The issue of how local governments regulate psychic and divinatory services has been slowly bubbling up into the mainstream consciousness. These efforts have gone beyond the simple business licences that other industries routinely apply for to include background checks, letters of reference, fingerprinting, and other personal information. Some places, like Chesterfield County, Virginia, limit shops to the “red light” district of town (next to the adult bookstores, pawn shops, and scrap yards), and for some areas obtaining a licence, even if you clear the hurdles, is ultimately down to a judgement of your “good moral character”. When questioned on these ordinances local politicians and officials say it’s to prevent fraud and will point to a con-artist who managed to bilk thousands out of his or her trusting clients. But are those news-making scam-artists the norm? Is there a greater level of fraud within the divination industry than there is in other industries?

Recently, Time Magazine featured an article on a wave of new regulations across the country on businesses that provide divinatory and psychic services. The only psychic practitioner they could get to speak on the record half-favored stronger regulations, while the rest “refused to discuss their practices” on the record. I didn’t think this lack of voice from those who practice divination was adequate considering how many individuals within our interconnected communities are engaged in the practice. So I’ve started a new series called Psychic Services and the Law to get perspectives on regulation from prominent individuals whose voices should be heard as this issue is debated and litigated. In the first installment I talked with tarot expert Mary K. Greer, and this time I’m honored to present a short interview with Rachel Pollack.

Rachel Pollack is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on the modern interpretation of the Tarot. She has published 12 books on the Tarot, including “78 Degrees of Wisdom”, considered a modern classic and the Bible of Tarot reading. She has been conferred the title of Tarot Grand Master by the Tarot Certification Board, an independent body located in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition, she’s a celebrated author of fiction and poetry. Rachel also maintains a blog where she discusses issues related to tarot, writing, and inspiration.

Rachel Pollack

Do you feel that the practice of divination should be a government regulated industry complete with background checks, fingerprinting, letters of reference, and other measures?

No, I do not see any need for such regulation. If people are using the guise of divination to defraud or steal from people I would think current laws cover that. It’s not divination that is a problem it’s con artists. If con artists pretend to be doctors in order to trick people out of large sums of money, should we be fingerprinting doctors? Con artists who pretend to be diviners are just the same.

Do you think fraud by psychics is a serious problem, or do you feel it has been overblown by local politicians? Do you have any theories as to why the regulation of those who provide divination or psychic services is still such a popular topic?

Well, I was not aware it was a popular topic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a news article about it on any of the news web sites I frequent, just on Tarot sites. I really have no way to know how many fake psychic con men there are, compared to people who actually are psychic, or would like to think they are. The actions of con men are very different from psychics, including bad psychics. People who practice fraud are not psychics, they’re crooks.

Many local ordinances dealing with fortune telling have been overturned on the grounds of freedom of religion (in fact, in one case a local reader tried to circumvent the law by arguing she was a “spiritual counselor” rather than a psychic). However, a recent case in Maryland overturned an anti-fortune-telling ordinance on broader Free Speech grounds. Have we been taking the wrong tack in arguing from a religious standpoint? Can the business of tarot reading also be a religious practice?

I agree strongly that free speech is a better grounds than freedom of religion. While many Tarot readers and/or psychics see what they do as religious in some way, I’m sure others don’t.

As a member of several tarot guilds, do you think tarot readers should do more to regulate themselves (as several other industries do)? Is such a move even practical?

I don’t really see how guilds or other groups could regulate readers who don’t want to be regulated. That is, we could have a certification system, but that works only insofar as customers look for it and want readers to have that piece of paper. And what would prevent someone from passing the test, getting the piece of paper to display, and then ignoring all the guidelines they pretended to follow?

As someone who has written several important texts on the tarot, where do you see the practice of tarot reading heading? Do you think it will ever escape the cultural and religious baggage that has haunted it for so many generations?

To be honest, I find it very hard to say where readings might be heading. I do think that we need some sort of breakthrough presentation that would change the societal view of Tarot reading, as bizarre, hokey, and somewhat ridiculous. Tarot needs to come more into public view so that it gets seriously examined. This may happen through some book or movie or through videos…who knows?

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I’d like to thank Rachel Pollack for taking the time to speak on this issue, and hope you’ll stay tuned to further installments of the Psychic Services and the Law series. This is an issue that has become intertwined with many modern Pagan individuals and businesses and it behooves us to stay informed and engaged.

For those of you, including me, who didn’t get a chance to see Alejandro Amenábar’s “Agora”, based on the story of Hypatia of Alexandria, at the handful of art theaters it played at this Summer the wait is finally coming to an end. The film is being released on DVD on October 9th, as well as being made available on Netflix. “Agora”, despite doing very well in Europe, got a mixed response from American movie critics (literally split down the middle), and never managed to break out from its delayed and limited release schedule. However, among Pagans who saw it, the response was almost unanimously positive and emotional.

“By the end of the film I was weeping: for Hypatia, for our destroyed Pagan history, and for humanity itself, that doggedly pursued zealotry and ignorance over and above knowledge and reason.” - T. Thorn Coyle

Even those who had some troubles with the historical changes made in Amenábar’s film, like feminist scholar Max Dashu, were generally positive about the work as a whole.

“I’m not a movie reviewer, but a cultural historian, and approach the film from that perspective. What did they do right?  Casting the talented Rachel Weisz was an excellent choice, and all the actors are good.  The cinematography is luscious.  I liked the thematic return to views of the heavens, with the night sky seen from a balcony or through the open roof of an atrium, and occasionally pulling back to satellite shots of earth.  A sympathetic treatment of Pagans is not something you often see in historical movies.”

So needless to say, I’m looking forward to seeing this for myself. There are far too few films that present historical paganism in a positive light (one look at the train-wreck that was the “Clash of the Titans” remake proves that).

So while we’re waiting for “Agora” on DVD, and for “The Wicker Tree” to get a release date, what other films can the Pagan moviegoer look forward to? I was perusing The Boston Globe’s run-down of film releases for the rest of 2010, and one picture in particular caught my eye.

Helen Mirren!

“The Tempest Julie Taymor is a director of adequate fearlessness. She can be gimmicky (“Across the Universe’’). She can even be somewhat conventional (“Frida’’). But she’s always interesting. In this version of the Shakespeare desert-island play, she’s cast Helen Mirren as Prospero (it’s Prospera now). Djimon Hounsou is Caliban, Felicity Jones is Miranda. Ben Whishaw is Ariel, David Strathairn is Alonso, Chris Cooper is Antonio, and Russell Brand is Trinculo. See? Interesting.”

Dame Helen Mirren as Prospera? Sign me up. Also, check out this quote from Mirren about playing a female version of Prospero.

“Women have been punished for being powerful for many centuries and I thought that was the remarkable thing about making Prospero into Prospera. You can bring in that history of female struggle. We can see now in the extreme fundamentalist states, whatever religion they are, that they want to exclude women from education. An educated female sex is dangerous for the status quo, they believe. Women with any interest in education are persecuted for being witches, herbalists, evil. I thought of all these women, now and throughout history, as I was playing Prospera.“

I’m just hoping that Prospera decides to not renounce her magic at the end. Plus, with Taymor directing you know it’s going to be a visual feast. Once there’s a trailer, I’ll post it for you. “The Tempest” is set for release on December 17th. Other interesting-looking films include “Tibet in Song” (November 12th), and “Vision: From The Life OfHildegard Von Bingen” (November 5th).

What movies are you looking forward to?

Nine years ago a group of Muslim extremists hijacked four planes and rammed them into the World Trade Center towers in New York, into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and crashed one into a field in rural Pennsylvania after passengers and crew struggled to retake the aircraft. 2,977 innocents (of all faiths and backgrounds) died, and the United States, and some would say the world, hasn’t been the same since. The current upheaval over the “ground zero mosque” and burning Korans in our country stems from the unhealed wounds of that day. Today various protests, counter-protests, urgings, pleadings, rites, political functions, and events all centered on the 9/11 attacks will transpire.

September 11th was one of the things that started me on the path towards Pagan blogging and journalism. Years before The Wild Hunt I had a small proto-blog called MythWorks where I tried to find Pagan reactions to the madness that had just occurred. The 9/11 attacks awoke a need within me to find the stories we were ignoring or overlooking, to stop sitting on the sidelines of my faith community and become an active participant. I don’t think I could have realized that we would still be grieving, talking about, fighting over, and sadly exploiting, this day nearly a decade later. Some have tried to contextualize the tragedy by comparing it to larger events in wars past, perhaps in hope that it will bring perspective, but I don’t know if such a tactic can ever really work. I don’t think we should deny the ongoing importance of this event in our collective psyche, but I do think it shouldn’t be the only thing we as Pagans commemorate and remember this day.

We are a people of festival, of ancestor veneration, of connection. It is only proper that we understand the need for some to turn this into a sacred day. To a day when the dead are honored. Instead of resisting this impulse we should weave it into a tapestry of remembrance and hope. This year in India the Ganesh Chaturthi, the festival of Ganesha, begins on this day. How appropriate that millions are sending offerings to the remover of obstacles as we speak.

The Lalbaugcha Raja Ganesha image worshipped during Ganesh Festival in Mumbai, India.

Let us remove the obstacles that keep us from seeing that the sacred day of 9/11 is also a day of wonder and celebration. That the ancient Greek month of Boedromion started at sundown on Thursday 9th September, and that on this day Athene is traditionally honored. Let her wisdom and justice prevail on 9/11. Today is also the new year in the Coptic/Alexandrian calendar,  so may this day be a new beginning for all of us.

This day is also the anniversary of the very first Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893. A body that in its modern incarnation includes modern Pagan faiths in its leadership and gatherings. So this is a day for seeking understanding and dialog, for breaking bread, even with those we do not agree with. Finally, on this day in 1906 Mahatma Gandhi coined the term “Satyagraha” to characterize the Non-Violence movement in South Africa. So if we must struggle, if we feel that protest and counter-protest are the order of the day, let us do so in the spirit of Gandhi, and avoid adding hate to hate.

As Pagans, as polytheists, as those who hold and recognize many truths at once, let us wrap the tragedies of 9/11 into the tapestry of history. Let us recognize this day as a part of something far larger, let Pagans show the world how to find progress from the stalemate we now find ourselves in. Let us honor the dead and the sacredness of this day to create a new festival of veneration and hope.

Top Story: As I’ve covered here before, the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Canada is about to hear a case that will decide if the practice of polygamy should be considered a criminal act (as it currently is). There’s been an affidavit filed in support of decriminalizing multiple-marriage from a local Wiccan priest, and the family behind the case is a polyamorous triad. The defense is taking a “Muslims and Mormons” angle, arguing that the evils of polygamy outweigh the free expression of the families involved. Now, The Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association (CPAA) is requesting that the government reveal if they think polyamory falls under their definition polygamy.

“The CPAA brought forward the motion Chief Justice Robert Bauman will consider on Sept 8. It was heard as part of a court reference to examine the constitutional validity of Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Section 293 bans polygamy. The CPAA wants to know if polyamorists will be caught under Section 293 should it be determined that the section is constitutional. CPAA lawyer John Ince told Bauman the attorneys general for Canada and BC have not delineated what their thinking is on the polyamorists. That, he said, makes it hard for him to prepare a case.”

Ince points out that polyamory isn’t the same as polygamy, as it isn’t patriarchal, isn’t intergenerationally normalized, and isn’t restricted by gender pairing or sexual orientation. The looming case has provoked some to wonder if polyamory is the “new gay”, making legal rights for poly families the next big social campaign after gay marriage. The biggest hurdle will be convincing the public that there’s a difference between the abusive compelled polygamous marriages often found in Fundamentalist Mormon off-shoots and polyamory. As I’ve been saying since 2006, our communities, which openly welcomes and celebrates so many polyamorous relationships (30% of poly families identify as Pagan according to one survey), needs to be ready for when this issue becomes the next culture-war battle.

“…this is an issue that will continue to gain steam as time goes by. Eventually polyamory will reach a “tipping point” and garner widespread national attention. Are our leaders and organizations ready for questions regarding polyamory? Eventually hostile questions will come, and they will cite this Salon.com article, and we shouldn’t be found wanting for a clear, empathetic, and inclusive answer.”

I’d say this court case is the “tipping point” I was talking about in 2007. Even if the courts rule that polygamy should remain criminal this won’t be the end of the issue. We see here the beginnings of a movement that will argue that polyamory shouldn’t fall under the same legal restrictions of polygamy, and we might even see a ruling where the criminal code is upheld but that clarifications of the definitions essentially decriminalize the practice of polyamory. Once decriminalization is achieved, legal recognition is the logical next step. You can also be sure that a victory in Canada will embolden activists in the United States and other countries. By 2012 expect “poly rights” to be in the popular vernacular if not in the court rooms.

One Way to Handle Regulation: In Romania, where mystical attacks are taken very seriously by some politicians, a proposed law that would hold psychics liable for bad predictions has been dropped due to fears of a curse.

“The politicians who had drafted the new law claim it is because they feared they would be cursed if they passed the plans. Alin Popoviciu and Cristi Dugulescu of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party drafted a law where witches and fortune tellers would have to produce receipts, and would also be held liable for wrong predictions. Maria Campina, a well-known Romanian witch, said that it was difficult to tax thousands of fortune tellers and witches partly because of the erratic sums of money they received.”

Despite the success of Romanian witches in the political process, I don’t think threats of magical retaliation would go over as well here in America. We’ll just have to stick to using lawyers, who are far more scary a threat in our culture.

The Wicker Tree is Done: Film company British Lion has announced that post-production for The Wicker Man‘s “spiritual sequel” The Wicker Tree is now complete.

“British Lion has completed post-production on Robin Hardy’s TheWicker Man follow-up, The Wicker Tree. Hardy has reunited with British Lion CEO Peter Snell, who produced the 1973 cult horror story, for the contemporary tale about two Texan Christians who travel to the Scottish fiefdom of Tressock to spread the gospel … “The Wicker Tree is a chilling contemporary take on the genre,” Snell said. “We have a very strong cast, wonderful locations and like The Wicker Man, music plays a pivotal role in the story-telling.”

No word yet on a release date, but at least we know it’s completed. So keep your eyes open for further announcements.

PNC-Minnesota Gets Noticed: One of the goals of the Pagan Newswire Collective is to better inform mainstream media outlets concerning news happening within the modern Pagan community, so I was very happy to see the MinnPost’s The Daily Glean referencing a PNC-Minnesota story.

“A Celtic temple has opened in Northeast Minneapolis, as reported by the Pagan Newswire Collective — the small structure is the first of its kind in North America, dedicated to the Old Belief Society, which derives its beliefs from old Celtic practices. We point this out, firstly because we find it interesting, and secondly to point out just how wide we at the Glean cast our newsgathering net. Come on, who else is reading the Pagan Newswire Collective? Eric Eskola? Hardly.”

Congratulations to the Minnesota bureau! This is only the beginning, our network of bureaus continues to grow, and soon our main site will launch which will highlight and expand on the great local stories our bureaus are working on.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

It seems fairly obvious that the debate over the Park51 community center has morphed into something far larger. It has transformed into an unacknowledged national referendum on the place of Islam within American society. Tensions are rising, and there have been a number of frightening incidents across the country aimed at, by all accounts, peaceful and integrated Muslim Americans. The recent punditry, activism, and protests seem to have awoken something ugly and uncontrollable within our body politic, and even demagogues like Sarah Palin are calling for cooler heads to prevail. As we ramp up to the anniversary of 9/11 this Saturday, with the protests (and counter-protests) in New York and the headline-grabbing Koran burning in Florida what should the Pagan response be to this turmoil? Can there even be a “Pagan response” when we are so diverse?

The Board of Trustees of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, which counts three Pagans as members, has issued a call for solidarity with the Muslim community (a call echoed by some individuals within the Pagan community). Starhawk thinks we should turn off our TVs and go out to meet our neighbors, while Alison Shaffer wants nothing to do with the protests or counter-protests, and instead wants to honor the Buddhists commemorating the dead on the Hudson River, while engaging with Muslim scripture and poetry at home.

“Here in Pittsburgh, I will be lighting a candle of my own, and reading the astounding poetry of the Qur’an (in English translation), as well as the poetry of those Sufi mystics who inspired me, when I was still only a teenager looking for answers, with visions of beauty, longing and connection that eventually led me to my Druid path. In this small way, I hope perhaps to begin the process of bridging the great gulf between acts of hatred, and acts of honor. I hope to affirm the sacred connections we share even with those who disagree with us or threaten us. I hope to participate, by doing my small part, in the transformation of our community not by trying to repress or intimidate those who lash out in fear and anger, but by learning how to reach out to them in fellowship and forgiveness.”

Perhaps the most eloquent response to the hate, fear, and anger comes from T. Thorn Coyle, who proposes that we counter hate with compassion for those who are truly in need.

This Saturday, a certain Terry Jones plans to burn copies of the Qur’an outside his Gainesville, FL church. People have been mailing books to him, to help with this cause. Meanwhile, the children in this photo, along with 20 million others in Pakistan, are displaced, hungry, and struggling. Which do I care about more? Terry Jones is seeking publicity – which I am giving him right now – so I’m going to use this publicity mongering to bring us back to sharp attention that we all have a chance to do some good to counteract hatred and ignorance. We can help some people who are in dire need.

This Saturday, to honor the memory of those who died in the toppling of the World Trade Centers in NYC, and further, to honor the memory of those who died on September 11, 1944 when Darmstadt, Germany was destroyed in preparation for the more famous Dresden bombing, I say let us organize to send whatever we can afford – be it prayers, energy, or money – to Pakistan. Let us feed the three to six million who have not yet received food or medical care. Let us not let the likes of Terry Jones win this day. In the name of all who are Compassionate and Merciful, let us not give up on humanity.

As mystically inclined Pagan, I am ever remembering my sense of connection with you, with this planet, with the stars, trees, and waters, and with God Herself – the Great Beyond, the Limitlessness, Ginnungagap, the Void, and the Existence. God Herself is comprised of every Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Bahai, Buddhist, Atheist, Heathen, Wiccan, Quaker, every jasper, every lamb, every grouper, every blade of wheat, every redwood, every crow. There are people who would argue with me about this. That is fine. As a polytheist and non-dualist, I can take these arguments as part and parcel of how things grow and evolve, of how we learn and change. I don’t need agreement from anyone. I do need to cultivate strength and mercy. I do need to generate the life energy that is the return to the great cosmic flow. I do need to connect, here on earth, to every particle that exists in past, present, and future. Right now, I need to connect with millions of people in Pakistan.

Thorn’s organization Solar Cross, will be donating to Doctors Without Borders to try to help get aid directly to people in need. For those who prefer a slightly more political response to the Koran burning, while still engaging in sending relief to Pakistan, Pagan priestess Morpheus Ravenna suggests making the donation in the name of Koran-burner Terry Jones.

Whether you are for or against the Park51 community center, even if you are ambivalent regarding the burning of the Koran, we can’t allow our civil society to deteriorate to a point where open persecution, violence, and acts of vandalism become tolerated. I’m as sympathetic to the criticisms against the dominant monotheisms as the next Pagan, but we can’t allow our rhetoric to empower, directly or indirectly, those who would use it as a mandate for discrimination and harassment. Arun Gandhi, the fifth grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, says that the wounds of 9/11 will never heal because we lack “genuine commitment to find common ground”, and do not allow for real healing to begin.

“For a wound to heal it needs proper medication and, above all, the wound needs to be rested. If we keep scratching and irritating the wound it will just go on festering. I have never looked at 9/11 as an isolated instance of some mad people ramming airplanes into the World Trade Center. It was the result of decades of exploitation and generations of bitterness between the Muslim and Christian worlds.”

Perhaps, as Pagans, what we can bring to this ancient tension between Christians and Muslims is to be outside of the “crusades” mentality of endless hostility and exploitation. To ignore the pundits and extremists on both sides and instead pursue a campaign of simple humanity, targeted charity, religious tolerance, and continual openness to dialog. We can avoid being swept up by the passions of either side and instead pursue our own agenda of growth and a new paradigm of interfaith relations. Not to forget the crimes and sins of either side, but to instead forge a new tomorrow where conflicts over simple belief is seen for the irrationality it is. We are small, and factions within Christianity and Islam ever-eager to engage in battle seem huge by comparison, but we must avoid the temptation to pursue their agendas, and instead work for the good a Pagan tomorrow could bring the world.

UPDATE: The Koran-burning event in Florida has been (for now) cancelled.

Jones said on CNN Thursday afternoon that instead of burning copies of the Quran on Saturday, he will fly to New York City to meet with Muslim leaders who had hoped to build a mosque near the site of Ground Zero. “If they were willing to move that we would consider that a sign from God,” Jones said. Jones worked out the meeting with the help of Imam Muhammad Musri of Islamic Society of Central Florida, who spoke in Gainesville after Jones. “I want to thank him and his church for making the decision today and to bring to a peaceful end what would have been a spectacle,” said Musri, who said he will accompany Jones on his trip to New York.

It should be noted that despite some initial reports, the backers of planned Park51 community center and mosque have not agreed to move their building at this time. It seems that Musri may have been making deals he couldn’t back up, so there’s every chance this will be back on again before Saturday. I would advise everyone to wait 24 hours and see how this settles out.

Last week Time Magazine featured an article on a wave of new regulations across the country on businesses that provide divinatory and psychic services. It lead with a particularly oppressive example of this trend in Warren, Michigan.

“Anyone who uses cards, tea leaves, psychic powers, necromancy or other objects and activities to forecast the future, remove curses or effectuate other activity, must apply for a license with the city, according to a new ordinance formally passed by city officials this week. Applicants face strict regulations that including fingerprinting, criminal history checks, past home addresses and employment history.”

Worse still are regulations in places like Chesterfield County, Virginia, or Annapolis, Maryland, where approval isn’t merely applying for background checks or filling out forms, but of passing an arbitrary judgement of your “good moral character”. Time’s reporter Elizabeth Dias didn’t seem to find any critical voices against this trend except for a spokesman from the ACLU, an organization that has been involved in several fortune telling related battles.

“But other observers, peering into their own crystal balls, see new worries. Michael Steinburg, of the Michigan branch of the ACLU, suggests Warren’s policy may jeopardize those practicing yoga or predicting the weather. “It makes it illegal to say incantations to give good luck without having a license,” he tells TIME. The ACLU has defended the free-speech rights of Maryland fortune teller Nick Nefedro, who won his case in June to operate a shop in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.”

The only psychic practitioner who spoke on the record to Time was (somewhat) in favor of stricter regulations. Silent in the piece are the many divinatory practitioners within our interconnected communities who have an intimate knowledge of fighting these regulations, those helping to shape fairer regulations where they live, and those who see psychic services and divination as part of their religious calling. The Wild Hunt has long covered what I’ve called the “psychic wars”, and starting today I’m going to be featuring several voices on this issue that I believe should be heard in a new ongoing series of interviews.

Today, I’m featuring a short interview with Mary K. Greer. Greer is an author and renowned expert on the tarot. She is the proud recipient of the 2007 International Tarot Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2006 Mercury Award from the Mary Redman Foundation for “excellence in communication in the metaphysical field.” She also has a blog where she often discusses the regulation of tarot readers by local governments.

Mary K. Greer

Do you feel Tarot readers and other purveyors of various forms of divination should be specifically regulated? If so, where’s the line between fair and oppressive? What do you think of the new regulations in Warren, Michigan where you have to be fingerprinted, pay a yearly $150 fee, and submit to a background check?

No. I don’t believe in specific laws and regulations for fortune tellers that go beyond the standard business laws of any community. It has been found that laws prohibiting fraud cover most cases of abuse perfectly adequately and far better than regulations that discriminate unfairly against this particular profession, especially when they assume criminal behavior where none has been shown by the individual. It has been proved over and over again that discriminatory regulations are created by special interest groups and that they are unfair and almost always unconstitutional.

I’ve always been proud of being part of what I call an “outlaw profession,” partly because it operates outside of the laws, understanding and expectations of regulated society and crosses over the boundaries that tend to distinguish professions, being in-part, entertainment, spiritual guidance, noetic and folk therapeutics, and more. By definition, I provide a service that is not covered adequately by the more traditional and accepted professions. Clients are looking for something extra-ordinary and they get something extra-ordinary. I have the freedom to self-design and describe what I do—which also brings with it the responsibility to explain this as clearly as possible to my clients. I am also responsible to establish my own ethical guidelines and to know and operate my business within the laws and regulations of any area in which I work. While the public is taking a chance on what they are getting, “chance” is, by definition (fate-fortune-chance), part of what they are seeking. However, most of what I’ve said in this paragraph has no bearing on the legal issue, which is a matter of free-speech, occasionally freedom of religion, and is a business service that should be treated like other businesses. If fees and fingerprinting are standard for all businesses then fortune telling should be included.

In your writings you’ve mentioned that fortune telling laws were getting stricter, do you feel there is a religious element to this, or is it simply a case of various interests keeping the “wrong” kind of business out of their neighborhood/town?

Actually, legislation is going both ways – on a case-by-case basis – for instance, Michigan as opposed to the recent Maryland case. Discriminatory laws are almost always urged by people with special interests, whether it’s religious (including “skeptics” as a fundamentalist religion) or proprietary interests in the business community or those who want to control the field from within according to their own private standards. There are always people who want to legislate the rights and actions of others, not according to the highest laws of the land but according to their own beliefs and desires.

How do you feel the various communities that engage in the divinatory arts should respond to tougher regulations? Do you feel we haven’t been paying enough attention to this issue?

I think it is part of professionalism to become aware of these issues. I’m all for educating others and spreading the word. I also understand that it can be very expensive, time-consuming and stressful to fight unfair laws, so I don’t blame anyone who fails to do so. I honor, respect and want to thank each person who has acted legally or editorially against immoral and unconstitutional practices. I especially honor the ACLU, which has been consistently on the side of standing up in court for the rights of fortune tellers, psychics, astrologers, etc. to practice their professions without discriminatory laws. I don’t believe they’ve lost a single one of these cases. I urge others to donate to this outstanding organization.

I was on the board of the short-lived Tarot Certification Board and I discovered how difficult it is to certify practices that are so unique to each practitioner and viewed differently by each certifier. I don’t believe that anything we did, could have served, in practical, consistent-to-everyone terms, both practitioners and clients fairly and equally, nor would Certification, in itself, have prevented fraud. Certification’s greatest gifts to the community have lain in educating everyone involved in laws, ethics, standards, and range of practices, and in acting as a self-diagnostic and rough measurement tool for practitioners who needed help in determining their own abilities relative to others and in understanding and accepting their own professionalism (self-esteem). As a professional field, we are not yet capable of guaranteeing anything, nor of protecting the public through internal investigations and revoking of certifications. However, if there are to be any public regulations or legal certification, I believe it should be defined and overseen by those in the field. A pretty dilemma!

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I’d like to thank Mary K. Greer for taking the time to speak on this issue, and hope you’ll stay tuned to further installments of the Psychic Services and the Law series. This is an issue that has become intertwined with many modern Pagan individuals and businesses and it behooves us to stay informed and  engaged.

Thorn Coyle pointed me to a blog post at Scarlet Imprint, a small publishing company that creates high quality limited-run esoteric works (we’ve mentioned their recent poetry collection Datura here). In the post, the publishers decry the trend of their titles, and the titles of other small esoteric and occult publishers, ending up on file-sharing sites.

“This has been described as a ‘golden age of occult publishing’. From the internet it appears that there is a thriving international occult community and that publishers are reaping the benefits. This could not be further from the truth. Most magical publishers are very small businesses struggling to survive. Occult authors are making precious little, if any, money. This is not the motivation behind the work.

We work a seven day week at Scarlet Imprint because we believe in what we are doing. Producing books is a massively demanding occupation. We wasted another day today trying to stop illegal copies of our books when we could have been finishing Geosophia for the printers and working on our own writing. We are sick to death of this, as are Ixaxaar, Golden Hoard, Xoanon et al.”

This isn’t a new phenomenon, esoteric works have been pirated and put on various torrent sites for years now. The justifications for this are many. That they can’t afford the book, so it’s OK to steal it, that it’s out-of-print and the used book market is exorbitant, that the author is dead so his beneficiaries should release the works to everyone, or that they don’t like the organization or company that controls the rights to a certain author. Some pirates/file-sharers even claim that they are doing the authors/companies a favor by downloading the book for free, that it’s a form of promotion. This was an argument used against composer Jason Robert Brown when he tried to convince various individuals to stop trading his sheet music for free.

“Let’s say Person A has never heard of ‘The Great Jason Robert Brown.’ Let’s name Person A ‘Bill.’ Let’s say I find the sheet music to ‘Stars and the Moon” online, and, since I was able to find that music, I was able to perform that song for a talent show. I slate saying, ‘Hi, I’m Eleanor and I will be performing “Stars and the Moon” from Songs for a New Worldby Jason Robert Brown.’ Bill, having never heard of this composer, doesn’t know the song or the show. He listens and decides that he really likes the song. Bill goes home that night and downloads the entire Songs for a New World album off iTunes. He also tells his friend Sally about it, and they decide to go and see the show together the next time it comes around. Now, if I hadn’t been able to get the sheet music for free, I would have probably done a different song. But, since I was able to get it, how much more money was made? This isn’t just a fluke thing. It happens.”

The problem, of course, is that not all experiences are scalable, and what Trent Reznor or Cory Doctorow finds profitable and worthwhile may not work for every artist, publisher, or company. In the end, and this should be something key to anyone active within the Pagan and esoteric communities, it’s about consent. You can’t force your preferred business model or promotional ideas on someone else, no matter how right you think you are. If it’s unethical within the circle, it is certainly unethical outside of it. It doesn’t make you a romantic rebel, it just reveals you as someone with no consideration for how your actions will affect someone else.

Further, our businesses and artists are working on a very small scale, with very limited resources. A few sales could mean the difference between putting out another book or closing shop for some small publishing houses. Even if we allow that piracy against “big” acts or corporations is ethically neutral, to do it to one of our own, no matter what the justification, is a hurtful act. To use another example, Pagan artists like Pandemonaeon, Damh the Bard, or Emerald Rose produce very small runs of their CDs, usually only around a 1000 copies. Even “bigger” acts like Faith & The Muse or various artists on Projekt Records aren’t all that much bigger in terms of the number of CDs they produce and sell. Every time we download one of their songs or albums for free instead of ordering a CD or purchasing a legal download we literally cost them money.

“Last night I was directed to a very interesting New York Times graphic showing how little money is left in the music industry.  Wow! On the FB thread, there were a few comments along the lines of, “Yeah, I’m sure this affects the major labels, but Projekt fans wouldn’t steal.” Sorry to burst the bubble, but Projekt fans steal just like everyone else. Projekt’s total $$ is 50% of what it was a decade ago, and if it wasn’t for legal download (iTunes, mainly), it would be 25% of what it was 10 years ago. When somebody steals an Unto Ashes or Soulwhirlingsomewhere or Steve Roach or Black Tape For A Blue Girl album, that means less money for Projekt, less money for the artists, and a much higher chance that someday you won’t find anymore music from this artist.”

Some may now be wondering what my personal stance on this issue is, after all, I’m a big proponent of Creative Commons and making information easily available on the Internet. I don’t place ads on my site, don’t sell anything, and hold one fundraiser per year to help fund my activities. I also admire folks like Doctorow who are taking chances with their content in order to build new models of making money as a creative person. But that brings us back to problem of consent. I’m choosing this model of doing business. So when you share my articles around, you are doing so with my blessings. Since I’m coming from a place of grass-roots journalism, I want what I’m doing to spread with as few hurdles as possible. But I would feel very differently about it if I were selling a limited edition book, or trying to sell a CD. I love it when people forward my posts around on Facebook or via e-mail, but you are doing a Pagan musician no favors if you buy one copy of a CD and then allow all the other members of your magical or religious group to make free copies of it for their own use.

But even if the moral argument, or arguments from a stance of magical ethics, doesn’t move you there’s a very simple practical reason why we should support our businesses, writers, and artists with our money, and that’s because it enables them to continue doing what they do. Without enough revenue we don’t get better books, or new albums, or thriving businesses. We don’t build the infrastructure that so many say we want and need to move forward and service our ever-swelling ranks.  We are at a time of transition when it comes to media, and how our community as a whole responds to it will decide how able we’ll be to face the challenges and needs of the future. Times are tight, and the temptation of simply taking what we want is greater than ever, but if we give in to that temptation we risk hobbling our own progress in the name of short-term benefit.