Adrian Pengelly, Psychic Healer, and English Libel Laws
It cannot be a good week for Adrian Pengelly. He has been subject to quite a damning BBC Watchdog investigation about his business activities. Adrian claims to be a “Visionary Healer, Energy Worker, Teacher and Psychic” and declares that he is well known for his “work with terminal illnesses and cancer”.
If a so called ‘Psychic Healer’ is giving some sort of emotional or spiritual support to ill people then we might leave people to get on with their lives. However, Watchdog showed Adrian Pengelly claiming to be able to diagnose and treat horses, cure cancers and even deal with haunted houses. I understand that at least the former two are illegal. When filmed secretly, Pengelly claimed to be able to cure sixty five per cent of terminal cancers. When an actor* woman secretly filming asked him about his success rate he not only made such claims but also, shockingly, said that his success rate would be higher if the person was not taking chemotherapy.
Giving people false hope is bad enough, suggested they decline what might be their only hope is truly terrible. Adrian charges £30 and claims to see up to 120 customers per week.
When confronted by an interviewer, Pengelly appeared to change course and claim that he never promised to cure people. He made excuses about his failure to diagnose a horse despite claiming a 99/100 success rate. He also managed to assemble quite a crowd of people claiming to support his activities.
It would be very easy to dismiss Pengelly as a charlatan and fraudster. Indeed, the usual ‘stars’ on BBC Watchdog can be described as nothing other, being cowboy builders, rogue holiday companies and identity thieves. Indeed, the BBC list Pengelly under their list of scams. However, in my opinion, this simplistic description of Pengelly’s actions is almost certainly wrong.
Adrian Pengelly would appear to believe passionately in what he does. Merely being shocked by what he does and exposing it on television will not change his beliefs. Of course, it would look as if he does make himself vulnerable to a few pieces of legislation if someone wanted to prosecute. But again, he may well continue whilst ensuring what he says does not fall foul of the law.
Of course, if there were critical articles on the web then people could evaluate his claims with a bit more balance, but the web appears to be rather devoid of mentions. One clue is in a rather credulous Daily Mail interview that suggests Adrian will be taking legal action against the BBC. I can understand this action. If Pengelly really does believe he is a Psychic Cancer Healer then he may very well feel aggrieved and want to take any action possible to remedy the perceived wrong.
I also understand that it would not be the first time that Pengelly has resorted to legal action against criticism. The web site Bad Psychics have written a number of articles about Pengelly. One of their writers let me know about one of their article last April. It is no longer available on the site. In total four articles were on the site. All gone. I am told that Pengelly’s lawyers have been on to the site and I have been warned that if I write about him, they may well be on to me too.
This is dreadful. Adrian, if you are reading I would like to say a few things to you,
Adrian,
From what I can see you genuinely believe that you can help people with cancer. The people that meet you may well gain the impression that you can help where their doctors cannot. They may well even go away believing that their rather unpleasant chemotherapy will interfere with your ‘gifts’.
This is serious stuff. People’s lives are on the line here. As you might gather, other people seriously doubt you can have any effect on the course of cancerous illnesses. If you are wrong then you will be doing a great harm – a very big harm. Relying on your own personal experience without engaging with other opinions is a recipe for delusional disaster in any walk of life.
This potential for harm applies to all medical beliefs. In attempting to do good, you may well end up doing harm. Medicine is full of terrible mistakes, false promises and dashed hopes. The way we can tell good medicine from bad is by open discussion of the available evidence and science behind what you do. This applies as much to you as it does to any surgeon or doctor. Using libel laws to remove criticism about you does your customers no good. It puts them at risk. You might well be wrong.
Your critics may be wrong too. I do not believe so. But they should have the right to be able to voice their concerns about your work and you should be obliged to answer them as best you can. People can then judge what you say in that light. You may feel that people are lying about you or spreading misinformation. The answer is to correct them with your version of what is going on, not to threaten them with England’s terribly unjust libel laws. The lives of your customers are far more important than your reputation. By using libel laws, you protect the latter and put at risk the former.
By using the libel laws you look as if you are not willing to discuss what you are doing. If your success rate is as high as you claimed on camera, it should be fairly simple to demonstrate your powers.
There is of course another danger of using libel laws – that of unintended consequences. The British Chiropractic Association are currently suing writer Simon Singh following an article in the Guardian. There followed, what the legal blogger Jack of Kent described as a ‘Quacklash’. The claims of the BCA have come under massive scrutiny across the web and now hundreds of their members are under investigation by the General Chiropractic Council as a result of people’s outrage at the use of libel laws to silence debate.
There is a now a very large campaign to reform English libel laws. I would hope that it was something that all reasonable people could support. Perhaps you, Adrian, could do your bit by withdrawing from any legal actions you may be engaged in, allowing people to publish their criticism and you responding to it without legal threats, and allowing people to engage in a proper discussion about what it is you do.
Could you use your powers to do that? It would be a sensible place to start.
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Correction
*The woman in the film was not an actor but genuinely had cancer.
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- PHA Media’s Cynical Spin of Psychic Cancer Claims Just a few days after Psychic Cancer Healer, Adrian Pengelly, appeared on the BBC consumer affairs programme, Watchdog, he was the subject of a particularly glowing report in the...
- Richard Dawkins to Speak at LibDem Conference on Libel Laws and Science. This afternoon, Richard Dawkins will speak about the insidious nature of English Libel Laws as a guest speaker at the Liberal Democrats Conference in Bournemouth. Professor Dawkins (along with...
- Write to Your MP about our Libel Laws George Monbiot writes in today’s Guardian about the shame of our libel laws in the UK. The Rath case highlights the basic injustice of such laws, Rath, a German doctor,...
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- Bogus Law The University of Oxford recent completed a report into the comparative costs of defamation proceedings across Europe. Its conclusions were that the costs of libel proceedings in England and...
It looks the comments on the DM piece have been whacked by pro-woos.
I am the author of the articles which originally appeared on BadPsychics. It's worth mentioning that ONE of them contained a factual error which I was happy to put right within hours of it being discovered. I stand by everything else I wrote about Pengelly and a summary of it can be read here:
http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3755&page=15
As for that truly appalling DM article by Rebecca Hardy…well, suffice it to say that after getting no response from the paper's editor Paul Dacre I reported it to the Press Complaints Commission. The comments left by readers are, if anything, even more disturbing than the article itself. Moderately-worded comments critical of Pengelly have been removed because readers "complained" about them! This is absolutely bizarre, but since the article was essentially a puff piece it comes as no surprise that people are asking how they can get in touch with Pengelly for cancer treatment.
By the way, Pengelly's claims are currently being investigated by Hereford Trading Standards.
Just a reminder that Press Complaints over dubious journalism such as the silly and irresponsible Pengelly piece by Rebecca Hardy in the Daily Mail ( http://tinyurl.com/ybyauml)can be made online. Drop them a line at the following link if you find that kind of nonsense unacceptable http://tinyurl.com/cusqqa
It isn't his beliefs that need changing, he is way beyond help with those. It's his capacity to act on them that needs remedying. If there isn't a culpable homicide he can be nailed for, there will be eventually.
I am not advocating trying to change his beliefs. I merely suggest the small step of having healthy debate so that others (patients, friends, family) may be made much more aware of the nature of his business.
"Sir" Adrian is now using the services of a PR company!
http://www.prlog.org/10357539-pha-media-drums-up-thousands-of-messages-of-support-for-client-through-crisis-management-strategy.html
This, taken in conjunction with Pengelly's habit of threatening legal action and hiding behind the credulous fans who are supporting him on various forums, convinces me that he has no hard evidence with which to support his claims.
Know anyone who stopped their chemotherapy or other treatment on the advice of this charlatan? Know anyone who recovered or subsequently died after being treated by this man?
Herefordshire Council have instigated legal proceedings under the Cancer Act against Mr Pengelly. Time to come forward! This is only in the public domain now since the charges have been officially laid in Hereford Magistrates Court. The first court date is 12th March 2010
For more information and testimonials for Spiritual Healing check out: –
http://www.Reiki.org
There are now literally millions of healers within the Reiki movement and Reiki is a journey to find enlightenment of the SELF FIRST, not to necessarily heal others.
A sceptic will never believe a believer and vice versa! That is not to say each should ever be denied their right to have their particular opinion.
Open minded debate is better than courts.
Dear Margaret,
please, for the sake of honest debate, consider two things:
1) Testimonials are not good evidence. They are usually heavily biased and the cannot take things such as placebo and simple natural recovery into account. Only if the numbers prove that Reiki (or Adrian Pengelly) can cure significantly more patients than doctors can, can we be sure that he actually has “powers”.
2) If Reiki is about enlightening oneself, then please refrain from claiming to cure disease in others.
Have a nice evening
Daniel
‘millions of healers’?
My bullshit detector has gone off. Can you substantiate that?
I guess that once you believe that waving your arms around can channel ‘cosmic energies’, numbers will not mean much to you either.
And the actual words used by Pengelly were
“The success rate I suppose for treating cancer would be roundabout 60, 65 per cent”
“Some cancers 9 out of 10 people have treatment and get better. Only with my treatment they wont need anything else”
“My success rate is higher with people who don’t have chemotherapy and it’s lower than with people who do”
“I would never say don’t have it, obviously I can’t say that, but it makes me less sensitive”
“If they say chemo wont stop it, all we can do is give you more time, then I would say if you were a member of my family, don’t bother let me do it”
“It creates the possibility my work wont work. At least there I feel there is a chance I can get rid of it, so better to go with me than not with me.”
I do not know Mr Pengelly but I do know that Spiritual healing DOES work. My only critisism of him would be that it is not HIM doing the healing it is spirit and he should acknowledge that, if he hasn’t already. We are ALL capable of giving healing although I do not doubt that Mr Pengelly may be a good chanel.
Believe me there is plenty of evidence out there and studies by doctors for over more than 50 years showing that Chemo and radiation in many cases help to kill the patient. We have learnt that a tumour is a consequence of the bodies inbalance and removing it does not take away the threat of it returning. There is no CURE for cancer and there never will be, we must learn to manage the body effectively, to if you like, keep the body in sync.
I do actually agree with a lot he says but our dictatorial legislation does not allow him to actually claim a cure. The healing organisation that I help to run teaches its healers that they never say we can cure anyone of anything but the healing will always help. We do not make a charge by the way and do it for the love of our fellow man which in this materialistic world a lot of you will find hard to believe.
“our dictatorial legislation”
My, my, so much baloney in only one post.
Prove that your “healing” has any effect other than placebo, then we’re talking. The “dictatorial legislation” is there to protect patients from unproven claims.
How can you lot even sleep at night?
Daniel