Summary Of June 10-11 Posts, James Hyman's Quantum Theta Energy healing

It’s been a recurring theme on this blog tonight to discuss and dissect the infiltration of the quackademic practices of James Hyman and his so called "Quantum Theta Energy Healing." Whether it be called “quantum theta energy healing” (QTEH), "deep emotional release bodywork, (DERB) or “integrative medicine” (IM), its infiltration into society, primarily in the utilization of free portals on the world wide web and internet with the intent to separate some naive, unsuspecting and perhaps vulnerable consumer from his or her money has been one of the more alarming developments I’ve noted over the last several years. The reason is that “integrative” medicine is all too often in reality nothing more than “integrating” pseudoscience with science, quackery with medicine. The most popular modalities that unsuspecting and naive consumers can’t seem to resist are acupuncture and various forms of “energy” healing, such as reiki, qigong, the aforementioned "quantum theta energy healing" and therapeutic touch. Unfortunately, when you “integrate” something like these "practices," which basically assert that there is mystical, magical energy source (called the “universal source” by reiki practitioners, for example) that practitioners can tap into and channel into patients for healing effect, you are in essence integrating a prescientific understanding of the world with science, religious faith healing (which, let’s face it, is all that QTEH,DERB, qigong or reiki is), and magic with reality.

Overview

“Quantum Theta Energy Healing”(QTEH pronounced Kew-Tee) is usually used to refer to a method that does not actually involve touching the patient. James Hyman who is credited by his wife Barbara on their own web site as being a “shamanic healer” has created QTEH. These new age hucksters who call themselves "Quantum Theta Energy Healers" (QTEH) have refined this preposterous method so they can now access our wallets in so called "telephone session." The amazing thing about this is that the healer need not even touch the patient. In fact, the healer need not even be in the presence of the patient. "Integrated Quantum Theta Energy Healing" is so powerful, according to "the practitioner," a Mr. James Hyman that Mr. Hyman need not even be in the presence of the "subject" or "patient" he is treating.

Quantum Theta Energy healing (QTEH) has roots in the pseudoscientific philosophy of James and Barbara Hyman. Mr. Hyman is the so-called “founder” and “practitioner” of “quantum theta energy healing.” (QTEH), Ms. Hyman has coined the phrase "practice manager" of QTEH for herself.

The practitioner moves hands near the patient to assess imbalances in alleged “energy fields,” then carries out “unruffling” movements to smooth out the fields and clear out “blockages”and “congestion.” Healing energy is allegedly transmitted to correct imbalances.

Scientific assessment

“Quantum Theta Energy Healing” (QTEH) is inconsistent with scientific knowledge. There is no such thing as a human “energy field” as envisioned by the “Quantum Theta Energy Healing” (QTEH) practitioner. Science has the ability to detect incredibly small amounts of energy, far smaller than anyone could detect through any human senses, yet there is no evidence for such a field.

Numerous other questions arise. How could someone detect the alleged “energy field” with their hands?  How could they manipulate it? How could changes in the field influence health? There are no known or imaginable anatomical structures that could be involved in such things. There is no plausible explanation of what the “quantum theta energy field” could be, let alone answers to these questions.

The claims of “Quantum Theta Energy Healing” (QTEH) are extraordinary claims, conflicting with scientific knowledge, and therefore require evidence of very high quality before they can be taken seriously. There are no known published studies supposedly demonstrating benefits of “Quantum Theta Energy Healing” (QTEH), and the claims of the so called “founder” and “practitioner” a Mr. James Hyman are very weak in quality, and have not been repeated by independent investigators.

“Quantum Theta Energy healing” as “practiced by Mr. Hyman is simply this shysters take on an age old scam known as Therapeutic Touch (TT). A great deal of publicity accompanied a science fair project by Emily Rosa showing that TT practitioners could not detect her energy field. Neither QTEH or TT practitioners have ever shown that they can detect such a field, let alone manipulate it in such a way as to improve health. The burden is on them to demonstrate their abilities, not on skeptics to disprove them. Anyone who can demonstrate, under controlled conditions, the ability to detect the human energy field proposed by TT can win a $1 million prize!

In 1996, the James Randi Educational Foundation offered $742,000 to anyone who could demonstrate an ability to detect a "human energy field" under conditions similar to those of our study. Although more than 80,000 American practitioners claim to have such ability, only one person attempted to demonstrate it; Dolores Krieger, Ph.D., R.N., a faculty member at New York University's Division of Nursing. She failed, and the offer, now at $1 million, has had no further takers despite extensive recruiting efforts, including a direct appeal to Mr. Hyman as well as to Ms. Krieger. That's not surprising, of course, because QTEH’s & TT's proponents have nothing to gain by submitting to honest testing of their most basic assumption.

While some people receiving “Quantum Theta Energy Healing” (QTEH) treatment may feel better, this is merely a placebo effect.

Recommendations

Hospitals and other providers of health services should not include “quantum theta energy healing” or “therapeutic touch” in their programs, and it should not be covered by health insurance. Any benefits are due to the placebo effect and can be better provided by legitimate methods of mind-body medicine. Since QTEH & TT are based on mystical, pseudoscientific ideas which are contrary to medical knowledge, encouraging belief in QTEH or TT undermines critical thinking and science education.

If it is such earth shattering “medicine,” why don’t more trained scientists or even educated consumers advocate its use?

If you see auras, you may not be psychic; you may have a brain or vision disorder. Please see your physician ASAP.

If you are on the staff of a hospital in which TT is practiced, please lodge a protest.

The word “frequency” ranks right up there with “quantum” and “energy” as a pseudoscientific buzzword. It is increasingly prevalent in product advertisements and in CAM claims about human biofields and energy medicine. It doesn’t mean what they think it means.

Note: My spell checker didn’t like the word bioenergy any better than I do. (There is a legitimate use for the word, but this is not it.) The spell checker suggested I might want to substitute “beanery” or “baboonery.” I confess to being sorely tempted by the latter.

Recommendations of WiKiLeax are based on our assessments of the scientific literature concerning unconventional approaches to health care. For specific recommendations concerning your medical condition, we urge you to consult your physician.

Thanks goes out to David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS for the first paragraph of this summary. Dr. Gorski is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, Dr. Gorski also serves as the American College of Surgeons Committee on Cancer Liaison Physician as well as an Associate Professor of Surgery and member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University.

For further information, as well as further thanks, please see:

Stephen Barrett M.D.

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/tt.html

The Skeptic's Dictionary; http://www.skepdic.com

Harriet Hall M.D; The SkepDoc; http://www.skepdoc.com

David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS;

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/editorial-staff/david-h-gorski-md-phd-managing-editor/

Quantum Theta Energy Healing "Skype Sessions"

Quantum Theta or Deep Emotional Release is one of several nonsensical methods commonly referred to as "energy healing." These methods are based on the idea that the body is surrounded or permeated by an energy field that is not measurable by ordinary scientific instrumentation. The alleged force, said to support life, is known as ki in Japan, as chi or qi in China, and as prana in India.

James & Barbara Hyman the “practitioners” claim to facilitate healing by strengthening or "balancing" or emotionally releasing so called “quantum theta” energy fields.
In actuality this pseudo-science is pure bunk. It is simply another cheap hucksters way of attempting to separate you from your hard earned money.

“Quantum Theta Energy Healing" can also be administered to others at distant locations.

Hence The Aforementioned: Skype Sessions

Yes, The Hyman's state that they have become so adept at this practice they claim they can actually accomplish it over the telephone! Clearly this unconventional session happens rarely. Why? Why would anyone in his or her right mind pay a quack $150.00 for a transformational “quantum theta energy healing" telephone session?

These new age hucksters who call themselves "Quantum Theta Energy Healers" (QTEH) have refined this preposterous method so they can now access our wallets in so called "telephone session." The amazing thing about this is that the healer need not even touch the patient. In fact, the healer need not even be in the presence of the patient. "Integrated Quantum Theta Energy Healing" is so powerful, according to "the practitioner," a Mr. James Hyman that Mr. Hyman need not even be in the presence of the "subject" or "patient."

That’s right, if you can’t make it to them they will be so bold as to claim to deeply & emotionally release you from negative “quantum theta energy” via the telephone. In reality the only thing you will be released from is your hard earned money. This is simply Mr. Hyman’s take on what has previously been known as psychic intuitive healing or long distance healing.

Emotional Release, & Quantum Theta Energy Healing

Emotional Release, & Quantum Theta Energy Healing, a/k/a "Quantum Woo;

Quantum Thata Energy Healing a/k/a Quantum Woo is the description for a phenomenon where many irrational beliefs are justified by an obfuscatory reference to quantum physics. Usually this is a focus on some sort of "energy field", "probability wave", or "wave-particle duality" that magically turns thoughts into something tangible that can directly affect the universe. This concept is most notably pushed by James Hyman the so called “founder” of “Quantum Theta Energy Healing” (QTEH). Hyman often presents ill-defined concepts of quantum physics as proof for God and other magical thinking.

When an idea seems too crazy to believe, the proponent often makes an appeal to quantum physics as the explanation. This is a New Age version of God of the gaps.
The root of the issue is an attempt to piggy-back on the success and legitimacy of science by claiming quack ideas are rooted in accepted concepts in physics, combined with utter misunderstanding of these concepts and a sense of wonder at the amazing magic these misunderstandings would imply if true.
Proponents of quantum theta energy healing are affected by the interaction of neural-energy and their natural bozon field, which results in the creation of one moron and the decay of two neurons. The moron has a half-life of 35 years.
Contents [hide]
· 1 History
· 2 Pseudoscience
· 3 Real science
· 4 See also
· 5 Footnotes
[edit]
History

The New Age fascination with quantum mechanics seems to date to the mid to late 1970s and the books The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav and The Tao of Physics by Fritjzof Capra , both of which were received poorly by the physics community, but embraced by those who needed an all-purpose explanation for their woo; as a result, quantum woo is invoked by alties and woo-pushers as much as Nikola Tesla is by crackpot inventors. Popular culture movies such as The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know? have also appealed to such concepts. Of course anyone who reads a newspaper or watches TV news knows exactly what is currently happening to the proponents of “The Secret.” The murder trial of James Arthur Ray, author of The Secret is currently ongoing. What unfortunate timing for those quack meisters currently pushing quantum theta energy healing!

Pseudoscience
Since most people have never studied quantum physics they do not understand why these sham ideas are a perversion of it - in fact, this relies on people thinking that quantum mechanics is "too hard" or "only for scientists" in order for the scams to work and stop people questioning them.
People do, however, recognize that quantum physics says that nanoscale reality is very different from what we know, and perhaps some pop science authors can take some blame for this. Concepts such as "non-locality" or "quantum probability waves" or "uncertainty principle" have become social memes of a kind where people inherently recognize that something "strange" is going on. Practitioners of fraudulent and silly ideas can tap into this feeling of mystery to push their sham concepts. Ie:
• Quantum Flux[4],
• Quantum Stirwand[5]
• Quantum Therapy[6]
• Quantum healing
• Quantum biofeedback
• Shoo!Tag
[edit]
Real science
If you want to read a good book on quantum physics, scienceblogger Chad Orzel recently published a very accessible book called How To Teach Physics To Your Dog. Way better than anything Deepak Chopra or a Chopra wannabe like James Hyman might write.
For a popular science overview, check this New Scientist article.[7]
[edit]
See also
• Science Woo
• Technobabble
• Quantum consciousness
• Real quantum physics terms
• Water woo
• Woo
[edit]
Footnotes
1. ↑ The Dancing Wu Li Masters (William Morrow & Co., 1979, ISBN 0553249142)
2. ↑ The Tao of Physics (Shambhala Publications, 1975, ISBN 1570625190)
3. ↑ Reviewer Jeremy Bernstein of the New Yorker Magazine, quoted by Martin Gardner in a 1979 review for Newsday, described Zukav's and Capra's physics by saying "A physicist reading these books might feel like someone on a familiar street who finds that all the old houses have suddenly turned mauve."
4. ↑http://www.emotionalrelease.com/
5. http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=229
6. ↑ http://www.quantumagewater.eu/contents/en-us/d1.html
7. ↑ http://www.quantumtherapy.net/
8. ↑ http://www.newscientist.com/special/seven-wonders-of-the-quantum-world

Homeopathy & Hyman Healing

Let's start with homeopathy. Homeopathy works on the principle that minute doses of whatever causes a particular illness can be used to cure that illness. There's some merit to the thinking: minute doses of a poison, over time, will render the consumer immune to that particular poison.

However - the minute doses homeopaths are talking about here are so minute as to be close to incalculable without a degree in molecular chemistry. The treatments are often so diluted that you'd need a high-power microscope to find the active ingredient - and as any good drug taker will tell you, there's a world of difference between eating a pill and licking the plastic bag it came in. One will get you high. The other will make you look desperate.

Homeopathy relies on people turning up with a curable illness, taking a trace quantity of the "cure" for a proscribed period of time, and then getting better - no mention of the fact that the proscribed length of the treatment is usually about as long as it takes for the body to naturally sort itself out without the diseased person doing anything - which is pretty much what they're doing with homeopathy anyway.

But it's not homeopathy that caught my attention this morning as I walked past a unit of the rental apartment upstairs from me in Culver City. Which, by the way, stinks of incense - a substance burnt by alternative healing practitioners in their waiting rooms to disguise the unmistakable stench of false hope and dashed expectations.

No - it was a sign for a "new" kind of healing, called Quantum Theta Energy Healing (QTEH or Kew-Tee). Apparently, you or I could do a course and become a Quantum Theta Healing Practitioner in just three days - and go on to cure all sorts of diseases. Including, as some of their many free websites claim, fear, anxiety, depression anger and grief (good grief!).

So. Imagine, if you will, that are depressed. Who are you going to put your trust in? A bloke in a lab coat who has spent seven years at medical school and who is drawing on hundreds of years of medical knowledge, or some yahoo wearing socks and sandals who spent three days at a convention centre learning how to unblock negative energies and promote positive thoughts?

The "founder" of Quantum Theta Energy Healing is an individual by the name of James Hyman, whose main devotee is his wife, Barbara, who claims James can cure numerous diseases. This is a big statement to make - and I would assume that someone with the ability to cure multiple disease would, by now, be world-famous and boast a trophy room whose shelves are groaning under the weight of every scientific prize the world has to offer.

So I googled James Hyman Energy Healing. I got seven hits (all of which were written by his wife, Barbara on free web sites where anyone can avail themselves of anything, so they don't really count, like here; http://emotionalrelease.com/deep-emotional-release-bodywork/). Then, in the interests of good science, I chose a subject entirely at random, to check to see if Google might be broken. I googled myself. 285,000 hits in .18 seconds. Rudimentary maths (the kind I particularly like) tells me that I am therefore roughly 40,500 times more famous than a man who can cure numerous psychiatric and psychological diseases. Brilliant!

I did some more digging on Quantum Theta Energy Healing: apparently it involves putting the patient's brain into a quantum or theta-state, (wherever the hell that is). The practitioner then uses a highly dubious and often-debunked practice of applied kinesiology, where muscle response is tested to determine the patient's problem.

I tried this out on a few people. I poked and prodded some random strangers, and their muscle response (repeatedly lashing out and trying to hit me) suggests that they have anger issues. I suggested meditation, they suggested I do something that sounded quite fun, but is biologically impossible. (This by the way was the same suggestion Ms. Hyman made when she was made aware I was now debunking QTEH (Kew-Tee!)

Moving on: Once the Quantum Theta Energy healer has ascertained the medical issue, the big guns come out - According to the website; "Working with the chakras, the subconscious mind, the energy fields in and around the body, Jim gently and effectively guides you through the release of blocked emotional energy, old patterns and negative emotions, and breaks you through to new levels of your connection with Self and Source. The release of fears, anxiety, anger, and old residual negative emotions and patterns, opens the gateways for forgiveness, unconditional love, self-acceptance and a new connection to your core empowerment, and what you came here to do in this lifetime. After the session, you are better able to access these energetic frequencies and higher states of consciousness at will, and you see your life move forward in the direction that you set forth during your session!"

"A scientist in the field of transformational bodywork, self-healing energy work, and Chinese Qi Gong, James has seen several thousand private clients over the last 20 years. His work releases blocked energy in the body associated with past trauma and negative patterns from the past, releases the negative pattern from the subconscious mind and the Quantum grid, (there it is again, that pesky 'quantum grid, wherever that may be) and activates the cellular memory for perfect health, peace and a profound sense of well-being."

His intense study of metaphysics and shamanism, combined with his experience as a facilitator of ....yada..yada...yada...except wait, here comes the claim; qualify him as an expert in several different areas of wellness, and personal and spiritual evolution.

Qualified as an EXPERT! Qualified by whom? From what University did he receive his medical degree? Who has bestowed the title of 'expert' on Mr. Hyman? A closer look at the numerous free web sites make this extremely clear; Mr. Hyman has NO advanced degree from ANY university or accredited institution! None, Nada, Zero, Bupkis! ONLY Mrs. Hyman has 'qualified' Mr. Hyman as an expert! So glad we got that one cleared up!
(I'm not making these claims up... they are all on the websites. Go search for yourself if you don't believe me.)
It is utter codswallop (minute amounts of which are, reportedly, useful in treating Trimethylaminuria, aka Fish Odour Syndrome).
So what to do when we get sick?

Do we trust modern medicine, or do we travel the more natural route? The obvious choice is this: don't get sick in the first place. But if you do, there's something that you might want to remember. If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, then it's probably a quack

In other words, it's horseshit (in small doses, reportedly useful in treating colic and gambling problems!.

For informational purposes only I will share with you where Mr. Hyman has...ughhh..."borrowed" or shall I be direct and say "stolen" his quack sham/scam (or "practice" if we are to believe Ms. Hyman) from;

Actual Origin

Although Hyman claims to be the founder, this practice is merely a new take on a series of much older scams. These are known by a variety of names.

1) Imperial Qi Gong. This is a method taught by Dr. Warner Chen, a proponent of Human Resources Chi Gong, Marrow Cleansing Chi Gong, and Quantum Leap Chi Gong therapy. Apparently, Imperial Qi Gong as well as “Quantum Theta or Deep Emotional Release Bodywork” is Mr. Hymans variation of Qigong therapy.

2) Vibrational Medicine a/k/a energetic medicine, energetics medicine, energy medicine, subtle-energy medicine, vibrational healing & vibrational therapies. The main "tenet" is that humans are "dynamic energy systems" Its premises include the following. (a) Health and illness originate in "subtle energy systems." (b) These systems coordinate the "life-force" and the "physical body." (c) Emotions, spirituality, and environmental factors affect the "subtle energy systems." Vibrational medicine embraces "chakra rebalancing, absent healing, (the aforementioned $150.00 telephone sessions) etheric touch, the laying on of hands, Past-life Regression, and Therapeutic Touch.

The expressions "energy healing," "energy work," and "energetic healing work" appear synonymous with "vibrational medicine."

During some “intense quantum theta energy healing sessions” the practitioner (Mr. Hyman) can be heard “chanting” some heretofore unknown “mantras.” Apparently to ward off the “quantum theta“ negative energy mojo that he has removed from the “patients” body. The need for chanting is apparently a method of stopping said mojo from entering Mr. Hymans “quantum theta” energy fields.

This brings us to our age old scams numbers 3 and 4;

3) WooJangJu Power Meditation or WooJangJu Power Chant. This is a variation of TaeUIJu Healing Meditation. Its purported design is to protect meditators, while they are healing, from vengeful spirits.

4) Wu Ming Qigong (Wu Ming Qigong system, Taoist Wu Ming Qigong): Millennia-old "self-healing practice" taught by the American Taoist Healing Center, Inc., in New York City. It allegedly helps users connect body, mind, and spirit. Its theory posits a transfer, from teacher to student, of "energy" that heals and guides the student. Proponents use the Chinese expression "wu ming," which literally means "no name," to refer to the "original natural force" from which everything's "essence" flows.

Other Quack Shams Hyman Has “Borrowed” From;

5) Lesser Kan & Li (Sexual Alchemy): Form of meditation whose theory posits chi, "core energy channels," and "higher energy bodies,"

6) Life force balancing: Combination of the laying on of hands, psychic healing, psychological "adjustments," and spiritual counseling, developed by Barbara West. It involves a "healing science" called "intercellular regeneration."

7)Life Care Kinesiology (Life Care): Offshoot of applied kinesiology put together by Dr. Richard Beale. It borrows from acupuncture and Touch for Health and includes "chakra meditation."

8) Life Impressions Bodywork: "Healing process" developed by Donald Van Howten (Ravi Dos). It includes "cranial membrane treatment" (probably Cranio-Sacral work) and "pulse work" and borrows from Ayurveda and Hakomi. Its premises include the following. (a) Humans are spirits. (b) Bodily tissues accumulate "history." (c) This "imprint" of experiences becomes
"outdated." Updating "idea imprinted" tissues (the method's purported intention) releases "bound beliefs" and "energy."

9) Light Touch Energy Healing: Method that purportedly focuses on: balancing bodily "energy," releasing "cellular memory," and identifying "energy patterns" that limit happiness.

10) LooyenWork®: Approach to "body therapy" that involves "body reading" and "movement re-education" and allegedly can increase the "flow" of clients' "energy." "Body reading" purportedly is a sophisticated form of observation that enables practitioners to reach the root of the client's problem.

James Hyman's Energy Healing: The Emperor's New Clothes?

James & Barbara Hyman’s Energy Healing: 

The Emperor’s New Clothes?

Feature;

Volume 1 June 2011

By Robert Halprin MS PhD

James Hyman says his experiments reveal our natural power to heal based on our ability to sense and manipulate human energy fields. Has he discovered scientific truths, or has he only demonstrated the human talent for self-deception.

James Hyman and his 'practice manager' ex wife believe many things. They believe in life after death, past life regression, chanting mantras heal you from anything and they believe there is scientific evidence to support these beliefs. Hyman is now focusing his powers of belief on a new field: energy medicine. In a series of new web sites, primarily located at the following URL; http://www.emotionalrelease.com , Barbara Hyman explains that we all emit human energy fields, that we can sense each other’s fields, and that healers can influence these fields to heal illnesses and injury. She believes these are not just theories but scientifically supported facts.

The web site has numerous “gee-whiz” testimonials of supposed energy healing (which are frankly not very convincing and could be easily outdone by any self-respecting purveyor of quack remedies). She goes on to describe her husband James Hyman's claims that he has the ability to detect and alter human energy fields. Throughout the web site she descends into blethering about quantum physics, the oneness of the universe, the connectedness of all things, and the possibility that energy awareness will solve all of mankind’s problems.

She goes on to describe purported measurements of subtle human energy emissions, Kam Yuen's influence on human energy fields, the power of 'The Secret,' the healing power of Qigong (of which James is of course a 'Master') among other phenomena of dubious reality or significance.

She makes a big deal of the fact that humans emit energy (of course we do, it is picked up by EKG, EEG, etc.), and she would like to think energy healers, especially her 'genius' husband James can pick up that energy and decode it in the same way your radio picks up Rush Limbaugh out of the atmosphere. And then she would like to think that energy healers can send something back into the patient’s body to enable healing. She misses the crucial fact that there is information encoded in the electromagnetic waves your radio detects, but there is no reason to think there is any analogous information coming from the body, much less any way to change that information and send it back to produce healing. I only wish we could use “energy healing” on radio and TV waves to improve the quality of programming!

She makes a big deal of the fact that everything affects everything else. She seems to mean this in a holistic, metaphysical, New Age, “the universe is one and is conscious and we can create our own health” sense. Science recognizes that small events can have far-reaching effects, but that doesn’t mean one thing can predict or control another. Theoretically, a change in the magnitude or position of your body mass will enter into the overall gravity equations of the universe, but that doesn’t mean one thing can control or predict another. You could hardly expect to meaningfully influence someone out there beyond Alpha Centauri by losing ten or fifteen pounds (a practice of which Ms. Hyman might be better off practicing as opposed to constantly espousing the same drek over and over again). You can’t expect to change the EEG of an astronaut in the Space Station by exercising to change your own EKG. We are talking about very small influences. If a gnat pushes an elephant, it’s not likely to fall over; it’s not likely to even notice. And then there are inconvenient complications like quantum theory and chaos theory.

There is nothing of substance in these multiple free web sites. Indeed the mere fact that she has to repeat the same things over and over again on virtually every free forum offered on the Internet would render any intelligent being to recognize the obvious, i.e. she is attempting what is known in main stream scientific circles as; "Proof By Assertion.'  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion

Proof by assertion, sometimes informally referred to as proof by repeated assertion, is a logical fallacy in which a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction. Sometimes this may be repeated until challenges dry up, at which point it is asserted as fact due to its not being contradicted (argumentum ad nauseam). In other cases its repetition may be cited as evidence of its truth, in a variant of the appeal to authority or appeal to belief fallacies.

The Hyman's claims lose credibility because they have never been in a controlled, double blind clinical study. Nothing Ms. Hyman has ever written has been accepted for publication in mainstream peer-reviewed journals. I feel sorry for James Hyman: he’s a smart guy, he means well, he really believes he has found something wonderful, but he has a blind spot and just doesn’t get it when others try to point out the flaws in his methods and reasoning. 

See Harriet Hall M.D.“How To Test Energy Healers: Critiquing the Alt Med Experiments, Skeptical Inquiry, January/February 2011.

Also see; "Undercover Investigative Report On 'Quantum Theta Energy Healing" QuackWatch March 2011, 

To put the accusation of “politics” into perspective, consider the Helicobacter experiments. When researchers first suggested that ulcers might be caused by bacteria, they were laughed at. They published their results, peer review had a field day, other labs looked into the idea, more data came in, results from various lines of research coalesced, and within a mere ten years it became standard practice to treat ulcers with antibiotics. It didn’t matter that the idea sounded crazy at first; science responded to good evidence. (See Kimball C. Atwood IV, “Bacteria, Ulcers, and Ostracism,” Skeptical Inquirer, November/December 2004.) If Hyman had evidence of equal quality, he would get an equal hearing by the scientific community.

A good scientist considers the entire body of available evidence, not just the claims of one group of researchers. The Hyman's never bring up the fact that other experiments have directly contradicted their assertions. They never get around to mentioning Emily Rosa’s landmark experiment, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998, which showed that therapeutic touch practitioners could not sense human energy fields as they claimed. She tested twenty-one experienced practitioners of therapeutic touch.1 They all thought they could detect Rosa’s human energy field and feel whether she was holding her hand over their right or left hand, but when they were prevented from seeing where her hand was, their performance was no better than chance.

Rosa was nine years old at the time, and the article grew out of her school science fair project. The experiment was beautiful in its simplicity. Adult true believers had published much research on the techniques and effects of therapeutic touch, but in the true spirit of childlike questioning, Rosa went back to basics and asked the crucial question: “Is the phenomenon itself real? Can they really feel something or is it possible they are fooling themselves?” Amazingly, no researcher had ever asked that question before. They had ignored one of the basic principles of the scientific method as explained by Karl Popper: it’s easy to find confirmation for any hypothesis, but every genuine test of a hypothesis is an attempt to falsify it.

Emily Rosa's experiment is dismissed by other so called 'energy healers' or 'therapeutic touch' practitioners as having five “potential problems”:

1.     It was a science-fair project done by a young girl.

2.     She was the only experimenter.

3.     She randomized by flipping a coin, which he calls “an unreliable procedure.”

4.     One of the authors was the founder of Quackwatch.

5.     The subjects did worse than chance.

These objections are just silly; they are either inaccurate or are ad hominem attacks:

1.     It shouldn’t make any difference whether Rosa was a young girl or an old man or a sentient purple octopus from an alien planet. It shouldn’t matter whether she did the experiment for an elementary school project, a doctoral dissertation, a Coca Cola commercial, or a government grant. What matters is the quality of the evidence. In this case, her project was well designed and executed, had clearly significant findings, and was of high enough quality to be approved for publication in a prestigious peer-reviewed medical journal.

2.     She was not the only experimenter. Others were involved; the experiment was repeated under expert supervision on Scientific American Frontiers. This should preclude any accusations of deliberate cheating or inadvertent failure to follow the protocol properly. Rosa was the only one to carry out the trials, but what would multiple testers have added to the experiment? The results didn’t depend on any special ability or quality of hers, but on the ability of the subjects who claimed they could sense anyone’s energy fields. For the televised trials, they even got to “feel” the “energy” from each of Rosa’s hands and choose which one they wanted her to use in the trials. About half chose her left hand and half her right. No one objected, “I can’t feel energy from either hand.”

3.     Flipping a coin is not an “unreliable procedure”—unless the flipper is deliberately cheating. The number of heads and tails was approximately equal, and the distribution appeared random. The editors of JAMA found the method acceptable. There are situations where coin-flipping could legitimately be criticized, for instance in psi experiments where researchers are looking for minuscule differences in large bodies of data and even their computerized random number generators have been criticized for not being “perfectly” random. But in this experiment, the results were clearly significant; it is hard to envision how a different method of randomization could have altered the results. The coin flip was only used to determine which of the subject’s hands she would hold her hand over. The subjects claimed to be able to sense energy fields with either hand, so it shouldn’t have made a bit of difference to their perception. Faulty randomization might have allowed the subjects to perceive a pattern and guess, which would have tended to give false positive results rather than the negative results Rosa got.

4.     One of the authors, the founder of Quackwatch, was admittedly skeptical of therapeutic touch. Yes, someone with possible bias was indirectly involved in the experiment. If that is an objection, there is an even greater objection to Hyman's own examples: he and his colleagues are all strongly biased toward belief in energy phenomena and they were directly involved in their experiences as told by 'testimonials' on their web sites. "Testimonials" are personal accounts of someone's experiences with a therapy. They are generally subjective: "I felt better," "I had more energy," "I wasn't as nauseated," "The pain went away," and so on. Testimonials are inherently selective. People are much more likely to talk about their "amazing cure" than about something that didn't work for them. The proponents of "alternative" methods like Barbara & James Hyman's so called "quantum theta energy healing" (QTEH) can, of course, pick which testimonials they use. For example, let's suppose that if 100 people are sick, 50 of them will recover on their own even if they do nothing. So, if all 100 people use a certain therapy, half will get better even if the treatment doesn't do anything. These people could say "I took a "quantum theta energy healing therapy session with 'healer' James Hyman & my disease went away!" This would be completely honest, even though the therapy had done nothing for them. So, testimonials are useless for judging treatment effectiveness. For all we know, those giving the testimonial might be the only people who felt better. Or, suppose that of 100 patients trying a therapy, 10 experienced no change, 85 felt worse, and 5 felt better. The five who improved could quite honestly say that they felt better, even though nearly everyone who tried the remedy stayed the same or got worse!

5.     It is simply not true that the subjects did “worse than chance.” Their performance was consistent with chance. If they had done worse than chance (significantly worse) that would have tended to support Schwartz’s claim that some kind of effect was present, even though it would have been the reverse of what he claimed to find.

In my opinion, none of these “problems” invalidates the conclusion that the therapeutic touch practitioners failed to do what they claimed they could do. And if they think these were valid problems, why didn’t they simply repeat her experiment in their own lab with multiple experimenters and a more reliable method of randomization? They could have published a failed replication study, and the scientific community could have proceeded to evaluate both studies and sort out the truth. In reality, Rosa’s experiment was a great example of a young child being able to see more clearly than prejudiced adults—a real “Emperor’s New Clothes” story.

If a rigorous scientist thought he had found evidence that people could detect “human energy fields,” he would maintain a healthy skepticism; he would immediately try to prove himself wrong, and he would enlist his colleagues to help show him where he might have gone wrong. He would try to rule out all other possible explanations (the subject might be sensing heat, sound, motion, air currents, might be able to see under the blindfold, etc.). If the phenomenon proved robust, he would try to refine his understanding by doing things like varying the distance to see if it obeyed the inverse square law and interposing a sheet of cardboard or glass to see if the effect could be blocked. Then he would try to use instruments to measure what kind of energy was being sensed.

When a believer thinks they have found something to justify their belief, their approach tends to be less rigorous. 

What about “if there is no convincing science or plausible mechanism to support them, let’s stop wasting our time chasing moonbeams”? All of energy medicine hinges on one basic claim: that people can detect subtle human energy fields. If the Hyman's are wrong about that, the rest of the claims for so-called “energy medicine” fizzle away.

Since 1996, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) has offered a substantial reward (currently $1,000,000) to anyone who can demonstrate an ability to detect a “human energy field” under conditions similar to those of Rosa’s study. Of the more than 80,000 American therapeutic touch practitioners who claim to have such ability, only one person attempted to demonstrate it. She failed. The JREF challenge is admittedly not a definitive scientific test, but prudence would seem to dictate that if no one can even meet this simple challenge, we shouldn’t be wasting research money on what is probably a myth.

Others have attempted to establish the “science” of energy medicine and have failed. Even the National Association Of Alternative Medicine (NAAM), which is willing to consider almost any possibility in alternative medicine, is skeptical. It distinguishes between real energy (sound waves, electromagnetism, and other energies measurable by physicists) and the kind of “putative” energy Hyman is trying to validate. It concludes that the “putative” energy approaches “are among the most controversial of CAM practices because neither the external energy fields nor their therapeutic effects have been demonstrated convincingly by any biophysical means.”

Another proponent of 'energy healing' Gary Schwartz sounds like a scientist. He tries to talk the talk and walk the walk. He even makes some skeptical noises to try to convince us he is objective. But there is also a lot of very unscientific language in his written work.

For instance:

Human rage and pain, especially generated by terrorism and war, create a global energetic climate whose negative effects can extend from the physical and environmental—potentially including climate—to the psychological and ultimately spiritual. . . . [P]ollution is not simply chemical, it is ultimately energy based and therefore conscious as well.

Really? Conscious pollution? So maybe if we talk nice to pollution it will cooperate and go away? Or should we try doing Reiki to lower the atmospheric CO2 levels? Does Al Gore know about this?

“Energy medicine” is an emperor whose new clothes still look awfully transparent to critical thinkers and to the scientific community no matter what glorious colors and fabrics Schwartz and his colleagues imagine they are seeing. 

Pseudoscience

Since most people have never studied quantum physics they do not understand why these sham ideas are a perversion of it - in fact, this relies on people thinking that quantum mechanics is "too hard" or "only for scientists" in order for the scams to work and stop people questioning them.

People do, however, recognize that quantum physics says that nanoscale reality is very different from what we know, and perhaps some pop science authors can take some blame for this. Concepts such as "non-locality" or "quantum probability waves" or "uncertainty principle" have become social memes of a kind where people inherently recognize that something "strange" is going on. Practitioners of fraudulent and silly ideas can tap into this feeling of mystery to push their sham concepts. i.e: “Quantum Theta Energy Healing.”

Notes:

1.     “Therapeutic touch” is a bit of a misnomer because these practitioners don’t actually touch but simply massage the air a few inches from the patient’s body. They are convinced that they are detecting and manipulating the energy field, balancing and smoothing it, and correcting any abnormalities, thus allowing the body to heal itself.

2.     Hall, H. 2005. A review of Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis. Skeptic 11(3): 89–93. Available at quackfiles.blogspot.com.

3.     § Quantum Flux[4],

4.     § Quantum Stirwand

§ Quantum Therapy

§ Quantum healing

§ Quantum biofeedback

§ Shoo!Tag

4.  ↑ The Dancing Wu Li Masters (William Morrow & Co., 1979, ISBN 0553249142)

5.  ↑ The Tao of Physics (Shambhala Publications, 1975, ISBN 1570625190)

6.  ↑ Reviewer Jeremy Bernstein of the New Yorker Magazine, quoted by Martin Gardner in a 1979 review for Newsday, described Zukav's and Capra's physics by saying "A physicist reading these books might feel like someone on a familiar street who finds that all the old houses have suddenly turned mauve."

7.  ↑http://www.emotionalrelease.com/

8.   http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=229

9.  ↑ http://www.quantumagewater.eu/contents/en-us/d1.html

10.  ↑ http://www.quantumtherapy.net/

11.  ↑ http://www.newscientist.com/special/seven-wonders-of-the-quantum-world

References:

·       Rosa, L., E. Rosa, L. Sarner, and S. Barrett. 1998. A close look at therapeutic touch. Journal of the American Medical Association. 279:1005–1010. Schwartz, Gary E., with William L. Simon. 2007. The Energy Healing Experiments: Science Reveals Our Natural Power to Heal. New York: Atria Books.

Thanks To Harriet Hall M.D. (The SkepDoc) For The Template & Partial Content ; http://www.skepdoc.org