Russian lawmakers have drafted legislation that would ban advertising for “mystic practices, energy healing, and spiritual counseling.” A bill co-authored by Communist Party deputy Nina Ostanina, chair of the Duma’s Committee on Family, Fatherhood, Motherhood, and Childhood Affairs, would prohibit promoting and disseminating information about such new-age services.
Ostanina and her colleagues compiled a list of 37 professions that would be subject to the ban. Among them: alchemists, astrologers, witches, spiritual mentors, magicians, tantra specialists, feng shui consultants, tarot readers, “healers,” palm readers, chakra specialists, and even nutritionists. Notably, psychics are not mentioned in the list.
In their explanatory note, lawmakers provided definitions for each of the listed professions. For example, they define a witch as “a person claiming to influence events, people, or objects through practices described as ‘magical’ and/or ‘sorcerous.’” A nutritionist is defined as “a person without a higher medical education who claims to be able to determine strategies for rational human nutrition for therapeutic purposes.”
The bill’s sponsors say the prohibitions are needed to protect the public against services that “lack a scientific basis” and are widely viewed to be “misleading and indicative of fraud.” By banning such ads, the state would safeguard Russians “from disinformation, manipulation, and the negative impact on their physical and mental health,” deputies argue.
Shortly before the bill was introduced, a group of Russian nutritionists appealed to the Russian government, the State Duma, and the Public Chamber to exclude their profession from any list of “new-age services,” arguing that it had been included in Ostanina’s bill by mistake.