After writing my initial blog post about the complaint group on Facebook, I got into a discussion on the group wall about what the creator of the group felt was being misinterpreted by the BBC that warranted a complaint. Here is the dialogue:
Hayley: Could you explain what you mean about them not having a concept of what mediumship is? What is mediumship and how did they misrepresent it? I’m genuinely confused. Thanks.
Sam: Mediumship is not fortune telling. Mediumship is communicating with the dead. Personally I don’t believe that mediums are able to see the future. I was referring to the terminology that the BBC used.
Hayley: what terminology did the BBC use?
Sam: On the programme, mediums were referred to as fortune tellers, which is not true. They also attempted to bring horoscopes into the mix, which has nothing to do with mediums. The BBC obviously didn’t research this.
Hayley: If there will always be people who claim to be mediums while also doing tarot cards and psychic readings and healing and such, doesn’t that mean that something needs to be done to regulate who uses the term ‘medium’ when they sell services? How have the BBC abused the definition of the word, if there are people who claim to be mediums doing the very same thing?
Sam: The word medium describes a go-between, a channel between worlds. Nothing more, nothing less. If someone can display mediumship through testing, like for example the practical SNU testing, then they are a medium.
Hayley: I am questioning, though, the ‘misrepresentation’ you claim the BBC made, when in fact, every day, people who claim to be mediums also make that misrepresentation…
Sam: The world is full of misrepresentation, which is why I am endeavouring to educate people, regardless of their belief, what mediums do.
Hayley: but you’re blaming the BBC for that? When the misinterpretation actually has its roots in the medium and psychic industries? Why? Why wouldn’t sorting out who claims to be a medium or psychic take priority? Is it even something that can be sorted out?
I genuinely do not believe that it is the BBC’s fault for using the ‘fortune teller’ definition of mediumship when, actually, mediums represent it in such a manner in the first place.
As I mentioned in the last article, the SNU self-regulate the mediumship industry, with people choosing to be regulated by the SNU – it isn’t independent regulation, and the definition of mediumship from the SNU is the one they’ve chosen to use, but it isn’t set in stone and it isn’t compulsory for all mediums to use that definition.
Instead of blaming the BBC for using the “wrong definition”, I think that the mediumship industry should take a hard look at itself as it’s exactly where the problem of misrepresentation comes from.
I think you have a point about the nature of mediumistic perception, and how that is confused by mediums themselves. However, I think it is also fair to say that the BBC know very well what is meant by mediumship, and wilfully chose to take a tabloid line by using terminology like fortune tellers. Deliberately inflammatory, and designed to provoke debate, which is no bad thing, but defending that by blaming mediums and the SNU for having no ‘party line’ so to speak, doesn’t really help, in my view. Even though you have a point.
Yes, there should be regulation in this arena, and yes, there are many people making a morally questionable living or supplemental income from what they claim to do.
I personally would love to see stage mediumship disappear, and no money change hands, ever. Though when you have astrology/tarot/reiki etc, then it is difficult to see where legislation could fairly fit in. Not saying it couldn’t but it seems a whole can of worms would be opened. Yay.
Let’s face it, many of us are interested in the possibility of dead people communicating, but it just doesn’t sit well with our ordered/controlled and solid everyday world. Does it?
Taking the money away is going to be difficult in a world where we charge for anything and everything. It is probably now inherent in our genes. Or at least in our face from birth to death in the form of everything..
That’s enough from me..
that suggests that people who speak out against the behaviour of mediums do so because they’re closed minded, and not because of the harm being done. Wrong.
That is not meant as a comment specifically against people who speak out against mediums. It is meant as a comment about us all – i.e the difficulty for everyone (including mediums) to even countenance that there may be something other than what we know and perceive in everyday life. That is, that there may be some existence after this solidly perceived world we are born into, and die out of.
I was not making a specific comment about those who speak against mediumistic behaviour.
In my view, that is your skewed reading of my words, which could be seen as rather closed minded / fixated and by that definition, a little ironic, if I may say..?
maybe it’s just because I’m used to people accusing me of being closed minded, I apologise if I misread what you said.
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closed minded is not a person who’s not convinced by claims
closed minded is people who’ve decided despite the lack of evidence for the claims
I left this quote -
I suspect that the reason people prefer to think of these people as mere harmless quacks or genuinely having a special ‘gift’ is that the alternative is a lie so ugly and exploitative that it’s too unpleasant to think about. – Derren Brown
Mediums make me sick to my stomach