Brilliant - can you give us some details? Names of the scientists?Originally Posted by Spiritual Surgeon
I AM in the process of Research by Scientists.
2012, homeopathy, psychic surgery, crystals etc etc
Why is it the average wooist believes in absolutely everything?
Why do you never come across someone who, say, believes in psychics but not crystals, or 2012 but not homeopathy?
What is it about these beliefs that you have to end up believing in it all - there is no evidence for any of it, so it is just so logically incomprehensible why people believe in it all!!
Put it this way, I can't wait until 2012 to prove all you suckers wrong againWhat are YOU going to say on January 2013 is more the question!!
Who mentioned worries of 2012?
Who said the world would end?
I AM in the process of Research by Scientists.
Having said that, you will all be believing in 2017 or 2018 by then....
I don't believe in everything!
right I think I've said enough on this forum where as you lot have nothing better to do then try to disprove something that is helping millions of people every day
I have people to see who genrally need help.
That is so true - the energy that goes into arguingis ultimately destructive rather than productive.
Peace
2012, homeopathy, psychic surgery, crystals etc etc
Why is it the average wooist believes in absolutely everything?
Why do you never come across someone who, say, believes in psychics but not crystals, or 2012 but not homeopathy?
What is it about these beliefs that you have to end up believing in it all - there is no evidence for any of it, so it is just so logically incomprehensible why people believe in it all!!
[Bugs Bunny mode ON]
Ahhhh, gimme da woiks!
[Bugs Bunny mode OFF]
What I don't understand is what practitioners think the skeptic's motivation is.
What kind of people would attempt to disprove and denigrate something that "helps millions?" Like we want people to suffer. Since we make no money from our skepticism, we must be here expressly for the purpose of perpetuating human misery for our own enjoyment. That would make us, essentially, sadists.
This is the love n light brigade thinking of us like this- thinking of fellow human beings as essentially evil. Why do they never wonder, or ask, why skeptics feel so strongly about this, and just leap to the "you're all closed-minded" conclusion? Isn't that closed minded in itself? Ho hum.
Bye Gary, sorry you didn't stick around.
Psychic surgery is no different to other bogus therapies such as Reiki. It undoubtedly 'works' best on people who don't really have anything wrong with them or who have a self-limiting condition (i.e. it will get better anyway).
The problem with this sort of deception however, is that the practitioners really want to be taken seriously and insist on claiming that they can cure conditions such as cancer. Gary Mannion, for example, is not directly claiming to be able to cure cancer but his rhetoric leaves it in no doubt that that is what he's actually claiming.
The potential for harm should be blatantly obvious to anyone but when people are in a desperate situation they often don't think rationally and can fall for all sorts of scams. Unfortunately there are always people willing to prey on desperate people by making incredible claims backed up by deception.
As already pointed out, the deception in psychic surgery is that a sleight-of-hand technique is used to give the illusion that some form of medical intervention is taking place.
This trick is simply that the psychic surgeon pretends to press his fingers into the persons body (to remove tumours etc.) but all he's really doing is to bend his fingers around, in the manner of making a fist, and covering this action with his other hand.
This act of willful deception (lying to the patient) is displayed by psychic surgeon Gary Mannion here:
These people are prepared to take hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds in payment for performing the act of lying to people about curing their cancers etc.
If exposing these charlatans' lies and trickery makes skeptics 'bad people' then I'm more than happy to be classed as evil.
These people are not 'helping millions of people'; they are parasites who are intentionally lying to people in order to take their money.
So let's keep a sense of perspective as to what it is we're dealing with here.
And lastly, if anyone thinks that Gary Mannion actually really believes in what he does, then I'd like to know why he's intentionally using the bog-standard sleight-of-hand trick shown in the photo above!
.
Don't get me wrong, I think what he's doing is dangerous. But I think the barrage of questions and accusations will just make people defensive, and then make them run away. Better to give someone enough rope to hang themselves, no? A bit of polite questioning draws out enough inconsistencies to highlight the daftness of an idea, but we tend to run to pages of separate questions and different ideas- Gary's replies illustrate this- he's talking to five people at once! I wouldn't be able to sustain that kind of conversation very long. Also, the more questions posted, the easier it is for certain tricky questions or interesting themes to be "accidentally" passed over and forgotten.
As for "lies and trickery", well again, Gary has been brought up to believe what he does is real. I wouldn't be surprised if he does believe it. If enough people tell him they feel better after he does whatever, and the people closest to him encourage him to believe, why wouldn't he? And if that's true, I think that probably requires different handling. Are you trying to get him to think about what he believes, or just wanting to show him up? Are you dealing with a deluded person, or an outright scamming liar? In his case, I'm not sure it's clear which he is.
The sleight of hand thing in this instance makes no sense, as he doesn't "break the skin" or "draw blood", or even "remove" the tumour. If you read his description of the surgery, he never claims that his own hands enter the patient's body. So he's faking something he doesn't even claim to do? ???
I think it's at least possible that he's copying a technique he's seen others do without really understanding that it's done like that solely for sleight of hand purposes. I'm thinking about it again....nope....if he doesn't claim to actually enter the body or remove anything from it, then there's no need to place the hands like that, so why do it unless you think that's how it works? Alternative explanations welcome.
I DO mind being called evil, but more than that I think bringing believers up on that is a useful tactic. It's an ill-thought out argument- we're all here to disprove things that "help millions"- why on earth would any normal human being want to do that? I think it needs pointing out to them.
This is a very good point, and perhaps something for an administrator to consider. Perhaps a thread should be opened for someone claiming pyschic powers where there is only one person in dialogue with him/her, where everyone else is locked out. Questions could be put through this one mediumso the claimant does not feel a barrage of confusing challenges. That way, people are less likely to be frightened off so quickly, and there might be a chance for some constructive dialogue. Well, we all live in hope.
Can I just ask what the words "psychic surgery" actually mean if there is no claim to "break the skin" or "draw blood", or even "remove" the tumour.? Sorry if that is a daft question but I am having trouble seeing what the phrase implies now
From the description on his website, "spirit hands" do the surgery with him as a medium, I think.
Isn't it strange that the techniques used by Gary are 'helping millions of people every day' yet remain so obscure he has to demonstrate them in his workshops? All we need is ONE case history of cancer, fully documented by doctors both before and after Gary's treatment, to change our opinion. What does he offer us? A testimonial by Megan which we're expected to take at face value.
If Gary has indeed been brought up to believe he has extraordinary powers - and in a way I hope he has, because otherwise his parents must be appalled by his choice of career - he must have absolutely no curiosity about them. Has he never looked into the subject of psychic surgery as it's practised in the real world? Isn't it more likely that he knows enough about it to realise that actually removing 'tumours' can backfire horribly if the evidence is seized and examined in a laboratory? As it is he doesn't cut skin and doesn't remove anything. Yet he's still making the one-hand-covered-by-the-other gesture which implies that his fingers are, by some means or other, inside the patient's body. The only possible reason I can see for this is that it's a dramatic way to make the patient feel that something supernatural is going on.
Still, even if Gary is no longer interested we now have Spiritual Surgeon's claim to examine. Which scientists are examining your work? Names, please!
Last edited by Julia; 22nd December 2007 at 06:02 PM. Reason: Typo
I very much doubt that someone who uses sleight-of-hand fakery doesn't know what he's doing and why he's doing it.
In a sense, it doesn't actually matter whether he believes it or not. The fact of the matter is that such people cannot do what they claim and this is potentially life-threatening for anyone who falls for the claims. It's the bogus claims that are the key issue and not the belief of the practitioner.
Yes, it's always nice to appear polite and and look as if we're taking the claims of people like 'psychic surgeons' seriously but in doing so we're in danger of adding credence to their claims.
As skeptics, we should be concerning ourselves with the facts of such claims; and all the evidence shows that psychic surgery is pure fakery.
.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks