The telly was in severe danger of being broken last night. I came very close to hurling something at it. As it was, the dog was treated to some fairly colourful language. The cause of all this was a programme on BBC Two called "Trust Me, I’m a Healer". It was about a so-called shaman, Peter Aziz, who claims to heal patients with the help of dragons, tree spirits and hallucinogenic drugs. Yeah, right. At one point, with a completely straight face, he said:
The emotions are actually stored in the cells of the body. In every single molecule of DNA in the body, there’s a crystal which forms, storing that emotion. And it’s these crystals that form in the DNA which affect the function of the body. And so only when you release those emotions that are stored does the body then heal.
Excuse me while I just count to ten. No, sorry, Peter, that’s just crap. And for this you charge 40 quid an hour? There’s plenty more where that came from on his web site, which has practically broken my woo-meter.
What really got me fuming during the film was the way he gives false hope to those poor unfortunates who are gullible enough to believe him. The film followed two such people. One was Margo, who had cancer of the colon. A lovely woman, but completely taken in by Aziz’s hokum. She has, of course, died. I think the nadir of the film was when Aziz almost (but not quite – he was obviously canny enough to realise the danger) said that his treatments for Margo would have been successful if she hadn’t have gone and had chemotherapy.
The film was made by Jason Massot, who I think was clearly too easy on Aziz, but then again, perhaps that was what enabled Aziz to give free reign to his nonsensical claims, and condemn himself out of his own mouth. Had I been in Massot’s shoes, I would have found it difficult to keep filming. I would have wanted to stop the camera and shake Aziz warmly by the throat every few minutes.
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