Nipping ‘energy healing’ in the bud

rats

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A couple of friends are thinking about taking a course in some kind of energy healing. I think they are interested in doing something fun and useful, possibly also searching for some meaning and purpose to what can seem an empty life. I’d like to nip this course of action in the bud, in hope of not losing more friends to quackery.

Can you kind forum folks offer any advice? I was thinking of suggesting different courses, such as history or film studies, as well as asking what’s drawn them to try healing in the first place.

Any help much appreciated :)
 
Why don't you suggest them to take a complete CPR course with local Red Cross?

Most times they are lacking volunteers, and CPR can be really (infinitly) more useful than any quackery... also lessons are fun and you can truly save a life some day.

Some extra points are added if there's a hot chick in the group, you may get to practice CPR with her :P ... sorry... medical student's fantasies mixing here
 
Perhaps you could all look logically and objectively at the theories underpinning of the "healing" process, whatever it may be, and try and work out the consequences for someone undergoing healing.

Ask them to consider the principles which underly the specific process - are these in any way evidence-based, or scientifically assessible? Do they have mesurable effects? If not, why not? - can the promoters of this energy healing show something to demonstrate that anything chemical/physical is actually happening or changing? (the answer will be no - and this should get your friends thinking)

If the "explanation" is that energies work at a "quantum level" below the threshold of scientific detection, ask that they remain sceptical -after all, if it is possible to measure the spin on a single electron, why are these magic energies never found when they are looked for?

Take the battle into their own territory - How does the healing energy know it is only there to heal? If the energy has such profound (but unmeasurable) effects, how do they know it is not doing harm? (after all they cannot measure its effects objectively, can they?) If they just rely on people saying they feel better after therapy, how reliable is that? If the therapy does "good" things that are not measurable, how do its purveyors measure or assess the sub-clinical harmful things it might do?

I am sure your friends would not have much faith in a doctor prescribing a drug if he said "I don't know if this drug permanently damages some part of your body, we don't bother testing for that sort of thing - we just ask if people feel OK after they have had it, and most of them they say yes, so that's good enough for us", would they? Yet that is what these alternative healers are claiming. Their therapies are both powerful, but harmless - a ridiculous contradiction.

One argument I had once with someone was about the magical detoxifying powers of some form of healing touch therapy. According to the follower of this quackery, the hands gave out some energy that was capable of recognising foreign and unnatural "chemicals" in the body and completely neutralising them. Pushed for a little detail, she begrudgingly accepted my point that "chemicals" were merely organic compounds made of individual molecules, of which we have billions of different ones in our bodies, so how did the healing power know which to neutralise?

Baiting my trap, I asked if the healing could differentiate between a "natural" chemical like salicylate ("natural aspirin") and the synthetic pharmaceutical versions which have been chemically altered. "Yes" was the reply. So, I said, if the drug is synthesised with an acetyl group (acetyl salicylic acid), the healing energy can detect it and neutralise it in the body? "Yes" again was the answer. I then asked if chemicals in the body with links to acetyl groups woulsd also be neutralised? "I think so" came the not-quite-as-sure reply, to which I said I hoped the healing energy was able to individually differentiate certain types of acetyl bonds from others in the body, because if they neutralised acetyl choline, then it would be the equivalent of delivering Zyklon-B to the entire nervous system, and death would follow in seconds. The fact that this obviously does not happen when the magic energy healing is deployed left her with something to think about anyway.

I think the problem is that quacks start with an idea of what sounds like a nice, fluffy, reassuring-sounding healing-energy source (dolphin squeals, crystal energies) that appeal to those looking to become one with nebulous concepts of being in tune with the earth's biorythyms or some other wishy-washy new age stuff, partly as a counter-reaction to what is viewed as an increasingly contaminated environment and medicalised world. The idea that there are natural sources of healing energies has great appeal.

The quacks then build up around their basic woowoo skeleton a pseudoscientific construct that appears to lend their therapy some rationality. So energies have quantum effects on chemical bonding, or magnets reorientate the disturbed polarity of our diseased cells, and so on.

If your friends can see the process by whcih quack healing methods like these arise in the first place, then they may understand why it is so much piffle.

The woos opt out is often "Who cares if we don't know (yet) how it works, at least it works!" This can be countered by a careful analysis of published studies on the various therapies - almost without exception, properly conducted trails have shown them to be no better than placebo.
 
There is an English guy called Horace Dobbs who has a PhD in chemistry who has been conducting research into dolphins for a number of years now.

He has written several books, one of which is called Dolphin Healing.
 
Well dolphins have a nice anthropomorphic smile, seem friendly to humans and are reputed to be as intelligent as some humans (of the latter fact I am in no doubt whatsoever). So of course cavorting with dolphins is naturally healing. Only downside I can see is that they are not warm and cuddly like baby marmosets. But surrogate "dolphin healers" in the form of disneyesque soft toys will do the job just as well.
 
Physiotherapist said:
There is an English guy called Horace Dobbs who has a PhD in chemistry who has been conducting research into dolphins for a number of years now.

He has written several books, one of which is called Dolphin Healing.
Click to expand...

Yes, some have found this to be a particularly impressive form of healing:

In any case, AJ kept his blowhole under my hand for a minute or so. Then he began moving his body fore and aft again for awhile before he left. During our contact, it felt as though his energy went through me. I felt empowered, and I had an innate sense that I would be able to tap into this vibrational energy and use it in the future as it seemed appropriate…

-snip-

That spring, I flew to Edinburgh, Scotland, to conduct a symposium. There were about 70 therapists there, all of whom had completed intermediate-level studies in CranioSacral Therapy. At symposiums, I work on patients with difficult case histories who have been recommended by attendees. I think aloud as I evaluate and treat the patients, often inviting their therapists to join me in a "multiple-hands" therapy process.

During the morning of my second day there, I was working with a young boy who had suffered from cerebral palsy since birth. I encountered a very strong resistance to physiological motion in his head. This resistance was in the horizontal component of the intracranial membrane system (the dura mater of the tentorium cerebelli). Since I was working in a train-of-thought mode, I said aloud, "I'm going to use some dolphin energy here." The therapeutic energy input increased significantly at this time.

Ironically, during the lunch break, the audio-recording technician told me that as I applied the "dolphin energy," the static in his recording also increased significantly. He later reported that same effect each time I applied that energy over the course of the day.

There’s more…
http://www.massagetoday.com/archives/2002/11/15.html
Click to expand...

Rats, have your friends ever thought about training to become paramedics?
http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/nhs-knowledge_base/data/5119.html
 
Physiotherapist said:
There is an English guy called Horace Dobbs who has a PhD in chemistry who has been conducting research into dolphins for a number of years now.

He has written several books, one of which is called Dolphin Healing.
Click to expand...

What do chemists know about dolphins?
 
The saying is, "nip in the bud,"?

I always thought it was, "nip in the butt." You learn something new every day.

:D
 
SPQR said:
The saying is, "nip in the bud,"?

I always thought it was, "nip in the butt." You learn something new every day.

:D
Click to expand...
Yes, it means to put a stop to something early on before it progresses much further, as in cutting a flower bud off of a plant.

rustytunes, is your avatar a still from the movie, The Devil Rides Out?

rats, your thought of asking your friends how they came to choose energy healing is probably on the right track (provided you ask them without sounding condescending). Then ask if they are prepared to follow up with each client to find out if any perceived results are lasting. Or I'd go with stup_id's suggestion and find out why they wouldn't want to learn something that is proven and demonstrably useful. But I suspect that learning a skill that would become needed when someone's life is in immediate danger is not what they are looking for. They probably want something they see as being relatively harmless (ie ineffective), in which case you can ask them if they are prepared to deal with someone who might choose their therapy over conventional medical treatment. Offer them this hypothetical scenario, someone approaches them and says, "I'm diabetic and have thrown away my insulin--I want you to heal me instead. I know you won't me down!" How would they handle that?
 
Geni,

As far as I know, as a chemist, he did not know anything about dolphins when he first started. He had to learn. The reason I told you that he was a chemist was because of his scientific background and he was invited to undertake the research into dolphins by others.

The Massage Today article is by John Upledger. Not the same guy at all. He runs the Upledger Institute in Palm Beach Gardens in Florida and is a craniosacral therapist.
 
Maybe your friends could take a course in massage therapy. Minus the woo of course.
 
grayman said:
Maybe your friends could take a course in massage therapy. Minus the woo of course.
Click to expand...

A woo-free massage therapy course might be really hard to find. I get the impression that a lot of them throw in reflexology, TT, etc.

Of course, the top message school around these parts is at Edgar Cayce's joint, so maybe the situation is better elsewhere.
 
wybili said:
A woo-free massage therapy course might be really hard to find. I get the impression that a lot of them throw in reflexology, TT, etc.

Of course, the top message school around these parts is at Edgar Cayce's joint, so maybe the situation is better elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Or maybe Rats could take the course and challenge the woo as it appears.

;)
 
Thanks very much for all your advice, especially Deetee’s brilliant post. Also particularly liked stup_id and Blue Wode’s suggestions of learning some real healing.

Joining a woo-course would be great for practicing the introduction of critical thinking in a ‘hostile’ environment, but think I’d just get too frustrated!

Psi baba, it looks like Rustytunes’s avatar is a still from a British TV programme called Yes Minister: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister. I’ve unfortunately only managed to watch one episode, but the quality of script and jokes was fantastic! It’s definitely on my ‘to watch’ list.

Just can’t be surprised at the dolphin healing thing. It must be amazing to swim with dolphins, so of course some people will attribute ‘special powers’ when they can’t accept how wonderful the real world is.

I shall be putting together a list of tips tomorrow for when I see one of my friends in the evening (for memory jogging during toilet trips!). I’ll also be handing out a copy of this:
Alternative Engineering": A Post-Modern Parable as they’re both engineers and I think it’s funny.

Wish me luck!
I’ll report back on Thursday.
 
Deetee said:
Well dolphins have a nice anthropomorphic smile, seem friendly to humans and are reputed to be as intelligent as some humans (of the latter fact I am in no doubt whatsoever). So of course cavorting with dolphins is naturally healing. Only downside I can see is that they are not warm and cuddly like baby marmosets.
Click to expand...
They're nasty vicious creatures. They hunt down and kill innocent fish.
 
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