Medical intuitive

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In alternative medicine, a Medical Intuitive is a person who allegedly uses their intuition to find the cause of a physical or emotional condition. Many medical intuitives also claim to heal illness using "intuitive energies", although healing is not necessarily within the scope of practice for all Medical Intuitives.[1][2]

Contents

[edit] History

The practice of using intuition or clairvoyance for medical information dates back to Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866) whose intuitive healing practice began in 1854. Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) was known as a Medical Clairvoyant and is probably to this day the most documented of all medical clairvoyants, although modern historical analysis has debunked the vast majority of his claims.[3] Dr. Norm Shealy along with Caroline Myss first coined the term "Medical Intuitive" in 1987 as part of Dr. Norm Shealy's research on intuition and medical application. Some Medical Intuitives report that they can 'see' inside objects as well as the body. Other Medical Intuitives assert that they can view energetic problems in a person's aura before any physical signs of illness can be detected. Some Medical Intuitives claim to 'see' areas of illness as dark, grainy, or sticky energy while others claim to 'see' the organ itself.

Faith healers often claim to have (divinely appropriated) medical intuitive abilities. William M. Branham, the father of the Pentecostal Latter Rain Movement was said by his followers to be able to discern the health condition of people that attended his services, and in many cases heal them of their affliction. Evidence for these healings is all anecdotal and testimonial and have not been medically verified. After his death, Branhams sons wrote a book cataloging many of his errors. [4]

[edit] Evidence-Based Medical View

There are no peer-reviewed scientific studies which support the claims of medical intuitives. Intuitives would counter that, as a direct perception of truth independent of any reasoning process (i.e., epistemology of individual experience), medical intuition is not a science and cannot be tested scientifically. Further, some medical intuitives and other alternative medicine practitioners consider the reductionist nature of empirical scientific research to be hostile toward (while systematically suppressing) holistic and innovative challenges to conventional medicine, and incapable of detecting universal truths.[5] While the theoretical underpinnings of many alternative medical approaches are indeed untestable, the practices and hypotheses derived from practitioners' believes can be subjected to experimental rigor. Regardless of whether intuition is considered a science, the claims made by medical intuitives, if true, should be relatively easy to demonstrate under controlled laboratory conditions: either intuitives can accurately diagnose a medically recognized illness at a rate more statistically significant than chance, or they cannot. Advocates of evidence-based medicine(EBM), such as the editors of the world's two leading medical journals, JAMA and NEJM, recommend that all medical claims be subjected to randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials whenever possible. According to the EBM perspective, if medical intuitives demonstrated evidence of the efficacy of their practices, the field would not be considered alternative. Empirical validation, and subsequent peer-reviewed publication affirming the validity of medical intuitives would indeed be a breakthrough in modern medicine. Considering the potential for scientific evidence to lend legitimacy to the field, many mainstream medical professionals consider it telling that so few medical intuitives and psychics have attempted to prove their ability. For several years, the James Randi Educational Foundation has offered a $1,000,000 USD prize to anyone who can prove under controlled conditions that he or she can diagnose or cure an illness using intuition or prove the existence of auras. To date, only one medical intuitive has taken the challenge using an experimental protocol that she helped to design. She failed to diagnose any documented illness beyond the level of chance. Many medical professionals and psychologists attribute perceived anecdotal successes by medical intuitives to a combination of wishful thinking, confirmation bias, the placebo effect, and regression fallacy associated with self-limiting conditions (e.g., back pain, headache, viral infection).[6] [7]

[edit] Publications

In 1967, Dr. Shafica Karagulla published, in Breakthrough to Creativity, the results of her interviews with health professionals who claim they "see" the condition of organs within the body, as well as fields of force, or auras around human beings, animals, and plants. Dr. Karagulla, in her work at UCLA in the 1960s, asserted that a large number of successful physicians she interviewed showed signs of what she called Higher Sense Perception (HSP)(also known as "experience"), which they relied upon when they made each medical diagnosis. However, the precense of auras and the ability of "medical intuitives" to accurately diagnose illness has never been empirically validated under controlled, methodologically sound conditions. Although Dr. Karagulla's subjects were licensed medical doctors, it is important to note that most self-described medical intuitives practicing today are not licensed health professionals, and in most jurisdictions cannot legally diagnose or treat medical conditions, providing readings for "entertainment and informational purposes" only. The "intuition", or "gut feeling" used by experienced physicians and nurses in diagnosing illness is actually a complex cognitive analysis and interactive assessment of theoretical knowledge, training, and previous experience (i.e., "wisdom", rather than "intuition").

In their books on the subject of "energy healing", authors such as Alijandra, Barbara Brennan, Donna Eden, Choa Kok Sui, Ken Page, Caroline Myss, Carol Ritberger, Caroline Sutherland and Diane Stein describe "patterns" of disease and how they say they can assist people in healing by working with "subtle energies". These authors assert that good physical health is directly related to a healthy aura, and therefore work to assist people in understanding how to replace destructive negative emotions and energies with healing positive energies. However, the "energies" described in these publications have yet to be observed, measured, or validated empirically, and an extensive body of experimental and epidemiological medical research has failed to show any causal or statistically significant correlational link between purely emotional states and the incidence and/or progression of non-mental disease.

[edit] List of related publications

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] List of famous medical intuitives

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.brentenergywork.com/, Site of Brent Atwater, Medical Intuitive, Retrieved March 22, 2007
  2. ^ Myss, Caroline (1997). Why People Don't Heal and How They Can. Harmony Books. ISBN 0-60960-090-7. 
  3. ^ Randi, James (1989). The Faith Healers. Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-535-0 page 10. 
  4. ^ Riss, Richard (1988). A Survey of 20th Century Revival Movements in North America. Hendrickson Publishers. ISBN 0-91357-372-8 pp. 105-124. 
  5. ^ Nelkin, D. (1996) "The Science Wars: Responses to a Marriage Failed." Social Text 46/47, 14(2), pp 93-100.
  6. ^ Benedetti, F.; Maggi, G.; Lopiano, L. (2003). "Open Versus Hidden Medical Treatments: The Patient's Knowledge About a Therapy Affects the Therapy Outcome". Prevention & Treatment 6(1). Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
  7. ^ Alcock, J. Alternative Medicine and the Psychology of Belief, The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, Fall/Winter 1999 3(2). available online
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