|
Nominations and Campaigning for the 2024 RationalWiki Moderator Election are now open |
Psychic surgery
| Against allopathy Alternative medicine |
|
| Clinically unproven |
| Woo-meisters |
Psychic surgery is a form of spiritual woo commonly practiced in Brazil and the Philippines in which a "doctor" performs typically unsterilized, invasive surgery on a patient without any surgical instrument whatsoever, and leaves no visible scar. It can be summed up as a non-doctor performing non-surgery.
What it is[edit]
In reality, psychic surgery involves fraud that makes extensive use of sleight of hand to deceive wealthy Western customers. The material supposedly removed from the patient's body is usually from an animal, and the blood is released from a vial — not from the patient's body — with palming or some other trick. The practice received publicity in 1984 when comedian Andy Kaufman
paid for psychic surgery in a misguided attempt to remove a tumor. Negative attention caused psychic surgery to be widely abandoned in favor of other alternative medicines.
Psychic surgery is relatively side-effect-free other than possible staining with chicken guts, and loss of earnings… however, the main danger is when seriously ill people such as Andy Kaufman take it seriously. Then it gives false hope and may stop them from getting proper medical attention. Placebo effects may apply.[1]
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
- Therapies.com Offering trips for psychic surgery and training courses
- psychic "surgery", entry in The Skeptic's Dictionary
- Highly pro-woo biography of woo-meister general Alex L. Orbito
- James Randi "performing" psychic surgery on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
References[edit]
- ↑ McClenon, James (11 November 2016). "Performing Wondrous Events: ESP, Psychic Surgery, and Firewalking". Wondrous Events: Foundations of Religious Belief. Anniversary Collection (new ed.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 126. ISBN 9781512804201. Retrieved 15 May 2024. "ESP exhibitions, psychic surgery, and firewalking exemplify wondrous performances that stimulate placebo effects."