John Payne says he knows things. He says that the major agent in all illness is stress, but not just any old stress. He says it's the particular stress of half-forgotten dead or suffering relatives, whom he calls "The Forgotten," and whose tensions are transferred onto the remainder of the family, via a surrogate if necessary, by courtesy of Rupert Sheldrake's "morphogenic field" (to be pedantic, it's morphic or morphogenetic), which field supposedly connects us all to one another in a big spiritual ball of psychic spaghetti. Your friends, presumably, are the sauce.

Yum. Make mine Arrabiata, please.

Payne (what's in a name?) proudly announces how grounded and empirical all of this is, and goes on about the panoply of benefits that accrue from his technique of whipping your ancestors and relations into a well-oiled regiment of satisfied spirit soldiers who will rally around you, keen to assail your infirmities. At one point he writes prophetically, "This work is astounding and often leaves one thinking 'how does this work?'," a single brief moment of lucidity that is pursued no further. The emotional baggage attending such conditions as cancer, HIV/AIDS, MS and autism, among several lesser ailments, falls in tidy swathes before these Dim Reapers' scythes, and the ensuing relief can contribute significantly towards a total cure.

Not a shred of evidence, aside from a few dubious testimonials, is offered to support any of this, which is why Payne, probably at the urging of his legal counsel, publishes this revealing disclaimer. I write, "probably at the urging of his legal counsel," because it's clearly an escape-hatch. It can't be the result of simple honesty or pangs of conscience; if it were, he would never have begun fleecing people with this crafty bit of hooey.

'Luthon64

No, there's no such implication to that disclaimer. Every type of treatment of whatever nature, be it a herb, nutritional supplement, vitamin, Swedish massage, NLP, exercise machine or whatever that is not directly licensed by the AMA has to carry a disclaimer that is substantially the same as the one in the link.

The medical profession has done an excellent job of marketing themselves in the USA and convincing Congress to pronounce that Doctors, and Doctors alone have the ability to heal all ailments of the body, mind and, presumably, of the spirit too, although they probably deny the existance of a spirit, being the good Scientists that they are supposed to be.

It's also about protecting the medical monopoly. They don't want anyone else getting any moola from any sick people, or even people wanting to avoid getting sick, so every product will tell you something to the effect that "you should consult your healthcare professional before using this".

Just BTW, I am sceptical about Family Constellation Therapy too.

The medical profession has, on the whole, done an excellent job of backing up its claims of efficacy with evidence that is repeatable and also, at least in principle, independently verifiable by anyone who chooses to do their own investigation. This important ingredient is simply papered over by the spindoctors of woo, who feign, as a substitute for evidence, deep offence when someone has the unmitigated temerity to challenge their loopy contentions through application of that old spoilsport, "reality."


You presume to much. Most scientists would, I think, assert that there is no good reason, logical or empirical, to believe in such a thing, rather than flat out deny it. There's a world of difference between the two positions.


Is this also true of treatment regimens for congenital paranoia?

'Luthon64