Psychics will have their diplomas checked

The State Duma takes on the task of curing supernatural advertising

Advertising of witchcraft, magic, removal and induction of damage and the evil eye will be prohibited in the near future. Yesterday the Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship recommended that the State Duma adopt a corresponding amendment to the Law “On Advertising”. One of its members, United Russia member Viktor Zvagelsky, began promoting changes in the law that could somehow regulate the black market for magical services two and a half years ago. But, according to the legislator, all this time, mysterious and completely inexplicable obstacles from the point of view of common sense arose in the way of his amendments.

“We then received the first negative response to the draft amendment due to inaccuracy in terminology; we first had to develop an exact definition of what a sorcerer, a sorcerer and, say, a traditional healer are. What is their difference,” Mr. Zvagelsky told Vremya Novostey. It could take years to compile, and most importantly, agree and approve such a glossary in the Duma, so deputies from the Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship found a simpler solution: they proposed banning the advertising of the services of those “specialists” who do not have a healer’s diploma issued by the Ministry of Health and Social Development. “Of course, here too we may well be talking about a corruption component and unclear criteria by which such documents are issued. But at the first stage, this is enough: we expect to immediately cut off hundreds of charlatans working in the dark,” says Mr. Zvagelsky.

The fight against unscrupulous workers in magical services, according to the plan of the deputy and his like-minded people, should take place in several stages and in no case should be aimed at banning the activities of all non-traditional healers of bodies and souls without exception. “For now, we should only talk about banning advertising, since it is always a sign of business. They invest in it in order to obtain subsequent profits,” explained Viktor Zvagelsky. “Those traditional healers who do this because of family traditions and at the call of their hearts almost never advertise in the media, and many basically do not take money from visitors, limiting themselves only to food.”

The deputy especially emphasized that the new amendment to the law “On Advertising” does not aim to take away people’s last hope, which, for example, relatives of terminally ill patients have every right to place on anyone, given that traditional medicine can no longer offer them anything. But the state is obliged to enter as a regulatory authority into the huge shadow market of services related to human health and life. It is very difficult to determine in practice whether a person has a choice or not, whether he went to a shaman due to cultural attitudes or as a result of competent witchcraft. And this duality of approaches still does not allow us to talk about the transparency of the new amendment to the law.

It is not difficult to imagine that specialists in fortune telling and divination will “invest” part of their income in purchasing a diploma and will begin to present themselves in advertising videos as traditional healers and herbalists. Their profits are unlikely to decrease from this. By the way, deputies do not undertake to calculate the financial capacity of the current market for such services. According to economists, such estimates simply cannot be, since the phenomenon is truly widespread and widespread throughout the country. It is also impossible to accurately determine the number of practicing healers. But, according to the Russian Professional Medical Association of Traditional and Folk Medicine Specialists, registered with Roszdravnadzor, more than 100 thousand specialists in this field are now practicing in our country. And of these, less than 1% (400-500 people) have so-called state diplomas of a healer. Approximately another 200 people underwent the voluntary licensing procedure, which was carried out by Roszdravnadzor from the beginning of 2006 to January 1, 2010. “Such a small number of healers who have official confirmation of their abilities and skills is due to the fact that territorial health authorities simply do not fulfill their assigned function of issuing such documents,” association president Vladimir Egorov told Vremya Novostey. According to him, now in Russia there really is a boom in charlatan healers who invest huge amounts of money in advertising to lure casual visitors.

But Mr. Egorov sees the reason for the current revelry in the short-sighted policy of the state itself: “In December 2009, the Federal Scientific Clinical Experimental Center, which worked under the Ministry of Health and Social Development, was disbanded,” says the leader of officially recognized healers. “But it was precisely this institute, together with professional associations registered by Roszdravnadzor, that had the right to confirm the unusual abilities and skills of individual healers.” Now there is no one to check whether laser beams of natural origin are emanating from the eyes of one or another hereditary sorcerer of the sixth level or whether it is just an illusion that can be reproduced by any student of a circus school.

Galina PAPERNAYA