{"id":29,"date":"2011-07-26T13:49:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T13:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/Wordpress\/EverydaySpirituality\/wordpress\/?p=28"},"modified":"2011-07-26T13:49:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T13:49:00","slug":"medium-madness-on-the-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/?p=29","title":{"rendered":">Medium Madness on the BBC?"},"content":{"rendered":"

>\"\"<\/a>Broadcaster Rosie Millard <\/a>had a right bee in her bonnet this weekend, over the question \u2018should money making mediums be banned?\u2019 discussed on this week’s Sunday Morning Live<\/a>. She had a double pronged attack: firstly, that charging by these \u2018con-artists\u2019 should be banned, and secondly, that if mediums have a \u2018gift\u2019 then they shouldn\u2019t charge for it. It should be offered freely. As one of the studio guests pointed out, her reasoning was therefore slightly flawed and contradictory, and the programme failed to open the floor for intelligent debate.<\/p>\n

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The \u2018experts\u2019 in the studio consisted of the irate Rosie Millard and a Radio talk show host, neither of whom seemed to have any genuine insight into the issue under discussion (or should that be \u2018under attack\u2019). The exception was Seema Malhotra<\/a>, Director of the Fabian Women\u2019s Network, who kept pointing out that it is not up to \u2018us\u2019 to impose our own values and beliefs on others. She said if those who consult mediums \u2013 and pay for it \u2013 get comfort and guidance, others have little right to denigrate it just because they don\u2019t believe.<\/div>\n

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Seema also pointed out that if Rosie wanted to ban people paying mediums for their \u2018gift\u2019 or \u2018service\u2019, then we would presumably have to start judging on whether we can charge or pay for other \u2018gifts\u2019 and \u2018services\u2019, such as art, psychology or even journalism (though whether the latter is either a gift or a service is debatable right now).<\/div>\n

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For a programme which is meant to debate moral issues intelligently this item was poorly put together. When they did actually talk to a medium, this was only on a video link and they did not do the courtesy of putting her name up on the screen like they did for the other guests. And during the entire video-link Rosie looked down her nose at the medium as if she was something nasty she had just trodden in.<\/div>\n

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Rosie wanted to know where the \u2018scientific proof\u2019 was that mediums can talk to the dead and that there is life after death. Presumably if she had this proof she would be happy for mediums to charge, even if they are invested with a gift? But my feeling is perhaps the programme was asking the wrong questions of the wrong people. If they had taken a little more time to research the knowledge we do<\/em> have about the social and psychological value of things like visiting mediums or believing in life after death, then they might have had a more interesting discussion about whether people (mediums, psychologists, artists, journalists, or whoever) should be able to charge for bringing comfort, healing and security to some people\u2019s lives.<\/div>\n

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Professor Chris French <\/a>began to explore the reality (as opposed to Rosie\u2019s hysteria), by pointing out that such beliefs can bring psychological help and comfort, and if people take comfort from that, and they are adults, then that is their choice. But they spent little time talking to him, and completely failed to address the spiritual links and underpinnings to the whole issue. They also completely missed the point that professional mediums are only one small part of a much larger population that is actively exploring the whole \u2018life after death\u2019 question. As Seema tried to make clear, we need to know more about the impact of this in people\u2019s lives and only then should we pass judgement. They couldn\u2019t do this on the show because they hadn\u2019t done the necessary research beforehand.<\/div>\n

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If the BBC had invited me I could have answered Seema\u2019s point, and told them that there is a wealth of scientific knowledge out here. But Seema apart, they didn\u2019t really seem to want to know, and besides, I don\u2019t think I could have braved Rosie\u2019s arrogance and condescending looks. <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

>Broadcaster Rosie Millard had a right bee in her bonnet this weekend, over the question \u2018should money making mediums be banned?\u2019 discussed on this week’s Sunday Morning Live. She had a double pronged attack: firstly, that charging by these \u2018con-artists\u2019 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/EverydaySpirituality\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}