational Law Working Paper No. 2008/6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murdie, Alan (2005) ‘Tackling Witches and Demons in the 21st Century’, Justice of the Peace 169: 853.Google Scholar
O'keeffe, Ciaran and Wiseman, Richard (2005) ‘Testing Alleged Mediumship: Methods and Results’, British Journal of Psychology 96(2): 165–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ormerod, David (2007) ‘The Fraud Act 2006 – Criminalysing Lying?Criminal Law Review 193219.Google Scholar
Randi, James (1991) James Randi: Psychic Investigator. London: Boxtree.Google Scholar
Rogers, Paul, Qualter, Pamela, Phelps, Gemma and Gardner, Kathryn (2006) ‘Belief in the Paranormal, Coping And Emotional Intelligence’, Personality and Individual Differences 41: 10891105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowland, Ian (2001) The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading. London: Ian Rowland.Google Scholar
Schouten, Sybo A. (1994) ‘An Overview of Quantitatively Evaluated Studies with Mediums and Psychics’, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 88: 221–54.Google Scholar
Twigg-Flesner, Christian, Parry, Deborah, Howells, Geraint, with Nordhausen, Annette, Micklitz, Hans W., Stuyck, Jules and Wilhelmsson, Thomas (2005) An Analysis of the Application and Scope of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. A Report for the Department of Trade and Industry. Available at: www.bis.gov.uk/files/file32095.pdf (last accessed 7 October 2010).Google Scholar