There have been many controlled scientific studies looking at cancer and "belief", and unfortunately its shown that those change belief therapies don't change death rates.
The Bright-sided book goes through some of the data. [www.amazon.com]

Quote
Stoic
I appreciate the point about no-one being able to change their hair colour by belief alone, so how can you expect to change deeper body pathologies. That puts it in a nutshell.
.

A new interview of another RN, by chance at Angel Valley, from Cassandra Yorgey.

Examiner

I hope this isn't too far off topic, but Louise Hay built an entire industry on having cured her (non-existent) cancer through affirmations. Like Ray, she also had some help from Oprah. How many people have died painful premature deaths because they stopped their chemo?

Affirmations can stop cancer, but they can't stop the need for having a face-lift, so poor old Louise looks like a halloween mask. Ironically, if she had've kept repeating the words "I love and accept my body and its aging processes," it could actually have worked.

...........
Interesting to hear from Penelope that Ray was using a sham version of kinesiology. He even fakes woo.

The other guy also mentioned that James Ray was also doing that bogus chiropractic Applied Kinesiology (AK) quackery [www.skepdic.com] (the SkepDic article is quite funny)
"You see, that is why we never do double-blind testing anymore. It never works!"



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2010 06:24AM by The Anticult.

You often see the AK immoveable arm show in martial arts demos as a demonstration of the power of mind over matter, its a crowd pleaser but doesn't really show anything much.

It has long been studied as the ideomotor effect/response:

Ideomotor_effect

and even Milton Erikson wrote a paper on it.

Interesting that JAR will take any dodgy trick from anywhere to aid his sales process.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2010 06:44AM by Stoic.

"The practice of Kinesiology is the assessment of movement, performance, and function; and the rehabilitation, prevention, and management of disorders to maintain, rehabilitate, and enhance movement, performance, and function in the areas of sport, recreation, work, exercise, and general activities of daily living." [en.wikipedia.org]

I took a class in this, it's a very intensive study of the muscles, joints, musculoskeletal forces, brain anatomy, vertebral anatomy, anatomy of the brachial plexus, sacral plexus (we even had to learn to draw each plexus!), neurology, ligaments and osteokinematics.

Compare that to Applied Kinesiology - push on someone's arm while asking them a question. If they can't resist the pressure, it means it's an area in their life they need to work on. Example: say "I am a worthy person". If your arm can't resist the pressure applied, you have self-esteem issues. You can even go to the health food store and hold a bottle of vitamins in front of you and do a self test to see if you have a vitamin deficiency!

From Kevin Hogan's page, linked earlier:


'Find out how some of the most intelligent people you will ever meet often have the most incredible "I was in a cult" story ...and how many others never made it to tell the story'

I had to laugh. Dave, is that you Kevin is talking about? So incredibly intelligent except not about cult apologists?
Shows where Dave's real interests lie.
Beware the upsells.

I hate to tell you this Penelope, but.....
The ScepDic article TAC linked to above is worth reading.
The vitamin test you suggest is only half a test. If you did that and then did a medical test for vitamin deficiency and they came up with the same results (with both tests blinded of course) then there would be a case for saying there might be something to AK. But as the article points out, such tests have been done, and the results are not good.

The value in a lot of these things is that a genuinely kind, loving person can use it to focus their sensitive awareness on someone, or a system of fake knowledge can facilitate an interaction. Also, a lot of woo has a mainstream component - relaxation, for example, or massage, with a bit of esoteric stuff thrown in. The esoteric stuff is easier to sell and supports the ego of both client and practitioner too, of course.

There are many good people out there using these sorts of things and helping people.
But there are two main dangers: the general spreading of ignorance, and worse, it opens the door to quack cancer cures and the like. Countless people have died horrible deaths because they stopped their treatments and trusted woo.

Also, the general lowering of standards opens the door for the James Ray's of the world. He aint the only one. He's just the one who was unable to reign in his sadistic tendencies and exposed himself.

All that said, I appreciate your comments insights very much Penelope - both here and on Connie's site a few months ago!

Hi Yakaru,

I did read the article, I wasn't endorsing "Applied Kinesiology" or the vitamin test, I was pointing out how silly it was. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post. I took a class taught by an actual anatomist from the University of Utah that dealt with actual Kinesiology, the study of anatomy, biomechanics and physiology, not the woo stuff trying to pass itself off as kinesiology.

I had my session with the Reiki practitioner and went to the James Ray seminar before I took that class. I don't think chiropractors or similar quacks should even be able to use the term, they are completely misrepresenting what it means.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2010 11:09AM by Penelope.

They used the fancy word "kinesiology" just for this reason, to bamboozle people, and themselves. Have met people who "believe" Applied unKinesiology, funny coicidence, they also $ELL it make a lot of money, funny how that works.

Grant Cordone says James Ray did that AK stuff.
[forum.culteducation.com] "Prior to this he was teaching pseudo science neuro-linguistic programming and using the chiropractor's kinesiology techniques to sell his products and seminars"

The AK thing is such a scam, as the stronger arm muscle pushes down on the weaker arm muscle facing up. So then James Ray and his flunkies could ask..."should you give 10K to James Ray for nothing?", then they put their body weight on your arm, and the answer is YES!

Next time someone tries AK on you, just reverse the arm directions, put your stronger arm muscle on top, and theirs on the bottom. Then watch their face go white, but they usually won't submit to that.


By the way, not endorsing Grant Cordone either! He sells himself as...
QUOTE: "Grant Cardone is the Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins all in one package" [www.grantcardone.com]
Uh...yikes, that is not something to brag about. Grant Cordone is a professional $eller, and for some reason quickly spoke out againt James Ray, and said he verbally "warned" someone about it? Sounds like more distancing from James Ray, like Matthew James was doing.

Below is a warning about James Ray, dated from Feb 2007 and in writing, after seeing him on Oprah for the first time for a few minutes and knowing nothing about him previously. Why is it he could be spotted and exposed in seconds? Training in the field.
[forum.culteducation.com]
QUOTE Feb 2007:
"Oprah has also unleashed 2 more new Age Gurus on the soccer moms of America to be milked like fattened cattle.
James Ray: who is a new Werner Erhard type, very slick and sleazy, and who is a Tony Robbins clone, repeating Robbins exact words verbatim, over and over.
Oprah just crowned this sleazy salesman James Ray the new Werner Erhard. There were some horrible complaints about this guy on the Oprah boards, people getting ripped off 10K, and lots of people burning their feet in his "fire-walk" and not being allowed to go to the hospital. This guy is very bad."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2010 12:27PM by The Anticult.