Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healing of disease and disability can be brought about by religious faith through prayer or other rituals that, according to adherents, can stimulate a divine presence and power. Religious belief in divine intervention does not depend on empirical evidence of an evidence-based outcome achieved via faith healing. Virtually all scientists and philosophers dismiss faith healing as pseudoscience.
Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. Numerous types of psychotherapy have been designed either for individual adults, families, or children and adolescents. Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders; other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth, transmigration, or in Ancient Greek-inspired texts metempsychosis, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. In most beliefs involving reincarnation, the soul of a human being is immortal and does not disperse after the physical body has perished. Upon death, the soul merely becomes transmigrated into a newborn baby or an animal to continue its immortality. The term transmigration means the passing of a soul from one body to another after death.
Reiki is a Japanese form of energy healing, a type of alternative medicine. Reiki practitioners use a technique called palm healing or hands-on healing through which, according to practitioners, a "universal energy" is transferred through the palms of the practitioner to the patient, to encourage emotional or physical healing.
A medical intuitive is an alternative medicine practitioner who claims to be able to use their intuitive abilities to find the cause of a physical or emotional condition through the use of insight rather than modern medicine. Other terms for such a person include medical clairvoyant or medical psychic.
Caroline Myss is an American author of 10 books and many audio recordings about mysticism and wellness. She is most well known for publishing Anatomy of the Spirit (1996). She also co-published The Creation of Health with Dr C Norman Shealy MD - ex Harvard professor of neurology. Her most recent book, Archetypes: Who Are You? was published in 2013. Myss describes herself as a medical intuitive and a mystic.
Chromotherapy, sometimes called color therapy, colorology or cromatherapy, is an alternative medicine that is considered pseudoscience and quackery. Chromotherapists claim to be able to use light in the form of color to balance "energy" lacking from a person's body, whether it be on physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental levels. For example, they thought that shining a colored light on a person would cure constipation. Historically chromotherapy has been associated with mysticism and occultism.
Past life regression is a method that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations. The practice is widely considered discredited and unscientific by medical practitioners, and experts generally regard claims of recovered memories of past lives as fantasies or delusions or a type of confabulation. Past-life regression is typically undertaken either in pursuit of a spiritual experience, or in a psychotherapeutic setting. Most advocates loosely adhere to beliefs about reincarnation, though religious traditions that incorporate reincarnation generally do not include the idea of repressed memories of past lives.
Anthroposophic medicine is a form of alternative medicine based on pseudoscientific and occult notions. Devised in the 1920s by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) in conjunction with Ita Wegman (1876–1943), anthroposophical medicine draws on Steiner's spiritual philosophy, which he called anthroposophy. Practitioners employ a variety of treatment techniques based upon anthroposophic precepts, including massage, exercise, counselling, and substances.
Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. The field is defined by shared beliefs and practices relating to mysticism and esotericism in the wider alternative medicine sphere rather than any sort of unified terminology, leading to terms such as energy healing or vibrational medicine being used as synonymous or alternative names. In most cases there is no empirically measurable energy involved: the term refers instead to so-called subtle energy. Practitioners may classify the practice as hands-on, hands-off, and distant where the patient and healer are in different locations. Many schools of energy healing exist using many names: for example, biofield energy healing, spiritual healing, contact healing, distant healing, therapeutic touch, Reiki or Qigong.
"Crazy" Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? is a book by the psychologist Margaret Singer and the sociologist Janja Lalich. It was published by Jossey-Bass in 1996.
Irvin David Yalom is an American existential psychiatrist who is emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, as well as author of both fiction and nonfiction.
Reincarnation is regularly mentioned in feature films, books, and popular music. The similar concept of transmigration has been used frequently to the point of cliché in the sense of people "switching bodies", in which the identity of a character transfers to another's body, either unilaterally or by exchange, or to an animal or object. This concept has been used many times in various films, particularly in Indian cinema and television.
Age regression in therapy is a psycho-therapeutic process that aims to facilitate access to childhood memories, thoughts, and feelings. Age regression can be induced by hypnotherapy, which is a process where patients move their focus to memories of an earlier stage of life in order to explore these memories or to access difficult aspects of their personality.
"Memories" is the forty-first episode and the sixth episode of the third season (1988–89) of the television series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, a specialist in past life regression enters an alternate reality in which reincarnation is real and everyone remembers all their past lives.
Raaz Pichhle Janm Ka is an Indian reality television series created by Supavitra Babul, based around the technique of past life regression. The NDTV Imagine show is hosted by actor Ravi Kishan, while the past life regression sessions are conducted by a Mumbai-based psychologist Trupti Jayin. The first season started on 7 December 2009 and 15 January 2010, while the second season started on October 23, 2010, with actor, Chunky Panday as guest.
Heal is a 2017 documentary film that was written and directed by Kelly Noonan-Gores and produced by Richell Morrissey and Adam Schomer. The film focuses on mind–body interventions and follows several individuals who used these techniques after being diagnosed with a fatal disease. It was reviewed by critics as an "informercial" that makes some valid points while pretending to be based on science yet promoting pseudoscience.
Past life therapy (PLT), regression, memory regression consists of using hypnosis to make a person recover what practitioners believe to be memories of past lives. This practice is considered a pseudoscience and is widely discredited by the medical community. Experts generally consider claims of past life memories to be fantasies, delusions, or a form of confabulation.
Doreen Virtue, is an American former leading New Age author, who rejected those beliefs and embraced born again Christianity in 2017.
