The State Duma has submitted a bill to combat advertising of esoteric services
The State Duma has submitted a resonant bill on the ban on advertising of 38 types of services, including the activities of witches, magicians and astrologers. The authors of the initiative claim that these practices do not have a scientific justification and are often used by scammers. The list of those who fall under the ban on classes was widely discussed before entering into parliament; According to the results of the discussion, nutritziology and a number of psychological practices were excluded from it – subject to the “arrangers” and “game practitioners” of specialized higher education. According to the expert, to combat esoterics, deputies would be worth adjusting the existing articles of the Criminal Code about fraud.
Amendments to the laws “On Advertising” and “On Information, Information Technologies and On Information Protection” were introduced on April 23 to the State Duma the head of the Parliamentary Committee for the Protection of the Family Nina Ostanina (Communist Party), Deputies Andrei Svintsov (LDPR) and Alexei Kornienko (RECREAM). They suggest prohibiting advertising « Information on the provision of esoteric and energy services. » In an interview with “Kommersant”, Madame Ostanina emphasized that the initiative does not affect the activities of religious faiths – for this the bill is given the corresponding definition: “Esoteric services – services related to the conduct of spiritual, or ritual, or ritual practices that are not included in the spiritual, or ritual, or ritual practices of religious organizations that are legally operating in the Russian Federation.”
The document provides a list of 38 classes: “Alchemist”, “Witch”, “Magic”, “Medium”, “Numerologist”, “Runologist”, “Tarologist”, “Hiromant” and so on. According to deputies, these practices do not have a scientific justification, mislead people and are often used for fraud.
Resources with advertising of these types of classes are proposed to block by analogy with information prohibited for dissemination. The explanatory note claims that in South Africa, India and China, such prohibitions helped reduce the number of scammers.
As Kommersant reported, the first version of the initiative was published in March 2025. Then Ms. Ostanina called her « the law against charlatans and obscurantists. » The document mentioned the same 38 types of classes, but they were only listed through a comma, and the decoding of each type of activity was given in an explanatory note. In the bill introduced, the definition of activity is given directly in the text. This was done “for understanding that we, in fact, are prohibited,” Mrs. Ostanina explained “Kommersant”. For example, the “cosmoenerget” is a “person claiming the use of“ cosmoenergy methods ”in order to improve the physical and psycho -emotional state of the human body.” At the same time, the authors significantly clarified some definitions. So, in the first version of the document, the alchemist provided consultations “based on the concept of transformation of physical and psycho -emotional states”. The document entered in the State Duma claims that there is actually no such transformation and alchemists only assure that it exists.
The list left nutritziologists – specialists in « rational nutrition strategies. » However, the authors made a reservation that the ban concerns « persons without higher medical education. » Earlier, representatives of the industry complained to the government and the State Duma of attempts to equate specialists involved in the science of nutrition with « charlatans and obscurantists » (See “Kommersant” from April 8). Later, at a meeting with Mrs. Ostanina, psychologists stood up for the « arrangers », and business representatives asked to make an exception for « game practitioners » (See “Kommersant” from April 10).
As a result, the authors of the bill allowed the activities of “game practitioners”, “neurographs”, “practitioners of conscious dreams”, “arrangers” and “regressologists”, provided that it is conducted by specialists with a higher psychological education.
Yesterday, Nina Ostanina explained “Kommersant” that the versions of bills are different, since she “received many proposals” from colleagues. Commenting on the situation with the nutritionists, the deputy explained that there are no medical professions in the official list of medical professions, but there is such an additional education in universities. “So if a person has a medical education and he wants to become a nutritionist, then the flag is in his hands,” the deputy said.
The general director of the Law Firm « Mitra » Yuri Mirzoev considers the introduction of exceptions to psychologists and doctors with higher education. However, he draws attention to the ban on “derivatives” services mentioned in the document, “which expands the coverage of the law.” Mr. Mirzoev also notes the “uncertainty” of definitions: he does not understand how to distinguish “esoterics” from “psychology with elements of spiritual practices”, and sees in this the potential for abuse. So, he considers a possible situation of blocking sites on formal signs – for example, for mentioning runes – without evidence of specific cases of fraud. As a result, the lawyer considers the bill in principle excessive: to combat scammers, according to him, it would be more effective to tighten existing articles of the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.
