London ? Britain’s clairvoyants, mediums and mystics foresee trouble ahead.

A small group of “spiritual workers” demonstrated in London on Friday against government plans to regulate their services with consumer protection rules. They fear the move could leave them open to lawsuits by disgruntled customers and troublesome skeptics.

“We live in a very litigious society,” said Carole McEntee-Taylor, a spiritual healer and general secretary of the newly founded Spiritual Workers’ Association. “There are frauds out there, but to tar everybody with the same brush is really naive.”

Spiritual services are now covered by the Fraudulent Mediums Act. Under the law, prosecutors must prove a medium or healer intended to commit fraud to secure a conviction.

But starting next month, spiritualists’ work will fall under more general consumer protection regulations, a move the government says will simplify the law and bring Britain into line with European Union rules.

The government says the regulations target “misleading or aggressive” activities and “will not affect the supply of spiritualistic services.”

But many practitioners fear they could be sued by unhappy customers, or forced to prove in court that they really have otherworldly powers.