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Psychics given £4,500 government funding to teach people to communicate with the dead
Two psychics from Wales have been awarded £4,500 of government funding to teach people how to 'communicate with the dead'.
Paul and Deborah Rees, who are both self-styled mediums, have been awarded the cash under the Government's Want2Work job creation scheme.
The couple, from Bridgend, south Wales, will use it to instruct people on how to contact friends and relatives "on the other side".
The mediums themselves confess to being "surprised" at securing the grant. But they insist that the "mere £4,500" of public money will be put to good use at their centre, the Accolade Academy of Psychic and Mediumistic Studies.
Jonathan Morgan, a Conservative member of the Assembly, said: "It is an utter disgrace that taxpayers' money is being wasted and given to an organisation that believes it can teach people how to communicate with the dead.
"The people administering the scheme should be disciplined for allowing this project to get public funding and the money should be recouped."
Mark Wallace, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "People work hard to afford to pay taxes and the last thing our money should be spent on is this kind of hocus pocus.
"At a time when people who are alive are losing their jobs it's absurd that money is being spent trying to contact the other side."
Mr Rees, 40, who went into full-time clairvoyancy after losing his job as an upholsterer, said: "People who feel that tax money has been wasted should remember that if they'd lost a child they would go to a medium (for reassurance) that their loved one had passed safely and is in a better place,
"People who have lost mums and dads or a child deserve all the respect in the world in their grieving, and they deserve a medium who can give them respect.
"Our job is to provide substantial evidence to bring ease to people's grieving - and that's what I would say to people who query the award."
Mr Rees said he had his 37-year-old wife had to negotiate "a lot of red tape" to secure the grant, which is intended to help start-up businesses.
"We put a business plan together and they could see they were giving a grant to two individuals who are very serious about what they're doing.
"They hadn't invested in psychics before so we really had to prove ourselves."
The couple, who run the academy from their home, charge £65 per head for a workshop "designed to bring greater understanding of your awareness by using a process to develop your mediumship".
They plan to spend the government cash on printing, advertising and website costs.
Although the £21 million Want2Work scheme is paid for by the Welsh Assembly and the European Social Fund, it is officials at the DWP who decide where it is allocated.
The DWP said in a statement: "We give real help to anyone who loses their job to get back into work as quickly as possible."
A spokesman for the Welsh Assembly said: "We support the overall Want2Work scheme in its efforts to get people back into gainful employment, but we don't administer it.
"We are in the process of checking to determine how this unique venture fits in with the aims of the project."
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
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