Spiritual Warfare Forum: New Age Medicine
New Age Medicine QUESTION from Judy July 23, 2001 A friend of mine wants me to get an appointment with her doctor in order to heal my allergies. This doctor has developed a special technique whereby she taps on people's heads, and then tells them things based on what she feels. There are many Catholic homeschoolers going to her, and also priests and nuns. It sounds unscientific at best, but I was wondering if it could be a spiritually dangerous New Age technique. Am I under the moral obligation to tell my friend I suspect she is going to a fraud, or worse yet, a spiritist?
Judy
P.S. I'll stick with the allergy shots and good old antihistamines!
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on July 27, 2001 Dear Mrs. Judy:
Your instincts are correct -- stick with allergy shots and antihistamines!
This technique of tapping people on the head is utter nonsense. It sounds like it is an off-shoot of phrenology. Phrenology allegedly maps the bumps on one's head and from those bumps claims to can make personality assessments and other claims.
Those people -- homeschoolers, priest, and nuns -- that go to this quack, please give me their addresses. I have ocean front property in Kansas I would like to sell them.
As far as being dangerous, I don't think that it is per se, that is, in an of itself. But there is a danger always in gravitating to such things that are based upon occult knowledge and/or subjective determinations, or based upon new age theories.
One must be very careful. You have no idea what the doctor is doing silently while performing the technique. When I was a New Age practitioner I use to teach and practice Chinese acupressure and massage. Although it all looked very scientific while I was giving the treatment I would be praying to spirits silently to myself to gain information about the person and to assist in the treatment.
If the doctor is into other things beside this, other aspects of the occult,spiritism, or new age (which in the majority of cases they are), to go and allow the laying on of hands of this person upon you can be very dangerous. The laying on of hands is a primary method of demonic transference. Who knows what this doctor is into. It is a dangerous risk to go to such a person.
But, frankly, even with the spiritual danger aside, this technique is nonsense on its face. These people going to this person need a brain transplant.
I would tell these people that this is nonsense and that, as Catholics, they have no business going to anything even remotely involved in occult practices and/or new age theories (which are based upon a worldview inconsistent with Catholicism).
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