______________________________________________________________________
**For those just tuning in, there is an extended comment thread discussing the background of RBTI, including personal testimonials, in the comments of the previous post here.
Matt ~
Thanks for your response and addressing some of my questions. In the interest of continuity and keeping the thread from getting aged out, I'm responding here.
Yes I was aware of much of that. Not all. Even some of the people that claim to have great results from Reams like Jim Daily still kinda thought Reams was a whack job.
Are you referring to the same Jim Daily who offers the first-person testimonial for Carey Reams on Youtube? If so, I'd like to include that Jim is the owner of Daily MFG, a supplement company he began solely to manufacture and distribute supplements designed by Reams.
The company has an annual revenue between $2.5 - 5 million and has been in existence since the mid-70s. Daily is on record in multiple instances as having sought out classes on the RBTI method for the cost of $2500 (adjusted from the 1970's, it would be the equivalent of approx. $8000) BEFORE receiving any treatment or experiencing positive effects.
(Please review the 'sunk cost fallacy' and 'confirmation bias' for why this is important:
http://sunk-cost.behaviouralfinance.net/
wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias )
He was later paid to teach lectures on the material, traveled with and assisted practitioners, and was in general a close business associate of Reams'.
- Daily MFG website: www.daily-mfg.com/index.html
- Explanation of Daily's invention for Reams: daily-mfg.com/documents/making%20mincol.pdf
- Video of Daily RBTI lecture: daily-mfg.com/videos/lesson%204.html
- Company profile on Manta: manta.com/c/mm7f8wz/daily-manufacturing
Considering the above, the assertion that Daily thought Reams was a "whack job" or that he can offer a balanced testimonial in any regard seems pretty doubtful.
I'm not looking to make a character judgment on Reams or Challen
Neither am I. You'll notice that I never mentioned Reams' character or personal life in my findings, only factual evidence and associations that raise valid questions of credibility, accountability, legality, motivation and expertise.
or say that Challen's approach doesn't work just because he repeatedly tells me alarming things like "the spirit talks to me Matt, the spirit talks to me,"
I have not said that either, so I hope you don't misconstrue my meaning.
I agree with you that that one tendency is not grounds for dismissing, testing, or even questioning the RBTI approach. I would say the same if you were to report he said, "Vishnu speaks to me," "The numbers speak to me," "Elvis speaks to me," or "The 49ers are going to win next year,", etc. I don't know if that's true, and the statement is irrelevant--it has nothing to do with anything else. Only the facts and results of the method are grounds for testing, not Challen's personal beliefs.
If RBTI truly is a verifiable, free-standing method, those things should be fairly simple to keep separate.
Out of curiosity, why do you find his statements alarming?
So I did what you do when you read fiction - I practiced the age old technique of the willing suspension of disbelief to see what was going on up here, if anything.
Suspension of disbelief is an excellent practice -- for the purpose of, as you said, enjoying a work of fiction. S.o.D. is a literary device, first mentioned by a poet in regards to "shadows of the imagination".
For those of us with very real health concerns seeking information (often from independent researchers like yourself), the process of inquiry is not fiction. It can be a road clouded by emotion and misinformation, driven by desperation, slowed by exhaustion, and fraught with tough judgment calls and financial decisions. I believe you know this from first and secondhand experience, but it bears repeating. This is not a storybook scenario.
In a nonfictional context, a more accurate term for what you're exercising would probably be 'suspension of critical thinking'. The connotations are less warm and fuzzy, but it's a clearer definition. I'm calling for clarity -- not only on the details of RBTI, but also for clarity on how you are discerning if this method "works".
Can you share your process, not just your conclusions and endorsements?
PART 2
And the most convincing things I've seen are real clients who have seen their cancer come and go depending upon whether or not they were adhering to Challen's advice,
Those would be impressive results. The first questions that come up are:
- Were they first diagnosed with cancer by a doctor, another practitioner, or by Challen himself?
- Have you spoken with these cases, or heard about/looked at files secondhand?
- Can the cases you've seen be verified through third-party evidence such as changes in scans or blood test results, or are they anecdotal?
- Were they undergoing any other treatment or protocols in conjunction with RBTI?
- Does Challen have enough of a sample pool to account for spontaneous remission, if you were to do an analysis?
- Does Challen acknowledge that spontaneous remission exists?
several people who went from having numbers all over the place to having them very tight around the ideal
This brings up a very important question, which you might want to ask Challen: Is it true that sometimes, having "perfect numbers" means you're close to death?
(This is repeated by Reams and throughout the RBTI material, even by practitioners who otherwise contradict each other.)
Challen is 5'8" with crooked teeth and a bunch of fillings and his two sons are 6'2" None of them have had braces or cavities. They look truly amazing. The youngest girl has perfect teeth and looks like she is nearly 6 feet tall.
Yes, most of us do take notice of tall, pretty people with nice teeth. Shout-out to good old W.A. Price. :-) There are a lot of confounding factors there that can't be verified, though--from the genetics of his wife and both their parents, to his younger physical traits, to what his kids will look like when they're his age, to the presence of simply good nutrition irrespective of "the numbers".
(And of course, that old stickler: luck of the draw. Nutritional eugenics aside, some people are just born hale and good-looking.)
Related to my previous questions and comments -- do you know how to set up a double-blind trial?
Taylor/Hobson
No comments:
Post a Comment