Saturday, October 13, 2018

Please, do not claim healing

Whenever you are tempted to write a blog posting or a reddit comment, or just claim in casual conversation, that your spiritual, mystical, "alternative" method has healing properties, I urge you to stop right there.

You might have a few personal experiences, and if that works for you, fine, great, go on and do whatever you do. As long as you claim general good feelings, improved vitality, you got no debate from me. Thousands of factors go into that, your method might very well be one of them, at least for you, and maybe a few others as well.

All of that changes once we talk about real physical or mental issues, be it the flu or cancer or depression.

The fact is, you do not have a clue whether your method works or not, and chances are it doesn't.

The fact is, you are very likely falling prey to your own biases. You are likely a victim of confirmation and selection bias, probably of loss aversion too. You have not accounted for a possible placebo effect. You are probably not a medical doctor. You do not know all the factors that might play a role, nor do you have any idea how to deal with those in your assessment.

Assuming that what you describe even is a real effect, which is highly doubtful, you do not know the mechanism behind it, and "quantum consciousness" or "qi" probably ain't it.

We all have read about an astounding quantity of bullshit methods: prayer, crystals, reiki, semen retention, invocations of literally thousands of gods and demons. The list is nearly endless.

They cannot all be right.

They can indeed all be wrong.

Your method, in all likelihood, is just as wrong as all the others.

When you claim physical healing, and you do so with the right tone, some assumed authority, and maybe some quote-mining, there is a good chance that you lead people astray. People who are in dire need of real treatment. People who suffer. You give them false hope, and in the worst case, this will lead to their death.

What you are doing is unethical.

Stop it.

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On this blog, I have tried my best to avoid any claims of that sort. I avoid words like "healing" in general, because I think it insinuates more than it should. However, we all slip up, so if you still find something like that, please drop me a note (betlamed@gmail.com), and I will review the posting in question.

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