Inspiring heart, mind and soul.

We host Monday talks at St James’s Church, Piccadilly and weekend workshops in spirituality, creativity, wellbeing and self development.

Since 1982, we have welcomed the most well-known names in the Mind Body Spirit world.
We are dedicated to the exploration of diverse ways of living and being. We honour all spiritual traditions and welcome people of all cultures.

A friendly Disclaimer -
We take great care in the selection of our programme but Alternatives may not endorse all the views expressed by presenters at our events. Although St James's Church, in its openness of heart and mind, includes Alternatives, the ideas in this programme are not necessarily representative of the Church itself.

Deepak Chopra's HQ is the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in La Jolla, California. He is associated with a range of training courses and retreats, which run throughout the year in various locations, usually at expensive spa resorts. You might like to start with the 'Perfect Health Program'...This costs $2,750 for five days and includes a daily Ayurvedic massage, a single thirty-minute lifestyle consultation, a 'Perfect Health' workbook 'signed by Deepak' but neither transport, food nor accomodation.

If, however, you want to become an accredited teacher of Deepak Chopra's Ayurvedic approach you will have to pay thousands of dollars and complete a course made up of a prescribed series of workshops: Journey Into Healing ($1,475), Seduction of the Spirit ($1,775), Primordial Sounds Meditation ($325) and a Home Study Program ($1,795). Once again, accomodation is not included but for lunch you can 'try delicious Chopra Center Ayurvedic recipes each day for only $15 per day'. If money is tight you can still take the free 'What's Your Dosha?' quiz on Chopra's website. Using this I was able to discover that my nature is 'Vata' which means I have a 'buy, buy, buy' shopping style and could maximise health and wellbeing by drinking Deepak Chopra Relaxing Tea and enrolling in one of his 'Perfect Health Programs'.

Quote:

Quantum healing is healing the bodymind from a quantum level. That means from a level which is not manifest at a sensory level. Our bodies ultimately are fields of information, intelligence and energy. Quantum healing involves a shift in the fields of energy information, so as to bring about a correction in an idea that has gone wrong. So quantum healing involves healing one mode of consciousness, mind, to bring about changes in another mode of consciousness, body.
--Deepak Chopra

Chopra claims that perfect health is a matter of choice and that he can identify your dosha and its state of balance or imbalance simply by taking your pulse... According to Chopra, "contrary to our traditional notions of aging, we can learn to direct the way our bodies metabolize time". He sells oils and spices specifically aimed at appeasing Vata, Pitta or Kapha. Actually, what Chopra and other "alternative" healers sell is hope... But his hope seems to be a false hope based on an unscientific imagination seeped in mysticism and cheerily dispensed gibberish.

Dr. Chopra has done more than any other single person to popularize the Maharishi's Ayurvedic medicine in America, including some New Age energy concepts that boldly and falsely assert a connection between quantum physics and consciousness... He claims we can use "quantum healing" to overcome aging. Chopra believes that the mind heals by harmonizing or balancing the "quantum mechanical body" (his term for prana or chi). He says that "simply by localizing your awareness on a source of pain, you can cause healing to begin, for the body naturally sends healing energy wherever attention is drawn." Or, as he also puts it, "If you have happy thoughts, then you make happy molecules." This "quantum mysticism" has no basis in physics or biology and represents a leap of the metaphysical imagination...

What Chopra is peddling is quantum gibberish.

As would be expected of a guru spreading false hope, Chopra's trustworthiness has been compromised. In 1991, Chopra, when president of the American Association of Ayurvedic Medicine, submitted a report to the Journal of the American Medical Association, along with Hari M. Sharma, MD, professor of pathology at Ohio State University College of Medicine, and Brihaspati Dev Triguna, an Ayurvedic practitioner in New Delhi, India. Chopra, Sharma and Triguna claimed they were disinterested authorities and were not affiliated with any organization that could profit by the publication of their article. But
they were intimately involved with the complex network of organizations that promote and sell the products and services about which they wrote. They misrepresented Maharishi Ayur-Veda as India's ancient system of healing, rather than what it is, a trademark line of "alternative health" products and services marketed since 1985 by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Hindu swami who founded the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement.

Chopra spends much of his time writing and lecturing from his base in California where his license to practice medicine is delinquent. He charges $25,000 per lecture performance, where he spouts out a few platitudes and give spiritual advice while warning against the ill effects of materialism. His audiences are apparently not troubled by his living in a $2.5 million house in La Jolla, California, where he parks his green Jaguar, which he can easily afford since he has amassed millions of dollars from the sales of his books, tapes, herbs, appearances, etc.

Perhaps the greatest deception of Ayurveda is that it cares for the person, not just the body as traditional medicine does. As Chopra puts it, "The first question an Ayurvedic doctor asks is not, 'What disease does my patient have?' but, 'Who is my patient?'"* That may be the question, but it is not a person that the doctor is healing. It is the "quantum body" or the "mind-body"; it is the dosha that needs balancing. Taking a person's pulse and telling them their dosha is unbalanced and they should eat more nuts or less spicy foods, etc., hardly shows concern for the patient as a person. Not using a current photo on your web site or on the jacket of your latest book, which would show how you are aging, is deceptive, especially since you claim to know how to overcome aging.

He now runs the Chopra Center for Well Being in La Jolla, California, where the mission is "to heal, to love, to transform and to serve." Because many of those who come to this center are sick, one might call it a faith healing center. There are a few other things one might call it, but they might arouse Chopra's legal staff, who are fond of suing critics of their employer.

Of course, Chopra has a web site where he will be honored to take your money for one of his many books, tapes, or seminars. We should not be too harsh with our guru, however. By turning to metaphysics instead of biology, one avoids the risk of being proved wrong. It is much easier to dispense hope based on nothing to miserable people than it is to accept harsh and sometimes brutal reality while maintaining health, optimism and happiness.. It is much easier to find confirming evidence for a worldview than it is to do nuts-and-bolts research. It is certainly much more enjoyable to chat with Oprah Winfrey and rub elbows with the rich and famous than to watch another cancer patient die...

I'll let Dr. Chopra have the last word:

I in fact don't believe in the existence of time. That's one thing I have to tell you, and the other is that I don't take myself or what I am doing seriously.

Those who read my regular column in the Back Pages of The British Journal of General Practice may recall some of Stephen Russell’s ideas of how the body works:

the ears are the flowers of the kidney, so tinnitus is a result of depleted kidney energy;

memory is not so good pre-menstrually because blood is diverted from the spleen, which is the organ governing short-term memory.

These are not Stephen Russell’s ideas alone; they can be found in books about Chinese medicine. Every week, the Observer’s colour supplement Life is publishing this rubbish.



After the column appeared, I sent it, with a letter of complaint, to the editor of Life. I wrote a short letter to the Observer, which appeared in their correspondence columns, pointing out that our understanding of how the body works has moved on in the last 5000 years. I enclosed a photocopy of the letter when I reminded the editor of Life that he had not replied...and awaited Mr Russell’s reply. It was prompt, and I will quote from it.

“...a readership with even a passing knowledge of a form of medicine that has consistently proven its efficacy over the last five millennia would be evolved enough to know that the liver is not actually a plant with the eyes as its flower. Likewise, the kidney and ears. You are of course right that if taken literally this is nonsense. [I hope] my readers are not immune to the wonders of poetry. I use these terms metaphorically.”

There is no evidence in the orthodox sense that Chinese medicine as a whole has proven its efficacy (although some of its herbs are efficacious enough that they have side-effects)... The “evidence” that Chinese medicine works is anecdotal and self-fulfilling (if it’s survived 5000 years it must be right).

I don’t mind Mr Russell using metaphor. Analogy, for which metaphor is often used, is useful for explaining ideas, especially to people with no basic knowledge of a subject... But no principle is being illustrated by referring to the eyes as the flowers of the liver. Poetry it may be, but it is nonsense poetry, which could seriously mislead given the limited understanding that many people have of anatomy and physiology.

Mr Russell goes on in his letter to say that we in the West must not become arrogant about the advances of orthodox medicine—which is true. He avers that he never denigrates Western medicine—which is also true. He does not criticise Western medicine, he writes, because he does not know enough about it to do so; he asks me to show the same respect, and ends his letter by wishing for an end to “pointless polarising”.

The bookshops are crammed with books on “health fiction”. It is easy to find examples of erroneous ideas about diseases, their causes and cures. It is finding them in a serious newspaper that is especially upsetting. But “pointless polarising” is not pointless and respect is not an option when possibly ignorant people are told that:

hair is controlled by kidney energy (8 October 2000);

the kidney yin is responsible for the integrity of the knee joint (12 November 2000);

palpitations are caused by deficient kidney chi energy not holding the heart in check (11 February 2001);

the spleen holds things up against gravity and if unbalanced causes piles (1 April 2001);

vertigo arises from deficient liver energy causing weakness in the gall bladder meridian (15 April 2001);

and the energy in the body passes through a different organ or bowel every two hours (1 July 2001).

Mr Russell often precedes his explanations with “according to oriental medicine”, but I could just as easily write that according to ancient Britons the nose is the cauliflower of the spleen. It would be wrong, and so is oriental medicine.

When Mr Russell explained that bedwetting occurs because of deficient kidney energy and that acupuncture was useful (22 July 2001), a urological colleague who specialises in enuresis wrote to the Press Complaints Council. Their answer was that Mr Russell’s column was clearly entitled “An alternative look at health issues”, and therefore no action was necessary.

As long as alternative medicine seeks explanations in terms of mysterious energy channels and organs governing functions over which they have not the remotest control, then melding orthodox with alternative medicine is—to use a metaphor that is entirely appropriate—like devising university courses combining astronomy with astrology. There is no place for this in the NHS, and there is no place for it in a serious newspaper.

Neville Goodman
Consultant Anaesthetist, Southmead Hospital, Bristol

There was a natural repugnance when we learned of the revelations that the Barefoot Doctor admits to sexual relationships with women who are somewhere on the time continuum of being his clients. Witness alleged that some women clients complained that he is a sexual predator. Barefoot Russell made some colourful confessions and attempted to draw distinctions between active and former clients which do not seem to have been adjudicated upon as yet and are less than exculpatory.

The ‘Barefoot Doctor’…has been forced to issue an extraordinary statement admitting to having sex with ex-patients in the past.He also confessed to an encounter with a woman on Hampstead Heath during which he remarked on ’sexual tensions’ between them. She had initially approached him for a private healing session. He admitted exchanging what he calls ’salacious’ emails with women who approached him because they admired his work.

However, Barefoot, real name Stephen Russell, denies allegations made to the patient group Witness that he made sexual overtures to patients in treatment.

Russell was previously an Observer columnist, although the complaints came to light after he left the paper, and now says he no longer practises…

Jonathan Coe of Witness said his organisation had received five complaints about Russell relating to patients in treatment at the time of the alleged incident and ex-patients and warned such allegations could become more commonplace under the government’s planned expansion of so-called ‘talking therapies’ to replace anti-depressants for mental-health patients.

All of these clients mentioned above were adult women but that does not abrogate the fact that most people would consider that Barefoot Russell had a duty of care which he violated. Egregiously. It is more than possible that a disproportionate number of his clients were vulnerable women with conditions such as depression or anxiety that might increase their vulnerability to a sympathetic listener or sexual manipulator. More so when that listener, teacher, therapist has some form of general approbation as a Celebrity Healer and is mentioned approvingly in lifestyle magazines...

A sad and sleazy story. Distressingly, the lack of regulation means that Barefoot Russell’s behaviour can not fall under the heading of professional misconduct because he had no regulations to breach. It highlighted the concern by Witness and similar organisations that there is an urgent need for a stricter code of conduct for healthcare practitioners and workers, including those in the unregulated part of the healthcare industry.

Brandon Bays says she is inspired by the work of Deepak Chopra, and there are certainly echoes of his pricing structures and recruitment techniques in her project. 'Journey Intensive' two-day seminars are held all over the world, for which she charges each of the reportedly five hundred or more attendees per event £245. After one of these 'you become a 'Journey Grad' which opens you to a wide range of benefits and support and qualifies you to attend the advanced Journey programs' such as the two-day Manifest Abundance Retreat, which costs £670.

Dear Revd Hedley,

Some time ago I e-mailed you with regard to the claims made by Gary Mannion at his 4th February "demonstration of psychic surgery" at St James. You passed my message on to Alternatives, the organisation responsible for booking Mr Mannion. I did not receive a reply and my e-mails to Richard Dunkerley and Steve Nobel have also been unanswered.

I recently launched a new website, www.badpsychicsgarymannion.co.uk, in order to collate all the information about Gary Mannion gathered by readers of www.badpsychics.com and www.skeptics.org.uk. It is no exaggeration to
say that virtually every statement made by Mr Mannion to date is either a lie, an exaggeration or an evasion.

The Alternatives website includes the following disclaimer:

A friendly Disclaimer -
We take great care in the selection of our programme but Alternatives may not endorse all the views expressed by presenters at our events. Although St James's Church, in its openness of heart and mind, includes Alternatives,
the ideas in this programme are not necessarily representative of the Church itself.

This is all very well, but surely you (and other members of the clergy at St James) must have some opinion of the people chosen by Alternatives. To name three past and future Alternatives speakers at random - Doreen Virtue,
Deepak Chopra, Barefoot Doctor - are you not troubled by the ethics of allowing St James to give a platform to individuals who have made huge
amounts of money out of utter nonsense? What do you feel about Doreen Virtue's New Age version of angels, or indeed of Gary Mannion's claim that
his spiritual guide Abraham is the Abraham of the Old Testament?

I am currently working on an article about Alternatives and St James that should appear on www.badpsychicsgarymannion.co.uk by the beginning of next week. Please feel free to add a comment or contribute an article of your
own.

Thank you for your email about Gary Mannion in which you invited my comments.

You kindly reprinted the 'friendly disclaimer' that I insist Alternatives include in their publicity. This disclaimer is seriously meant for I most certainly do not agree with the content of some of the talks that are
presented by Alternatives. I am particularly sceptical with regard to psychic healing, especially so-called "psychic surgery" which may well need its own health warning.

As a Christian priest I believe that questioning and scepticism are actually healthy and I encourage it in others. Along with this particular 'health warning', however, I continue to defend the freedom of Alternatives to
choose their own programme. If I were to veto items on the grounds that I disagreed with them, the outcome would be that ultimately - either overtly, or by means of indirect manipulation - their programme would be mine. They would then cease to be 'alternative'.

Whilst I am not in the business of censoring Alternatives for their choice of speakers, I would encourage them always to bring wisdom, maturity and integrity to the process. I believe they do so, knowing that in the end they are themselves answerable for their own programme.

I very much agree with you that if teachers and those claiming to be healers make large amounts of money from their activities (be that in the field of 'new age' teaching or, mainline medicine, or indeed, through Christian
preaching), they all too easily risk their integrity and compromise what they might be seeking to achieve. That is quite apart from any who may set out as charlatans from the beginning.

I do not believe that Christianity should have anything to fear from the so-called 'new age' or from other alternative types of spirituality. At the moment, however, I recognise that the Christian church is the very last place to which those who are searching in life would look. One thing that my experience at St James's Piccadilly has shown me is that we need not retreat into a ghetto but can positively, realistically - and where necessary,
critically - engage with the world as it presents itself to us with its mystery and, occasionally its flaws and fakery.