#2259: Matt Singleton et al.

Matt Singleton is a Baptist minister in Louisville who also runs an Internet talk-radio program. A staunch supporter of the nearby Ark Park, Singleton is a fierce critic of evolution, calling teachings on evolution a lie that have led to drug abuse, suicide and other social afflictions. His criticisms have, not the least, been directed at Kentucky’s academic standards for public schools, which, as they should, include evolution: “Outsiders are telling public school families that we must follow the rich man’s elitist religion [no less!] of evolution, that we no longer have what the Kentucky constitution says is the right to worship almighty God,” Singleton said. “Instead, this fascist method teaches that our children are the property of the state” – relatively silly though possibly effective rhetorical gambit showing that someone is completely out of touch with anything resembling reality, of course.

Singleton made the comments when the Kentucky science standards were up for review in 2013. He was not the only one. Parent Valerie O’Rear, for instance, said the standards promoted an “atheistic world view” and a political agenda that pushes government control. Dena Stewart-Gore, meanwhile, suggested that the standards would marginalize students with religious beliefs, leading to ridicule and physiological harm in the classroom, and create difficulties for students with learning disabilities: “The way socialism works is it takes anybody that doesn’t fit the mold and discards them,” she said, adding that “we are even talking genocide and murder here, folks.” This would be an unusual definition of “socialism” outside of America.

Diagnosis: No, there is probably nothing you can do. It’s hopeless. 

#2258: Stephen Sinatra

Though he is, indeed, a cardiologist, Stephen T. Sinatra is better known as one of the most prominent and comprehensively lunatic woo-meisters, or “integrative medicine” practitioners, working in the US at present. In addition to being a cardiologist, Sinatra is a “certified bioenergetic psychotherapist”; we can probably safely assume that the certification is worth about as much as the bioenergetic psychotherapy it certifies. He also the proud owner of certifications from the Massachusetts Society for Bioenergetic Analysis, the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists and the American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine, a discipline that is emphatically not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties or the American Medical Association. All the certifications mentioned are of the kind that conveys less credibility on any practitioner bothering to obtain them. Sinatra is furthermore the author of the monthly newsletter Heart, Health & Nutrition and founder of Heart MD Institute, and proprietor of the “Healing the Heart” workshop, the psychospiritual component of a “healing” program where patients would, among other things, request guidance from “spiritual powers”. Sinatra is frequently featured on questionable talkshows, broadcasts and media outlets, including the Dr. Oz show and Suzanne Somers’s dangerously crazy book of cancer woo.

Bioenergetic psychotherapy is crackpottery based on the lunatic ravings of Wilhelm Reich, and has nothing to do with bioenergy as it is understood in real sciences – even practitioners occasionally admit that it is not science but instead “informed by science.” (It is not informed by science in any legitimate sense of the word “informed”.) Bioenergetic psychotherapy is, however, a classic tooth-fairy science underpinned by “worthless studies designed to generate false positives – the kind of in-house studies that companies sometimes use so that they can claim their products are clinically proven.”

In his books and newsletter, Sinatra otherwise promote a broad palette of quackery, from nutritional supplements to detoxification. In particular, according to Sinatra, to maintain good health you need to resolve your “emotional blockages” as well as physical ones: “whenever you confront a person with an illness, you have to involve everything, including the spiritual.… Every illness has a psychological and a physical component.” (Or put more succinctly: if you’re sick, or the advice you take from him doesn’t work, it’s your own fault.) His “metabolic cardiology” seems to be a kind of energy medicine – Sinatra is a disciple of James Oschman – focusing on the use of electroceuticals such as grounding or “earthing”, ostensibly to improve the body’s capacity to heal at the cellular level (Sinatra is one of the most prominent promoters of the quackery of earthing in the US). This is not how anything works, of course. 

And by the way, apparently the current epidemic of type 2 diabetes is also directly caused by rubber-soled shoes, which insulate us from Mother Earth’s vital 3.83 Hz vibrations, a frequency that “thins our blood so it’s like red wine, not ketchup.” You don’t want your blood to be like ketchup.

So what is the rationale for earthing? As Sinatra explains it, the Earth is a reservoir of free electrons, and without a connection to this reservoir, our cells are unable to balance harmful positive charges; he also includes pictures from live cell microscopy to illustrate how positive charge makes blood cells clump. Of course, our cells don’t need an infusion of electrons and live cell microscopy is a bogus test – Sinatra’s pictures are also unable to show a positive charge, and the blood cell clumping is an artifact that anyways would be irrelevant to the alleged health effects. 

Sinatra also claims that we are bombarded by electromagnetic radiation from modern technology, which may disrupt subtle electrical communications in our body; grounding reduces these induced voltages. In reality, of course, there is  no evidence that EMF disrupts communication in our body or that grounding would offer any help whatsoever if it did (“subtle” is probably a key term here). Ultimately, however, it’s all about the New Age: earthing is important since our connection with the earth carries information that helps align us with the greater network of intelligence of our planet. Try finding scientific evidence to contradict that, ye philistines. And the point about aligning with an intelligence network is wild imagination not supported by anything in science or reality.

But, ah, yes, the part of Sinatra’s claim you were waiting for: vibrations. Perhaps the (current) core idea in Sinatra’s otherwise somewhat amorphous medical philosophy is vibrations. According to Sinatra, “the whole essence of life is really vibration … when people are sick, their vibration goes down,” but “if we can increase the energy of our cellular framework … our lives will thrive … Vibration is the key to life.” What it means, or how Sinatra measures decreasing vibrations, is of course unclear (we have, of course, left the world of real medicine – or reality – far behind at this point). But he is pretty clear about what causes lowering of your “vibrational energy”:

-       “Toxic energy fields – WiFi, smart meters, cellular and cordless phones, etc.

-       Drugs/Alcohol/Sugar

-       Chronic illness

-       Negative emotions – hostility, fear, anger, shame, resentment, depression …

-       Over-vaccination in the newborn and infants [Sinatra is of course anti-vaccine; what did you expect?]

-       Living in the energy of entitlement

-       Living in a false self – My life is a lie

-       Any misrepresentation of … The Truth!”

That last one is rather revealing, though: This is cult-speak. Stephen Sinatra is trying to build a cult. Otherwise, you should in particular avoid consuming veal, since the angry vibrations in the flesh of animals raised inhumanely can be passed on to those who consume them. Fortunately, you can also increase your vibrations by eating “high vibrational foods,” many of which you can coincidentally and conveniently find in his online store. “[G]rounding the body, FIR sauna and the utilization of very low frequency pulsed electromagnetic waves” also help “assist the quantum energy of the body.” According to Sinatra “[t]his is the new wisdom that will assist us in the good vibe/bad vibe technological age.” “Wisdom” is certainly not an apt term for any of it.

As for EFM, “the chaotic, unseen, and unfelt environmental electrical fields we humans are increasingly exposed to from all the electronics, appliances, and telecommunications in our lives,” what is Sinatra’s evidence for harm? Well, Sinatra will baldly assert that the evidence shows that power lines cause leukemia in children, which is false, and that cell phones cause brain cancers, which is equally untrue. Primarily, however, Sinatra will point out that “[i]llnesses like multiple sclerosis, autoimmune disorders, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and autism have been proliferating in recent years. The incidence of cancer is up, particularly among young people,” so electropollution must be the cause. Correlation is causation, even when there is, in fact, no correlation.

Sinatra has promoted other kinds of pseudoscientific nonsense, too, of course. He is for instance co-author, with Jonny Bowden (proud holder of a “degree” from the diploma mill Clayton College of Natural Health), of the book The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won't Prevent Heart Disease-and the Statin-Free Plan That Will. Though less flagrantly nonsensical than his vibration woo, the book – which, to emphasize, hardly enjoys any better foundation in science than his claim that misrepresenting his claims may cause you ill-health by lowering your vibrations – is probably even more likely to cause actual harm to people than his vibration nonsense. (There is an overly fair review of the book here.)

Diagnosis: Egregious nonsense and lunatic New Age ravings, all of it. Of course, if you are able to distinguish evidence-based medical claims from lunatic New Age ravings, you are probably not in Sinatra’s target audience, and he does seem to have found one, for whom the fact that he is, indeed, an MD will probably give him some unwarranted credibility. And make no mistake: despite their laughable silliness, Sinatra’s advice has the potential to cause real and serious harm. Dangerous.

Hat-tip: Chad Hayes, skepdic, Harriet Hall.

#2257: James Simpson

Accuracy in Media is a wingnut “media watchdog” run by Don Irvine. It was founded with the expressed purpose of combatting “liberal media bias” but actually – and predictably – ended up combatting accuracy instead, in favor of promoting wingnut conspiracy theories. It’s a perfect fit for wild-eyed conspiracy theorists like Jim Simpson, who for instance opposed the Obama administration’s comprehensive immigration reform plan because he believed it to be part of a Marxist push to destroy America and potentially make President Obama a dictator. He also accused the “illegal immigration lobby” of using the tactics of Nazis and Communists in promoting “ideas that are self-evidently destructive,” and asserted that there would be no room for compromise because reform proponents are Marxists and Marxists will only be “emboldened” by attempts to compromise: “When dealing with Marxists, the ‘moderates’ compromise away our rights, our livelihoods and our country to people and agendas that are inherently destructive to our society,” said Simpson and warned that immigration reform would mean the end of America, for instance because immigrants want to “destroy the culture” and ultimately “create a huge pool of voters” that they can use to institute “despotic governments.” “Accuracy” is not an apt term to describe any part of Simpson’s rant.

Immigrants destroying America – as part of some liberal plot to “dilute” America with “not nice people” – is of course a recurring theme in Simpson’s, uh, thinking. For instance, Mexican immigrants are often “child rapists” who are coming to the US because they will ostensibly get off easier in the justice system. Another common topic is of course voter fraud, something that Simpson is very concerned about, based on little evidence beyond what his paranoid imagination can dream up: In a 2014 rant, for instance, Simpson argued that  voter fraud is a massive, “existential threat to our American Republic,” but the only “proof” of voter fraud happening he managed to list was college students voting in the state where they attend school, which is legal (not counting his references to Kris Kobach’s infamously dishonest and silly voter roll “crosscheck” system, which was carefully designed to yield false positives that weren’t controlled for). Of course, in Simpson’s mind, campaigns to replace the electoral college with a national popular vote and efforts to restore felons’ right to vote also count as conscious efforts to increase voter fraud. So there is that. “Democrats’ attitude toward voter fraud is the voting version of reparations for slavery,” complained Simpson.

Simpson thinks boycotts of companies by people he disagrees with are “economic terrorism”; it’s different when his side engages in boycotts, of course, since his side only engages in boycotts when they “are attacked first”.

Diagnosis: Yes, he is a fairly typical specimen, but that doesn’t make the delusional, paranoid garbage that passes for thought in Simpson’s head any less garbage. And people do listen to him, it seems.

#2256: Frank Simon

The American Family Association is a group of bigoted, unhinged fundamentalists. The national leaders are crazy enough, but the wild-eyed Talibanists you find in their various state chapters might occasionally be even crazier. Frank Simon is the director of the Kentucky chapter, and he believes that the 1962 Supreme Court decision prohibiting government-led prayer in schools led to “the AIDS epidemic and the drug culture” (as well as teen pregnancy and violent crime). Accordingly, legalizing government-led school prayer is “one of the best ways of returning God’s protection to America,” Simon thought, and promptly started a petition to change the Constitution.

No fan of gay people, Simon has a long history of anti-equality activism that borders on the, shall we say, unhinged, in particular through his group Freedom’s Heritage Forum, which in practice is just a de facto lobbying wing for his church. He has for instance promoted, in addition to pseudoresearch by Paul Cameron, Scott Lively’s The Pink Swastika, a piece of Holocaust revisionism that claims not only that gays weren’t systematically murdered by the Nazis, but were rather the architects of the Holocaust. And as Simon sees it, the evil continues: “There are hundreds of children in America who are dying of AIDS because they were sexually abused by homosexuals,” Simon said back in the early 2000s, based on data he found in the place where he usually finds data for his claims. There really are not, and it should be unnecessary to point that out. 

In his anti-gay campaigns, Simon is locally famous for using any means possible to win, and has a long history for instance of paying for anti-equality ads where he tries to link homosexuality to pedophilia. In 2004 he mailed what was more or less gay porn (graphic descriptions of sexual acts) to 65,000 households as part of his attempt to prevent renewal of the Kentucky Fairness Ordinance. The move seems to have backfired somewhat.

Diagnosis: Raging maniac. But Simon is resourceful and desperate enough to use any tricks at his disposal, and has been doing so for decades. So yes, he’s had an impact. It is less clear whether he is overall helping his cause or not.

#2255: Matthew Silverstone

His book. B.M. Hegde
is a legendary promoter
of quantum woo whose
career seems mostly
devoted to claiming that
Ayurvedic medicine is
superior to science-based
medicine. It is perhaps
 indicative of something
that they managed to
spell his name wrong
on the book cover.

Matthew Silverstone is a self-styled “serial entrepreneur” and possible poe. Silverstone has apparently, through spending “two years researching amongst other things the property of water”, made “discoveries that prove very simply how acupuncture works.” And it “is nothing whatsoever to do with chemistry but it is all to do with the unique properties of water and vibrations.” Right. Vibrations. And properties of water that have nothing to do with chemistry (one is forgiven for suspecting that Silverstone doesn’t really know what chemistry is). 

And how come Silverstone made such an amazing discovery that had thus far eluded science? “Western science ignores things that it does not understand, and energy flow is one of those subjects.” Scientific progress is hardly characterized by ignoring things science doesn’t yet understand, but according to Silverstone “If you ask most scientists with a western trained background they will look at you blankly when talking about energy flow.” Well, scientists tend to understand thermodynamics, but Silverstone's ideas are of course not about energy but about shimmering, magical spirit-stuff, like the Force. Admittedly, we have no doubts that Silverstone is able to confront scientists in ways that leave them baffled. Despite his contempt for science, though, “I have managed to provide overwhelming evidence that acupuncture works on simple scientific principles; namely vibrations and the unique properties of water. It is through water that the energy is transferred throughout the body.” Wanna bet on whether his scientific explanation and “overwhelming evidence” involve more than vague handwaving?

Silverstone is, however, more famous for his book Blinded by Science, which advocates tree hugging. Which is fine. We are sympathetic to tree hugging. But not for the reasons Silverstone thinks tree hugging is a commendable practice. According to Silverstone, he has scientifically validated that hugging trees is good for you, and his research shows that you don’t even have to touch a tree to get better, you just need to be within its vicinity to obtain a beneficial effect. Of course, Silverstone does not have the faintest idea what “scientifically” could possibly mean – nor “validated” or “research” – but apparently his conclusion is based on public health reports concluding that children function better in green environments and that “access to nature can significantly contribute to our mental capital and wellbeing”. Silverstone doesn’t go for “access to nature” as the causally efficacious feature here. No, Silverstone’s project is “proving scientifically” that it is … the vibrational properties of trees and plants that give us the health benefits: “everything vibrates in a subtle manner, and different vibrations affect biological behaviours,” claims Silverstone. The exact mechanisms are left as nebulous as the evidence he purports to have, of course, but you need to have a pretty closed mind and be pretty Big Science brainwashed to think that exactitude, detail, evidence or accuracy has anything to do with anything. The whole thing is really pretty much a variant of some branch of Taoism, just peppered with random assertions that things are “scientifically proven”.

Diagnosis: Mostly spam. Dressed in the garb of New Age pseudoscience. But still spam.

#2254: Alyssa Shull

Alyssa Shull is a graduate of Oral Roberts University, and the founder of The Pink Lid, a conference for teen girls “about self-worth, identity, value, and purity.” We hope, for the sake of self-worth, identity and value, that the conference fails to have an impact among its intended audience (we care less about purity, and so should you). Shull has also written for the Religious Right magazine Charisma, being none too pleased with Beyoncé’s 2013 performance at the Super Bowl and pinning the blame on Satan: “Beyoncé has this beautiful gift, that the enemy (Satan) has twisted to use for his kingdom” and that her performance is further evidence that ‘we need to be aware of the devil’s ploys so we can resist them!’,” claims Shull. She also suggested that a woman is responsible for not “displaying her body to people” in a manner that “causes men to stumble”; evidently radical Islamists are way ahead of the US on questions regarding moral responsibility. For good measure, she also buys into the Illuminati sign nonsense: Beyoncé “danced in a way that should only take place between a husband and wife (well minus the Illuminati signs and the worship ‘I want to feel your energy’ part).” But then, Oral Roberts University doesn’t exactly teach people critical thinking or how to navigate the world in a manner sensitive to truth, reason and evidence.

Diagnosis: Just don’t listen to her nonsense, and you’ll be fine. Unfortunately, too many people do seem to listen to her.

#2253: Sherry Shriner

Oh, heavens. 

The rabbit hole is a fascinating place, but the webs of lunacy are often woven according to logics so foreign to any rational mind, that unravelling the ideas going into them is tricky. For instance, the National Economic Security and Recovery Act (NESARA) was a set of proposed economic reforms suggested during the 1990s by one Harvey Francis Barnard, who printed 1000 copies of his proposal titled “Draining the Swamp: Monetary and Fiscal Policy Reform” (note that first part) and sent copies to members of Congress, believing it would pass quickly on its merits. It didn’t. Instead the ideas, unbeknownst to Barnard, took on life as a cult-like conspiracy theory promoted by Shaini Candace Goodwin, a.k.a. “Dove of Oneness”, a former student of The Ramtha School Of Enlightenment and “cybercult queen”, who claimed, contrary to all fact and reason, that the act was actually passed with additional provisions as the National Economic Security and Reformation Act, and then suppressed by the Bush administration and the Supreme Court, who orchestrated e.g. the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War as distractions from NESARA. Goodwin has managed to recruit a number of drone-like followers, including real, physical groups of people at least in Utah and the Netherlands, who pass out fliers and organize weirdly incomprehensible public protests. Sheldan Nidle is one of the followers, and has added his own mix of UFOs and prophecies into the conspiracy. Another active promoter of NESARA is one Jennifer Lee has, who has produced reports on how various otherworldly and “interdimensional” beings are helping behind the scenes to get NESARA announced.

But these loons are not the topic for the present entry. And Sherry Shriner, who is, is not a NESARA cultist. Shriner, who apparently thinks of herself as an Internet evangelist (“Servant, Prophet, Ambassador, Daughter, and Messenger of the Most High God”), does indeed take NESARA seriously, but instead of joining the cult she sees NESARA as a conspiracy run by malevolent reptiloid aliens she feels have been controlling the U.S. Government for a long time. I suppose it is best to just quote a section from one of her many websites, nesarasucks (hyperlinks in the quote are removed and replaced by ours): “BEWARE Of The Deceiver Maitreya & Sananda Esu Immanuel!! See Maitreya’s involvement with the H1N1 Vaccine and RFID Bracelets ... Mass Chip Implantation and Murder See the Bible Codes at [hyperlinks removed]. He’s an evil, wicked, liar who wants to destroy mankind. Wake up People!!! The Lies of the 5th Dimension & The Coming Lies of Maitreya – Who is now being replaced by Sananda! Why? Because Maitreya was destroyed by our Orgone! Sananda has been stood up to replace him! NESARA is the economic and political program of the Antichrist. Known as the National Economic Security And Reformation Act it is better described as a 

National Evil Snake, Annunaki (and) Reptilian Association or simply,Neo-logical Excrement Spread Artfully Round America.” And so on. “Once these Reptiles and Lizards are in control they will ratify parts 2&3 of NESARA that nullify part 1 and begin their own agenda of cannibalism and murdering the inhabitants of America,” proclaims Shriner. Readers may imagine the color schemes and font variations in the original for themselves. 

Shriner, though, promotes lots of other stuff, too, including prophecies about crashing starships and upcoming locust invasions, angels, Planet X, FEMA concentration camps, the “New Age Alien Agenda”, Jesus – not the fake Jesus promoted by the church, but the real one – and “her ancient grandfather King David” (there are apparently zombies, too, involved in the conspiracy). There is, unsurprisingly, a lot of stuff on Zionism as well (“The Talmud and the New World Order”). Apparently, her side is winning, though: “Governments in Terror over Twin Sun’s Arrival – The Twin Sun has arrived into our atmosphere and the aliens and evil beings are in TERROR! They’re all in a panic folks because it signals their coming demise!!” You haven’t noticed that “The Second Sun – The Second Sun is Here”? Well, that is because “[t]hey are trying to hide it with volcanic ashes and extreme clouding.”

Of course, we cannot do the range and depth of Shriner’s ideas any justice here. But it isn’t all innocuous, silly nonsense. Shriner actually drew some media attention to herself in 2017, when a former follower of hers, Barbara Rogers, shot and killed her boyfriend after Shriner warned said boyfriend that Rogers was a “Vampire Witch Reptilian Super Soldier” who would do him harm. A recurring feature of Shriner’s teachings is that the evil forces that manifest in or take over humans can only be discovered through minute details in their appearances and interests, so her followers should be wary and careful around friends, colleagues and family members (we suspect that becoming a follower of Shriner will quickly limit the number of people in the first two categories). In the case of Rogers, it was apparently a picture of Rogers enjoying beef tartare that set off Shriner’s alarm clocks. The subsequent murder of course only confirmed Shriner’s suggestions: “When the demon manifested in her, if it was the demon or a lizard, if she had both, a human's no match for that kind of supernatural strength,” said Shriner, and she wondered whether Rogers was “triggered” to kill her boyfriend after watching a movie in the Resident Evil series with him; Shriner said that the movie is based on a female “super soldier,” whom she knows. Resident Evil is not based on someone Shriner knows.

Shriner’s website offers extensive information on Orgone blasters that will ostensibly kill zombies and evil beings, and keep away aliens and demons. We are sure that there will be few zombies and demons around after you deploy an orgone blaster. Shriner has raised more than $125,000 in a GoFundMe campaign to deploy the blasters.

Diagnosis: At least she is pushing at the limits of hysterical gibberish, but it is only harmless nonsense until someone gets hurt. She should have received the help she needs a long time ago.