Quackery of the Minute
Dr. David Hawkins, a trained medical doctor and psychiatrist who gave it all up a few years ago to follow a more spiritual path based on Eastern religion and philosophy, founded Veritas publishing house to publish his own books. Hawkins has found that applied kinesiology (AK) is the perfect adjunct to spirituality. On his website he boldly asserts: "David Hawkins conclusively proves the ability of kinesiological testing to distinguish truth or falsehood in any statement...." Hawkins seems to be genuinely convinced of this claim.
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Here is Hawkins's description of how AK works (taken from the work of Dr. John Diamond, another fallen-away psychiatrist in love with Eastern mysticism):
It takes two people, the “tester” and the “subject.”
1. Have the subject stand erect, right arm relaxed at his side, left arm held out parallel to the floor, elbow straight.
2. Face your subject and place your left hand on his right shoulder to steady him. Then place your right hand on the subject's extended left arm just above the wrist.
3. Tell the subject to resist when you try to push his arm down.
4. Now push down on his arm fairly quickly, firmly, and evenly. The idea is to push hard enough to test the spring and bounce in the arm, not so hard that the muscle becomes fatigued. It is not a question of who is stronger, but of whether the muscle can ‘lock' the shoulder joint against the push.
Yes, that's it. That's the magical technique of AK that can unlock the door to many truths. The only thing missing is the direction to face east and wear tin foil under your cap.
Hawkins, by the way, is not only an M.D. but a Ph.D. The latter was earned from Columbia Pacific University, an unaccredited diploma mill that was shut down by court order.
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Even though Hawkins may not have been aware of the school's accreditation problems, he knew it was a correspondence school and that the standards were not very high.
In any case, the dissatisfied customer complained to the FTC that Hawkins was misrepresenting himself by not letting people know where he got his Ph.D. from and for promoting a pseudoscience:
the 'science' taught in the products he sells, 'applied kinesiology,' is pseudoscience that has been falsified repeatedly in double-blind studies. No legitimate university would have awarded him the degree. He is misleading people by misrepresenting his qualifications and charging a lot of money by teaching, with the false 'Ph.D.' that he has the answer to 'ultimate truth.' In fact, he is a cult [leader] masquerading as a 'scientist' and making a lot of money in the process on his false claims.
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On that site one may find out, among other things, how quantum physics validates applied kinesiology. (What New Age quackery doesn't quantum physics validate?) In any case, Dr. Doctor Hawkins not only sent the dissatisfied customer a refund, he sent him a copy of his transcript from Columbia Pacific University, which seems to indicate that Hawkins only completed 59 of the required 60 units for the degree. This is a minor point, to be sure. Of more concern should be Hawkins's enchantment with applied kinesiology and how he has deceived himself and many others into believing that this pseudoscience is a major assist to spiritual awakening. He has convinced himself and many others that AK is a surefire way to determine how spiritually advanced a person, a corporation, or a nation is.
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I suggest, however, that if you want to read something sensible about applied kinesiology (besides my SD entry on the topic!) read the section on Facilitated Communication, Applied Kinesiology, and TCM in Ray Hyman's article "How People Are Fooled by Ideomotor Action." Read also Dr. Stephen Barrett's article Muscle-Testing for "Allergies" and "Deficiencies". If, after reading both articles you are still convinced that applied kinesiology is a science, then you are beyond redemption but I'll pray for you anyway.
I have several e-mails in my archives regarding Dr. Doctor Hawkins:
June 2003: I am alarmed that a longtime "follower" of Dr. Hawkins recently used kinesiology to confirm that an in-law was possessed. Shadows of the Salem witch hunts.
June 2003: Dr. Hawkins is a sincere, kind and intelligent person. I have read every book, viewed every video and audio tape produced. [In] the initial video-set, titled "Power vs Force," [AK] was actually used to find a pistol in his living room.
Some of the statements made by this otherwise kind and intelligent man are shocking, i.e., as to kinesiology. With the increased sales of his books and other materials, the concern I have is that this nonsense could become an insane tool for wrong. I have witnessed its wrongful and malicious use by those very close to the Dr. His followers use it to rank all sorts of things using the Map of Consciousness as a reference: people, countries, events, movies, music, etc. Before each lecture-performance, he tests the audience to see how on the Map of Consciousness they are as a group, i.e., how close to enlightenment and therefore how far from the spiritual-dregs. Amazingly, the groups lectured to always start very high on this logarithmic scale. After the lecture, he retests the group (using his wife as the agent) and they always go up the scale five to ten points. His testing shows that very few humans climb the Map of Consciousness by more than five points in a lifetime. Thus, the lectures are a great investment!
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The research stands or falls on its own. There is a heavy use of pseudoscience when it fits and leaping to spirituality to fill in the gaps. If you are cautious about the leap, then you just are not sufficiently spiritual. Try a dab of appeal to authority combined with ad hominem to fill in the holes, i.e., the enlightened master has spoken and who are you to challenge these words? I believe these techniques are used by a lot of the people marketing spiritual books, tapes, courses, or whatever.
May 2005: He believes in karma, past lives, the collective unconscious; he is very Freudian (was trained as a psychoanalyst is the 50s). For example, he says things like, "Nothing happens by accident." Yet, he performed an "accidental amputation" on himself when he cut off his thumb.
A revealing book of his is Dialogues on Consciousness and Spirituality. He says humans wanting to survive is ego and vanity, and nature would be better off without us.
He also still to this day lies. It is obvious that no one is getting good results with AK, but he continues to say that it gets generally universal results....What is also bad about him is that he makes his results absolute (listen to him speak on
Beyond the Ordinary: you get the sense that you are not supposed to contradict him).
Some quotable quotes: "I don't like to talk to dumb people." "There are no such thing as 'rights'." "Wal-mart is the way to God." (He got tired of people criticizing the fact that he supported Wal-Mart in "Power vs. Force"). "All opinions are vanities." "The mind has no capacity to tell truth from falsehood."
The mind can't tell truth from falsity, but AK can. It's too bad that AK can't be used on oneself to determine when one is deluded and self-deceived.
If the reader is still not convinced of the quackery being sold by Dr. Hawkins, consider the reading list he has posted on Amazon.com, where he identifies himself as Honest Truthfinder. Number one on his list is
A Course in Miracles. In addition to his own books, he recommends a hodgepodge of spiritual tomes and books supporting AK. Check out his Yahoo Group to find out what his followers have to say. Finally, read a testimonial by another M.D. who is a devout follower of Dr. Hawkins. David Gersten, M.D., explains how Hawkins uses AK to quantify consciousness on a scale of 0-1,000. 'Consciousness' refers to some sort of developing spiritual entity. When you score between 700-1,000 you have reached "enlightenment."
Skepticism will get you a calibration of about 140. George W. Bush calibrates at 460, according to Hawkins, which is in the range of intellectual genius. According to Dr. Gersten: "Below 200 an individual or society are at very high risk. Up until 1986, the world CS calibrated in the low 190's, but there was a sudden shift in 1986, taking the world CS to 207, which is a safe place to be. The reason for this positive shift is unknown." Are you kidding? That was the year Argentina won the World Cup! (In case you are wondering, CS is the scientific symbol for consciousness in AK-babbletalk.)
One would think that a trained psychiatrist would give more credit to the power of the unconscious mind to cause muscles to tense or relax (ideomotor action) and would not be buffaloed by the applied kinesiology quackery. One would also think that a trained M.D. and Ph.D. would know that you can't do a proper controlled experiment with an audience of paying customers who are given envelops containing either Nutrasweet® (bad, bad, bad!) or vitamin C (good! good! good!), a popular technique used by Dr. Hawkins. He and Dr. David Gerston, another psychiatrist, refer to these public exhibitions as double-blind controlled studies. Maybe Dr. Hawkin's skipped that lesson in correspondence school.
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