Psychics, Homeopaths

 Jayne Wallace is a psychic. She looks unassuming, with a warm smile and sensible brown haircut. But actually Wallace is perhaps the most in-demand psychic in Britain. She's booked up until mid-February, and a thirty minute reading with her will set you back £150. Her past clients include Kim Kardashian and Kate Hudson. And now me.

I've never been to a psychic, but I'm here because it seems like everyone else has. I keep speaking to otherwise normal people who say they visit psychics. Young and old, male and female. They seem to draw enormous comfort from it. In many cases, they have dropped their therapist in favour of a seer. They say the psychic is more helpful. Therapists ask you questions. Psychics give you answers.

Cupid delivering Psyche
Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898)
Photo Credit: The Higgins Bedford [CC BY-NC]

Previously, psychics were mostly confined to the ends of seaside piers, but today there are luxury providers in places such as Selfridges, and big fashion brands hire psychics for their marketing events. There are even psychics who specialise in helping City financiers...

It should be said that there is no scientific evidence that humans have psychic capacity, but in today's uncertain world they are nonetheless back in vogue.

Waiting lists for NHS counselling are long and private therapy is time consuming and expensive. Some of the psychics I spoke to charge an affordable £30 for a reading...

(Charlotte Ivers, The Sunday Times, 2023)

Well Charlotte I must move in completely different circles to you. I do not know anyone who has a therapist or who has been to a psychic, unless of course they didn't tell me. Perhaps it's just a "London thing"... "Back in vogue"eh. Seems like sheep behaviour rearing its ugly head.

Is not critical thinking a definite requirement before engaging with any modern day scammers?

Homeopathy

It is strange that homeopaths can still find employment in 2023, but somehow they do. In 1853, Queen Victoria's doctor was already calling the practice "an outrage to human reason". In the following 170 years it has been debunked repeatedly and comprehensively. After all, its principles run in complete opposition to science, based as they are on "curing like with like" - an extract of raw onion, say, to treat watery eyes - "strengthening" by process of dilution, and shaking it all up to "promote quantum entanglement".

Yet last week we heard that the head of the royal medical household is an advocate of homeopathy. Dr Michael Dixon has championed such things as "thought field therapy", "Christian healing" and an Indian herbal cure "ultra-diluted" with alcohol, which claims to kill breast cancer cells...

YouGov found in 2021 that around half of Britons were "open-minded" about the practice - a figure that was slightly higher in the US and slightly lower in Australia and the Netherlands. In 2022 the global market for homeopathic products was valued at $11bn (£8.6bn)...

Why is homeopathy so useless and yet still so prevalent? Part of the explanation must be that it has always found champions in elite circles... Edward, Prince of Wales, was the patron of the London Homeopathic hospital; King George V1 named a racehorse Hypericum after a favoured remedy... and then there is King Charles...

The royals are no longer the fashion influencers they once were. But another bunch of homeopath-advocating elites have risen to take their place: celebrities such as Helena Bonham Carter, David Beckham, Jude Law, Jenifer Aniston, Chris Martin and Cindy Crawford. They continue to spread the word.

But why? These are not people who want for education, and nor are those who follow their advice: the typical user of homeopathy is affluent and middle class. Why are kings, movie stars and the rich so susceptible to this snake oil?

Two factors, I think. The first is that elites tend to overestimate the value of their instincts. King Charles and Cindy Crawford spend their time surrounded by suck-ups...

The second is... it is perfectly acceptable to have no grasp of of basic science... Combine overconfidence and an ignorance of science and you get an aristocracy convinced that crushed bees and aconite are the answer to their problems.

In any case, it is bad news. Alternative medicine is useless but not always harmless - when cancer patients put their faith in tinctures, and chanting can cause fatal delays to proper treatment. It needs to be resisted.

(Martha Gill, The Observer, 2023)

Endorsement by any celebrity should set alarm bells ringing in the minds of all.

The danger of homeopathy arises when complementary becomes alternative: up to that point it's a usually harmless con. I can recall a number of tragedies in my medical career when death has occurred needlessly through people turning their backs on proven conventional treatment.

The king's approval of such folly may enhance the likelihood of further deaths. He is entitled to his beliefs at his own peril, but royal patronage of this cause is beyond acceptable...

(Paul Burt, consultant clinical oncologist (retired), Stockport, Sunday Times, 2023)