Entry #075: Don Colbert

Don Colbert is an Oral Roberts University Alumnus and author of more than 40 books that together have sold more than one million copies. An ardent promoter of WWJD and such things as the Jesus diet (no joke!), his most famous books are the ”The Bible cure for ...”-series. You can get, for instance, The Bible cure for cancer, or The Bible Cure for Depression and Anxiety (”Ancient Truths, Natural Remedies and the Latest Findings for Your Health Today [With Guidebook]”), The Bible Cure for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain ("Jesus wants YOU to be thin" is in fact the slogan, and – just as you suspected – the diet recommendations are baskets of bread and fish, and watered down wine), The Bible Cure for Allergies, The Bible Cure for ADHD, for PMS & Mood Swings, and so on and so forth.

He has also written ”Toxic Relief: Restore Health and Energy Through Fasting and Detoxification” which will give you an idea about where this is heading. And yes, Colbert’s work is a brilliant combination of fundamentalist religion and the most ridiculous New Age alternative treatments (negative feelings as the main cause of disease, apart from mercury in dental fillings and vaccines and so on for some utter lunacy, visit here.

Extensively used by Televangelists to discuss health and nutrition (Benny Hinn, the Copelands). His claims are generally too loony to be caught by Quackwatch, Orac or the like.

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Diagnosis: Complete nutjob (with an admittedly effective marketing idea) and godbotter. Appears to be relatively influential.

Entry #053: Alan Cantwell

One of the most passionate (and lunatic) defenders of one of the greatest crackpots of the last century, Wilhelm Reich. Among Cantwell’s writings in defense of Reich is this nice article. For those who don’t know Reich’s views, orgone is supposed to be the life force, the material realization of Freud’s libido – pure pseudoscience with strong sexual undertones, and unsurprisingly popular (and taken to the extreme of quackery when combined with new age healing techniques, e.g. in the hands of Reich’s disciple Charles Kelly).

And of course Cantwell takes it a step further. In this article he combines Reich’s orgone theory, rantings about microbiology, Blavatsky and cosmic energy to stunning heights. Against this background, a grand theory of everything emerges. Why don’t we know about the stuff Cantwell has uncovered? Well, I won’t reveal it here, just direct you to his paper ”The cancer conspiracy”, ”SARS, bioterrorism and the media” and his book on man-made AIDS, ”Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot”, which is available through the New Dawn Book Service.

Cantwell, in other words, is in at the deep end. A selection of his articles can be found here - according to the website, ”no links to these articles is allowed by the Wikipedia medical editors”. You do the math.

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Diagnosis: Utter loon and megalomaniac whose approach to medicine is not science, but Cantwell’s law ”most physicians are wrong in their understanding of most diseases, most of the time” (and, tacitly understood, that Cantwell himself is correct). Influence is unknown – the orgonites are pretty common, but Cantwell is probably of the fringes of this fringe.

Entry #049: Roger J Callahan & Gary Craig

The last decade or so certain psychologists and pseudo-psychologists have been claiming to be could cure any craving or phobia in minutes, sometimes even over the phone, by just a wee bit of tapping and some positive thinking to "rebalance [the body’s] natural energy system." Anything, really, from addiction to biscuits, alcohol, cigarettes to murdering homeopaths. The buzzword is "Thought Field Therapy” (TFT), a mish-mash of psychology, acupuncture, neuro-linguistic programming, hypnotherapy and what amounts to reiki and life force mysticism. It has absolutely no scientific foundation, and test results don’t exactly go in its favor. But woo apparently appeals.

Not only is there no evidence for its efficacy – it also relies on such quack myths as ”meridians”. In fact, the American Psychological Association asserted that TFT "lacks a scientific basis" and removed support for it in 1999, stating that TFT "does not meet [our] definition of appropriate continuing-education curriculum for psychologists".

The technique was invented and is promoted by – you guessed it – Roger Callahan (pictured right), who terms his treatment "Thought Field Therapy" because he theorizes that when a person thinks about an experience or thought associated with an emotional problem, they are tuning in to a "thought field. and the evidence adduced in support of TFT by Callahan and other proponents comes from uncontrolled case reports that were not peer reviewed. In 2001, in an unprecedented move, the Editor of the Journal of Clinical Psychology agreed to publish, without peer review, five articles on TFT of Callahan’s choosing. Psychologist John Kline wrote that Callahan’s article “represents a disjointed series of unsubstantiated assertions, ill-defined neologisms, and far-fetched case reports that blur boundaries between farce and expository prose.” It has its roots in ancient Chinese medicine.

You can read about them here. And here. And here’s his website.

Dr. Callahan also brags about being endorsed by Kevin Trudeau (who will appear later, rest assured). Perhaps because both were in major trouble with the FTC in 1998.

For their importation of TFT into Africa to treat PTSD and Malaria, see here.

And here is an NPR interview where Callahan claimed TFT successfully treated malaria.

A balanced analysis can be found here.

There is a good primer on thought field therapy here.
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Diagnosis: Crackpot and charlatan (probably unconsciously). His influence is appallingly wide, and his crackpottery has been adopted by several serious practitioners and even received governmental endorsement.

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Roger Callahan's disciple, Gary Craig, invented a variant of TFT known as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), applied kinesology and pure woo. His website is here.

Critically evaluated here.

EFT is apparently a procedure that ”borrows from the much-heralded discoveries of Albert Einstein”. How, you may think? Well, because ”everything, including your body, is composed of energy”. The residue is borrowed ”from the ancient wisdom of Chinese acupuncture.”

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Diagnosis: Pure, delusional crackpot of the worst kind. Impact uncertain, but EFT is a spin-off of some frighteningly popular quackery.

Entry #045: Rashid Buttar

Among the most belligerent quacks in the States, Dr. Buttar is a medical doctor who, apart from his genuine qualifications, espouses a line of treatment for autism that is as bereft of scientific rigor as transcommunication (see previous post).

Buttar has been under investigation by the North Carolina State Medical Board for a decade and for a variety of misconducts involving "unconventional treatments" to which he subjects autistic children and cancer patients - all for lots of money to line his pockets. He views the medical board, in his own words, as a "rabid dog."

Ultimately, the medical board has recommended restricting Dr. Buttar's license to prohibit him from treating children or patients with cancer. That hasn’t stopped him (discussed here; for a more neutral assessment go here).

Among his more famous autism treatments is the transdermal chelation cream (a.k.a. “Buttar’s butter”). He has been known to come up with some truly bizarre protocols to treat autism, with rumors that Dr. Buttar's armamentarium of woo even included urine injections to "boost the immune system". Of course the fees are exorbitant.

His cancer quackery is even worse, and Buttar has apparently said that ”it didn't matter what kind of cancer anybody had, he could cure it."

Uh oh.

And yes, it is there, all of it: Buttar believes most patients with cancer also have high levels of heavy metals, such as mercury, and other toxins, such as pesticides, because of environmental exposure”. His treatments include chelation, ozone therapy and hyperbaric oxygen chambers – dangerous, potentially lethal devices or regimes with not the slightest trace of evidential support for any claims to efficacy. He even has an AirEnergy Machine.

His website is here.

Buttar is most prominent, however, for being a rabid anti-vaccinationist, running all the usual canards. Remember Desiree Jennings? The gal who claimed to have her walking impaired by the H1N1 vaccine (but got magically cured right after the media forgot about her?) Guess who her accomplice was, the doctor who “diagnosed her and helped her”.

Btw, his website prominently displays the following quote: "All truth passes through 3 phases: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed, and Third, it is accepted as self-evident." (Schopenhauer). Anyone who uses this quote as support for his or her ideas is a seriously delusional crackpot. That’s a law.

(Come to think of it, it’s a strikingly stupid and magnificently false claim Schopenhauer is making to begin with.)

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Diagnosis: Crackpot, and a severe case of confirmation bias coupled with belligerence. Very dangerous – many of his treatments are definitely harmful (and hardly beneficial), and they are being used. Should be stopped as quickly as possible.

Entry #031: Tim Bolen

a.k.a. Patrick Timothy Bolen (real name)

Bolen is a publicist for the late Hulda Clark, who for the purposes of our Encyclopedia is, in part, tried instead of her. Clark was a crackpot who claimed to have (and sold) “the cure for all disease”, in particular cancer which she said couldn’t exist if the patient had the right mindset and used her devices. Guess what Hulda Clark died of. A critical obituary can be found here, and also here.

(Clark’s healing devices, apparently cobbled together from discarded parts of Radio Shack, included the Syncrometer, the Zapper and Homeography; her medical advice included requiring that her people with fillings have them removed and people with root canals have those teeth removed as part of her "therapy." Clark was, in other words, an unintentionally repulsive human being).

Bolen, her attack poodle, desperately tried to explain her death as being due to something else, flunking all possible rules for critical thinking and understanding of science in the process. He is in general an ardent advocate of Clark’s “scientific research” (always skirting the awkward question of the whereabouts of all those people Clark supposedly cured of e.g. advanced AIDS).

Bolen is a self-proclaimed “health freedom fighter” and a tireless enemy of science and science-based medicine (a flaming conspiracy theorist), and purveyor of every crackpot alternative treatment that exists.

Covered here, and also here.

He might be somewhat neutralized at present, actually. At least rumors have it that he forgot to pay his taxes.

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Diagnosis: Dishonest, sleazy and absolute loon; impact uncertain, but this guy is tireless.

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Addendum: This post should by the way also indict Hulda Clark’s son Geoffrey Clark, who administered her business and tirelessly promotes it after her demise, including setting up a defense fund to pay for expenses associated with defending her against "legal attacks."

The entry should also indict the Swiss scientologist David Amrein, Clark’s business associate and staunch defender (who has been legally banned from making false claims about her products for advertising purposes) – Amrein is an utter loon, but disqualified from an entry in the Encyclopedia by not being American.

The whole Clark-Bolen story is also well covered here.