Dutch prisons use psychics to help prisoners contact the dead

Hey, they should get this guy to help dead victims talk to their murderers.  Now that could be a rehabilitative tool!

My how intolerant of you snert, I thought you were the happy Libertarian?

And how do you know said criminals dead relatives would hate them and that the psychic is telling lies? That is an expression of your self-imposed reality of intolerance and hate.

This is one of those perfect moments.  You're actually asking me how I know the self-described psychic is lying!

If this is a dream, let me never wake!

But how about this:  even if we pretend, for the sake of argument, that psychics are among us, chatting with dead Grandpa and Grandma.  This psychic said "I tell them that dead relatives are doing well and that they love them."

Funny that he seems to already know what the dead relatives are going to say, and funny that it's the same for everyone, eh?

And yes, you're absolutely right that I'm intolerant of criminals. Totally intolerant. And so are you, I suspect, if I choose the right criminal.

I once saw a TV ad for a phone psychic that began "Are you tired of all those [i]pretend psychics?...[/i]"

Genius, it was.  And in my mind's eye I could practically hear the legions of the gullible shouting "Yes, yes, OH YES!  Finally a REPUTABLE telephone psychic!"

remind wrote:

many Indigenous peoples  definitely believe in spirit ancestors watching over them, 

That is something I never thought of remind.  Medicine men treat through various methods according to FN culture, including the belief in ghosts or spirits affecting the person, so does that mean that if a FN person is in jail they should be denied access to a medicine man because people think that is all just a bunch of whooey?  Considering that FN are vastly over represented in the prison system here, it could be an issue here.

It is an issue refuge, and is part of the colonialist oppressive superiority mentality, as we can see exampled here at babble, so nicely, we can imagine what it is ike in the greater white man's patriarchial society.

Moreover, how many of these "psychic skeptics" believe in a GOD watching over them, that they can beg....oops...pray to?

Refuge wrote:

remind wrote:

many Indigenous peoples  definitely believe in spirit ancestors watching over them, 

That is something I never thought of remind.  Medicine men treat through various methods according to FN culture, including the belief in ghosts or spirits affecting the person, so does that mean that if a FN person is in jail they should be denied access to a medicine man because people think that is all just a bunch of whooey?  Considering that FN are vastly over represented in the prison system here, it could be an issue here.

I think there is a difference between access to spiritual counsel and the state paying for said access.

You want to talk to your psychic/pastor/shaman?  Have at it.  Just don't expect the public purse to pay for it.

Quote:

It is an issue refuge, and is part of the colonialist oppressive superiority mentality, as we can see exampled here at babble, so nicely, we can imagine what it is ike in the greater white man's patriarchial society.

So if I don't believe that psychics talk to people's dead relatives, that's what colonialist oppression is? And patriarchy too? Because I'd heard those were bad things, not totally normal, intelligent things.

Note that this psychic is NOT First Nations. But if I think he's a fraud, well, clearly I'm being colonialist.

Anyway, I'm no psychic. But I do happen to have in my possession a Crystal of Hope, which brings good luck to all who believe in it, and I'll be happy to sell it to you for only $100, remind. What say?

Timebandit wrote:

I think there is a difference between access to spiritual counsel and the state paying for said access.

You want to talk to your psychic/pastor/shaman?  Have at it.  Just don't expect the public purse to pay for it.

Well we obviously differ on the idea what the judicial system should accomplish - helping to support people or punishing them.

Generally under the paradigm of actually helping people to become better when they are in trouble currently there are clergy people who are paid staff at facilities but they fall in line with the more traditional beliefs about religion but I have never heard of a paid medicine man at a prison, even if the population of FN is high.  I think that religion can play a big part in helping to support people who need it but not including certain belief systems or only letting them in on a "volunteer" basis is discriminatory.

Our weak and ineffective governments hire whacko rightwing organizations to do their thinking for them all the time. A lot of what they pawn off on our stooges is discredited voodoo economic theory anyway. I think I'd have more faith in psychics than all of the rightwing "think" tankers combined. Whackos that they are anyway. All those Fraser and Howe and overpaid whackos in the senate should be given pink slips and told to go stand in line in front of the uI-Ei-O office with old McDonald.

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but I have never heard of a paid medicine man at a prison, even if the population of FN is high.

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For some time now, [url=http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/prgrm/abinit/ab6-eng.shtml]CSC[/url] has developed working relationships with the Elders, who provide spirituality, counseling and the connection back to an Aboriginal identity for Aboriginal offenders. Native Liaison Officers have been providing a bridge for better understandings of the cultures. Federal institutions have started introducing Aboriginal-focussed healing programs and curriculum and have initiated the development of Healing Lodges in various parts of the country. Pê Sâkâstêw in the Samson Cree First Nation and the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge in Nikaneet First Nation are successful examples of this approach. The Solicitor General, Lawrence MacAuley, has recently stated that he is determined to tackle the challenges of the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples in corrections and that a key element of the strategy will be to create new healing lodges designed with and for Aboriginal peoples and operated by Aboriginal communities.

I'm not sure you're doing FN culture any favours by lumping them in with New Age charlatans, but there you go.

Snert wrote:

Quote:

but I have never heard of a paid medicine man at a prison, even if the population of FN is high.

 

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For some time now, [url=http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/prgrm/abinit/ab6-eng.shtml]CSC[/url] has developed working relationships with the Elders, who provide spirituality, counseling and the connection back to an Aboriginal identity for Aboriginal offenders. Native Liaison Officers have been providing a bridge for better understandings of the cultures. Federal institutions have started introducing Aboriginal-focussed healing programs and curriculum and have initiated the development of Healing Lodges in various parts of the country. Pê Sâkâstêw in the Samson Cree First Nation and the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge in Nikaneet First Nation are successful examples of this approach. The Solicitor General, Lawrence MacAuley, has recently stated that he is determined to tackle the challenges of the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples in corrections and that a key element of the strategy will be to create new healing lodges designed with and for Aboriginal peoples and operated by Aboriginal communities.

 

I'm not sure you're doing FN culture any favours by lumping them in with New Age charlatans, but there you go.

I know of these programs.  The Liason is paid, sometimes, but usually not the people who are brought in.  They work on a volunteer basis.  Not quite sure I disagree with them being a volunteer basis as a lot of the occasional work most spiritual people and medicine men that have helped friends have not accepted money but if it is a full time job it would be a different matter, people have to eat.

Not lumping in any people together, just pointing out that different things can help people to get to a place of healing and it can be a slippery slope when judging psychics based on the fact they don't subscribe to traditional beliefs.

I agree Michele. Faith usually means the most to those suffering the most and I will respect people's beliefs even if I don't believe in an afterlife.  Which in a additon to the traditional ideas, I include all ghosts, spirits, dead relatives speaking to psychics, ect

Jingles - that will always be funny - I believe that Hercules could have even smirked once(macho guy that he probably was) when he heard one of the latest prophecies to come down from the Temple of Apollo.  "get this - yeah I'll be poisoned by the blood of a half-man, half horse - haha- wait - the best part - I'm the one who poisoned it's blood when I shot it with a poison arrow. haha It's like symbolic or something"

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People have a right to practice their faith and to have access to it, and just as the state pays for everything else for people in jail because they have no means of paying for it themselves since they are locked up and can't earn money, then I don't see why they shouldn't pay for spiritual counselling.

Including Scientology "auditing"? That can cost tens of thousands per believer. But if we pay phony-baloney psychics, how would we say no?

The reason they don't get real wine is because it's prison, and wine is a form of alcohol.  Do they get bread of some sort?  If so, the wine will be "baked in", as it is in many Catholic eucharist services.

A Scientology audit doesn't involve alcohol or drugs... it's said to be more like taking confession.

But am I sensing some reluctance to provide this? 

From the point of view of accomodation religious beliefs are essentially equal.  It's not the religion we're accomodating, it's the believer.

If we got to judge, and only had to accomodate the ones we "take seriously" then on what grounds would we be paying psychics???

Given that, should taxpayers be helping imprisoned Scientologists realize their spiritual potential, or no?

Sineed wrote:

Michelle wrote:

Actually, the public purse DOES pay for spiritual counselling inside prisons.  They're called "chaplains" and it's a very necessary service.  People don't stop being human because they're in jail. Furthermore, many denominations and faiths have prison ministries where they hold services in jail for inmates.  And I also agree that if there is demand for it, that Indigenous religious practitioners should be brought into jails.  

This is correct - and 1st nations practitioners are brought into jails also.

This thread is not about access to spiritual practitioners, this thread is about if people believe that the government should pay for these services. I know there are cases of denial but the thread is not about denial of spiritual counsel, it is about the payment of spiritual counsel when it is provided.  I, personally, have not heard of any case where alternate practitioners have been paid and know 3 Buddhist spiritual pratitioners who have gone into prisons and know 2 FN people who requested spiritual counsel and the counsel was not paid.  But as mentioned by Michelle I know of many mainstream religions which follow Christian or Judaism beliefs who are paid with not even a whisper of controversy.  When people start objecting to pay for spiritual practitioners based on the validity of their beliefs when there should be payment (see below my earlier comment) that is the slippery slope that I was talking about.

Refuge wrote:

I know of these programs.  The Liason is paid, sometimes, but usually not the people who are brought in.  They work on a volunteer basis.  Not quite sure I disagree with them being a volunteer basis as a lot of the occasional work most spiritual people and medicine men that have helped friends have not accepted money but if it is a full time job it would be a different matter, people have to eat.

Snert wrote:

Quote:

People have a right to practice their faith and to have access to it, and just as the state pays for everything else for people in jail because they have no means of paying for it themselves since they are locked up and can't earn money, then I don't see why they shouldn't pay for spiritual counselling.

 

Including Scientology "auditing"? That can cost tens of thousands per believer. But if we pay phony-baloney psychics, how would we say no?

Obviously if the prison system has a budget which includes payment for spiritual counsel and most (even if not all at this point) spiritual counsel would be paid out of that.  If the spiritual counsel wants more than the budget will allow the system will have to say no.  If people believe that is unfair than they should lobby to change the budget and provide more money to prison systems so that tens of thousands can be paid to a spiritual practitioner.  If not enough people believe it should be changed for scientology, no lobbing.  I know I wouldn't lobby myself but hey, if someone else wants to lobby for those large payments from the prison system because they think it will help the people in prison, go for it!

good to see you don't see absolutes in everything

"Scientists willing to risk their reputations on higher dimensions soon found themselves ridiculed by the scientific community. Higher-dimensional space became the last refuge for mystics, cranks, and charlatans." - Michio Kaku, physicist given an inch and taking a mile

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 If not enough people believe it should be changed for scientology, no lobbing.  I know I wouldn't lobby myself but hey, if someone else wants to lobby for those large payments from the prison system because they think it will help the people in prison, go for it!

We seem to have gone from assuming spiritual counsel to be a right, to spiritual counsel being permitted on the condition that it's inexpensive, and that a majority agrees we should pay for it (which, really, becomes the question of "how plausible are these religious beliefs?")

Now for the record, I'm personally GLAD that we don't pony up the money so that some Scientologist criminal can proceed to become the best Thetan he can be, because I think that would be a giant waste of public funds, but then this speaks back to my original point that funding scam-artist "psychics" is also a giant waste of public funds.

That leads me to what I think is a great win-win idea.

On the off chance that there's a real psychic out there who could do prisoners some good, and in recognition of the fact that the majority of self-identified psychics are scammers and con artists, I propose we pay real psychics handsomely, from the public purse.

The fee will be in a box, buried somewhere within county limits.  Have at it, psychic.  Finders keepers.

Snert wrote:

That leads me to what I think is a great win-win idea.

On the off chance that there's a real psychic out there who could do prisoners some good, and in recognition of the fact that the majority of self-identified psychics are scammers and con artists, I propose we pay real psychics handsomely, from the public purse.

The fee will be in a box, buried somewhere within county limits.  Have at it, psychic.  Finders keepers.

Randi's a quack not a scientist.