Charlie Goldsmith

[Hoodleehoo]

I just learned about this "healer" yesterday and was surprised to see how much success he had treating treatment resistant cases. First off, I am very familiar with so-called faith or energy healers and similar pseudoscience, and the absurdity of their claims. This guy got my attention, though, as I'm struggling to figure out what exactly is happening.

The placebo effect is the most obvious explanation, but there are three things that seem to conflict with that possibility: (1) the most impressive healings occurred in people who did not expect anything to happen, and (2) there was no event or signal that something was beginning to happen. In my experience, at least one of those two things have to be present to get a placebo effect. I performed mentalism in my younger days in order to expose supernatural claims, and if people did not believe or truly expect something to happen you have to give them some indication at the beginning that a change is taking place (same thing with hypnosis tricks). Once they have some preliminary evidence of something happening (even if it is ambiguous), their brain can take it from there. But even then, to get any kind of reliable effect, you must have an authoritative presence and use words to direct their experience. Charlie was very shy and simply asked them what their problem was, then just sat there with his eyes closed, leaving the patient confused about if it had yet started. I would not expect much success from this method at all.

Most surprising to me, is that (3) many of the patients were treatment resistant and had not been able to have much success at all from prior medical interventions. One woman had to have injected ketamine to get relief, but claims Charlie's healing was better than the ketamine, and was permanent despite only seeing him once (as a followup one year later showed). Two other severe cases were seemingly permanent as well. If anything were to trigger a placebo effect, it'd be an injection of ketamine. I struggle with a placebo effect (or even desirability bias) explanation given that so many other medical interventions allegedly didn't work. If there is a placebo effect going on, then we need to figure out what is so effective at triggering it when other medical interventions were unable to.

So what is really going on here? Energy healing is extremely unlikely, for obvious reasons, but placebo effect also seems a less-than-convincing explanation. I have not seen his tv show, nor do I have much desire to. What I saw was a news story on him, in which they tested him with different patients. A reality show or self-produced special can be and almost certainly is faked. The report I saw at least appears as if they are attempting to be fair.

What am I missing?

 

[turingtest]

Charlie Goldsmith: A new celebrity quack arises, enabled by TLC, at Respectful Insolence. Looks like more of the same old, same old to me- claims of "healing" for cases that involve only subjective standards of proof, backed by "an unblinded, uncontrolled study...with cherry picked patients almost custom-designed to produce strong placebo effects, regression to the mean, and confirmation bias..."; and for any more objectively testable claims, the usual copout-

But he confessed to me that it’s not an exact art.

“To be honest, sometimes I’ll work on something that—medically—is seemingly simple and not fix it. And something that is medically complex—something medically incurable, for example—that might be quite easy for me,” he said.

(That quote is from the original Forbes post, by a blogger named Courtney Porkoláb- the "me" being confessed to- that got Orac going)

 

[catsmate]

A good summary of the new, photogenic quack turingtest. Thank you.

 

[wardenclyffe]

Hi Hoodleehoo,

Welcome to the forum. I'd like to read the article that caught your eye. As a new member, you are not allowed to post links, but you can post broken up links and we can fix them so we can all see what you are talking about.

My initial impression of your analysis is that it's hard to tell how susceptible someone is to the placebo effect. You say the patients did not expect anything to happen and that there was no trigger signal to tell them when to feel better. But they were there. They knew something was going on. If they were just walking down the street and they were unaware that someone was "treating" them from a balcony up above, that would be more impressive. But just the fact that they were participating ups the level of susceptibility---by a lot, I think.

Still, I'd like to see what you read. I might be getting this all wrong.

Thanks and welcome again,
Ward

 

[curious cat]

I just learned about this "healer" yesterday and was surprised to see how much success he had treating treatment resistant cases. First off, I am very familiar with so-called faith or energy healers and similar pseudoscience, and the absurdity of their claims. This guy got my attention, though, as I'm struggling to figure out what exactly is happening.

The placebo effect is the most obvious explanation, but there are three things that seem to conflict with that possibility: (1) the most impressive healings occurred in people who did not expect anything to happen, and (2) there was no event or signal that something was beginning to happen. In my experience, at least one of those two things have to be present to get a placebo effect. I performed mentalism in my younger days in order to expose supernatural claims, and if people did not believe or truly expect something to happen you have to give them some indication at the beginning that a change is taking place (same thing with hypnosis tricks). Once they have some preliminary evidence of something happening (even if it is ambiguous), their brain can take it from there. But even then, to get any kind of reliable effect, you must have an authoritative presence and use words to direct their experience. Charlie was very shy and simply asked them what their problem was, then just sat there with his eyes closed, leaving the patient confused about if it had yet started. I would not expect much success from this method at all.

Most surprising to me, is that (3) many of the patients were treatment resistant and had not been able to have much success at all from prior medical interventions. One woman had to have injected ketamine to get relief, but claims Charlie's healing was better than the ketamine, and was permanent despite only seeing him once (as a followup one year later showed). Two other severe cases were seemingly permanent as well. If anything were to trigger a placebo effect, it'd be an injection of ketamine. I struggle with a placebo effect (or even desirability bias) explanation given that so many other medical interventions allegedly didn't work. If there is a placebo effect going on, then we need to figure out what is so effective at triggering it when other medical interventions were unable to.

So what is really going on here? Energy healing is extremely unlikely, for obvious reasons, but placebo effect also seems a less-than-convincing explanation. I have not seen his tv show, nor do I have much desire to. What I saw was a news story on him, in which they tested him with different patients. A reality show or self-produced special can be and almost certainly is faked. The report I saw at least appears as if they are attempting to be fair.

What am I missing?

I followed this case with a great interest. The main reason is, my own recovery from rheumatoid arthritis was almost a carbon copy of the case of the woman in this program. The difference is, neither I nor anybody else can explain my recovery. There certainly wasn't any "healer" around and I didn't do anything to cure it myself. No supplement, medications, ointments, meditation - nothing.
I don't agree with you that the people on the program didn't know they were "being cured". They all knew, so the placebo effect remains a possibility. I do have my mind open to some other ways Charlie could have initiated a healing process SOMEHOW that in some people starts spontaneously. Our bodies definitely have some hidden healing abilities - we just don't know how to trigger them.
In my case it went well beyond "easing the symptoms". 10 years ago I had my hips and knees destroyed to the point of a total dysfunction and x-rays clearly showed the damage too. One of each were replaced (100% success) and the other 2 were awaiting the same fate. While the dates for the operations were already set, BOTH the remaining joints returned to a full pain-free functionality and x-rays are showing perfectly healthy joints. Go figure... At the age of 60 I was a perfect cripple shopping for a wheelchair (no joking). I am 70 now, flying paragliders and sailing single-handed 40 ft ocean yacht no problems. Knocking on wood though .

 

[Pixel42]

Based on the OP, I'm doubtful there's anything that the placebo effect, regression to the mean, confirmation bias and sheer coincidence can't explain. The only way to know for sure, of course, is to do a proper double blinded trial.

 

[Hoodleehoo]

Hi Hoodleehoo,

Welcome to the forum. I'd like to read the article that caught your eye. As a new member, you are not allowed to post links, but you can post broken up links and we can fix them so we can all see what you are talking about.

My initial impression of your analysis is that it's hard to tell how susceptible someone is to the placebo effect. You say the patients did not expect anything to happen and that there was no trigger signal to tell them when to feel better. But they were there. They knew something was going on. If they were just walking down the street and they were unaware that someone was "treating" them from a balcony up above, that would be more impressive. But just the fact that they were participating ups the level of susceptibility---by a lot, I think.

Still, I'd like to see what you read. I might be getting this all wrong.

Thanks and welcome again,
Ward

That is the only thing I have been able to think of. They were there having been made aware that this man was a special healer. It certainly helps. What I saw was mostly video. Search his name on youtube and watch the first few stories on him.

 

[Hoodleehoo]

Based on the OP, I'm doubtful there's anything that the placebo effect, regression to the mean, confirmation bias and sheer coincidence can't explain. The only way to know for sure, of course, is to do a proper double blinded trial.

It is easy to fall back on those explanations, but I believe we must be as skeptical about those possibilities as we are any other. In this particular case, regression to the mean and coincidence seem extremely unlikely to play a role. Confirmation bias is always present, but doesn't do much to explain the healings themselves (though it likely has a small role). Placebo effect is the only real possibility, and we know it plays a role somehow because it always does.

But placebo effects have a much lower % of success than what we see here, and we know these people are not cherry-picked for their susceptibility to the placebo effect because they did not receive relief from medical interventions. And if I were choosing audience members to give me the biggest chance of success for this type of effect, these people would not be who I chose. I would choose believers who have not had much medical intervention (emphasis on "believers"). I would also not expect permanent results.

 

[Hoodleehoo]

I followed this case with a great interest. The main reason is, my own recovery from rheumatoid arthritis was almost a carbon copy of the case of the woman in this program. The difference is, neither I nor anybody else can explain my recovery. There certainly wasn't any "healer" around and I didn't do anything to cure it myself. No supplement, medications, ointments, meditation - nothing.
I don't agree with you that the people on the program didn't know they were "being cured". They all knew, so the placebo effect remains a possibility. I do have my mind open to some other ways Charlie could have initiated a healing process SOMEHOW that in some people starts spontaneously. Our bodies definitely have some hidden healing abilities - we just don't know how to trigger them.
In my case it went well beyond "easing the symptoms". 10 years ago I had my hips and knees destroyed to the point of a total dysfunction and x-rays clearly showed the damage too. One of each were replaced (100% success) and the other 2 were awaiting the same fate. While the dates for the operations were already set, BOTH the remaining joints returned to a full pain-free functionality and x-rays are showing perfectly healthy joints. Go figure... At the age of 60 I was a perfect cripple shopping for a wheelchair (no joking). I am 70 now, flying paragliders and sailing single-handed 40 ft ocean yacht no problems. Knocking on wood though .

To be clear, I didn't suggest they didn't know they were being cured, but rather that they allegedly didn't "expect" to be cured. At least they said as much, not believing it would work.

 

[Pixel42]

It is easy to fall back on those explanations, but I believe we must be as skeptical about those possibilities as we are any other.

We need to be as sceptical about explanations which do not defy the laws of physics, and which have been shown to be the actual explanations in every scientific investigation of such claims ever made, as we are about paranormal explanations of which the reverse is true? No, I don't agree.

After decades of careful scientific investigation of such claims, these explanations have earned their place as the null hypothesis. If objective evidence of a paranormal explanation is ever offered we should certainly reconsider that null hypothesis, until then it stands.

It would be trivially easily for Mr Goldsmith to produce such objective evidence if his claims were true, but he has made no apparent attempt to do so. Until he submits his claims to proper testing, and that testing produces statistically significant positive results, I see no good reason to seriously consider them.

 

[Darat]

It is easy to fall back on those explanations, but I believe we must be as skeptical about those possibilities as we are any other. In this particular case, regression to the mean and coincidence seem extremely unlikely to play a role. Confirmation bias is always present, but doesn't do much to explain the healings themselves (though it likely has a small role). Placebo effect is the only real possibility, and we know it plays a role somehow because it always does.



But placebo effects have a much lower % of success than what we see here, and we know these people are not cherry-picked for their susceptibility to the placebo effect because they did not receive relief from medical interventions. And if I were choosing audience members to give me the biggest chance of success for this type of effect, these people would not be who I chose. I would choose believers who have not had much medical intervention (emphasis on "believers"). I would also not expect permanent results.

You are failing at critical thinking.

We know placebo effects and all the rest happen, we have solid evidence for them.

Despite faith healing being as old as recorded history there has not yet been a single evidenced objective example.

Thanks to our increased knowledge we now know enough to be able to state quite categorically that faith healing does not exist.

 

[turingtest]

We need to be as sceptical about explanations which do not defy the laws of physics, and which have been shown to be the actual explanations in every scientific investigation of such claims ever made, as we are about paranormal explanations of which the reverse is true? No, I don't agree.

After decades of careful scientific investigation of such claims, these explanations have earned their place as the null hypothesis. If objective evidence of a paranormal explanation is ever offered we should certainly reconsider that null hypothesis, until then it stands.

It would be trivially easily for Mr Goldsmith to produce such objective evidence if his claims were true, but he has made no apparent attempt to do so. Until he submits his claims to proper testing, and that testing produces statistically significant positive results, I see no good reason to seriously consider them.

You are failing at critical thinking.

We know placebo effects and all the rest happen, we have solid evidence for them.

Despite faith healing being as old as recorded history there has not yet been a single evidenced objective example.

Thanks to our increased knowledge we now know enough to be able to state quite categorically that faith healing does not exist.

This These. There's this weird idea that skeptical thinking means that you must, in the absence of absolute proof, apply as much doubt to rational explanations as the irrational one for a given claim, which is the equivalent of giving the irrational explanation an unearned equal weight. No, it just doesn't work that way; as Pixel42 and Darat say, there is a null hypothesis which is made the null and given its weight by the historical precedent created by years of investigation into thousands of identical claims. You don't get to overturn all of that by treating this one guy's claims as if they're made in a vacuum and proposing that skepticism, as a process, needs to re-start on unplowed ground every time such a claim is made.

 

[steenkh]

But placebo effects have a much lower % of success than what we see here

Really? How do we know that? It certainly depends on the illness.

and we know these people are not cherry-picked for their susceptibility to the placebo effect because they did not receive relief from medical interventions.

Perhaps they did not receive much relief from medical interventions precisely because their ailments were much influenced by placebo, or rather nocebo in the first place.

 

[abaddon]

It is easy to fall back on those explanations, but I believe we must be as skeptical about those possibilities as we are any other. In this particular case, regression to the mean and coincidence seem extremely unlikely to play a role. Confirmation bias is always present, but doesn't do much to explain the healings themselves (though it likely has a small role). Placebo effect is the only real possibility, and we know it plays a role somehow because it always does.

No it isn't. Cartloads of so called faith healers place stooges. How have you determined that none of Goldsmiths supposed successes are not stooges?

How did you determine that placebo is the only possibility to the exclusion of all others?

But placebo effects have a much lower % of success than what we see here, and we know these people are not cherry-picked for their susceptibility to the placebo effect because they did not receive relief from medical interventions. And if I were choosing audience members to give me the biggest chance of success for this type of effect, these people would not be who I chose. I would choose believers who have not had much medical intervention (emphasis on "believers"). I would also not expect permanent results.

We also know that spontaneous remission happens all the time. How did you eliminate that possibility?

 

[Apathia]

Hoodleehoo, Welcome.

Pixel42 has said what's needed about evaluating the objectivity of the efficacy of Energy Healing. As yet it has failed to measure up to a reliable treatment for illness. And overall, if it were as efficacious as some (and me at one time) would like to believe, it would have long been a standard practice in medicine, and energy healers would be ordinary medical professionals.

Decades ago I was enthusiastically into Energy Healing to the extent that I became a Reiki master. I had many nice experiences of pain relief, recovery from colds and flu, and relief from panic attacks, depression, and broken hearts. But i also payed attention to the times it didn't work. I pursued the question "What is really happening here?"

I too had circumstances when the recipient told me ze didn't believe the session would do any thing. But there were positive results.
This I came to understand as a kind of heightened placebo effect. The key element being personal attention inducing a state of receptivity in which an individual's parasympathetic nervous system was engaged. This was especially the case when i'd put myself in a relaxed, focused state the client would personally "resonate" to.

You can pretty much expect that in most cases there will be stress and pain relief from an "energy" session.And of course this is good for recovery from an illness, tough not a cure. Sometimes stuff happens. The body rallies its own defenses. There's a spontaneous remission. But it must be noted that this doesn't happen with the volume that exceeds placebo. Placebo is real, but is not reliable medicine.

I stopped doing Energy Healing because I couldn't support the claims energy healers make. And also, i was too damned good at the mesmerizing aspect of it. Too often I'd induce altered states of consciousness that my clients afterward feel creeped out about or tell me I'd violated their 'personal space" or "energetic boundaries."

Yes. I did phone sessions. For example, a dear friend phoned me when she was in intense pain from her pancreatic cancer. I sat with her over the phone, getting into a meditative space myself, and repeating a mantra. her pain was relived and she shortly fell asleep. But my Reiki did not cure her cancer.

I'm happy for the people who have a positive experience with Charlie Goldsmith or any other Energy Healer, but I'm not happy with him making way unsupported claims of his efficacy that he can use to exploit people's suffering.

 

[carlitos]

But placebo effects have a much lower % of success than what we see here, and we know these people are not cherry-picked for their susceptibility to the placebo effect because they did not receive relief from medical interventions. And if I were choosing audience members to give me the biggest chance of success for this type of effect, these people would not be who I chose. I would choose believers who have not had much medical intervention (emphasis on "believers"). I would also not expect permanent results.

• Define success
• Sort by type of ailment - what is the normal remission rate and over what time period.
• What percentage of success did faith healing have?
• What percentage of success happened with placebo?
• What percentage of success happens without any treatment?

 

[curious cat]

• Define success
• Sort by type of ailment - what is the normal remission rate and over what time period.
• What percentage of success did faith healing have?
• What percentage of success happened with placebo?
• What percentage of success happens without any treatment?

I think the general discussion here is failing do make distinction between "supernatural" and "things we don't understand". In my previous post I described my personal experience (a VERY real one) with "inexplainable" recovery - without the involvement of a third party though. I also explained my theory about some hidden abilities our bodies have. If anybody has a better one, come forward, please. Also, if you one of these who believe we know everything in this field already, you are welcome too.
I do not believe any of these "healers" have the ability to cure people through some "cosmic energy" etc and I also believe a vast majority are frauds. But I do suspect some of them, without even knowing how, can trigger these PERFECTLY NATURAL processes in our bodies or brains that will do the job.
There are some strong indications that BG may be one of them - the fact Monash University is treating his case seriously somehow supports that possibility. I am looking forward to their findings and hope the research will open some new avenues in medicine. As I said before: we don't know everything yet.

 

[carlitos]

I think that you are right, but I expect any effect of so-called "energy healing" to be in a patient's brain, not their body.

I have a personal theory that one reason acupuncture works for some people is that it forces people to sit still in a dark room for up to an hour. For some people, that may be as close as they ever get to relaxing / meditating.

 

[curious cat]

I think that you are right, but I expect any effect of so-called "energy healing" to be in a patient's brain, not their body.

I have a personal theory that one reason acupuncture works for some people is that it forces people to sit still in a dark room for up to an hour. For some people, that may be as close as they ever get to relaxing / meditating.

No doubts brain has a lot to do with it, but the final result is the body doing the job. In my case a regeneration of cartilages in my joints. The damage was real. Both knees and hips were "bone to bone" (x-rays) and the symptoms were well pass just a pain. The joints had so much friction, they were trying to dislocate if moved under load. After the left hip replacement operation the surgeon told me, he couldn't believe I was able to walk at all when he saw the mess inside. The right hip was only marginally better.
This is a photo of me now. 10 years ago my doctor was teaching me how to walk with a stick - if I get from the wheelchair, that is. I wish I could explain what happened.

 

[Apathia]

No doubts brain has a lot to do with it, but the final result is the body doing the job. In my case a regeneration of cartilages in my joints. The damage was real. Both knees and hips were "bone to bone" (x-rays) and the symptoms were well pass just a pain. The joints had so much friction, they were trying to dislocate if moved under load. After the left hip replacement operation the surgeon told me, he couldn't believe I was able to walk at all when he saw the mess inside. The right hip was only marginally better.
This is a photo of me now. 10 years ago my doctor was teaching me how to walk with a stick - if I get from the wheelchair, that is. I wish I could explain what happened.

There's this woo-woo stuff about the "Power of Intention," but i would say this is a good demonstration of a coordinated effort of body and mind.