One small step for the medium, one giant leap towards responsiveness?

This is what one of the questions finally addressed in the National Assembly on February 21, 2012 could inspire us. MP Christine Marin has in fact drawn the attention of the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry, responsible for commerce, crafts, small and medium-sized businesses, tourism, services, liberal professions and consumption, to the problem of the lack of regulation regarding the practice of divinatory arts in France. We cannot in fact remember enough that this activity, due to the little supervision it provides to the French consumer, nowadays attracts a number of crooks and hucksters of all kinds, whose dignity and scruples are sold at 3 euros per minute.

A few months ago, we talked about the lack of ethics and deontology demonstrated by most audiotel platforms (Wengo company, Cosmospace, etc.) which today, without doubt, claim the most lucrative market share in the exercise of clairvoyance in audiotel. Scandalous, nauseating, there is no shortage of adjectives to describe the attitude of a large number of these self-proclaimed professionals who continue, again and again, to exploit people in situations of isolation and extreme moral distress.

What easy prey do they form for these industrialists of human distress of a new era, whom no barrier intimidates! What a poor image they give to the medium who tries to exercise his talent altruistically! Let us legitimately ask why, yes why, it took so many years for French legislation to finally show these first signs of responsiveness?

Madame Christine Marin rightly recalled that under the new Penal Code which came into force on March 1, 1994, everything which was not considered in the eyes of the Law as an offense was therefore permitted. Clairvoyance, obscured for years by the uncontested hegemony of the human sciences, thus had a bright future ahead of it to evolve in their shadow, without anyone being concerned about it.  The door was then open to so many excesses that it became an anomic discipline, whose norms, organization and structures slowly disintegrated. Doubtful practitioners have mingled with honest clairvoyants without it being possible for the uninformed consultant to identify them.  How many insults, pettiness, defamatory or outrageous remarks the vast majority of Wengo’s ‘‘experts’’ have now directed towards their customers, not content with abusing their trust which misfortune has rendered naive!

A strong feeling of impunity reinforces their need to provoke, to deceive: there was recent discussion on the experts forum of the said platform to definitively remove any rating system for sighted people, deemed “too academic”, “outdated” or “demeaning” for the latter! What recourse will now have for future customers who no clue can put on the path of a possible scam? The lack of transparency offered by the expert file evaluation system now bothers them, the platform should cover them completely!

How far will this race towards abuse of trust, fraud, manipulation go as we move timidly towards the regulation of the divinatory arts? How many people will have to be defrauded, lured, ruined, wronged, humiliated? How come nonebasic training in psychology in a profession that requires constant exercise is requested? No diplomas, no competitions, no authorizations to get started in this profession. Only talent counts, that of helping one’s neighbor, or that of pushing it even further for the benefit of one’s own person, for the vast and sad majority of cases. May this desire to establish regulations in the exercise of clairvoyance impose itself on the minds of all, starting with those first concerned, its users. Will it take people being scammed out of several thousand euros before they finally deign to react? Will the unfortunate example of disappointed customers not be enough to dissuade future targets from their desire to consult?

The problem is now posed, thanks to the timely assistance of Madame Christine Marin, but also, probably, and consequently, thanks to the actions and various testimonies tirelessly provided by the INAD. We hope that close collaboration will result in the short term, in the name of the threatened rights of the French consumer.   Amélie.