My Aunty was heavily involved in the Sufi religion and mysticism and was dying of cancer. She did not believe in western medicine and instead tried alternative therapies- there were a lot of herbs and spiritual ceremonies involved. She borrowed $10,000 off my father in-law to pay for these therapies that were recommended to her through her Sufi friends. There were many different therapies she tried but the worst was when these disgusting "therapists" made one visit to my Aunty's home and injected her all over her body with some unknown substance (we did find out what it was later and it apparently should NEVER be injected). They then charged her $7000 for this one time visit and left my Aunty screaming in agony and were never to be seen again. After this my Aunty could not cope with the pain and had to be dosed with morphine on a regular basis- she didn't need this prior to the "treatment". She died two months later.

To use your own words she was "utterly let down" by these therapies that offered her false hope. She was "killed prematurely" by drugs that were never scientifically tested that were offered by people who were experts in NOTHING AT ALL. To defend people that prey on the vunerable, the sick, the grieving, the desperate and the dying is abhorrent. We are not talking about complementary therapies here, such as massage for cancer patients to help break up pooling fluid or herbal supplements to help manage irritable bowel. We are talking about malicious, unscrupulous and vile people that deliberately set out to defraud desperate people.

As for "ARROGANT PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE RIGHT WAY TO LIVE" - I'm tempted to reply : takes one to know one.

Aside from the fact that you seem to be arguing that "not examining" is better than examining things, you seem to think that calling us intolerant makes us intolerant.

Simply asking for evidence of a claim is a reasonable thing to do when money is changing hands. If you don't believe that, c'mon out here to California, where I've got one helluva bridge I'll be happy to sell you. It's big and orange and right next to beautiful San Francisco.

On a more sober note, you seem to need reminding that ad homeniem attacks are the surest sign of a failed argument.

Even when your point of view is pointed out as intolerant and occasionally harmful...

No one did any such thing.

...blaming everyone except yourselves for the state of the world even though scientists have been controlling it for the past three hundred years!

Ah, so we are all scientists, and we're secretly in control, eh? Who told you about our secret cabal?

Peer Review a safeguard? Don't make me laugh!

It's a way of vetting good ideas/papers/results from bad. Does it always work? No, but eventually it along with the other methods of science does tend to weed out the bad ideas leaving the good behind. Science is wildly successful, that much you can't deny - at least not without supreme irony considering that you are having to do it on a computer that uses the internet and electricity, etc.

Ye gods, save us from things that go bump in the night and arrogant people who claim to know the 'right way to live'.

No one here has claimed to know "the 'right way to live'" as you put it. What was claimed was that psychics (AKA charlatans) should be regulated so that they can not fleece people like you out of your money.

Absolutely appalled at the vindictiveness of Humanists' comments in this thread. If your arrogant paradigm is so selfish that it cannot allow for the way that many unsophisticated people approach life then it is nothing more than a secular Inquisition with all the evils that entails.

The unsophisticated people aren't the problem. It's the evil, lying, uncaring, hucksters that are taking advantage of these people, that we have a problem with.
How could you try and justify the actions of people that intentionally defraud others with the stupidest cons, simply to get their money?
Sure, they think these people have answers to their questions about their love-lives, and their health. How is defrauding people ever correct?

You should be VERY careful of any laws to limit choice for all because despite the gingoistic stereotype of fraudulent snake oil salesmen which you all have peppered through your comments most psychics really do believe in what they do and their work is a genuine safety net for many people whom your scientific medical fraternaty has utterly let down

They may believe in what they do, but they're liars nonetheless. They know in their heart of hearts that their mumbo-jumbo doesn't work.
How has the scientific community let them down?

most psychics really do believe in what they do and their work is a genuine safety net for many people whom your scientific medical fraternaty has utterly let down.

Their work is a genuine safety net? You're actually claiming that self-proclaimed psychics offer a REAL service to people, capable of making them better? I'd love to see your evidence for that claim. I'd also like to hear the reasons you believe that someone might be better off going to a psychic than a doctor; you know, if they have a medical condition, pit psychic's success rates versus doctor success rates and see who comes out on top.

If you feel they're genuinely doing a service, then you or anyone else who does, should not be afraid of them being asked for their proof and having it put to the test, as all science is.

If your arrogant paradigm is so selfish that it cannot allow for the way that many unsophisticated people approach life then it is nothing more than a secular Inquisition with all the evils that entails.

Yes, wanting to enact consumer protection laws to protect them from frauds and hacks is so inquisitorial of us. Shame on us.

...most psychics really do believe in what they do...

Then let them show that it actually works. If they really believe it, they shouldn't mind it being subjected to scrutiny.

...and their work is a genuine safety net for many people whom your scientific medical fraternaty has utterly let down.

No, actually it isn't, and that's the point. Unscrupulous people are preying on their fellow humans with promises of cures or other benefits that they simply can't deliver.

There is an important social purpose to free-style religious expression which you and euro-politicknicks obviously do not understand.

Whatever social purpose there is - and it's dubious that one actually exists - it is not offset by the fact that people are taking advantage of others through unseemly means.

It may be easy for you to consign millions of people to suffering just to impose your absolute views...

You obviously don't understand the argument here. Who is imposing absolute views, because it's certainly not us. On the contrary, we are saying that methods should have to be tested and shown efficacious in order to be considered valid.

Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of patients each year who are killed prematurely by 'scientifically tested' drugs in the NHS

There are stringent and specific protocols and procedures in place in order to regulate drugs because they can be dangerous. I don't see what is wrong with this and your claims seem overblown. Some evidence would be nice.

but when meeting people who have bought 100% into scientific materialism I always ask them to explain what science means by 'ether'.

Ether was a failed hypothesis that was overturned by the Michaelson-Morley experiment. Far from being a black eye for science, it's a triumph, because it was the scientific method that increased our undestanding of the world, something that faith has been spectacularly unsuccessful at doing.

If scientists themselves were asked to step up to the line as psychics are being asked to do they would themselves soon be found wanting and where would the BHA be then?

Actually, they are. It's called peer review.

The most valuable thing that a belief in the supernatural has given me is the realisation that there is no such thing as certainty...

Are you certain of that?

...and that 'experts' of any kind should be shunned as a pestilence.

This part is simply sad.

This could mean that even practitioners who do genuinely believe in their own abilities, and have had previous successes, could be sued by clients with whom they were not successful.

That, Marran, is an excellent reason why people should only practice and sell medical treatments that actually work, regardless of the recipient's belief in them. All that faith healers are dispensing is a placebo. And placebos do work for some things, but not for everything. What would happen if a person who had a serious illness, one not amenable to mental cures, sought out their service? It has happened, and people have died as a result.

Faith healing is not something I personally believe in, but it obviously does provide some benefits to people who do believe in it.

Rather than simply lumping all practitioners into a class of 'fraudulent psychics', wouldn't it be better to do some proper scientific reviews of the very wide range of faith healers/psychics/spiritualists etc. and identify what causes the benefical effects some customers experience?

I would hypothesise that there are some elements of meditation or self-hypnotism involved, but it would be interesting to see if this could be scientifically tested.

One difficulty of the legislation is that, as for psychotherapy or counselling, meditation and hypnotism require the client to be receptive and open to the experience. This could mean that even practitioners who do genuinely believe in their own abilities, and have had previous successes, could be sued by clients with whom they were not successful. Without scientific studies having been performed, it would be very difficult for the practitioners to defend themselves in court, as they would be doing so only on the basis of their faith, and the faith of other clients.