James Hyman: Shamanic Shenanigans In Sedona!

A bad week for alternative medicine Ever since the late 1990’, James Hyman has worked as an “energy healer” and is currently quoted on his own web site as being a “shamanic healer,” or a “shamanic energy healer.” Most recently, Hyman has been calling this so called “human energy field” he has “discovered” and is healing by the sham name, “quantum theta energy healing.” Barbara & James Hyman claim their work occurs at the "quantum theta" level. Wherever the hell that is. The nerve of this guy! Recently, Hyman has been the subject of an undercover investigation by a writer employed and armed with financing by this very blog. (See: Undercover Investigation Of “Quantum Theta Energy Healer” James Hyman, QuackWatch, Wednesday April 13, 2011 Volume 36, Issue 23). Now Hyman and his “practice manager” ex-wife Barbara are shilling for a second in a “series” of “Shamanic Energy Healing and 5 day “Body Cleanse Kidney Detox Retreats” in that bastion of reality, Sedona Arizona! This past July of 2008, we learned that a woman suffered brain damage after one such “detox.” Could this be the moment when alternative medicine finally gets the reputation it deserves and is seen for what it is - a massive social and intellectual fraud? Everything that is wrong with complementary and alternative medicine is contained in articles written in numerous locations, including: 1.Quackwatch: The science-based health care newsletter and e-magazine edited by Dr. Stephen Barrett 2. The Committee For Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), a science blog that lists amongst it’s contributor’s, Dr. Harriet Hall a former Air Force Flight Surgeon 3. The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF): A non-profit organization, founded in 1996 by former magician turned “critical thinker” and investigator of pseudoscientific claims, Randall James Zwinge, better known by his “stage name,” James Randi. Currently, the James Randi Foundation is best known as the sponsor of the “One Million Dollar Challenge” The JREF “One Million Dollar Challenge” is available to eligible participants who can demonstrate a supernatural ability, such as James Hyman’s purported human “quantum theta energy field” under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. No one has progressed past the preliminary test, which is set up with parameters agreed to by both Randi and the applicant. Randi refuses to accept any challengers who might suffer serious injury or death as a result of the testing. A direct appeal, made to Mr. Hyman to prove his claim of a human “quantum theta energy field” and to come and pick up his million dollars, has been made, but so far to no avail. This appeal has been made on numerous occasions by one of Randi’s neighbors, a part time resident of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and a writer for this blog, Meanwhile Hyman’s ex-wife and “practice manager” continues to shill for her husband for his “in person quantum theta energy sessions” for $250.00 and even “transformational telephone sessions” where she makes the audacious claim that “the same powerful results available in one-on-one sessions, emotional release; more inner peace, a new “frequency of vibration” and the ability to attract a new level of energy into your life; are available in Private telephone sessions!” Mmmnn, let me get this straight, they don’t need the million dollars, but they DO want to access our collective wallets from the comfort of their own home for $150.00 in a “transformational quantum theta telephone session.” Our response, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, perhaps it’s a quack? It has been reported as far back as 1997, by health care fraud advocates QuackWatch and Jack Raso, Director of Publications for the American Council on Science and Health and editor-in-chief of its magazine, Priorities that Hyman had reinvented himself as a white-haired guru offering homeopathy, “energy medicine” and “Qigong.” Not that Hyman would admit to that, indeed his current web site utilizes a picture of him that is at least 15 years old! Here is a picture directly off Hyman's own web site where he is credited with being the "shaman energy healer":

A picture of the exact same "shaman" offering "transformational phone sessions in March of 2011:

Apparently, the telephone sessions don't require the "shaman" to "shamanically heal" his own receding hairline of all that grey hair!:

Now Hyman and his ex-wife and “practice manager” Barbara have begun shilling “detox diets” in that bastion of reality, Sedona Arizona! Dr. Hall and The Committee For Skeptical Inquiry recently reported the story of Dawn Page, a woman who is now brain-damaged after she went on a “detox diet.” This is bad news for alternative medicine that is not only founded on lies and falsehoods, but can be very bad for your health. Alternative medicine users - who are mostly middle-aged, middle-class women - are apparently prepared to suspend all normal critical faculties when they encounter an alternative practitioner, even one like Hyman, who claimed to be able to channel energy into his own head via his repulsive “mantra chanting.” You don't need to be able to speak Serbian to recognize Hyman's web site as a classic of the altmed Internet genre. As well as listing the usual contradictory ragbag of therapies familiar from the windows of the high-street altmed clinic – “Qigong,” “Matrix Energetics” ‘transformational bodywork” and the like - it is peppered with the universal language of what James Randi calls "Woo": wellbeing, harmony, bioenergy and, most revealingly, "quantum." There's the long list of ailments he claims to be able to treat, everything from depression and insomnia to increasing physical energy, stamina, self-esteem and self-confidence. Under the name of “Shamanic Energy Healer” and “Chakra Therapist” Hyman lectures on Chinese medical self healing,” “Qigong” and the “Cranial Release Technique” and is keen to promote himself in alternative health magazines and at conferences. As an alternative practitioner, he fits right in. There's no indication of his credentials, but then credentials in alternative medicine are pretty much worthless. Barbara Nash, the alternative practitioner who developed the "Amazing Hydration Diet" that allegedly ruined the life of Dawn Page, has a diploma from the College of Natural Nutrition, based in Tiverton, Devon, in the UK. This college sees "human beings as part of nature's system within the enormity of the world and the universe" and its unaccredited correspondence courses cost more than $2,000.00 per year. This sounds amazingly familiar to the Hyman’s web site where an “open letter from Jim” proclaims: “anyone who wishes to become more clear and connected to their love and personal and spiritual well-being should join me to clear lifetimes of karma, repressed emotional energy, grief, fears, anxiety, and depression, and that the healing that occurs is at the quantum-theta level.” (There’s that pesky “quantum theta” level again!) Yes, this self professed new age guru, who purports he accesses such deep emotional levels through such magic as “Matrix Energetics, Cranial Release, The Yuen Method, Chinese Qigong Self-healing, various shamanic techniques, and techniques of the Deep Emotional Release Bodywork” is in actuality not trained or licensed in anything. Although the Hyman’s have the audacity to claim James Hyman is a scientist who’s intense study of metaphysics and shamanism qualify him as an expert in several different areas of wellness. The reality is that Hyman has no degree in medicine, psychology, psychiatry, chemistry, biochemistry, physiology or advanced education whatsoever. None! Nada! Zilch! Bupkis! A big fat zero! Page wanted to lose weight and claims that she was advised by Nash to drink four pints of water a day and to cut out salt from her diet. Nash denies any fault, and although she paid Page a settlement of over $1,200,000.00 in July of 2008, she did so without admission of liability. But whatever Nash did or did not advise, nowadays such advice to drink large amounts of water is found in every woman's magazine - and yet it has no scientific basis and is known to be dangerous, even fatal, if done to excess. Page began to feel ill and vomit soon after starting the regime, but claims that Nash reassured her that this was a good sign and showed that the diet was working. She now suffers from epilepsy and has severe speech, memory and concentration problems. Many "nutritional therapists" offer so-called detox diets, despite the fact that they never seem to identify the so-called toxins they claim to be banishing from the body, or any proof that these substances have actually gone. They often use the “detox” as a marketing opportunity for additional treatments such as Hyman’s “Qigong” or “transformational quantum theta energy healing” sessions.” the detox is “effective.” They often claim, with no supporting evidence, that their regimens "boost the immune system" or "rebalance energies" and “rebalance the chakras.” This is a recurring theme on Hyman’s numerous free web sites that are on virtually every free portal offered on the World Wide Web. So if these cases are not unusual, how can you protect yourself from dangerous quackery? Even a cursory exploration of the world of alternative medicine reveals that many quacks back up their ludicrous claims with the same old ideas, however different their supposed treatments. These common identifiers will help you spot a quack. For a start, quacks often use language that is abstract and subjective but is ultimately meaningless. For example, Hyman’s web sites are peppered with words such as "quantum" and “theta,” which on their face sound impressive to those of us with only a weak grasp of theoretical physics, but are in fact nothing but pseudo-scientific window dressing designed to lure a gullible public. Their therapies are frequently based on "ancient wisdom" and their methods never change, regardless of any new evidence about their efficacy (or the lack of it). Hyman has been “pushing” his so called “deep emotional release bodywork” system, described by Dr. Barrett and Raso as an “unnaturalistic method” chronicled by Raso, since as far back as 1997. The Bottom Line: The fact is that none of these views has any significant support in the scientific communities of medicine, psychology, psychiatry, chemistry, biochemistry, or physiology, nor are they even considered worthy of debate. The only places you are likely to see these views advocated are in literature (and on Web sites) intended to promote the sale of these products to consumers in the notoriously credulous "alternative" health and "dietary supplement" market.