Comments on: BBC Newsnight: Theta healing, the new crackpot faith healing movement

By: ExeGeoff

ExeGeoff — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:11:10 +0000

I hope the BBC reported the husband for assault.

By: Flapjack

Flapjack — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 09:58:13 +0000

If it ducks like a quack, it probably is a quack.
I have a friend who once told me he met a shaman on a ‘spiritual retreat’ in Peru who said claimed he had the power to cure HIV by incarcerating the patient in a mudhut for 3 months and feeding them on a diet consisting of nothing but rice and bananas.
I’m guessing slow protracted death is one way to cure disease, but perhaps not the one people are looking for when they seek medical advice.

By: Floribunda

Floribunda — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:45:25 +0000

Theta healing. Not to be confused with ‘doctor theatre’: which of course really works!

By: Don

Don — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 15:09:18 +0000

Paul,

That was a jke, right?

I’m pretty sure those sort of claims are actually criminal. These people should be arrested and charged.

By: Chris Applegate

Chris Applegate — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 13:41:46 +0000

I havn’t looked into this any further but there is something familiar about this. I was reading a while ago about how Scientology in america was fronting as help groups and healing groups in order to get people involved and certainly the fact that this has “Theta” in the name makes me wonder. Scientology is based around “Thetans” which are the negative spores of energy given off by an atomic blast millions of years ago that wiped out most of the population of our world which was then apparently called “teegeack” or something, thetans then attatch to all of us and give us disease and negative thoughts and scientology basically holds the “key” to curing us of these thetants. So the name “theta” and the ideas around this seem even more suspect than at first glance

By: Berber Anna

Berber Anna — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 09:13:26 +0000

Boris: It’s one thing to look at the side effects of proper treatment and decide you’d rather die than go through that to increase your chances of survival (in fact, my mum says that if she ever gets cancer, she’d rather die than go through chemotherapy and surgeries — not what I’d do, but I respect that). It’s quite another thing to be conned into believing that the choice isn’t ‘horrid side effects or certain death’, but rather ‘horrid side effects or a side-effect free cure’. That skews people’s decision-making process, as obviously everyone would pick the second option (provided they believe in it). Except the second option is a con, and they’ve now unwittingly chosen certain death. It’s no longer a free and informed choice.

By: Dirty Kuffar

Dirty Kuffar — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 06:35:05 +0000

New age phoney websites can be reported to the Advertising Standards Authority – here is a link from the Richard Dawkins Foundation website on how to do it ;
http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/633933-fishbarrel-easily-report-quack-web-sites-to-the-asa-uk

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 05:53:25 +0000

If you believe in any healing modality and have the intention to heal, then that will work if you have the belief that this will work. There are many healing modalities in the world, and your mind is an amazing powerful tool, so it is possible to overcome certain blocks and fears relating to various illnesses. Still not sure about bone regrowth though, that I guess is one huge block to overcome!

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 21:10:39 +0000

I cure cancer in secret, and it only works when you give me lots of money.

By: fearglic

fearglic — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:30:16 +0000

desperate people would try anything.