Well, Gary's "demonstration of psychic surgery" last night didn't exactly set the world on fire. A gentleman who posts regularly on UK-Skeptics and BadPsychics recorded the whole thing...
http://www.zen59685.zen.co.uk/audio/gm32.mp3
...as a result of which I can now provide you all with yet
more pearls of wisdom from an Indigo Child:
Soya milk and goats’ milk are high in oestrogen, which can cause breast cancer.
Microwave cookers kill germs but also everything in the food.
The oranges we buy in the shops are injected with arsenic.
Sea-salt has some truly extraordinary properties – Mannion claims that in America a dog was drained of its blood, transfused with sea water and went on to live for 9 years.
Blue algae is good for Alzheimer’s
Mozart and Einstein were “Indigos”.
People can be healed merely by being in the same building as Gary.
He recommended another "psychic surgeon" - John of God!
Throughout the 1 1/4 hours the presentation lasted he repeatedly said “just my opinion”, or words to that effect.
Oh, and during the show Mannion said he works with GPs but is unable to name them for professional reasons. He repeated his by now familiar claim to have worked with obstetrician-to-the-stars Dr Gowri Motha, who has yet to reply to many e-mails asking for confirmation of this. Mannion also mentioned Manesh Naidoo, supposedly Head Physiotherapist at London's Northwick Park Hospital, who either does not exist or has had his/her name misspelled or misremembered by Mannion.
All of which inclines me to believe that Mannion is genuinely self-deluded, not that it makes him any less dangerous. However, things hotted up towards the end of the evening when Professor Chris French of Goldsmiths College Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit got up to speak:
"It was in the last 5 mins that Prof French got onto the microphone - he was quite irate - and challenged Gary about his claims. He asked Gary if he would agree to having his claims tested, and Gary agreed - in public, in front of approx 250 people."
Mannion had already said he's in favour of of a new law coming into force in April protecting customers from fraud, so he has no excuse to back out now!