ABSTRACT: "Energy" is a central concept among spirit mediums in the United Kingdom. This article investigates how energy is understood by spirit mediums and the practices by which energy comes to be experienced and accepted as real. Interviews with forty such mediums revealed a shared understanding of energy that participants used reasonably consistently. We argue that the concept of energy is learned both conceptually, through metaphors, and practically, through specific trainings and practices. Drawing on cognitive anthropology, we argue that energy metaphors provide the basis for a cultural model of mediumship that both explains and forms the medium's experiences within contexts of practice. Further, this cultural model is central to their worldview, their understandings of how mediumship works, and their experiences of communicating with spirits.

ABSTRACT: With the present-day American legal system, an important phenomenon has coalesced: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) laws have begun regularly surfacing in prosecutions and civil suits against new religious movements and groups popularly identified as "cults." As an aid to future research, this article enumerates and details all known cases as of April 2025. These include scattered predecessors, but most importantly the article addresses the major burst of contemporary activity that began in 2016, involving groups such as NXIVM and the R. Kelly "sex cult." Contextually, this trend forms an expanded application of RICO. It also forms a distinct historic episode wherein this specific law impacts new religious movements. In general, these cases qualify as social control efforts, and RICO requirements emphasize practices and beliefs in a way that might raise religious freedom concerns. Such groups also encourage scholars to consider the value of the recently-proposed category of "criminal religious movements."