Harry Houdini’s vocation was the art of illusion, but he was honest about it being just that.  The master prestidigitator actually made quite a project of debunking fraudulent spiritualism in his day.  Perhaps, as a victim of grief, himself, he despised the exploitation of people who longed to speak to the dearly departed.  Or, perhaps he challenged pretenders because he harbored a strong desire to one day come face to face with “the real thing”.  In Freemasonry, it is considered a professional discourtesy to “blow the whistle” on someone purveying phony or polluted alchemy to personal advantage.  Perhaps they feel that those with real occult knowledge shouldn’t compromise themselves to protect those with whom they are not acquainted, and either should know better or who never will.  After all, occultism is so often about concealment to avoid persecution by the mob.  Quality control in ones own endeavors is sufficiently challenging. 

 

Healing shamanism is enjoying a revival in this age.  Many practitioners are effective and reputable, and many are not.  Whether the sometimes substandard practice of paranormal psychiatry is inept or inapt, poor magick or black magick, quackery or charlatanry, the effect is usually the same:  to temporarily enrich themselves (financially), sick people make other sick people sicker than they were before.  Organized religions typically eschew the practice of shamanism, but so heavily mystical a faith as ours cannot do this.  In Native Egyptian Religion, the House of Life is the home of its (hopefully state-of-the-art) investigation into natural medicine and supernatural medicine, and acts as kind of a better businesses bureau of para-psychiatry for the temple, tribe, and region it serves, as well as a laboratory for the priests and initiates who want to further the refinement of traditional knowledge and ritual.  

 

How such a society should deal with disinformation or false advertising will unfold with time, I suppose, as our institutions were out of commission in the material world for a millennium and a half.  Trying to police everyone who makes inflated claims as to the state of their knowledge would be impossible.  Yet, sometimes it’s good to know that there are men and women who are experienced, on the level, and available to answer questions from those with a valid interest in alternative healing methods and pious para-psychiatry.  When the wolves can’t twist your arm into buying what they sell, they start looking for ways to prevent you from accessing the genuine thing.  Yet, we do live in a rich and diverse culture.  Freedom and justice for all includes the crooks until they overextend their greed.