I’ve now trawled through the BBC documentary (quite good), his website (mediocre), the badpsychics website (way below par–they offer less evidence for the fact that Mannion is a fraud than he offers for the claim that he isn’t, and none of the links on the left of the badpsychics site, where one would click for that evidence, work). So it seems to me that the standards of evidence on both sides are appalling–neither side could convince a switched-on 7 year-old.

But perhaps ‘evidence’ is neither here nor there. Based on what I’ve read and seen, I am quite certain that Mannion is not doing anything to cure anyone. What he’s doing is switching on the faith, the hope, or, if you like, the mental placebo-effect. I fail to see why that should be such a huge problem. There is good evidence that placebo thinking, like placebo pills, actually works to some extent. People have experienced pain-free periods, slower progress of diseases, even delayed deaths because of it. In many, many cases, traditional medicine can achieve no more.

So my friend, a week ago, went to someone who I am convinced is a ‘hoax’ by the strict standards of evidence. She’s been pain-free for a week, for the first time in years. Is that because he actually did something physical, in the ‘real’ world, to help her? I don’t think so. Is that because she *believes* he did something to help her? I’m sure of it. Do I think that a week’s worth of freedom from pain is worth the £30 she paid him? You bet. One patient on the BBC documentary about Mannion paid him £20 and got a year’s worth of freedom from pain out of it. Her gallstone had not disappeared, which was cited as evidence of his failure, but it hadn’t bothered her for a year. I’d say she got a great deal.

Am I going to tell my friend that I think this guy is, strictly speaking, a hoax–in other words, am I going to shoot down her faith that she’s been helped? Of course not. Once you accept the terms of the ‘treatment’, ie that it’s all in your head, you can’t even really claim he’s a hoax–he has helped my friend, no question about it. You might say that he should just disclose this upfront and say to his clients, hey, you need to understand that what I’m doing is just encouraging the placebo effect, but I don’t think the treatment would actually work, even on the level that it apparently does, unless people were utterly faithful (or deluded, depending on your stance) going into it.

So I agree with the skeptics that there is a kind of benevolent deception involved here, and I also agree that there might be healers out there who use it for personal gain and turn it into something malevolent. Skepticism is good, but even skeptics could benefit from switching on their compassion occasionally, and their ability to distinguish. Just because someone is in pain and willing to try anything, that doesn’t necessarily make him or her a gullible dupe. Just because someone is perpetrating a hoax, if that is what Mannion is doing (and I’m not sure he is–I think there’s a very real possibility he might believe in what he’s doing with every inch of his being), that doesn’t mean that he’s harming people. It doesn’t even mean he’s failing to help them. It may just mean that he’s not helping people in the way that he implies, or in a way that skeptics and other people who live and die by ‘evidence’ can accept.

2.) We are going to make one attempt at this. We will be surprised if this makes it past the censor software, (not that we plan to be obnoxious in any way). But it’s worth it just for the exercise we think. If this appears elsewhere, it’s because it did not make it on the CNN Belief Blog. We challenge anyone to demonstrate this is not appropriate or respectful.

We think your choice of title is interesting. Why a “Dialogue AGAINST an atheist” ? Why not a Dialogue WITH an atheist ? The implicit disrespect is sort of off-putting at the outset, and maybe betrays your inherent bias, and intention to not have an authentic, honest dialogue.

The groups you repeatedly cite, “scientists” and “atheists” in reality, don’t come in discreet, and coherently identified groups. They exist as a vast range of complex variations. The scientists exist as believers, theists, atheists, skeptics, agnostics, etc., etc., including those who simply don’t care, or care to frame the questions they face in life in these terms at all. For the sake of argument only, we will accept your literary convention, knowing it is an impossibly simplistic over-generalization.

Your first atheist statement says scientists don’t believe the universe came from nothing. In fact many do. As the Bucky Fullerene post, under your post, states, many cosmological physicists, including Steven Hawking, believe the universe came from nothing. We three don’t claim to understand the ramifications of Uncertainty Theory, and Quantum Mechanics, but science knows that virtual particles “pop” into and out of, (self annihilate), existence all the time, everywhere in the complete vacuum of space. As Bucky said much more simply, a quantum fluctuation could have been the origin of the Big Bang.

You state there can be no state between something and nothing. You don’t have any evidence for that. We have learned that to trust our intuition is dangerous. Examples of this are Relativity Theory, where time is relative, and there are space warps, and is not something which is “intuitive”. The two of us who are pilots have learned a few examples where intuition can be very dangerous. A third example is Einstein’s “Spooky Action At a Distance” experimant, as well as the Schroedinger’s Cat experimant, which demonstrates that the action of an observer directly impacts an outcome, withour any obvious connecting mechanism, (as well as somehow information DOES travel faster than the speed of light, in fact instantaneously). We will ignore for now the implications of this, for the theory of the existence of dimensions, other than the 4 we know about.

Simply because you chose to constrain your choices to the two, represented by the words, “something” and “nothing”, does not mean the universe’s reality is acurrately reflected by that choice. You present no evidence for that statement. In fact many theists believe the supreme being is BOTH trancendent and non-trancendent.

You come to the conclusion that there was never a time when there was nothing. Even for theists, space-time would be considered a “creature”, (as well a a pruduct of the processes begun at the Big Bang for some others), a product of the creator, thus to speak of what existed before the dimensions of space-time is meaningless.

Energy and matter are the same. E=MC(squared). Remember. Basic Einstein. The dichotomy you make is well known to be meaningless.

Atheists don’t maintain that the universe came from nothing. Many do. Many others simply say they don’t know, and have learned to live with that connundrum, without invoking other causes for which their is no evidence. It is your choice to confine yourself to the choices you make by the uses you make of the words you employ, (example : transcendent and non-transcendent).

BIG trouble.

You can follow the case at http:www.boleneport.com. You can sign up there to be on the newsletter Subscriber list.

Currently Barrett has filed a Motion to Dismiss the case, but htere is little chance that will happen. His reason he wants a Dismissal? He claims he is “assisting the government…

Next comes “discovery,” a process where Barrett will have to cough up thousands of documents, then go into a video-taped Deposition where he will be forced to answer questions about his support network – those that help him get his articles on the first page of search engines.

Barrett’s lead attorney seems to have disappeared, and he has been LATE making EVERY filing deadline since the case began.

The fun has just begun.

As this thread mentions chiropractic, I presume my post will nit be removed for being out of context.

It would seem that there is a guy called Richard Lanigan of ‘chiropracticlive’ blog, fame, who wishes to have an open debate with you Andy and if course, skeptic Barista, simon perry and Zeno at one of your skeptics in the pub meetings. I understand it relates to ‘traditional chiropractic’, which I believe is the segment of the UK chiropractic profession who treat the ‘subluxation’, but you have so far declined?

That’s strange, I thought you guys enjoyed debate?

That’s strange, I thought you guys enjoyed debate?

Please take action. You CAN make a difference.

None of us horrid skeptics for one moment wish you ill.
Have you ever watched Gary doing Abraham. Now go watch Colin Fry doing his spirit guide. Come on Jane. You claim some degree of analytical thought yet you seem to abandon all rational when it comes to Gary.

We have told you before. Your testimonial is worthless. Gary cannot cure bloody bacon, let alone serious illness. If he could why are you now semi-terminal? Can’t yoy just get hold of him and get it sorted. No. Obviously not. And please let us know any of your medical contacts who support this work, or any like it. We will get them struck off.

For crying out loud Jane, at least come to your senses now and declare that Garys treatment ahs obviously miserably failed.

That’s all the evidence we need i.e you claim he helped but he blatantly ahs not.

Good wishes,
Dubious Dick

Nevertheless, I have to say this. You have been asked questions about how energy, and its nature, and love are transferred from one person to another. You have avoided the questions. Why?
You must know that psychic surgery/faith healing/magic healing and the rest have been researched and found wanting.
http://www.ebm-first.com/faith-healing.html
And I am afraid to say that your testimonial on Mannion’s site might well be being used as an attempt by a medically unqualified person to attract and treat cancer patients.

In your testimonial on Gary Mannion’s site you wrote:

“Eventually, a friend who is a top breast cancer specialist at Bart’s, suggested that they had measured areas of inflammation around my tumour in the original scan, and the tumour was smaller then they first thought.”

This seems to be to be a perfectly reasonable explanation, yet you are now claiming that the shrinkage of your tumour has baffled medical science. Don’t you see the contradiction here?

Can anyone running your website give me contact details for Steve Docherty who has put derogatory remarks re the BBC and myself on your website? I should like to find out what he is talking about and who he talked to, so that I can put the record straight.

If you can’t email me with some contact email address for him, I suggest you remove the remarks, which are silly, offensive and inaccurate, as I recently recorded a BBC interview at home, which was requested by the BBC, and an interviewer drove 80 miles to get from me. Due to illness, I have had to turn down the BBC’s various interview requests and requests to do regular spots, over the last couple of years and I haven’t told them why – so I’d like to know what this man is talking about or who he talked to who spoke so unprofessionally.

Regarding all your to-and-fro’ing about what I’ve written: I’ve never claimed to have any medical qualifications nor scientific ones; nor, it seems, do any of you, writing on this website.

But I AM qualified, as we all are, to know when my pain has been helped. I’ve clearly told my story – doctors have no explanation for how my tumour shrank so much, with no medical care at all.

Gary did this and I’m grateful; so, recently, did another anonymous healer from Wiltshire, who managed to stop my pain for two blissful weeks. I’ve no idea who she was – a friend took me to see her.

I think you seem to be confused about psychic healing. It isn’t the same as mad ‘operations’ in which conmen produce chicken parts etc!

I think it must be the manipulation and transfer of energy into the body from the healer – you feel a fantastic sense of re-charging – that’s not the best word but the only one I can think of – afterwards. It doesn’t heal, but it darn well helps!

When you start looking into stuff, you realise how very little we know about medicine, the body etc. People imagine there are batteries of drugs to help, but there are very few.

I have trouble finding a good painkiller – morphine dished out by the palliative hospital team, makes me feel ill; herbal stuff is sometimes more effective, but not now that I have 5 tumours in my back. I haven’t seen Gary for at least 18 months if not more – he’s all round the country from what I see on his website, but not my neck of the woods and I can’t travel anymore. I know he is busy with appointments.

REAL scientists, REAL doctors, don’t scoff. They are empirically interested in anything that will HELP people – and they listen to their patients’ experiences, and take them seriously. I’ve had great conversations with doctors – including several top consultants at London hospitals – about so-called ‘psychic healing’ and the possibilities of using it, going round wards where people are crying with dreadful pain – I’ve seen them – and offering their help to relieve the pain of seriously ill people.

If any of you have any experience of illness, you’ll know that unfortunately, during death, pain ‘breaks through’, and the body quickly gets used to high doses of painkillers but the docs can’t give more than a max dose.

This ‘psychic healing’ technique is already available via the few Macmillan cancer centres in NHS hospitals and it’s called things like global healing. The healers I’ve seen there, say they have to be vague, but I’ve had their ministrations, and it’s the same technique as Gary and others use. They’re good, but just not as talented, sadly.

Sceptics, show doubt but have respect for all points of view.

They don’t merely gainsay anything they hear.

The Greeks who I believe invented the term, would be horrified, to see a very necessary and valid attitude so devalued, as it is by some on your website.

I would urge them to have respect for others’ viewpoints and experience.

You’re not rooting out conmen and so, protecting a vulnerable public from parting with money – Gary never asked me for money and did me some good. – In this case, you seem to be just having a go at someone who is plodding through his life and work, pretty unperturbed by you. People go to see him, and go away feeling better.

So move on! Have a go at the North Devon people I mentioned – by going to see for yourselves as there’s nothing like firsthand experience. For all I know they may think they are genuine.

I am an unashamed fighter for freedom-of-thought. I speak as I find about my experiences.

I don’t hide as you seem to think; I just don’t have a lot of time to consider your website unless I’m bored and sleepless from pain, as tonight!

I have two names – one is my married one, one my professional one – like a lot of media people. Nothing sinister there. Tribble is my married name. I don’t write under it at all.

We do historical ghost walks in our old house as a way of helping to support its maintenance. Again, nothing sinister there; people love them. I have been interviewed to publicise them.

By going, last year, to Guatemala, to get a drug unavailable on the NHS or in the States – you can read about that in last year’s Mail, other papers and the main breast cancer care website too – I managed to change things in the UK, and now more breast cancer sufferers are allowed to have this drug. It was too little too late to help me, but I spent 5 months trying to find where I could get it. A lady emailed me who discovered her cancer as a result of reading my article with the symptoms listed.

Despite having no scientific background, I have devised my own medical regime using scientific research trials of drugs unavailable yet – which, if they do any good, I will publicise to the high hills.

This is based on research, from Oxford by coincidence, where they used a combination of drugs to cure someone last year who had 6 weeks to live – sorry, to the person writing on your website, with a chip on his shoulder about my having gone to uni there, I understand your feelings, having worked my way there from a school in Peckham – but we need centres of excellence. You’ll be grateful for that research one day, if it cures you or your loved ones of disease.

The trials and research difficult stuff to read and understand – just as hard as understanding why Gary can do such brilliant things, just by touch!

Both the sciencey stuff and the psychic stuff are important – I’ll fight for survival on all fronts. I’m supported in my efforts by helpful doctors including one visionary at the Royal Marsden.

If my own efforts don’t work, don’t know how much longer I have to live – the hospital say they now think my particular cancer is called a triple negative, ie doesn’t respond to any drugs they have – and so I think you’ll understand, I really don’t have time to waste. However I am contactable for anyone with a question.

But if one of you falls ill in the future, remember what I’ve said. You will then understand.

Try everything, dismiss nothing until you know by your own experience, and don’t give a monkey’s if someone else sneers!

I do hope the opinons here by others are not being made by scientists or those in the medical profession as that is worrying. I understand how extraordinary it sounds to hear someone suggest they went up a tunnel, saw the light of God, or heard voices, but once you know, you know, and you realise how little we are within the universe, though vitally part of it.

I tried to make a point in my book, that it is the power of thought, depth, and pureness of meaning that I believe transcended me to where I was, and thought is something that can not be measured, so scientifically it doesnt count in most equations, not forming part of any empirical studies as a result.

In my experience, I was aware of two things in particular, vibration and speed, and can only say, I realised there was no such thing as time, which I believe I crossed, and certainly another dimension.

Unable to talk about this for the first three years, I wrote it all down. I have always had difficulty talking about it to anyone as your automatically assumed mad. However, I am not mad, and though it happened 20 years ago, from what i’m reading in comments, things still remain the same.

There is a lot that science needs to redress, and no particular scientific doctrine has all the answers. Maybe they never will, and maybe theyre not supposed to. But there is a higher force, much much greater than us, which is all knowing, and watching.

Thought, is the key IMHO, and as William James (1850) theorized, some people can reach a higher level of consciousness than others, which could explain why some trandscend and others dont.

As John Jones says ” If the study of consciousness is a physical study then we ought to see that it is bogus straight away”.

Of course, from an empirical perspective. But in seeking the answers Dr Parnia wants
he is using trauma patients, as they have brought their experiences to his attention, so he’s looking for the physical connection. I wanted to let him know, it happened to me, and I wasn’t a trauma patient in a medical sense, dieing on a table. But experiencing emotional trauma, and of the belief I might die.

Hence why I know, thought was the trigger, and like Sandy Acharjee, I remember every second.

Being only human myself, I am still also learning.

http://marketsandculture.blogspot.com/2011/01/mmr-vaccine-autism-andrew-wakefield-and.html

..it is astonishing how many millions of public money were wasted by their actions.

The authors of the Gospels were steeped in pagan literature and lore where the gods
Impregnated mortal women and miracles thrived. Virgin births were part of pagan Greek culture.
Many Christians consider Jesus’ virgin birth the most important proof that he was the “Son of God.” If indeed his mother, Mary, was a virgin, why was this startling news not known to his contemporaries and earliest believers? They knew nothing because nothing was written or said. Even Paul writing in the fifties A.D. believed Jesus’ birth was normal.

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh.”(Rom 1: 1-3)

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,” (Gal 4:4)

Only Matthew and Luke state that Mary was a virgin and impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Their Gospels date from the seventies and eighties A.D. Where did this concept originate? What were their sources? Was Matthew in Mary’s bedroom as she talked to an angel? Neither Mary, Joseph, the Holy Spirit of the angel of the Lord told him. Was Luke in Elizabeth’s bedroom when she had her conversation with the Angel Gabriel?
The most important reference for Matthew and Luke was in Isaiah 7:14, seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus. It is translated in the King James translation as:
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
But in the New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament it is translated as:
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and you shall name him Immanuel.”
The Hebrew Bible, which predates the New Testament by centuries, uses the word almah instead of virgin in the Isaiah 7:14 verse. Further verses indicate the word almah means young woman.
Behold, I [Abraham’s servant] stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, that when the almah cometh forth to draw water, and I say to her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher to drink. (Gen 24:14)

Obviously, the servant is referring to a young woman, not a virgin. The Torah has an explicit word for virgin—betulah or bethulah—which is always used when the context requires virginity. (See Genesis 24:16 , Leviticus 21:14 , and Deuteronomy 22:15-19 ). Even Isaiah used it in 62:5. Its nonuse in the Immanuel passage indicates that Isaiah spoke only of a young woman, not specifically of a virgin.
Jesus was not the first famous person to be born of a virgin. In the ancient world, great men were born of divine fathers and human mothers. Alexander the Great and the Roman emperor Augustus were great men and [therefore] said to have had miraculous births. Jesus was also a great man, so he too must have a divine father. The claims of Jesus’ birth are no different from any of the other virgin or miraculous birth legends.
Buddha’s mother dreamt that a white elephant entered through her side. The next morning she was pregnant with Buddha. Mut-em-ua, the virgin Queen of Egypt, supposedly conceived Pharaoh Amenkept III by a god holding a cross to her mouth. Ra, the Egyptian sun god, was said to be born of a virgin. So were Perseus, Romulus, Mithras, Genghis Khan, Krishna, Horus, Melanippe, Auge and Antiope. Zeus impregnated many mortal women.
Matthew and Luke created the concept of a “virgin birth” for one purpose only— to enhance the stature of Jesus.

* * *

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.

Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid–
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!

All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.

Amen.

This is worth listening to with its innocent children’s voices to add to the satire, and is really far more clever theologically than the recent Steve Martin “Atheists Don’t Have No Christmas Songs.” Better rhyming and rhyme scheme, too.

9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People
UCL Bloomsbury
London,
GBR
Friday , 17/12/10 , 7:30PM
CIRCLE

Section Row Seat
B C 18
B C 19

I am an ardent sceptic myself and am addressing some of these issues in my own blog. http://god-proof.com/blog/ which I hope you will have time to peruse.

Anyhow, here’s a rather provocative and hilarious article my friend wrote about Ghost Hunting:
http://thingsthatshouldntstillexist.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/01-ghost-hunters/

Anyhow, here’s a rather provocative and hilarious article my friend wrote about Ghost Hunting:
http://thingsthatshouldntstillexist.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/01-ghost-hunters/

http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/local/8338836.Psychic_to____operate____by_using_his_mind/

You may be interested to know that Gary has been in Brazil, one of the hotbeds of “traditional” psychic surgery – the kind Gary doesn’t do because it requires skilful sleight of hand and produces physical evidence (such as chicken guts or surgical waste) that can be grabbed by sceptical witnesses and proved to be fake. When he returns Trading Standards will be having a word with him about a false claim, about which he has already been warned, currently being made on his website.

I understand Curtis’ point about not giving Gary any exposure, but if sceptics didn’t report people like him to Trading Standards and spread the word via the internet and TV their exploitation of the sick and desperate would be even worse. For example, both Gary and Adrian Pengelly formerly made the blatantly illegal claim to have successfully treated cancer. Gary received a warning about this and Pengelly was successfully prosecuted.

As for the BBC documentary about Gary, I was extremely disappointed that the director chose not to mention Gary’s TWO warnings from Trading Standards and threats of legal action from a London hospital and BrainGym (yes, I know BrainGym is nonsense but it’s copyrighted nonsense, a fact which was lost on Gary). I provided the director of the show with this information but he decided, in his own words, “to let the audience make up their own minds”. How they could be expected to do so without knowing all the facts I don’t know, but that’s lazy journalism for you.

I would urge you to get further properly skeptical coverage. If you visit UK Skeptics site then you will find plenty of people there who can help you. Julia in particular has been most active in chasing Mannion. Last we heard he was trying it on in America I think. Land of the free and the gullible.

Anyway, I disagree that a well done show, showing him and possibly others like him up would be good publicity for them.

You could try to look at Adrian Pengelly as well. Convicted fraudster.

Badpschics had a really good archive on him but I think Julia did most of it so you can go there. Also have a look on Spiritlove, a site for psychic groupies. Even they were pretty suspicious of our Gary.

Anyhow, go for it. And while you are at it, take a look at teh ADE 651 explosive detector scam and the lovely Jim McCormick who is behind it. This also needs more coverage as it has gone quiet. We are waiting to see if plod charge him and Gary Bolton of Global Technical and his GT200 scam device. Let us know if you hear any whispers on this story. Cheers and all the best for your work

P.S. By way, legally if you need an angle you could invoke the latest Consumer Protection legislation with the psychic scam artists. They are taking advantage of the average and vulnerable consumer because they peddle their wares with not a jot of evidence, and make no disclaimers to that effect. For some reason Trading Standards are not consistent across the country on these matters. We have had some success in Glasgow regarding Derek Ogilvie, and Julia has pursued a few cases successfully. I think we also put the mockers on Mannion when he went to Wales hiding behind Comic Relief as a marketing exercise, when we complained to the local Council who owned the property where the so called Psychic fayre thing took place.

Anyway, enough for now. Where’s Jane I wonder? Defender of the faith that she is shouldn’t she still be here crusading on Gazzas behalf? Miss ya!

I presume you saw the BBC3 documentary on Mannion broadcast in March last year. All 6 parts have been posted on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=young%2C+psychic+and+possessed&aq=f

She is a journalist. Did you know? Has a degree in English from Oxford University. At the end of her testimonial on Mannion’s latest site, she wrote, “I speak as I find, without fear of favour.”

Well, I always thought it was “fear or favour”, but I bow down to an Oxford graduate.

And, ” His hand, hovering over areas that were giving me problems, such as my neck, was extremely hot, like a bar fire, and I could feel energy flowing from him to my body.” So he sorted out her breast cancer, the pain in her abdomen, and her neck. Would you believe it?

“He is a very young man and I think he should go on to work in hospitals where his skill in pain-relief could benefit many.” I wonder why that hasn’t happened.

Answers on a post card, please.

It had actually been revealed a number of years ago at Cambridge.

I discovered this website just now.

Mr Chandra Mogan
September 8, 2010.

I do so hope I am wrong.

DD asked you a simple question – “do you have any scientific or medical expereince that would qualify you to judge the success of the so called ‘psychic surgery’?” Yes, he made a typing error, but then so have you. Would you care to answer the question?

On the preview comments relating to the Mannion documentary last year, you wrote, “His gift is to transfer pure energy and love to help the body heal itself. I am a journalist not an idiot. It is easy to mock, if you are not ill.”

Would you care to explain what this “pure energy” is? Where does it come from , how is it measured, how is it identified?

Or is it just the usual New Age energy drivel, basically?

Now, regarding the sneering person who could not, it seems, spell very well, but felt the need to ask for a digest of my entire life:

My journalistic experience is long and respectable, writing as Jane Furnival – columnist for several top newspapers, I have written for virtually every British newspaper there is and many magazines including international ones. I have been a TV presenter, radio ‘personality’ and all that, for many years and my CV includes Radio 4, You and Yours, Woman’s Hour, and a long stint in BBC 1 among more. I have met and exposed a good few crooks in my time, have helped readers recoup hundreds of thousands of pounds, and am never afraid to stand up for the truth, as I experience it, even if it is unwelcome to some. I have a very good Oxford degree and am known for having a suspicious mind!

As I believe I said, during the time Gary Mannion treated me, I had been diagnosed with a vast tumour but NO repeat NO medical treatment was offered at all at that time, as I was in the queue for a mastectomy. Believe it or not, you sceptics, the NHS is a bit barebones about offering treatment – you’re hardly snowed under with offers from them!

When that mastectomy took place, the docs told me that my tumour, which I had seen on the diagnostic screen being measured at 8.5cm, had actually been 4.5cm when they removed it. They had no explanation for the shrinkage and nor has any consultant I have asked. I have asked around six.

Since then I have talked to several cancer consultants about using Gary and people like him in wards to alleviate pain and suffeing – shock horror, you’ll hate this, you sceptics but there are OTHERS who are quietly taking cancer patients all over the country in NHS clinics, doing similar work, simply not as effectively as Gary who is, I believe, a very gifted man. I’ve had treatment from others and it has been great at removing pain.

As none of you seem to know much about what it’s like to have cancer, the pain and the horror of it, you’re not qualified to sneer. It is worth asking and questioning – but that’s different from adopting a ‘superior’ snore-bore attitude which I suspect you wouldn’t do, if YOU were ill.

There ARE crooks and charlatans around- many in Mexico – but Gary Mannion is not one. – I went for the first time ever to an ‘open circle’ in Devon recently which was, I believe, run by fraudsters and nearly got thrown out for making my feelings plain! . (I spent all of £4 on getting in to the fraudsters’ mediumistic circle and it was worth it for the sheer fun of telling my family what it was like, especially as by the end, the fraudsters didn’t speak to me!)

My journalistic nose scents a story. Just how are those offering vast sums of money to Gary, financing themselves? Or is this a made-up story to add a bit of spice to the entire bear-baiting session? I suspect it is – as no bona fide educational institution does anything but investigate – they don’t offer money. They don’t HAVE money.

I wish you all well.

Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t skeptical enough. If the study of consciousness is a physical study then we ought to see that it is bogus straight away.

Thank you.

Sandy Acharjee

There's a difference between electing not to second-guess scientists and actively supporting animal experimentation. Individuals, not least politicians, should develop their stance on the basis of informed reason rather than deference to any alleged authority as a default position.

I similarly don't believe there is a practical distinction between "pointlessly cruel" and merely "cruel" experimentation.

A cynical argument would suggest that opposing animal research at Oxford University and the Oxford Primate Research lab would  be at the cost of a considerable number of votes.

I respect a number of Harris' views but on this topic he is wrong.

Thanks for the interest though!
Cheers,
Mark.

Myself and few others have been waiting for the video – has it been published yet?

All the best,

Maya

I think the arch-bishop made some sort of a point after all and you may like to delve deeper in the question whether or not it is celibacy as such which makes this happen and what to think about the big majority of priests that fulfil from their practical needs, or faith or some odd combination of the two a livelong marriage with their idea of God. There are many forms of abstinence from many forms that primary pleasure seeking humans choose to try or are able to apply. One must also bear in mind the economic and state management aspects that have led to the celibacy institution in those far away days of downfall of the Roman empire and the need of some form of institutional power that would not be totally corrupted by family and clan interests… That's were the nascent Catholic church structures came in handy. In a way that church has evolved in the mix of religious nation and economic multinational as we know it now, still playing a role in unstable societies, delivering services that are as essential to human well being, as being exempted for sexual harassments. 

Sexual abuse is much more widespread than you apparently seem to be able to acknowledge bringing yourself in a state of rage, as a person claiming or wanting to be "someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs"you may next time try to sober up first… 

Noted this website on Google that seems yet to be developed. Thought it would be an interesting approach to teaching !!
Darwins Church a science for life a faith for a reason;
http://darwinschurch.com/
Love the ambiguity of the  site quote "I don’t know who discovered water but it certainly wasn’t a fish!"

I am genuinely baffled by some of the statements made on your website. Perhaps you could explain this one to me:

“There are in print many accounts of how brain activity can produce “thoughts, visions, and hallucinations” that are similiar [sic] in content to the NDE.

That may be true, but the experiencer would be unaware of these since he is out-of-body at this time and thoroughly enjoying his new view of the surroundings.”

I really don’t see how the second sentence goes any way to refuting the first.

The linchpin of your argument for the existence of an afterlife, as far as I can tell, is that people who’ve had a NDE know there to be one because the experience felt more overwhelming than anything they had previously known; enough so to have profound influences on the way they live their lives afterwards. You then say that

“I have never read of hallucinations, delusions, or any other kind of misperception that produced such positive changes in large numbers of scattered individuals. What these individuals experienced certainly had to be real. Only Truth is powerful enough to produce this kind of phenomenon.”

That’s just plain wrong. I’ll give you two examples, which you might choose to see as one, depending on your religiosity. Pick two mutually exclusive religions. Neither is true. Certainly both can’t be true, by definition. They are delusions, and yet both have led to equally “positive changes in large numbers”.

Hallucinations and wishful thinking do not an afterlife make.

Since the 1980s it has been noted that fever may briefly alleviate symptoms of autism. (Google [autism fever research] or look out Dr R.M. Cotterill’s paper in Nature in 1985 and work forwards.) Generally autistic spectrum symptoms develop slowly and it is by no means unlikely that some parents will have come to recognise their child’s autism following a fever. Like various other things, the MMR jab can cause mild fever, temporarily reducing the symptoms. Their relatively swift return as the fever abates may well bring them to notice, in some cases, for the first time.

It would hardly be surprising if parents who have first noticed their child’s symptoms following an MMR jab claim that there is an association. And to deny entirely the association between MMR and autism is tantamount to calling them liars, for this would deny the evidence of their own eyes.

There does seem to be a connection between MMR and autism. But it is a correlation rather than causitive.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/24865,news-comment,news-politics,mmr-parents-deserve-an-answer

To be honest, I was unaware that ‘skeptic’ was the proper American spelling of the word. I always thought it more a brand name of sorts, which I think is useful when using Google and the like. I also agree that it is useful to conform to the American spelling in this case, for the sake of unity.

As a Brit I have hitherto used the British spelling, “sceptic”, but as the skeptical movement as a whole is undoubtedly global I’m seriously considering the wholesale adoption of the American spelling (as certain Commonwealth-based publications have already done).

I don’t think that using “critic” means thowing out “sceptic”. I think it can be a bridge to sceptic in the classic A=B, A=C, therefore B=C kind of way. Perhaps your app could focus on how much like a certain person the user is rather than how much of a sceptic they are. People love to compare themselves to other people.

Personally, I’m highly sceptical of any situation in which too many people agree on the same thing. It goes against my sceptical grain. I think the natural state is for people to disagree. It’s only stress and adversity that get people pulling together. In my world view there is really only common thought when there’s a common problem. So I don’t share your enthusiasm for organizing.

I think you may also be surprised by the extent to which many people reject the notion of rational thinking. They believe the world is what it is and no amount of thinking it through will change it. These people believe that life is about action, not thought, that you change the world by acting in it and not by writing about it, or thinking about it.

As you can see, one of the things I am most sceptical about is thinking itself, and it’s cousin, consciousness. We humans are dazzled by our ability to hold thoughts in our heads, to conjure up memories and to learn from them. We love ourselves because of it and use it as an excuse to meddle in all kinds of things. Here’s an example; we recognize that our actions are endangering various species. The rational thought is to take more action to save these species. However, the actions we propose are just more meddling like the meddling that endangered these species in the first place. Who are we to think we know anything at all about these things? Isn’t the MORE rational thought to DO LESS, not more? Wouldn’t doing less have a better chance of success because it leads directly to an environment more like the one that used to support the species in the first place?

Just a couple of things to think about, ironically!

G.

I agree that some users might do that. However, if my quiz idea were to become a reality, I fear that accounting for these criticisms might detract from the extent to which the application is user friendly. To accomodate for Jim’s would, as I see it, mean asking questions such as ‘which of the following is necessary for a fair scientific test?’, which is not the light-hearted kind of quiz people would bother with, and to account for yours would mean asking users to cite their sources, which is ambitious at best. Let me know if you see an easier way around either problem though.

As far as migrating to the term ‘critic’ is concerned, it would be nice, although if I were to change the word I would probably favour ‘rationalist’. However, as I mentioned in the article, I do not believe this to be doable. The ‘sceptic community’ has invested too much in the word. For example, magazines are already in publication with ‘Skeptic’ in the title, and people already know what to google if they want to read up on the latest blog posts and the like. Perhaps most importantly though, I do not believe that we could get everyone to agree on and adopt a new term. Organising atheists has often been likened to herding cats, and the same may be true of sceptics. I believe that in order to get things done and make our voices heard, we need to come together as much as possible, and I worry that a migration to a new term might make this task harder.

Thanks for your (incredibly quick) reply. The point you make is completely correct and in hindsight the quiz idea does need tweaking to accomodate it. The only possible problem I that I can foresee as a result of this is that it might be difficult to retain the pithy feel that makes these kinds of quizzes attractive to Facebook users in the first place.

Wouldn’t actual skeptics be better identified by questions about *how* a person could come to have reliable answers about various kinds of issues? It seems to me that what makes a good skeptic is engaging in skeptical inquiry rather than necessarily reaching the approved skeptical conclusion. What makes some people “deniers” rather than skeptics is that they aren’t consistently engaging in skeptical inquiry and critical thinking–they are directing skepticism against a particular target, but not against the arguments and evidence they themselves are using in the process.

Sorry for the delay in my response. I have been extremely busy lately and I wanted to have read a little around the subject and the literature that you directed me towards before replying to your comment.

Firstly, I would like to reiterate that I have not read ‘The Diet Delusion’, and so I am in no position to attack or defend its claims.

Regarding Bill Lands and his research, at the face of it, it all looks interesting. Having said that, I am always weary of any situation where a person is under the impression that their particular area of expertise is as all-encompassing as Lands seems to think his is. I do not mean to say that his conclusions are incorrect in any way other than perhaps their magnitude, but that is based on nothing other than a gut feeling. Maybe I am being overly cynical. Besides, I am no doctor, and as I’m sure you will appreciate, I have barely begun to scratch the surface of the subject. I promise I will read more into it though.

As a point of interest, Bill Lands’ iteration of the fact that treating secondary biomarkers will not necessarily prevent the related disease reminded me of a discussion between Professor Richard Dawkins and Randolph Nesse that I thought might be of interest to you. The video can be found at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcnCJqDa1us

Consider it a token of my appreciation for your taking the time to comment.

Thank you.

Will

Here are a bunch of facts from the Telegraph but my favourite is that apparently it would take 8 years, 7 months and 6 days of yelling to produce enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

I guess it depends on the size of the cup though.

Love the sound of the book. No pun intended.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article727295.ece

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/12/08/premature-ejaculation-marketing-the-condition-before-the-drug/

“My own approach is to test the more promising and widely accepted claims, such as telephone telepathy, as fairly as possible even though I do not expect to get significant results from such studies. As Rupert is well aware, I have tested many of his claims in the past, either through student projects or in direct collaboration with him, and to date we have never found the results supporting the existence of psi.”

I would like to ask you if you take the sheep-goat effect into account.

http://drkaplan.co.uk/2009/12/homeopathy/breaking-news-government-backs-nhs-homeopathy/

Dear Tom,

Many thanks for your email to Mr Lansley. It is estimated that about half of GPs refer some patients to alternative therapists. There are currently five NHS homeopathic hospitals in the UK and you must be referred to these by your doctor. We are aware that there are differing views on the provision of homeopathic remedies, with some arguing that there is not enough evidence to support their availability via the NHS, while others argue that greater access to complementary therapies in the NHS might lead to widespread benefits.

Conservatives see the most effective method of making decisions about what the NHS provides as the cost-clinical effectiveness criteria, which the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) undertakes in the decision-making process on drug regulation and use. NICE believes that homoeopathic medicines should be treated in exactly the same way as traditional medicines in terms of deciding whether the NHS should provide them to the public.

In the case of the public being free to buy herbal remedies, the Conservatives have always said that, as long as a treatment has been proven to be safe then it should be available to buy. Consumers are then free to assess the effectiveness of the treatments which they purchase.

Consequently, we believe that homeopathy and alternative treatments are a valuable resource for doctors to be able to draw upon when offering treatments. Where a doctor and a patient believe that a homeopathic treatment may be of benefit to the patient, I believe doctors should be free to prescribe that medicine. All therapies should be considered equally, and decisions on whether or not to provide them on the NHS should be evidence-based, as is the case with all other conventional medicines and treatments.
kind regards
Connie

Connie Sturgess
Office of Andrew Lansley CBE MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Health

Yeah, not sure it qualifies for the label ‘philosophy’.

How very odd.

I enjoyed ‘so-called stem cell research’ in the original article too. I have always assumed that it is so called because that’s what it is. I wonder what Wilson thinks it really is ? (I suspect he thinks that it’s “murdering God’s children” or something)

http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/11/organic-myths-and-realities.html

http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v61/n4/abs/1602553a.html

I guess the fact that it was part sponsored by the manufacturers shouldn’t weigh against it.

It’s interesting to see that Lactium is actually marketed as a weight loss tool in their promotional material:

http://www.ingredia-nutritional.com/static/download.htm?doc_id=87

I’m only interested in this as I was in Boots at the weekend, saw the POS material claiming it was “scientifically proven” to reduce stress, and thought there was something a tad fishy about it.

We, Ingredia, have not had any email from UK or indeed from you – where or whom did you email ?

Do contact me via the “contact us” link on the Ingredia Nutritional web site – ask for me by name…. Kaare Axelsen

http://www.ingredia-nutritional.com

Many thanks

I do not know what email address this is but you can contact me directly at ingredia and I shall be happy to deal with this immediately. I shall ask our marketing if anything has come in during the last few days but normally this would come to my attention.

Best
Kaare

Many thanks for your comment. I would like to know more about the product and how it works and would very much like to have copies of the studies demonstrating safety and efficacy. I had a look on the website but a lot of it was under construction. I also e-mailed the address given in the contact info over a week ago but have not heard anything back. Would you be able to assist me in this matter, or perhaps give me contact details for whom to get in touch with? It would be much appreciated.

Finally, when speaking to people about HPV and cervical cancer, please be more careful with your choice of words. For example, there is no “supposedly” when it comes to HPV causing cervical cancer. That is an absolute fact. And it is also an absolute fact that the vaccine protects women, at least for a period of 7 years, against contracting the 2 types of HPV (16 & 18) that cause 70% of all cervical cancer. Even Dr. Harper would agree with me on this.

He is a con-man.

It would have been more productive if you had looked in to the product in more detail and understod what it actually is and how it works rather than make comments based on little information but at the same time trying to give a negative spin to this – this is always easy to do !! even on pharmaceutical drugs.

Due to UK/EU regulations companies are not always allowed to give the full information nor does journalist wish to report on this due to limited space in their articles.

As an exampl then the difference in the dosage between EU and USA is again due to regulation. In the USA they have a 90% material hence they need to use 167mg a day which is equal to 150mg of Lactium as used in the 6 studies available. Simple math !

Contact the manufacturer and we will gladly answer questions