Änderungen

==Aktivitäten als Geistheiler und Telepath==

==Aktivitäten als Geistheiler und Telepath==

Der Medizinlaie Levashow betätigte sich in den USA als [[Geistheilen|Geistheiler]]. Folge waren Klagen von behandelten Kunden, die sich darüber beschwerten keine Besserung erfahren zu haben und die sich daher weigerten Rechnungen von Levashow zu bezahlen. Mit den Behandlungen von Levashow befasste sich unter anderem Michael Shermer in einem Artikel ''"Another Alt Med Tragedy"'', der im Februar 1999 im New Yorker "Skeptic" erschien.<ref>Another Alt Med Tragedy<br>Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 12:03:07 –0800<br>Subject: Strange Science/Alt Med Tragedy<br>Another Alt Med Tragedy<br><br>In the next couple of months CBS's Unsolved Mysteries will be airing a program on a "Russian Psychic Healer" named Nicolai Levashov, who claims he has created medical miracles and that "the results have mystified the very doctors who had written their patients off as incurable," according to the pre- production report given to me by the producers of this segment.<br>I was consulted by the segment producer, Janet Jones, and was asked to comment on film about this healer. I was not going to comment on this until the show aired, but recent events compel me to finally say something.<br>Nicolai Levashov says he heals people by going inside their body psychically and tweaking with the damaged cells and tissues. The story segment focuses on two cases:<br>(1) Isabelle Pritchard, who was born with a brain tumor and had four surgeries and numerous chemo and radiation treatments;<br>(2) Susan Strasberg, the actress, diagnosed with breast cancer, was allegedly healed by Levashov. The second case is now another tragedy of Alternative Medicine, since Strasberg recently died of cancer.<br>Here is the Unsolved Mysteries script that was going to be used for the show (they sent me a copy), but will be changed, no doubt, before it airs, since Strasberg was filmed extensively for the program. The script:<br>"Actress Susan Strasberg, the daughter of famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg, calls her involvement with Nicolai's psychic healing "the great adventure of my life." At age 57, she had felt a tiny lump in her breast. A biopsy confirmed her worst fears. She had malignant cancer and needed a double mastectomy.<br>"My mother had died of cancer at 58. I didn't want that to happen to me. I'm 60 now and feeling better than I ever have in my life. I owe it all to Nicolai."<br>Susan refused surgery. A longtime believer in alternative healing methods, she sought help from Nicolai in San Francisco. By the time she went there, her tumor had grown quickly and was considered in a terminal stage.<br>For nearly ten months, she went to Nicolai's office every day for 15 minutes. When she had to go to Europe, he continued the sessions via telephone twice a week. [Psychic healing can allegedly be done over the phone.]<br>Susan had a mammogram a year after the initial diagnosis of cancer. It showed no signs of the tumor. Her New York doctors had no interest in hearing about the Russian healer Susan described to them. She gratefully acknowledges Nicolai's skill by saying, "This must be the medicine for the future. He knows anatomy, biology, chemistry and can diagnose sickness so well. My essence knew this was the right thing to do, to put my life in Nicolai's hands"."<br>Strasberg died of cancer. Her final statement sums up the problem succinctly and tragically. The future of medicine is not in the so-called "alternative" or "complementary" medicine fields. The reason is that almost every claim made in these fields are based on the types of "essences" Strasberg felt as the "right thing to do."<br>As pattern-seeking animals we all tend toward subjective feelings about what "feels" or "seems" right. Sometimes we are right, sometimes we are wrong. The only way to find out is to test the claim with science.<br>Modern medicine has developed a reasonably reliable method to test such claims (not perfect, of course, but the best method we have). Strasberg chose to ignore science and she paid with her life. (Of course, we will never know how the experiment would have come out with traditional methods of treatment, since people still die of cancer, but we DO know how this one came out.)<br>Nicolai Levashov came to the attention of Unsolved Mysteries through a woman named Barbara Koopman, M.D., Ph.D., a close friend of Susan Strasberg. She wrote Unsolved Mysteries a letter recommending that they do a story on him. (I have copies of the letter, all medical reports for Strasberg and the other patients, the Unsolved Mysteries script, etc.)<br>I called Koopman to get a statement about this affair. At first she was very reluctant to speak to me, but since I was friendly and genuinely inquisitive she warmed up and then opened up.<br>She still completely believes in Levashov. Strasberg, she says, lived four years longer than she should of thanks to the psychic's healings of her. Strasberg had the happiest final four years of her life. She should have been dead within months but instead lived years.<br>Her death came suddenly and was a complete surprise to Dr. Koopman and, she says, to others as well. Koopman feels that regardless of the cause of death (the Los Angeles Times obit said it was from cancer), her final years were still a miracle.<br>Levashov is still, in her eyes, a miracle worker. I asked Koopman if she knows how Levashov works his miracles. She explained that it has to do with the interchange of matter and energy, but that this explanation probably makes no sense. Correct there Dr. Koopman. She continued to stress over and over that this outcome should not be considered a tragedy, because Strasberg was so happy at the end.<br>Will Nicolai Levashov be held accountable for Strasberg's death? Of course not. Will such alternative modalities of healing be questioned because of this? Of course not. Will Unsolved Mysteries run the piece and then end it explaining that she died anyway? I seriously doubt it (my guess is that it will be eliminated from the segment so as not to dampen the enthusiasm for the psychic healer's amazing skills - disconfirming evidence is rarely presented on such programs).<br>Unfortunately, countless people are taken in by such hucksters as Levashov, and pay with their lives, but because they are not celebrities we do not hear about them. And the alternative medicine gurus like Deepak Chopra and Andrew Weil are not about to pen a statement saying that perhaps they are wrong about the nonsense they peddle.<br>Tragedies like Strasberg are either ignored, or tallied up to negative thoughts on her part, or by healing methods on the part of this ONE psychic (but the other methods are still acceptable), or, in Koopman's case, that she WAS healed, temporarily anyway. This whole mess sickens me. You are going to see more on alternative medicine in the pages of Skeptic in coming issues. This is a problem of grave concern.<br>Michael Shermer</ref>

Der Medizinlaie Levashow betätigte sich in den USA als [[Geistheilen|Geistheiler]]. In von ihm veröffentlichten Videos sind Behandlungen zu sehen. Bei seinen Behandlungen rudert Levashow mit seinen beiden Händen um den Körper des Kunden und macht regelmässig abschüttelnde Handbewegungen, als ob er Wasser abschütteln wolle.<br>Folge waren Klagen von behandelten Kunden, die sich darüber beschwerten keine Besserung erfahren zu haben und die sich daher weigerten Rechnungen von Levashow zu bezahlen. Mit den Behandlungen von Levashow befasste sich unter anderem Michael Shermer in einem Artikel ''"Another Alt Med Tragedy"'', der im Februar 1999 im New Yorker "Skeptic" erschien.<ref>Another Alt Med Tragedy<br>Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 12:03:07 –0800<br>Subject: Strange Science/Alt Med Tragedy<br>Another Alt Med Tragedy<br><br>In the next couple of months CBS's Unsolved Mysteries will be airing a program on a "Russian Psychic Healer" named Nicolai Levashov, who claims he has created medical miracles and that "the results have mystified the very doctors who had written their patients off as incurable," according to the pre- production report given to me by the producers of this segment.<br>I was consulted by the segment producer, Janet Jones, and was asked to comment on film about this healer. I was not going to comment on this until the show aired, but recent events compel me to finally say something.<br>Nicolai Levashov says he heals people by going inside their body psychically and tweaking with the damaged cells and tissues. The story segment focuses on two cases:<br>(1) Isabelle Pritchard, who was born with a brain tumor and had four surgeries and numerous chemo and radiation treatments;<br>(2) Susan Strasberg, the actress, diagnosed with breast cancer, was allegedly healed by Levashov. The second case is now another tragedy of Alternative Medicine, since Strasberg recently died of cancer.<br>Here is the Unsolved Mysteries script that was going to be used for the show (they sent me a copy), but will be changed, no doubt, before it airs, since Strasberg was filmed extensively for the program. The script:<br>"Actress Susan Strasberg, the daughter of famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg, calls her involvement with Nicolai's psychic healing "the great adventure of my life." At age 57, she had felt a tiny lump in her breast. A biopsy confirmed her worst fears. She had malignant cancer and needed a double mastectomy.<br>"My mother had died of cancer at 58. I didn't want that to happen to me. I'm 60 now and feeling better than I ever have in my life. I owe it all to Nicolai."<br>Susan refused surgery. A longtime believer in alternative healing methods, she sought help from Nicolai in San Francisco. By the time she went there, her tumor had grown quickly and was considered in a terminal stage.<br>For nearly ten months, she went to Nicolai's office every day for 15 minutes. When she had to go to Europe, he continued the sessions via telephone twice a week. [Psychic healing can allegedly be done over the phone.]<br>Susan had a mammogram a year after the initial diagnosis of cancer. It showed no signs of the tumor. Her New York doctors had no interest in hearing about the Russian healer Susan described to them. She gratefully acknowledges Nicolai's skill by saying, "This must be the medicine for the future. He knows anatomy, biology, chemistry and can diagnose sickness so well. My essence knew this was the right thing to do, to put my life in Nicolai's hands"."<br>Strasberg died of cancer. Her final statement sums up the problem succinctly and tragically. The future of medicine is not in the so-called "alternative" or "complementary" medicine fields. The reason is that almost every claim made in these fields are based on the types of "essences" Strasberg felt as the "right thing to do."<br>As pattern-seeking animals we all tend toward subjective feelings about what "feels" or "seems" right. Sometimes we are right, sometimes we are wrong. The only way to find out is to test the claim with science.<br>Modern medicine has developed a reasonably reliable method to test such claims (not perfect, of course, but the best method we have). Strasberg chose to ignore science and she paid with her life. (Of course, we will never know how the experiment would have come out with traditional methods of treatment, since people still die of cancer, but we DO know how this one came out.)<br>Nicolai Levashov came to the attention of Unsolved Mysteries through a woman named Barbara Koopman, M.D., Ph.D., a close friend of Susan Strasberg. She wrote Unsolved Mysteries a letter recommending that they do a story on him. (I have copies of the letter, all medical reports for Strasberg and the other patients, the Unsolved Mysteries script, etc.)<br>I called Koopman to get a statement about this affair. At first she was very reluctant to speak to me, but since I was friendly and genuinely inquisitive she warmed up and then opened up.<br>She still completely believes in Levashov. Strasberg, she says, lived four years longer than she should of thanks to the psychic's healings of her. Strasberg had the happiest final four years of her life. She should have been dead within months but instead lived years.<br>Her death came suddenly and was a complete surprise to Dr. Koopman and, she says, to others as well. Koopman feels that regardless of the cause of death (the Los Angeles Times obit said it was from cancer), her final years were still a miracle.<br>Levashov is still, in her eyes, a miracle worker. I asked Koopman if she knows how Levashov works his miracles. She explained that it has to do with the interchange of matter and energy, but that this explanation probably makes no sense. Correct there Dr. Koopman. She continued to stress over and over that this outcome should not be considered a tragedy, because Strasberg was so happy at the end.<br>Will Nicolai Levashov be held accountable for Strasberg's death? Of course not. Will such alternative modalities of healing be questioned because of this? Of course not. Will Unsolved Mysteries run the piece and then end it explaining that she died anyway? I seriously doubt it (my guess is that it will be eliminated from the segment so as not to dampen the enthusiasm for the psychic healer's amazing skills - disconfirming evidence is rarely presented on such programs).<br>Unfortunately, countless people are taken in by such hucksters as Levashov, and pay with their lives, but because they are not celebrities we do not hear about them. And the alternative medicine gurus like Deepak Chopra and Andrew Weil are not about to pen a statement saying that perhaps they are wrong about the nonsense they peddle.<br>Tragedies like Strasberg are either ignored, or tallied up to negative thoughts on her part, or by healing methods on the part of this ONE psychic (but the other methods are still acceptable), or, in Koopman's case, that she WAS healed, temporarily anyway. This whole mess sickens me. You are going to see more on alternative medicine in the pages of Skeptic in coming issues. This is a problem of grave concern.<br>Michael Shermer</ref>

Levashow liess auch verbreiten, dass er Krebspatienten geheilt habe, darunter die Schauspielerin Susan Strasberg, die jedoch an Krebs verstarb. Auch die bekannte Psychologin Elisabeth Targ wurde von Levashow behandelt. Obwohl sie einen Hirntumor hatte, riet er ihr von einer Strahlentherapie ab und behandelte sie mit wedelnden Handbewegungen. Später erklärte er sie für geheilt. Drei Wochen später starb Targ an ihrem Krebsleiden.<br>Levashow wurde auch in der Presse durch seine Behandlunge eines Mädchen namens Isabella Prichard aus Oregon bekannt, das einen Hirntumor hatte. Levashow behandelte das Mädchen, teilweise per Telefon in [[Fernheilung]]. Als später, nach einer Operation, der Tumor sich weiter ausbreitete, behauptete Medizinlaie Levashow es würde sich um ein natürliches Wachstum gesunden Nervengewebes handeln, was die Eltern bewog eine weitere Operation abzulehnen.  

Levashow liess auch verbreiten, dass er Krebspatienten geheilt habe, darunter die Schauspielerin Susan Strasberg, die jedoch an Krebs verstarb. Auch die bekannte Psychologin Elisabeth Targ wurde von Levashow behandelt. Obwohl sie einen Hirntumor hatte, riet er ihr von einer Strahlentherapie ab und behandelte sie mit wedelnden Handbewegungen. Später erklärte er sie für geheilt. Drei Wochen später starb Targ an ihrem Krebsleiden.<br>Levashow wurde auch in der Presse durch seine Behandlunge eines Mädchen namens Isabella Prichard aus Oregon bekannt, das einen Hirntumor hatte. Levashow behandelte das Mädchen, teilweise per Telefon in [[Fernheilung]]. Als später, nach einer Operation, der Tumor sich weiter ausbreitete, behauptete Medizinlaie Levashow es würde sich um ein natürliches Wachstum gesunden Nervengewebes handeln, was die Eltern bewog eine weitere Operation abzulehnen.