Today we will examine how an unproven technique formulates in a shaman’s mind and germinates at Ivy League medical schools, despite bypassing peer review and shunning the Scientific Method.

Most cultures have had folk remedies which were passed down from prior generations. Much of it was nature-based, using whatever shrubs and bark were handy. Various deities may have been summoned through different hand movements, dances, and tools. Moving from folk remedy to quackery meant little more than charging people for it and maybe assuming a title like witch doctor or gypsy healer. Accouterments like beads and masks made the image complete.

About 40 years ago, we saw the next stage of development, with practitioners adopting the term alternative medicine. It was presented as another choice, something else to consider. For decades, doctors and medical school professors looked at alternative medicine practitioners the same way NASA physicists would look at horoscope writers, or how a chemist would size up an alchemist. The disdain was mutual, as alternative medicine clinicians thought mainstream doctors to be uncaring, uncreative, and stodgy. Perhaps they were even part of the Big Pharma cover-up. The adversarial relationship was reflected in advertisements that declared, “What doctors don’t want you to know!” or “Dermatologists hate this!”

Then Sen. Tom Harkin spearheaded the creation of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 1992. By incorporating both terms, the leap was made from alternative to complementary. Now, the mainstream and the alternative were no longer doing battle. It was presented as the best of both curative worlds. There was no harm in trying everything. To mitigate shingles you can do both: Employ a regimen based on Germ Theory, the Scientific Method, double blind studies, and peer-reviewed articles; plus have a woman named Moonwolf Rainwater rub you with amethyst crystals and sage oil.

Harkin became enthralled with alternative techniques when he was convinced that bee pollen extract had cured his hay fever. Such post hoc reasoning is the lifeblood of alternative cures, but most persons making this correlation-causation error don’t wield the power that Harkin did.

Harkin said the U.S. health care system was “based overwhelmingly on conventional medicine and in so many ways wasteful or dysfunctional.” Take your pick, this harangue could be called either tu quoque, negative evidence, or the appeal to emotion. In any case, it has no relevance on whether biorhythm therapy can cure gout.

While Harkin succeeding in getting Congress to set up and fund the center, it otherwise did not go as planned. In 2009, Harkin complained, “One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, it has fallen short. Most of its focus has been on disproving things rather than seeking out and approving.” Yes, it’s called attempting to falsify and is a key component of the Scientific Method.

Harkin did not give up, nor did he start embracing science. Rather, he hopped back on the euphemism treadmill and called the field integrative medicine. He pushed quackery into Obamacare bills, using the Trojan horse words “preventive” and “wellness.” With this, the odyssey from being folk remedy to a being welcomed at Johns Hopkins was complete.

Today, the line between medicine and quackery is terrifyingly tenuous. To the best of my knowledge, all of the unproven techniques are still limited to a hospital’s “integrative care wing,” where a patient must seek them out. As far as I know, there is no hospital in the country where a preschooler who drinks bleach will first be tended to by a naturopath. There is no ER where a severed artery is left in an aura therapist’s hands. However, these techniques are increasingly being taught at many of our foremost medical schools, so this could someday be the case. A quarter century ago, a Reiki practitioner at an elite hospital would have seemed unthinkable. Yet today, such techniques are embraced by persons with extensive medical backgrounds. Worse, they pass them onto aspiring doctors, not unlike the handing down of folk remedies.

The most extreme case I am aware of is that of Dr. David Katz, a Yale medical school graduate who is founding director or his alma mater’s Prevention Research Center. His rationale for embracing unproven techniques is that, “Integrative Medicine provides patients access to a wider array of options.” Including some which hold that illnesses do not come from viruses and bacteria, but from a chakra imbalance.

Dr. Katz also tells us, “If analgesics or anti-inflammatories fail to alleviate joint pain, such options as acupuncture could be explored.” This is a non sequitur. There is no reason to suspect ideas based on vitalism and qi would fix the inflammation.

He paints his approach as benevolent, believing doctors should always be trying to help the patient. However, these techniques only give false hope. The patient must always be tended to, but it should be with treatments that are proven safe and effective. In extreme cases, experimental drugs can be tried on willing, dying patients. But this is far different from treating lupus with applied kinesiology.

Dr. David Gorski describes the mix of authentic and artificial medicine as a parasitic relationship. In such a relationship, one organism benefits at the expense of the other. The folk remedies that masquerade as cures benefit from being promoted by hospitals and universities. This allows them to enjoy a level of respectability they could never attain on their own. Meanwhile, medical schools should be educating aspiring doctors on the scientific method and how it is used to evaluate potential treatments. Time, money, and resources wasted on implausible ideas takes away from this. It also creates the possibility of universities cranking out less efficient physicians, surgeons, and specialists.

The Harkin-inspired center has spent 55 billion tax dollars, with not one cure found or one symptom alleviated. But the colossal waste of money the center is responsible for is not near as drastic as its role in the mainstreaming of quackery.

I get frequent headaches, which Excedrin takes care of, but I wouldn’t mind zapping them for good. Doing so would make my life less annoying and save me some money. So I headed to my neighborhood naturopath to see what he could tell me, again planning to get as much as I could without paying.

I strolled to the receptionist’s desk and asked the bespectacled woman with sandy-colored hair how it works.

“We would start with a urine and saliva sample and then the doctor would analyze it and design a program for you.”

“Oh, he’s a doctor?”

“He’s a doctor of chiropractic and a doctor of naturopathy.” Translation: No.

“What is the program?”

“It’s working with vitamins, herbs, and minerals for overall health, and using supplements to balance the body and make your body feel good. We would start with a bio-synchronization assessment, and after the samples come back, we would determine what is causing the imbalance. You would start a herb and vitamin regimen, as well as avoid every activity, situation, or substance that interferes with total wellbeing. We would also work to remove any interference that may have already accumulated.”

That ramble lasted long enough that by the time she was done, the naturopath had shown up. Now we’re getting somewhere. Where that might be, I have no idea.

We exchanged greetings and I asked him if he could explain how his field worked.

“We’ve had all these tools in the past,” he said. Might as well get the appeal to antiquity out of the way early.

“We’ve only had medicine as we know it for the last 150 or 200 years.” Which coincides with a tripling of the average life span in developed countries.

“God has always provide food, rest, water, and cognition, but we must use them according to the original intent of the creator.” If you’re going to appeal to antiquity, you may as well go all the way.

We were briefly interrupted by an agitated preschooler who couldn’t get a door open. Must not have taken his vitamins that morning. With this obstacle overcome, it was back to my consultation.

“I get headaches all the time. Excedrin takes care of it, but I’d like something more permanent.”

“Our strategy is to get rid of interference. Interference can be anything that would keep you from expressing wellness. It could be a pollutant, it could be negative emotions, it could come from electronic signals, it could come from eating the wrong food.”

Or disease could come from pathogens, and illnesses from viruses, bacteria, and parasites. But if I had wanted the Scientific Method and medicine, I wouldn’t be talking with a man who praises the era of leeches and trepanation.

“You’re having frequent headaches. If there’s a physical symptom that won’t go away, I usually find that people in these situations haven’t experienced a deep passion or excitement about life for a while. Persistent illnesses usually have an emotional undercurrent.”

So Parkinson’s isn’t caused by the central nervous system deteriorating, it’s from not being enthused about Bingo Night. And if I can get excited enough about knowing what causes my headaches, they will go away.

“Everything has an analog. Air’s is enthusiasm, water’s is serenity, food’s is peace. Er, I mean food’s is joy, and rest’s is peace.” Oh, almost mixed his element-emotion connections there. Must be having memory trouble, which I deduce stems from a lack of companionship.

I’m getting the gist of this. When we get sick, it’s because our serenity, peace, and joy is jolted, so we need to pop vitamins and ingest herbs. This was seeming so easy, but then the naturopath cautioned there would be preliminary steps to my noggin-fixin’.

“The healing is always present within the individual, awaiting only the removal of interference. To get there, we must assess, strategize, and employ the proper tools. Then nature takes over.” He’s misunderstanding what nature is if he thinks it requires strategizing and tool employment.

To kick start this repair, he stresses the importance of “air, water, food, rest, movement, and cognition.” This is the most I’ve ever agreed with an alternative medicine practitioner. He highlights oxygen, food, water, and sleep, the four items we would die without. Then he throws in exercise and increased mental agility, both beneficial.

But then he added, “These are the only tools one needs as long as they are employed according to the original and primary intent of the creator.” Never fear, these primary intents are sold here. He also suggested monthly cleanses and their accompanying monthly naturopathy bills.

He then returns for a brief visit to Scientifically Literate Land, noting the filtering abilities of the intestines, liver, spleen, and kidneys. “These filters have a natural ability and tendency to self-clean and maintain themselves.” Precisely, which means there is no reason for these organs and the person who houses them to be at a naturopath.

He quickly transitions from the scientific to the pseudoscientific: “Nutrient-poor foods, synthetic additives, GMOs, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and pollution overwork our filters.”

If your liver and kidneys were being overworked, you’d know it, as would your emergency room physician. With regard to his specific claims: If unhealthy foods introduce a toxin to the body, the body will eject it, as he had correctly noted 15 seconds prior; Nothing is inherently dangerous about synthetic chemicals. It depends on which ones and in what amount; GMOs are positive, as the reason they are modified is to transfer benefits that do not occur naturally; Pesticides in the right dosage are likewise beneficial, protecting the crop. Pollution is unfortunate, but smog is not screwing with your kidneys’ ability to function.

The naturopath recommends using herbs and vitamins to cleanse the bowels, liver, spleen, and kidneys. “These are not flushes,” he said, which is good. There is a reason the guck is in there and it will be leaving the body soon enough. An attempted cleansing through vitamins and herbs will be neither good nor bad, nor will it do any cleansing. The body will clean itself and it neither needs help with this, nor will it accept it.

Besides, why not just take a multi-vitamin each day and achieve optimum health that way?

“Everyone is different,” he replied. “The key is finding a system for the individual to consciously participate in.” I’m unsure how one would unconsciously participate in this. Maybe by having organic, gluten-free, soy cranberry juice slipped into their Cap’n Crunch.

Next, the naturopath again recommends water, sleep, exercise, a balanced diet, and limited use of sugars and alcohol, all of which will leave you feeling peachy without his wonder vitamin regimen.

Still, he assures me, “These cleanses are part of the strategy of bio-synchronization assessment. It is the long-term benefit of cleansing conducted quarterly for years that pays health benefits for life.” And which keep the naturopath being paid for the same duration.

He stressed the need for an experienced teacher, which would be best complemented by a patient who is unaware of the Scientific Method, double blind studies, and anatomy.

Working as a team, the practitioner and patient can meet their goal, but both must be committed. “Each system can be only as strong as its best teachers and most dedicated students. Intelligence, attitude, and action determine results.” But a person reluctantly dragged into hernia surgery will have the condition fixed if the doctors are component and the body cooperates. A surly attitude won’t be deleterious to the surgery, nor will a cheery one help it.

I’ve seen much worse pretend doctors. He stressed that he was not in competition with mainstream medicine, and he’s pushing herbs and vitamins that might have tiny value and probably cause no harm if taken in the right dose. But it is a mistaken idea that Vitamin K will fix a backache, which is the result of a clogged spleen, which is the consequence of picnicking on a genetically-modified papaya near a polluted river.

He closed by telling me, “Using the lab analysis and bio-synchronization assessment, you will be able to determine your starting point for the avoidance, reduction, and removal of unwanted conditions.”

I didn’t need a lab analysis or bio-synchronization assessment to manage the avoidance, reduction, and removal of unwanted conditions. I did all that by not going back.

I prefer to immerse myself in my topics, going to the relexologist or consulting a pet psychic, then relating my experience. However, I will be examining trepanation from a more detached perspective. Trepanation refers taking an auger, drill, or similar implement and punching a hole in one’s head. I like my skull intact and besides, I was never that handy with tools.

In truth, holes in the skull can be beneficial. Consider eye sockets, or the opening that enables the spinal cord to reach the brain. There is also a specific instance in which emergency room doctors will drill holes in a patient’s skull. If a head wound is severe, the brain may begin to swell enough that the pressure must be alleviated, so the victim’s melon is bored through.

Trying to get a doctor to drill a superfluous hole in your head may be more difficult, although possible if one’s definition of doctor is supple enough. Trips to California and/or psychic fairs may increase the chance. Trepanation is the world’s oldest surgical practice, making it immensely valuable to those who highlight the appeal to ancient authority. This logical fallacy is sometimes combined with the ad populum and you end up with this, from trepanationguide.com: “Trepanation has been practiced on every continent, through every time period, and by every race.” This is a seeming endorsement that fails to cite any benefit of the procedure.

The reason for noggin-drillin’ has varied by time and culture. Some thought it would open the Third Eye, while others used it to exorcise demons without having to summon a priest. In still other places, it was used to alleviate afflictions, and while it wouldn’t cure what was bothering you, it would take your mind off of it.

There are very few proponents today, and I could only find four this century who were fervent enough to turn their advocacy into action. If the patient, who is probably also the surgeon, survives the procedure, they will attain a higher consciousness, said Bart Huges, the most significant modern proponent of trepanation, which is sort of like being the most powerful hockey team on Samoa.

Huges proposed that trepanation could enhance brain function by balancing the proportion of blood and cerebral spinal fluid. He believed that when our ancestors began to walk upright, their brains drained of blood, and that the blood flow to the head was further limited by gravity. This was said to shrink the scope of human consciousness. And on one of the few pro-hole-in-your-head websites out there, it is written that the skull prevents the brain from breathing properly. But if all this were true, these detriments would have kept us evolving this way and we would have developed a hole, or maintained our baby soft spot for life. Still, Huges decided that trepanation would allow better blood flow to the brain and enable the patient to achieve a permanent high.

Huges devotee Amanda Fielding self-drilled, then ran for parliament on platform of free trepanations for all, netting 49 votes. Fielding maintains that having a hole in her head allows more oxygen to reach her brain and helps expand her consciousness. She claims she now has more energy and inspiration, and is enjoying this permanent high. Two more disciples, Joey Mellen and Pete Halvorson, have said the same thing. That makes trepanation 4-for-4, although we realize the importance of data over anecdotes, and data on this trepanation patients is nonexistent. There are also no double blind studies. There would be a tough time getting volunteers, and it would be arduous at best to design a protocol in which the subjects were unaware whether or not their skull was being aired out.

Brain doctors consider trepanation patients to be out of their punctured heads. Neurologist William Landau told a Salon reporter, “There is no scientific basis for this at all. It’s quackery.” Meanwhile, neurology professor Robert Daroff has conflicting opinions. On one hand, he described it as “horseshit,” but he also conceded it might be “bullshit.” Whichever farm animal excrement he ends up deciding on, Daroff said the result will be without benefit and potentially calamitous. Perhaps forced to state the obvious, Daroff told Salon, “It’s dangerous to expose your brain. There’s a risk of infection and other problems.”

As such, there will be no trepanation and subsequent relating of this experience for me. I am, however, signed up for the next alien ghost hunt.

Many of us blow off steam by taking a deep breath and forcefully releasing it. But for practitioners of breathwork, there is so much more to gain by using our lungs and air.

Breathwork uses controlled breathing to attain some broad or largely undefined benefit, typically involving a higher level of awareness or mental resiliency. There have been at least a dozen subsets of breathwork, including one that piggybacked on the primal therapy craze of the 1970s by claiming that specific inhaling and exhaling methods could remove the residue of suppressed memories from our earliest years.

In the interest of saving time and sanity, we will look at just three of the other breathwork types: holotropic, shamanic, and vivation.

The goal of holotropic breathwork is to access altered states of consciousness for the purpose of vanquishing trauma from past lives. So if it’s your present life giving you problems, this is not for you. The technique was developed by Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, who first used LSD in the sessions, but switched to hyperventilation when the drug was outlawed.

Grof calls his idea “a powerful approach to self-exploration and healing that integrates insights from modern consciousness research…and Eastern spiritual practices and mystical traditions.” So subjects get the best of both New Age Words: The appeal to ancient authority and modern pseudoscience.

This is usually done in group sessions, which Grof says, “activate the natural inner healing process of the individual’s psyche, bringing him or her a set of internal experiences.” Put another way, when air flow is restricted, crazy stuff happens. Rather than the brain begging for oxygen, however, Grof says the subject is tapping into wisdom and energies that were accessed by ancient yogis.

Before the breathwork session begin, each person in the group tells something about their life. Then everyone lays on a mat while listening to music and breathing quickly and deeply. Finally, they make a mandala of it. Show-and-tell, a sleeping mat, drawing pictures, I think he stole this from my Kindergarten teacher.

Now we’ll examine a Grof disciple, Linda Star Wolf, who started Venus Rising Shamanic Breathwork. As if that’s not enough mysticism for one advanced soul, she’s also director of the University for Shamanic Psychospritual Studies. The school’s website describes it as “the only Shamanic Psychospiritual University in the world!” I’ll bet.

Star Wolf says her technique incorporates not just breathing methods, but also “sound heal­ing through chakra-attuned music, ener­getic body­work, soul return and extrac­tion, and shamanic art. Journeyers enter an altered state of conscious­ness that creates a connec­tion with spirit guides, and they receive visions about their sacred purpose.”

Like Grof, Star Wolf emphasizes the combination of ancient and avant garde: “Shamanic Breathwork blends the time­less wisdom of tradi­tions with the emerg­ing para­digm meth­ods of heal­ing and teach­ing.” New Age proponents often proclaim their love for the old ways, yet they don’t ride to the sessions on a donkey or accept payment in the form of two bartered pounds of butter.

A Wiccan spin is put on this breathwork, which probably appeals to those seeking out someone calling herself Linda Star Wolf. The ceremony begins by creating putative sacred space using sage and cedar. Then a shaman directs animal and deity power to the subject, and this is followed by a drummer who goes on for longer than Iron Butterfly’s did. At some point, the subject is said to enter a trance, which Star Wolf oxymoronically describes as a “naturally altered” state. Past lives are reviewed, with grief, fear, and anger magically zapped. For unexplained reasons, persons who have had their life’s problems completely and irrevocably exorcised return for future sessions.

Next, we have vivation, which is touted as a meditation that, like shamanic breathwork, will “permanently resolve any kind of negative emotion, trauma or stress.” The only state I am aware that does this is death.

Again we see Doublemint Pleasure in New Age form: “Vivation can trace its roots to the ancient sciences of Indian Kriya and Tantra Yoga, as well as modern breathwork.” Vivation attempts to distinguish itself from other breathwork methods by emphasizing the do it yourself approach. No Eastern holy man or esoteric priestess is necessary to guide your cosmic way.

Vivation creator Jim Leonard claims that emotions are “just physical patterns of energy in the body,” and that our true self is eternally blissful. If your sister dies, your best friend moves, and you’re unexpectedly fired, all on the same day, your true self is still awash in oceans of ecstasy.

Leonard explains, “When we experience negativity, it is not the feeling itself, but our block or resistance to that feeling. By letting go of our resistance, the natural flow of our emotions expands our sense of self and we experience the joy, bliss and unconditional love that is our birthright.”

The first step in vivation is to adjust the speed and volume of your breathing, as this will regulate the intensity of your feelings. Then you chill out completely. This is followed by “scanning your body and locating the most prominent feeling,” which in my case is bafflement over how this is supposed to work. Next, embrace fear, anger, sadness. This leads to the final step where, since you’ve dealt with your emotional baggage, you do whatever you want. I recommend a truncated version where you start with that and skip the first four steps.

On the totem pole of skeptic concern, dowsing would probably be at the bottom. A guy thinking he’s in possession of a magic stick is innocuous unless it is his sole method of locating drinking water. Dowsing does not involve vaccine denial, promote creationism in biology class, or ghoulishly prey on bereaved family members with messages from beyond the grave.

There is one manifestation of dowsing, however, than can be dangerous, and that is when it is used in conjunction with radionics and other energy healing. As Ray Hyman of the Committee For Skeptical Inquiry put it, “Perhaps in no other area has ideomotor action created as much mischief as in medical settings. Under a variety of circumstances, our muscles will behave unconsciously in accordance with an implanted expectation.” In this instance, that expectation is that disease will be revealed and cured when a handle is waved over a patient. When the clinician’s hands move, it is presented as evidence first of disease, then of a cure in subsequent visits.

Radionics emerged from the mind of Albert Abrams, who claimed people have an innate frequency vibration, and that when this goes askew, diseases result. Abrams would hook up his patient to his machine, to which was added a drop of the patient’s blood. Abrams would then tap on the patient’s stomach, sending a vibration to the patient’s spine that Abrams would measure and translate into a diagnosis. This device, he said, could transmit healthy vibrations to sick tissue or organs. These claims are inconsistent with known laws of physics or biology.

Abrams spawned many imitators, and users of these devices have been able to produce measurable readings on them. But there is no evidence this detected electrical resistance is revealing the diseased vibration of hypothetical energy.

Ruth Drown took it a step further and developed a radio therapy that allowed these techniques to be used without the patient even showing up. Her therapy was tested at the University of Chicago and failed to work. It is fine for elite institutions to test unlikely ideas. The problem today is that many of them skip the testing and go straight to embracing Reiki, crystal healing, and craniosacral therapy.

Abram’s most prominent imitator was the highly alliterative Royal Raymond Rife, who claimed that cancer was caused by bacteria. Having deduced this, he developed a microscope that he said could detect living microbes by their aura colors, which in turn were determined their vibrations. His Rife Frequency Generator purportedly emitted radio waves which corresponded in frequency to the disease, causing offending bacteria to break apart. Rife compared this to what happens when an opera singer breaks glass. So this strategy might work on Placido Domingo, but the rest of us are out of luck. In fact, researchers were unable to replicate his method or findings, which Rife attributed to an AMA conspiracy.

Indeed, Radionics and Rife Machines have most of the red flags of pseudomedicine: Misuse of the term energy; allegations of a cover-up; secret knowledge; exclusive dealers; wide-ranging cures; a preference for anecdotes over data; ad hoc dismissal of any failures; and no side effects (as long as you don’t count death when someone bypasses chemotherapy for having a magic wand waved over their stomach). Yet another giveaway is the lack of standards, which is why each practitioner has his or her list of what frequencies can cure which afflictions.

The machines were extinct until a 1987 book announced Rife had conquered cancer and that the cure had been suppressed by the AMA. This is nonsensical because the AMA is an advocacy group with no authority to prevent anyone from selling, advertising, or promoting the machines. Another strike against the conspiracy theory is that persons involved in the cover-up would also get cancer, or have family members that do. The customary response is that the conspirators kept the machines for themselves in case this a happened. That, as opposed to making $500 million off of them.

Several merchants claim they are exclusive dealers of the authentic version of the machine, arrived at through a combination of reverse engineering and access to secret information. During their 1980s reincarnation, the machines were updated for the times, most notably coming with claims they cured AIDS. However, an Australian electronics magazine deduced that the machines were ersatz electronic devices filled with small batteries, wiring, and some tubing. The magazine found this produced an “almost undetectable current that was unlikely even to penetrate the skin, let alone kill any organism.”

I was pleasantly surprised that Andrew Weil, who runs the University of Arizona’s Center for Hogwash Integrative Medicine, unequivocally state that Rife machines don’t work. At the same time, I’ve seen enough alternative medicine promoters to know that Weil’s dismissal of the device may be based on the fact that he doesn’t peddle them. His website, does however, offer an abundance of evening primrose oil and iron-free vitamin packs.

Weil doesn’t sell them, but they are available at electroherbalism.com, which combines naturopathy with pseudo-electronic devices. This is an unusual mix, sort of a quackery biathlon. Whether purchased from this site or others, the idea is to consult a chart that has rows listing maladies, Hertz levels, and duration. Simply match up the frequency and time, then zap that lupus. For extra efficiency, slap some snazzy Flash Gordon stripes on the handles.