[Avodah] kinetic healing and halacha

[Gila Atwood]

This post is probably more for areivim than for avodah but the question was 
asked here...

Some of them claim to be 'manipulating bodily energies'. (hints of co'hos 
hatumah? reiki comes to mind... )  More like shtus gamur and where it works 
it's purely placebo effect, (often ironically an effective cure for 
illnesses that are psychosomatic in the first place) and at a nice price!

I knew a woman for years, sick in the head, who totally bought into AK and 
related charlatanry.  One example. She felt she needed a treatment and had 
her husband take her across town for 200 shekel for something that was 
little more than a hand waving ceremony.  She went home, lay down,  suddenly 
did not feel quite right and had her husband take her again same day, . The 
practioner knew her, didn't blink, gave her another 'treatment' , another 
200 shekel.   Their landlord was usually left waiting for the rent and it 
came out they were more than 15 grand in debt.   The woman was delusional 
and these charlatans were milking her.

Another case, Har Nof, one of these 'energy practioners' told the parents 
NOT to take a baby to a regular doctor, he'd take care of her.  She died of 
meningitis.

Years ago my friends and I interviewed one of these psychic energies healers 
for a magazine. She walked past our son (at the time obviously sick with 
pneumonia)  several times and curiously did not notice....

Shall I go on?  At the time I was so furious I had an article about it 
published somewhere under a pseudonym to warn people.  Many don't like this 
hushed up because they say for some people it works, does wonders etc, but 
the above examples disturb me too much. I had a huge long (but friendly) 
argument with the owner of a large mailing list for immigrants who was 
allowing ads on his list for such practitioners but was not allowing posts 
to warn people. Violation of 'policy'.

 Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
> : Could your relative have been talking about applied kinesiology?
> : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_kinesiology As far as I can tell, 
> it
> : isn't Kishuf, for the simple reason that it doesn't work...
>
> I'm missing something. Its purported mechanism is purely physical,
> something about smoothness of muscle movement and taste and smell
> responses caused by imbalances in the body. How would applies kinesiology
> even be a candidate to be called kishuf?
>
> I won't get into questions of endangering patients who might be lulled
> out of seeking more effective treatments or geneivas da'as.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
> -- 
> Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
> micha at aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
> http://www.aishdas.org   beyond measure
> Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous
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