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BOOK REVIEWS

The of Therapeutic Touching

MARTIN GARDNER

Therapeutic Touch. Edited by Bela Scheiber and Carla Selby. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2000. ISBN 1-57392-804-6. 360 pp. Cloth, $26.

illions of ill people around this word) die wild claims of nurses now away, and that the experimental evi- the world, especially in the so energetically promoting TT. dence for TT rests on flimsy, poorly MUnite d States, Canada, Ger- is a collection of controlled testing by true believers who many, and France, are turning away twenty-three papers on TT edited by unconsciously bias the results. None of from mainstream to embrace a Bela Scheiber and Carla Selby. Scheiber the believers' research has yet appeared bewildering variety of bogus alternative is a systems engineer, founder and pres- in a reputable medical journal. treatments. One of the most bizarre is a ident of the Rocky Mountain Skeptics, The book's first paper, by registered growing conviction among American and a member of CSICOP's executive nurse Jack Stahlman, is an excellent nurses that they possess a mysterious council. Anthropologist Selby is a summary of T T history. Belief that cer- healing power called the therapeutic tain individuals have the power to heal touch (TT). by the "laying on of hands" goes back The term is misleading because to ancient times. The healings of Jesus actual touching is not involved. A nurse involved touching. Kings who ruled by merely waves his or her hands a few TOUCH divine decree were believed to have a inches above a patient's body. The the- "royal touch." The Middle Ages and ory is that everyone is surrounded by an Renaissance swarmed with famous invisible, nonelectric field totally touch healers, and today's funda- unknown to physicists. If a nurse is mentalist and Pentecostal faith healers healthy, energy from her field is trans- like to touch the sick. Oral Roberts still mitted to the ill person. The belief is firmly believes that energy flows from that this relieves pain, anxiety, and his hand to cause miraculous healings. depression, speeds the healing of The notion of human energy fields is wounds, and hastens the cure of every common in Eastern religions, imaginable disease. especially in Hinduism and in the A vast and growing literature of Theosophical movement founded by books and research papers, published famous charlatan and fake medium mainly in nursing journals, greatly over- Madame Helena Blavatsky. shadows the few reports of investigations Stahlman covers the work of three by skeptics. Therapeutic Touch, issued women who have been top drumbeaters this year by Prometheus Books, is die for II: Dora van Gelder Kunz, Dolores first book to "debunk" (let's not avoid CSICOP consultant. All but three of Krieger, and Martha Rogers. Kunz, now the research papers in dieir valuable in her late nineties, is a theosophist con- Martin Gardner's hooks on anthology provide evidence that the vinced she has clairvoyant powers. She range from Fads and Fallacies in the human energy field does not exist, and claims to have read the "auras" (a theo¬ Name of Science (1952) to Science: that the seeming efficacy of TT is fully sophical term for human energy fields) Good, Bad, and Bogus (1981), and explained by the placebo effect, by the of thousands of people. She was presi- Weird Water & Fuzzy Logic (1996). fact diat many ills spontaneously go dent of the Theosophical Society for

4 8 November/December 2000 BOOK REVIEWS twelve years, chairman of the INQUIRER, September/October 2000.] (the "doctor" is for a law degree), who Theosophical Publishing House, and Scheiber and Selby, in several chap- keeps publishing papers on his sensa- chief editor of The American ters, deal with the explosive growth of tional TT results. Wirth turned out to Theosophist. She is the co-author of a TT. There are an estimated 40,000 have a master's degree in parapsychol- book on chakras (alleged energy centers nurses in the U.S. who now practice the ogy from John F. Kennedy University, in the body), and author of The technique with or without the consent and to be a firm believer in almost Personal Aura (1991). of their hospitals. TT is taught in more every aspect of the psi scene. In the late 1960s Kunz introduced than eighty colleges. Among tests of T T that yielded nega- T T to Krieger, a registered nurse now Like so many other flourishing tive results, two are outstanding. A clever considered the true mother of TT. The pseudosciences, TT has not lacked test devised by for his foun- former head of the nursing department funding. The U.S. Department of dation showed only chance results in in New York University's School of efforts by a T T practitioner to detect an Nursing, Krieger taught the nation's first energy field with her hands. Randi has a course on T T in 1993 at NYU. She's the $1.2 million offer, with no takers, for author of several books, notably The anyone who can detect such a field. Therapeutic Touch: How to Use Your JAMA (The Journal of the American Hands to Help and Heal (Prentice-Hall, Medical Association), in Volume 279, 1979; reprinted by Simon and Schuster, April 1, 1998, published "A Close Look 1992), and Accepting Your Power to Heal at TT" by Emily Rosa, her mother, and (Bear and Company, 1993). She has also two associates. It reported on a test published many articles in nursing peri- devised by Emily for a science fair pro- odicals and is a popular lecturer on TT. ject when she was nine. The test was so Krieger is a devout Buddhist. Like simple that it seems incredible that no her friend and mentor Kunz she has T T believer ever thought of it. Twenty- been strongly influenced by the writings one practitioners, convinced they could of British theosophist Charles Lead- feel an energy field (it causes a "tingle" beater. Stahlman quotes from one of her in their hands), put their hands, palm books a passage which claims that pre- up, through holes in an opaque screen. mature babies who were "declared dead" They were asked to rell which hand was were revived by TT. under a hand held by another person a Krieger takes for granted the reality few inches above one of the practi- of chakras. She recommends that 11 tioner's palms. The palms were selected practitioners visualize a color while they by coin flips. Results were at chance are projecting energy. She claims that a level. In a letter to Time (May 4, 1998) skilled touch therapist can store energy Krieger predictably scoffed at the test, Dolores Krieger in a cotton ball by holding the ball calling it a "parlor trick," and express- between her hands. The cotton will, she Health and Human Services gave ing amazement that JAMA would pub- writes, retain the energy for several $200,000 to a Buffalo nursing center for lish such a farce. hours to be used by "healees" to "unruf¬ T T research. The Pentagons Depart- Psychologist Ray Hyman, in his fle" their maladjusted energy field. ment of Defense handed $355,225 to wise introduction to Therapeutic Touch, At the moment TT's most enthusiastic the University of Alabama to study the likens TT to the craze, and promoter of T T is Martha Rogers, a nurse effect of T T on burn patients. NANDA points out that TT is one of those whose main books are An Introduction to (North American Nursing Diagnosing self-sealing belief systems that are the Theoretical Basis of Nursing (1970), Association) has approved TT. It is unaffected by criticism or negative test- and Science of Unitary Human Beings being lauded by the National League for ing. The burden of proof, he insists, is (1986). Rogers believes that the human Nursing, the American Nursing Asso- on the defenders of TT, not on energy field is responsible for ESP, precog- ciation, and the American Theosophical skeptics. He closes with his usual nition, Kirlian photography, out-of-body Society. The Internet has many Web warning that skeptics who attack TT experiences, and TT. The Society of sites defending TT. should strive to be fair in their Rogerian Scholars issues a journal called The funniest chapter in Therapeutic criticisms, and to remember that the The Rogerian. [See Jef Raskin, "Rogerian Touch is by philosopher Dale Beyer- ultimate goal is not to debunk but "to Nursing Theory: A Humbug in the Halls stein. It records his tireless efforts to promote rational and scientific inquiry of Higher Learning," SKEPTICAL locate the elusive "Dr." Daniel Wirth no matter what the outcome.. . ."

SKEPTICAL INQUIRER November/December 2000 49