Psychic surgery is a pseudoscientific procedure typically involving the alleged creation of an incision using only the bare hands, the removal of pathological matter, and the spontaneous healing of the incision. Psychic surgery has been condemned in many countries as a form of medical fraud.
It has been denounced by the US Federal Trade Commission as a "total hoax", and the American Cancer Society maintains that psychic surgery may cause needless death by keeping the ill away from life-saving medical care. Medical professionals and skeptics classify it as sleight of hand and any positive results as a placebo effect. It first appeared in the Spiritualist communities of the Philippines and Brazil in the middle of the 20th century, and it has taken different paths in those two countries.
Read more about Psychic Surgery: Procedure, History, Medical and Legal Criticism, Accusations of Fraud, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words psychic and/or surgery:
“It seems to me that all of the evil in life comes from idleness, boredom, and psychic emptiness, but all of that is inevitable when you become accustomed to living at others’ expense.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Ever since surgery began, man’s destiny has been to suffer, in order that he might be cured. And no one can change that, gentlemen.”
—Jean Scott Rogers, and Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)