Tag: Reiki

Categories
Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Religion

An embarrassing paean to reiki in The Atlantic

Reiki

For some inexplicable reason, The Atlantic published an embarrassing paean to the mystical magical woo that is reiki.

Categories
Bad science Medicine Physics Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Luminas Pain Relief Patches: Where the words “quantum” and “energy” really mean “magic”

Luminas Luminas Pain Relief Patches Pain Patches
Luminas Pain Relief Patches

Orac discovers the Luminas Pain Relief Patch. He is amused at how how quacks confuse the words “quantum” and “energy” with magic.

Categories
Medicine Physics Quackery

Charlie Goldsmith: A new celebrity quack arises, enabled by TLC

Charlie Goldsmith
Charlie Goldsmith

Two years ago, I took note of an “energy healer” named Charlie Goldsmith and an incredibly poor “clinical trial” being touted as evidence of his healing abilities. It now turns out that Goldsmith is following a trail blazed by celebrity psychic Tyler Henry and has his own TV show on TLC. His claims are no more plausible or supported by evidence now than they were then.

Categories
Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Physics Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The unreality of reiki and distance healing

Reiki: Yes, they really claim this is what goes on in a reiki session, with energy from the "Universal Source" being channeled into the patient, magic-like, kind of like the Force. The difference is that in the Star Wars fictional universe the Force works.

Well, it’s 2017. In a mere 17 days, unreality will become reality, as the most unlikely and terrifying President in my lifetime is sworn in. Consequently, as I was thinking about what I’d like to write about for my first post of the new year, only one thing came to mind. Only one thing that […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking Tales from the helicopter

The Cleveland Clinic: Promoting dubious diet advice on Twitter and beyond

Quoth the quacks: Diet über alles.

I’ve mentioned on quite a few occasions that there’s a quote attributed to philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer that is much beloved of cranks: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. I also like to point out that Schopenhauer probably never said […]