MD'ed crackpotism

Apologies all for the hiatus since the last posting. I am currently on the road again and it's difficult to catch up with work as well as the blog when one's office is far away. Anyhow, I was in Montreal a few days ago and discovered on rue St Denis a lovely buffet style vegetarian place called Restaurant le Commensal. Delightful food. As is often the case with such places, they don't 'just' serve food, but they also serve a bunch of varying ideologies, frequently simply hippie'ish, but not always. I recall in Melbourne a place that served very basic (and very cheap) vegetarian food that was owned by the religious sect that was in the habit of buying Rolls Royces for its guru. So, I wasn't too surprised when I found a book called 'Soul Wisdom', written by Dr Zhi Gang Sha. The good doctor claims to be trained in both Western as well as Chinese traditional medicine. The book claims that he is also 'an expert in the most advanced cellular healing sciences now occurring in China'. You might have guessed already that the good doctor's cutting edge research is so recent that it has not made it yet into peer reviewed journals. Guess he's a good candidate for Oprah Winfrey's show. I'm sure, by now you know about her habit of promoting health related charlatans of the 'wish your cancer away' variety in her TV show.

Well, our Soul Wisdom doctor fits that bill. His book, to my great horror, made it to #1 of the New York Times bestseller list, if the book's cover can be trusted. It begins with a chapter on how the Divine chats to him, enters him and others and has chosen him to help others. Simple as that, most likely on a cellular cutting edge level. But then, the divine isn't cellular or is it, pardon me, or is he (it's a 'he' according to the good doctor). Anyhow, the book offers a healing method called 'divine downloads'. Sounds initially like a server from which people who purchased the book could download healing blurbs. Ha, that at least would have required the doctor to produce however inane content to be downloaded, and that would have meant work. So, instead, his divine downloads are hidden in paragraphs of the book. You can download em at any time by closing your eyes and hitting the invisible, imaginary divine download button. Say you're suffering from terminal liver cancer, all you got to do is chant a lot, go to the relevant page and download the invisible divine download ... or something like that. If you don't feel anything, that simply means you're not ready for it. If you feel your liver cancer has disappeared, the divine download worked obviously, if it hasn't, you chant a bit and you're sorted.

Here's a quote from the intro, just to give you a flavour of the book:

'The Divine continued, "... I offer my healing and blessing by transmitting my permanent healing and blessing treasures." I [ie the good doctor]asked, "How do you do this?" The Divine answered, "Select a person and I will give you a demonstration."I asked for a volunteer with serious health challenges. A man named Walter raised his hand. He stood up and explained that he had liver cancer, with a two-by-three centimeter malignant tumor that had just been diagnosed from a biopsy. I then asked the Divine, "Please bless Walter. Please show me how you transmit your permanent treasures." I saw the Divine send a beam of light from the Divine's heart to Walter's liver. The beam shot into his liver, where it turned into a golden light ball that instantly started spinning. Walter's entire liver shone with beautiful golden light. [The divine reportedly said...] "I have just transmitted or downloaded my Soulsoftware for Liver to Walter. It is one of my permanent healing and blessing treasures."

It goes without saying, and possibly to avoid law suits, the divine explained that the download alone isn't going to heal Walter's liver cancer. Walter has to work on it. He needs to chant for at least two hours per day: 'Divine Liver Soul Software heals me.' If he didn't do that, he might just have died from his liver cancer. However, Walter chanted 'Divine Liver Soul Software heals me' for very many hours. And, there's the good news, his liver cancer just disappeared. Amazing stuff, completely unclear why we bother with modern medicine, when all that's needed are invisible divine software downloads!

Can you imagine, a 300 pp book, filled with crap like that, aimed at people suffering serious ailments? I'm surprised that people are able not only to get away with this, but also that there's a reading audience out there that catapults such bollocks to the #1 spot of the New York Times bestseller list. Scary scary.