Conference hydra::dejavu

    I vaguely remember seeing an expose' on Phillapino (sp?) psychic
    surgeons stating that the organs they "removed" were from animals
    and "slight-of-handed" into the jar.  Please  think more than twice
    about trying this "cure".  
    
     -- However, it's all in the mind of the healed, anyway.--
    
    Sheila
    
    

    I have seen expose's of a similar nature -- including color motion
    pictures.  It would be interesting to check with a patient of such
    a surgeon before an "operation" and afterwards to see if what supposed
    to be removed was.  This might be achievable through X-ray or
    ultrasound imaging.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

Question is: is this a legitimate folk practice that some
unscrupulous types are infiltrating, or is it all hokum?

Does someone know anything about the history of both the
practices and also the "surgeons' organization" that flies
people over there?

    
    Since this is the USA, and that happens miles away in the Sth Pacific,
    you don't here much of it here.  However about 7 or 8 years ago
    the Australian and New Zealand press had plenty of coverage showing
    that these guys were the worst form of modern day witchdoctors,
    palming off animal entrails as "look at the yucky thing I dug out
    of your tummy".
    
    Its *all* hokum, unless of course you like to say "well, even though
    every one that's been examined is a fraud, they haven't exposed
    ALL of them yet, so maybe one that hasn't been examined is for real".
    
    It's unbelievable to me that anyone living in what has to be the
    center of surgical knowlege (the US) would consider going to
    primitive witchdoctors who are known to be frauds, yet there was
    a thriving traffic going on back in the late '70s...
    
    /Bevin
                                                     

    Re .4:
    
    It really isn't so unbelievable.  The quack offers hope to the
    hopeless.
    
    
    The trouble is that there are a few cases of apparent psychic healing
    (_not_ the note's subject), and whenever frauds enter into the picture,
    the good gets thrown out with the bad.   
                                                        
    Please see also the note on charlatanism.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

     
    
    
          at one time they said "man cannot fly"...remember?
    
          Some think that anything which can be conceived in the mind
          either already exists or can exist...or be real (there's that
          silly word again)..
    
    Lora

    
    GIVE ME A BREAK!!  To even suggest that this procedure is for  REAL
    is a joke!  We have come a long way with the airplane but someone
    laying a towel over me and pulling out the cancer...or what ever...
    come on!  These doctors (cons) should come up with a slogan....
    
    COME TO THE PHILIPINES....WE'VE GOT YOUR CURE IN THE BAG!! LITERALLY
    
    I guess if you get that desperate you'll believe anything!!

    I remember seeing an expose of a "psychic surgeon" back in the 60's or
    70's on the Joe Pyne Show.  Joe had a magician and an MD go to the
    Phillipines and check it out.  They posed as reporters and took film 
    of healings.  They had two cameras, one the "healer" could see and
    another hidden one.  It pretty obvious that the whole thing was a
    complete fake.  

    Mike    

    Re .6, .7:
    
    The "wish to believe" sometimes makes us accept things that might
    not be.  Please look at the note on demonic possession: it would
    have been _exciting_ to find a modern case of demons or poltergeists
    or whatever that could have been studied, quantified, and the like.
    The story, however, as it went along, seemed fishier and fishier
    and (according to several notes) proved to be _predictable_.
    
    On the so-called "psychic surgeons_: the technique wasn't limited
    to the Philippines.  Similar "surgeons" associate with the poor
    (such as migrant workers) in the southwestern United States and
    Mexico.  The technique appears to be the same: slight-of-hand and
    animal parts (who's to say that the red, dripping hunk of flesh
    the "surgeon" holds up _isn't_ something from the "patient"?).
    
    However, that sort of thing is different from psychic _healing_.
    There have been several documented cases of apparent psychic partial
    or total cures (one partial icthyosis cure by hypnotism is synposized
    from a book in the current _Fate_).  Regrettably, it's easy to confuse
    the two.
    
    The charlatan thrives for a variety of reasons.  One is that the
    very poor aren't covered by insurance and cannot afford proper
    treatment.  The charlatan is the only "alternative."  The second
    is that some people who can _barely_ afford regular surgery look
    at a procedure that seems to do the job without pain, scars, or
    even unconsciousness.  Who _wouldn't_ like to have that sort of
    an operation?  It's the carrot-and-stick principle: the very poor
    _must_ go to them; the less poor find the idea attractive.
    
    The psychic "surgeon" gets rich.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

re .9
    
    If the majority of people going to these "psychic surgeons" are
    poor, how can the surgeons be getting rich?  Could there be any
    other motives?
    

    re .10:
    
    Easy.  It's a matter of a volume market.  If you see enough poor
    folk, and get (what by standard medical fees would be considered)
    relatively modest fees, you can get fairly rich (=financially_com-
    fortable) by treating a lot of them.  The films of "psychic surgery"
    _I_ saw showed the whole process taking only a few minutes.  Over
    the course of a day, one could do an awful lot of people.
    
    There are other types of charlatan who prey on the poor.  The poor
    folk are good targets because they can't afford better, and because in many
    cases they are relatively uneducated, they are often easily gulled
    by a learned-sounding line of patter.  
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    I believe the real $'s are made from people who are gullible enough
    to pay the airfare to the Phillipines from NZ, Australia, and the
    USA.  They obviously aren't that poor.
    
    /Bevin
    
    "A fool and his money are easily parted"
    
    "Well, in that case how did the fool get the money in the first
    place?"
    

    
    
                 Best not to discount what isn't understood.  Remember
                 they said man could never fly.
    
                 Some say that anything which can be conceived can 
                 possibly occur - at least in part.  Just look at the
                 progress women and people of color have made over the
                 last decades... - don't never say never - and
                 I caution about thinking 'yes but....that's not what
                 we're talking about' cause it's precisely what we're
                 talking about...(said she authoritatively :^)
                                 
    
    Lora

    RE: .13
    
    Only a fool, says "never" and really means it literally -- they
    are assuming their own infallibility.
    
    There are some times, however, when the liklihood of something being
    true is so remote that its a waste of effort to give it much
    consideration (after spending enough, effort, of course, to determine
    that it really IS one of those situations).
    
    To take a classic example: say someone offered to sell you the Brooklyn
    Bridge.  It could be, of course, that they are an eccentric billionare
    who you just happened to never have heard of, and that secretly
    bought the bridge from the authorities and decided, on a lark, to
    sell it to some worthy-seeming stranger for a pittance.  It IS
    possible, but you would be a fool to spend even a dollar on it.
    
    It is possible, that there actually are bare-handed surgeons who
    are not fakes.  It's possible that every scientist who has examined
    the tissue extracted from these surgeons is lying or has been shut
    up by the AMA.  It's possible that the human tissue is miraculously
    transformed to sheep or monkey tissue by secret Sufi masters who
    are attempting to keep the Western world from acknowledging the
    existence of paranormal phenomena.  It's possible that the other
    evidence for slight-of-hand is also misleading.
    
    It's possible, but there are better possibilities which are no less
    wonderful.  Better to spend your resources on them.
    
    				Topher

    It's big among the Guatemaulan medicine people too.  I have met
    and watched an Aztec medicine man work who claimed to do psychic
    surgery.  He gave a demonstration.  What he claimed to do he doesn't
    do( the psychic surgery), it's a gimmick.  
    Mostly he gives herbs and has a bag of chiropractic manipulations.
    It's pretty good money. Over $2000 a day tax free.  He operates
    in the Southwest and occasionlly moves into the midwest and east.
    Personally he is a sincere and thankful person.  He also knows
    how to sell himself.  Belief is a stong conduit for energy and some
    people will believe and heal.
    --tim
    

> < Note 202.13 by BRAT::WALLIS >
>                  Best not to discount what isn't understood.  Remember
>                  they said man could never fly.

As far as I know, men and women cannot fly, at least unaided. Despite claims
by the TM crowd, most people who fly (as opposed to fall :-) do so with the
aid of technology. The same seems to apply to these surgeons. Modern
Medicine can perform miracles, but it usually involves some sort of
technology. Surgery almost always uses technology of some sort. But these
surgeons are claiming that they use no technology and do it all with the
mind or through the will of God or something. So, my point is that they said
that man could never fly and they were wrong. We built planes and shuttles
and such. And they say that man cannot open people up and take out diseased
parts and they were wrong, too. We built scalpels and laser knives and other
tools and we do open-heart surgery every day. But we neither fly nor cut
without our tools...

DDA

    As mentioned earlier in this conference, we have a strong belief
    in what our technology can do for us - the example given referred
    to "we sent a man to the moon".  We have, in our society at the
    very least, good reason to believe in technology and what it can
    do for us.
    
    Some years ago, I saw an episode of "The Body in Question" on PBS.
    It covered African Traditional Medicine, using herbs and such -
    the knowledge base being transferred not by books, but by years
    of practice in memorizing disease symptoms and the respective cures.
    Much of what is practiced seems on the outside to be incantation
    with little else; rattles and words for sound, hand waving ...
    Those doctors will, given broken bones or obvious trauma, send patients
    to the nearest "modern medicine" hospital for treatment.  Otherwise,
    they have *the same* success rate as good old American modern medicine.
    
    Some of the reasons cited are the use of herbs with healing properties
    and the *belief by the patient in the power of the doctor*.
    
    In this country, we have many faith healing sessions, with no use
    of any tools of our technology.  Bunk?  Perhaps.  I would not spend
    the airfare to go to any of these.  But many people here do give
    money to the faith healers who rely on the Christian God for help.
    
    Is the "poor" patient in the Phillipines being treated much worse?
    Is his/her belief in the doctor any less (or more?) than our beliefs
    in our doctors?  Or the clientele of the African doctors' trust
    and belief in them?  Just because we can not see any way our modern
    surgical techniques have any relation to that of the "Psychic surgeons"
    does not mean they can have no better than the same success rate
    yielded by no treatment at all.   There are many documented examples
    of how a patient's attitudes affect her/his future health.
    (Try "Anatomy of an Illness as perceived by the patient" by Norman
    Cousins.  Doctors i talk to say that's bunk, too.  Read it
    for yourself.)
    
    I don't understand any of this stuff or whether it works.  But people
    go to these "surgeons" for help.  How did they get to be popular?
    Just by being the last forlorn hope?  Like our experimental cancer/AIDS
    treatments?  
    
    (set mode *totally* ignorant)
    It seems to me that these "poor, uneducated" people who go to these
    "surgeons" may have a hard time determining that they will die without
    dramatic means *fast*.  There must be some belief in them, probably
    founded on some stories of healing - true or unfounded.
    (attempt to unset ignorant mode)

    If there is belief in the doctor, some good can be done.  I have
    no belief.  I don't think they can help me.  Who is the loser here?
    
    My advice would be: if you have *strong* faith in your "doctor",
    your "doctor" will be of help.  If you don't, your doctor won't
    be able to help you as much as she/he could otherwise, no matter
    what the technology.  In the meantime, my guess is to go with the
    scientific ways.  I believe in them.
    
    BTW, (you all know this) please keep the definition of "doctor" open.    

    Re .17:
    
    There are two things here.
    
    One is the "placebo effect," mentioned extensively in another mote
    of that title.  It seems that resources within a person's body can
    be marshalled if he or she believes in the cure.
    
    Another is herbology.  As it happens, some herbs do have medicinal
    components that assist in the healing process.  (To digress a bit,
    Penecillin was an accident, and it's effective.)  Some, like Mandrake,
    have been used medicinally for centuries (the Classic Greeks used
    the juice of the Mandragora as an anesthetic: it still can be used
    that way, but there are far safer anesthetics, since someone
    anesthatized by mandragora juice might never wake up).  That's not
    quite the same thing...
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    re: .18 re .17
    
    My note on African traditional medicine was not meant to imply that
    its only route of usefulness was via the "placebo effect".
    
    Two things are shown by looking at this other very effective form
    of medicine:      
    	1) Trust and faith in the doctor are of vast benefit ("placebo"
    		to me sounds degrading of this "effect")
    	2) Herbology is functional (much of modern pharmaceutical research
    		ventures to find the effective ingredients of such herbs)

    It was included, however, as an example of an effective form which
    is not, in the eyes of many "modern major" Americans, clearly akin
    to our "vast" technical prowess.  Such a system has been researched
    and found to be effective.  All I was saying is that, while no one
    has pointed out any stats as to the effectiveness of "psychic surgery",
    everyone sees that it is not like our Western Medicine, and on that
    count, has been shunned.
    
    Our modern medical technique is to accept almost anything (not harmful)
    which will show, statistically, improvements in patients, including
    the use of poisons in moderation.  I've seen no data "disproving"
    psychic surgery's efficacy.

    re .19:
    
    How does one "disprove" the effacacy of "psychic surgery"?  A toughie,
    and here's why:
    
    A peasant, let's call him "Joe," comes to a psychic surgeon (PS).  Joe
    complains that he's got a swelling in his stomach, and some pains.
    "Ach," says the PS, "you've got _Intantaglia Horriblis_, a severe
    form of intenal cancer."
    "What do I do?" says Joe.
    "I'll operate."
    After  a lot's been done, the PS throws a bloody bunch of tissue
    into a bucket and says, "Ah.  That does it.  $50 please."
    Joe gratefully pays the fee, and the PS tells him the "residual
    swelling" will subside by the morning.
    By morning, the swelling's down.
    
    Alternative a: Joe really had a cancer and the PS removed it by
                   some paranormal process.
    
    Alternative b: Joe really had a cancer, and the PS faked the operation.
                   Nevertheless, the placebo effect ("belief") made
                   the body initiate a cure.
    
    Alternative c: Joe really had a cancer, and while it wasn't cured,
                   Joe's confidence makes him _feel_ better, even to
                   the point of the swelling being reduced.
    
    Alternative d: Joe never had a cancer, but was convinced he had.
                   Whatever the PS did made him feel better, either
                   because of the placebo effect or because the body
                   took care of the problem anyway (e.g., he released
                   gas in his sleep).
    
    Any of these scenarios might be the genuine.  But from Joe's
    standpoint, he was ailing, he went to the PS, and was "cured."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    very good.  now let's look at Mass. General Hospital as seen by
    a possible patient of a psychic surgeon.  The patient goes in, is
    examined by the team of doctors in white coats, with stainless steel
    tables holding patients being wheeled in and out of elevators and
    into operating rooms all around.  The patient in question "Jim",
    has a magic CT scan done, which shows a picture of the inside of
    his body.  A blob appears.  The doctor says it must be removed.
    Anesthesia... cutting... blood... some time later Jim wakes up
    with a funny feeling and the nurse tells him he's all better.  He's
    cured!  Great.
    
    He tries to see if he's been conned.  He looks around, and sees
    that many people are happy with the results.  But many people die
    in hospitals.  Many.  Not a safe place to be, obviously (we know
    about resistant bacterial strains that love hospitals, too).  Why
    should Jim tell his folks to do the same?
    
    I don't know.  But this has nothing to do with my previous objections.
    I am not going to any psychic surgeons in my perceived future. 
    But I won't bet my neck that it's a bunch of bull without proof.
    I won't recommend it to anyone, either.

    There is an excellent book on the market by Andrew Weil M.D. called
    "Health and Healing". It is a wonderful book endorsed by the New
    England Journal of Medicine that discusses alternative health care
    to standard "allopathic medicine". He covers everything from Christian
    Science to Homeopathy to Chinese Medicine. His approach is very
    balanced, discussing pros and cons of each healing system.
    
    One of the sections briefly discusses "Psychic Surgery". He mentions
    a man from (I think) Brazil...an illiterate middle aged man who
    claimed that one day a man, who when alive was a german physician,
    started talking into his ear, and told him that he must started
    healing people. The voice was relentless, and wouldn't let him rest
    until he carried out his duties. Dr. Weil explains that a close
    friend of his who he trusts observed this man in practice. Patients
    would stand in line and wait there turn to see this man who might
    be sitting in a chair on a side walk or something. Sometimes he
    would immediately write down a prescription (he was illiterate mind
    you) that Dr. Weil's friend said were correct and quite professionally
    done. Other times he would tell someone that their time had come,
    "god bless you". The most astounding thing was the surgury though.
    The Dr's friend said he witnessed up close, surgury on cataracts.
    The brazilian healer took out a dull knife, stuck it into the man's
    eye (he said that you could see the eyeball bend under the pressure),
    and popped out the catarct. This was all done without anesthesia.
    The man could see immediately.
    
    Who knows.
    
    Matt Comard

A good friend called lst nite. He was all excited about an upcoming visit
of 3 psychic surgeons to the New England area. He wanted to know if I, or
anyone else I knew would be interested. 

My friend, a reasonable, open-minded person had been to these folks
before and had an 'operation' on his back which he claims had amazing
results. He said they would be here for 3 days in November and the women
who was 'hosting' them was lining up appointments. Visits are $60 each
and depending on the ailment may require 2 - 3 visits (if you don't have
an ailment, they'll look for one).

Being the skeptic I am, I questioned him. He is a believer. We talked
about their ability to cure real, inoperable ailments (my mother has
parkinsons). I was fairly amazed at his enthusiasm with all of this.
Having heard of psychic surgeons only once before (after his first visit)
I really knew nothing of them or their 'procedure'.

Within the hour, the TV program _Unsolved Mysteries_ had a segment on a
man (a psychic surgeon) wanted for conspiracy and fraud, believed to have
returned to the US from the ?Philippines?. This morning I searched DEJAVU
and found this note.

Did anyone else see this show? Has anyone had any recent first-hand
experiences with this?

Jay

    Re.23 (Jollymore)
    
    Jay,
    
    When Shirley MacLaine was interviewed on the Boston 'Good Day' show,
    (hyping her latest book at the time), she talked about her experience
    with a psychic surgeon and how his hands went directly into her body
    and came out with what was causing either a block or what was her
    physical manifestation of some sadness (?).
    
    Anyway, there is a chance that she might have written about this in the
    latest book, fyi.  
    
    Cindy