Faith healers and particularly so-called psychic surgery are controversial topics
abroad and in the Philippines. The most respected Philippine health columnist,
George Nava True II, has criticized (to put it mildly) the practice in a number of articles.
In his column 'Health Frontiers' in the Philippine Daily Inquirer October 17, 1989 he wrote: "Their names and faces may differ but the modus operandi of psychic surgeons is basically
the same. Under a 'trance,' the healer supposedly penetrates the patient's skin with his hands
or sometimes with a knife. He then removes whatever it is that causes trouble and 'closes'the
skin in one swift movement. There are no scars, no stitches on the patient's skin. But there
is usually plenty of blood to distract people seeing they were fooled. For years, this health
hoax has flourished in Brazil and the Philippines thanks largely to some travel agencies who
are promoting these 'wonder healers' and playing with the lives of the sick.
In 1975, the US Federal Trade Commission ordered four such agencies to stop advertising these
phony healers but such a move has not put a stop to this big racket. 'Because we are dealing
here with desperate consumers with terminal illnesses who want to believe psychic surgery will cure them, no amount of disclosure will suffice to drive home to all the point that psychic surgery is nothing but a total hoax,' it said. Books are the next offenders.
Since there is no law which prohibits lies from being published, anyone can make money from a
book about psychic surgery even though it is laced with distorted facts. The public, ever
hungry for miracles in this cold, scientific world, will never know the difference.
Then there are 'surgeons' themselves who are making a living out of many desperate people.
Like other forms of health quackery, the victims of psychic surgery are not only the gullible
or those with dreaded diseases. They include alienated individuals who feel they are not
getting enough attention from their doctors, movie and TV stars, some professionals and others
who have been influenced by the advertising hype and false propaganda about psychic surgery.
How these people can entrust their health, and more importantly their lives, to a strange
healer who makes ridiculous claims and who has no medical background whatsoever escapes the
realm of reason.
One who did and paid dearly with his life for it was Andy Kaufman, a star of the US hit series,
'Taxi, who suffered from lung cancer. Discover magazine reports that in 1984, Kaufman and his girlfriend visited Jun Labo, one of The Country 's popular surgeons, now mayor of Baguio City. Labo 'operated' on Kaufman twice daily, his girlfriend said, removing what appeared to be bloody tissues from the actor's chest. After a series of treatments which cost $25 each, Kaufman returned to the United States in high spirits. He was impressed with Labo's work.
A few weeks later, the 35-year-old actor was dead. The late Tony Agpaoa, another famous
Filipino psychic surgeon, was also exposed as a fraud when a piece of tissue he allegedly
removed from a patient turned out to be chicken gut. In his book, Healing, A Doctor in Search
of a Miracle, Dr. William A. Nolen tells of his visit to the Philippines where he watched
Agpaoa operate.
He followed up many of the healer's patients and found none of them were really cured... How
do psychic surgeons really operate? Discover magazine describes it this way: 'This illusion is produced by bending the fingertips so that the middle knuckles of the fingers press firmly on a patient's body. The tissues and blood, which usually come from animals, are concealed before the operation and roduced at the appropriate time by the surgeon, who uses standard magician's sleight of hand to make them appear.' The reason why psychic surgery does work for some people is simple.
The human body can heal itself. Most ailments are self-limiting and disappear in time without
any treatment. Naturally, if you visit a psychic surgeon and become well, the former will get
all the credit and your cash. There is, however, nothing magical about being fooled by a
psychic surgeon for this could cost you your life.
Dr. Lynn Rayner of the John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii said, 'The
placebo benefits of the treatment may be substantial, but they are only temporary and cannot
alter the course of serious diseases. The morality of charging hundreds or thousands of
dollars for a short-lived relief of pain and false hope is highly questionable, especially
when people are diverted from treatments which might save their lives."
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