I was asked to 'hold the scoffing' till I'd read it, so I dutifully did. And it's a pile of absolute rubbish. I've tried three times to write a critique of some of it's major points, and each time it would have ended as a 10,000 word essay. So here's a brief version:
Gary Craig, the author of EFT, has this to say on the scientific basis of his therapy.
Our bodies have a profound electrical nature. [...] If you touch a hot stove you will feel the pain instantly because it is electrically transmitted along the nerves to your brain. The pain travels at the speed of electricity and that is why you feel pain so quickly. Electrical messages are constantly sent throughout your body to keep it informed of what is going on. Without this energy flow you would not be able to see, hear, feel, taste or smell.
So is the energy channeled by EFT electricity? This question is consistently dodged throughout the paper - the word 'energy' is always used, without specifying what type of energy it is.
If EFT is a method of moving electrical nerve impulses around the body, of rerouting it on it's journeys to and from the central nervous system, then EFT is scientifically testable. Nerves, neurons and axons are visible, understood, and their activity can be measured.
This means the claim that, for instance, there is an endpoint of the stomach meridian just under the eyes can be tested. We just have to ask:
* Is there a nerve pathway from the stomach terminating under the eyes? Or at least a 'junction box' under the eyes, connecting the stomach to the brain or spinal cord? In both cases the answer is 'No'.
* Can nerve impulses be stimulated or stopped by tapping on the skin? Sensory impulses related to pressure, temperature and pain obviously can - that's the whole point of a sense of touch.
But could you for instance make your right leg go numb, make your face feel hot, or induce thirst by pressure on certain 'special points' on the skin. Ask yourself: what would be the point of a nervous system set up in such a way as to (say) make you high by clicking your heels, make you nauseous by stroking your neck, or send you to sleep if you upset something hot on your lap?
EFT posits a body design by an insane electrician, where to switch on the light in the hall you have to turn on the shower, and you boil the kettle by slamming the front door.
If the energy that EFT claims to channel is not electricity, then the paragraphs describing the electrical nature of the human body are completely irrelevant.
That's the choice. False or irrelevant.
When the energy stops flowing....we die. Ask your doctor about this. No one disputes it.
Ah yes, this is one of the points where the author slips and slides between anatomical science and fantasy. When nerves no longer fire, life ceases - true. This does not mean that when his undefined life energy stops moving around, death results.
At this point, he is slipping gently between two different senses of the word 'energy', hoping we won't notice the switch. It's like the old joke about the preacher who says to the churchgoer, "God needs your love! I'm your path to God, so give ME your love!". Two rather different kinds of love.
In fact, civilization has known about this for millenniums. About 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered a complex system of energy circuits that run throughout the body. These energy circuits...or meridians as they are called...are the centerpiece of Eastern health practices and form the basis for modern day acupuncture, acupressure and a wide variety of other healing techniques.
If you search long enough, you might find two acupuncture or accupressureists who use identical techniques. There are hundreds of widely different maps of the body's 'energy lines', all incompatible. And whether the practicing says the energy from the left foot travels through the neck, hip or shoulder, the success rate is the same.
Some use electrified needles, or magnetised, or soaked in 'sanctified water'. Sometimes the needle is pushed into the skin, sometimes twiddled, for 5 minutes, 20 minutes or an hour. Anesthetic may or may not be used. Some claim to use gold needles, though that's close to impossible - gold won't take an edge sharp enough.
So, for 5000 years, EFT-like methods have been continuously practiced in a place called The East. Which East is this? Pakistan, Tibet, Vietnam, Korea, North China, West India, or what? Well, it's just The East. That is, The Mysterious East.
Anyway, it's demonstrably false that any therapy based on the flow of life energy has held continuous sway in any part of the world for 500 years, nevermind 5000.
Where did that idea come from that ancient wisdom is wiser than recent knowledge? Or that exotic foreign wisdom is truer than the local kind? Some people really do seem to think the older and more foreign an idea gets, the deeper and truer it becomes.
This energy courses through the body and is invisible to the eye. It cannot be seen without high tech equipment. By analogy, you do not see the energy flowing through a TV set either. You know it is there, however, by its effects.
The sounds and pictures are your ever present evidence that the energy flow exists. In the same way, EFT gives you striking evidence that energy flows within your body because it provides the effects that let you know it is there. By simply tapping near the end points of your energy meridians you can experience some profound changes in your emotional and physical health.
In other words, nevermind the details of theory, what matters is that it works. So how do we know it works? The only 'evidence' is a series of wild anecdotes from people who say they've has phobias and addictions cured.
You get the same smattering of isolated stories for every alternative therapy going. Colonic irrigation cured one man's depression, rebirthing helped a woman lose weight, prayer cured someone's diabetes (except that the devil makes them still take insulin) and scientology cured one case of cancer - even though the patient died soon afterwards and all the doctors are in denial because they say it was cancer.
You can prove anything you like by quoting three anecdotes of apparant success, ignoring hundreds of failure stories. For some reason, people are more inclined to put their faith in something that one person in thousand says changed their life than in a drug with a 70% success rate.
EFT is not a pernicious cult like scientology, and although it's a pseudoscience, it's not a dangerous pseudomedicine like chelation therapy. It has roots in NLP, taking the panacea aspect but dropping the EST mind control elements.
There's a thin line between using EFT for dealing with emotions and trying to apply it to medical problems. Until that line is crossed, EFT is a harmless waste of time.
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