Global Article Opinion

My comments re your Oct 3rd Global National News article on '20 year old millionaire
energy healer', in which you sought to elicit the 'esteemed' academic knowledge of
Professor Barry Beyersteinon on the healing work of the young BC healer 'Adam'.

According to the article you quoted Prof Beyersteinon as saying, "They don't really
cure anybody. It can make people feel better, but they are not necessarily getting
better. That’s why these things need to be tested under properly controlled
conditions."

It would seem to me that as an academic one needs to be aware of certain things:

1. If one has no true understanding or knowledge of something, one doesn't make
statements that attempt to discredit that which one knows little about.

2. Keep an open mind. If academics have closed minds before they actually investigate
anything, that surely smacks of bias. It is also unethical and unprofessional.

3. Engage in research on the topic before opening one's mouth! Opinions are not facts.
When being asked a question by the media on a topic with which one is not familiar,
the academic should have the courage to say, "I've never read much about this or had
any direct experience with this, so I cannot comment except to give my opinion, which
is not based upon fact." or "I cannot comment as I am not familiar with the research
on this topic."

4. You might find this article interesting: http://www.butterbach.net/mainfare/AcademiaCritique_v1.1.htm

When the media is asking for a 'professional opinion' it behoves the media to find
someone who actually knows what they are talking about...or is this type of reporting
a thing of the past?

It was not so long ago that psychology was thought to be a 'nutty' profession. When
I was an undergrad in the U.K. many moons ago psychology was a 'new' thing which
many of the locals thought was a 'load of codswalllop'! The history of medicine is not
exactly pristine and pure either. It took 40 years for them to accept that the simple
act of washing one's hands before deliving a baby could save the lives of countless
women. Think of how many women died while they were getting used to this idea.
The 'quack' physician who came up with the idea was ostracised by his profession!
One might also ask why the biological sciences are having such a hard time with
quantum physics...perhaps because it blows their paradigm and they'd all have to
go back to school?

With that in mind, perhaps I can enlighten you as to how out of touch you seem to
be with the "phenomenon" of energy healing and distance healing. Also, how biased
your reporting is on a topic you obviously have done little research on. Your laziness
in not doing your research or simply stating your obvious bias shines though your
article. Obviously you prefer shallow and sensational reporting because it seems to
be fun to put down or make insinuations about those who have the courage to
publicly state what they do and do what they are gifted to do.
"...But does Adam truly have healing powers? Skeptics argue that the millions of
dollars in workshops, books and DVD sales make up the real motivation behind the
energy healing phenomenon. "
Sounds a bit like the story of the guy who thought it would be a good idea to wash
hands during a delivery!

Your article is also insulting to those who attend Adam's workshops and once again
shows your ignorance of who attends these workshops and the calibre of people many
of them are. You insinuate that we flock like sheep without any brains in our heads.
"Adam calls himself an energy healer. Thousands across North America are flocking to
his sold out workshops. In this bizarre transformation Adam claims he can influence
people’s brain waves, ultimately affecting their health.
Professor Barry Beyersteinon obviously had no idea what he was talking about and
should have kept his mouth shut. However, for your own enlightenment, and so that
perhaps after reading below, you will get off Adam's case:
Harvard has done research which demonstrates that thought can actually travel in
advance of itself. Hard to believe, but true.
The telephone is an amazing conduit of energy and can assist in transferring
information about a person's energy field just like a computer reads wireless
messages from 'airports'.
Many allopathic drugs have been shown to be no better than the placebo effect, yet
they are still on the market making trillions of dollars...along with all their killing side
effects. They rank as number three in terms of causing death in our society at the
moment. Go figure! No word from you about this "phenomena"?
Does anyone question the CEO's of the large corporations who give themselves
1000%
increases in salary and make millions, plus annual bonuses, for their supposed
'healing' work which a very conservative estimates suggest kills at least 160,000
human beings in the U.S. alone per annum? (See New England Journal of
Medicine)
Something rotten at the core of science?
http://post.queensu.ca/~forsdyke/peerrev4.htm
Lots of research has been done on 'energy healing' all over the world, in
conditions that would put some of the research done in psychology or other
'accepted' medical practices to shame. If you'd like some proof of this simply
contact the amazing Polish healer, Mietek Wirkus. He has been 'healing' since he
was a child (He's now in his 60's.) and subjected to all kinds of scientific tests. http://www.mietekwirkus.com/
When a healer begins a healing session, it has been found that the energy of the
healer begins to resonate with the earth's Schumann waves at 7.8 Hz. After a short
period of time, the healee, also begins to resonate with this frequency. The healer
seems to have the effect of balancing or recalibrating the energies of the healee.
Read Tom Harpur's book called 'The Uncommon Touch', where he went out as a
sceptic to investigate 'energy healing' for the Toronto Star, travelled around Europe
to meet with various healers, and came home a believer.
A must read: 'The Field' by Lynn McTaggart - Lynne began work on The Field ...
as a personal quest to see if any new scientific theories could explain how homeopathy
and spiritual healing work. She traveled to meet with top frontier scientists in Russia,
Germany, France, England, South American, Central America and the USA. She says
"During these meetings, I made incredible discoveries, what these scientists were
working on seemed to overthrow the current laws of biology, chemistry and physics.
Their work not only offered an explanation of why homeopathy and spiritual healing
might work. Their theories and experiments also compounded into a new science, a
new view of the world."
Or ex-NASA physicist, Barbara Ann Brennan's research and books 'Hands of Light'
and 'Light Emerging'. http://www.barbarabrennan.com/welcome/introduction.html
Or perhaps any of the many works of Larry Dossey, M.D. which should be right up
Professor Barry Beyersteinon's alley as a prof of psychology! http://www.dosseydossey.com/larry/default.html
Or Mona Lisa Schulz, M.D., Ph.D., neuropsychologist and neuroscientist, Assistant
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont School of Medicine -
'Awakening Intuition'. Like Adam, she sees auras and uses this gift in her clinical
practice! http://www.monalisaschulz.com/
Any book by biologist Lyall Watson would be enlightening to you. There are many
interesting and unusual phenomenon in nature that we have only just begun to
understand or even look at. Lyall Watson has been a pioneer in the 'unusual' aspects
of nature since the early 1960's. http://www.lyallwatson.com/New_Look/Home2.htm
Try visiting the website of Dr. Norman Shealy, founding member of the American
Holistic Medical Association. http://normshealy.com/ He has tested and tried many
healers and established a new university dedicated to complementary healing arts
to encourage high standards of practice and research. http://www.hugs-edu.org/
Perhaps you might care to consider contacting my friend, Dr. Daniel Benor, M.D.,
psychiatrist and internationally renown author, about psychology and energy
medicine. healingresearch@earthlink.net He has set up Doctor/Healer networks
in the U.K. and the U.S., and has just moved to Canada.
Council for HealingCoordinator: Dan Benor, MDhttp://www.councilforhealing.com/
Spiritual Awareness and Healing ResourcesOriginator: Dan Benor, MDhttp://www.wholistichealingresearch.com/
International Journal of Caring and Healing OnlineEditor: Dan Benor, MD
http://www.ijhc.org/
Then there is always the esteemed International Society for the Study of Subtle
Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM), which has a very high calibre of
members from all over the world and publishes reams of research annually
at its conferences. http://www.issseem.com/
Or how about the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP)http://www.energypsych.org/
Or the Institute for Noetic Sciences founded by ex-astronaut, Dr. Edgar
Mitchell, after his 'mystical' experience returning to earth from the moon...and
whom, by the way, Adam has worked with. http://www.noetic.org/ I guess,
according to you, Dr. Mitchell has also been swept up in Adam's cult of followers!
In the U.K., healers may now register with the National Health Service and
may work along side doctors and nurses in hospitals and clinics, and receive a
salary just like they do. The British, at least, are more enlightened than we
appear to be! They do say it takes us about 10 years to catch up with Europe...
In Europe, many graduating physicians go on to study complementary therapies,
including 'energy healing' as that is what the public demands. There are a number
of universities set up for this very purpose.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, vice-chair of surgery and professor of cardiac surgery at
Columbia University used an 'energy healer' in his O.R. while conducting surgery
for years to help stabilize his patients, enhance their chances of survival and speed
up their rate of healing.
Healing research has been done by the Therapeutic Touch Network on many
aspects of 'energy healing'. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10550906&dopt=Citation or http://www.therapeutictouchnetwk.com/Research.html
How about the early work of Dr. Valerie Hunt, prof at U of California for decades,
who did extensive work with two gifted energy healers twenty years ago. Try reading
her book, 'Infinite Mind' for some further enlightenment!
http://www.bioenergyfields.org/
Or, are you aware of Kirlian photography, discovered by accident by Russian
scientists, which shows the human energy field, giving us evidence that we are
fluid energetic/electromagnetic human beings, not solid Newtonian mechanistic
machines. They even discovered that so-called inanimate objects such as rocks
or metal also have an energy field! http://skepdic.com/kirlian.html
I personally have a video of a double-blind study completed here in North America,
which shows an energy healer at work healing puncture wounds that had their
healing rate measured by a group of independent doctors who were unaware of
what was happening in the experiment! Guess which group had a rapid rate of
recovery from their wounds!
And so I could go on for several hours. I wonder if I have made my point? When
Health Canada is stating on its website that 70-80% of the Canadian population
is using complementary therapies, it seems that it would behove you to do a
little real research into this topic, rather than trying to bash it with shallow and
ignorant statements from academics who obviously haven't got a clue. Is 'big
pharma' calling your tune or are you simply stuck in a rut/unenlighten mud?
Perhaps the press, like many in the medical profession, are slower in 'getting it'
than the general public.

You owe Adam and us a public apology!

Yours truly,

Rachel
Speech Language Pathologist
ONTARIO