“57,673 cures and counting”—welcome to Curedrive.org, otherwise known as Immunics or WHUM, formerly Nexus and further back in time as Direct Centering, the 30+ year old cult that now claims to teach you how to cure yourself of virtually any illness, including all the biggies.

I thought it would be appropriate to post about them here in the Alternative Medicine forum because of their explicit medically-related claims.  The leader claims that he has cured himself completely of herpes, and others who have been graced by his “teachings” have cured themselves of stuff ranging from Acne to Cancers to Heart Failure to HIV to Lupus to MS, etc. as displayed on the upper left of their homepage: http://www.immunics.org/

I’m wondering if anyone here has encountered them.  I posted about them on the JREF forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=112659 and it sounds like this group is still flying under the radar of the skeptical community. I was involved with them when I was young and credulous for several years—the cult leader had a very different “teaching” back then which was an amalgam of influences including Meher Baba, est, Scientology, primal therapy, Zen, Mind Freedom (now known as the Sedona Method), but focused on a subject that is now very trendy thanks to Oprah and “The Secret”—manifesting.  Given my current status as a skeptic, atheist, and ex-New Age cult member, I can see the potential hazards for any person struggling with illness to fall under the influence of this group.  Hopefully they are still obscure enough that they haven’t crossed over from being benign to genuinely dangerous, but it could be that people who have been screwed by them haven’t been putting their stories up on the web.  I’ve Googled many times to see what I could find out about their current reputation, but at this point most of the criticisms of them I can find are the ones I’ve posted elsewhere (JREF, Rick Ross’s Cult Education Forum).

I guess since no one here or at Randi’s forums have heard of them, they can still revel in their obscurity.

Naturaaal - 24 July 2008 02:37 PM

hmmmm… never heard of them.

And you are indeed better for it, I assure you.

This reminds me of a show I watched a few years ago. I think it was a Dateline NBC, or a similar program. It was a special on terminal cancer patients that sold everything they owned to go to Mexico to a “spiritual healer and doctor” who gave them oxygen enemas, a fruitarian diet, had them meditate and pray for healing, gave them blood chelation treatments, and injected them with unknown substances. His big thing was “healing from within” or “healing yourself through meditation.”

The reporter took a camera crew to Mexico to investigate the clinic. Many patients said “it’s my money, and I’m dying anyway, so I’m taking a chance and praying it works.” The doctor gave the reporter a list of former patient testimonials - they all stated that they had been “cured” at the clinic - proof that his methods worked.

When the reporter got back to the states and attempted to contact those people who were “cured” for interviews, every single one of them was dead. All the reporter could find was a bunch of pissed off relatives that were screwed out of their final few weeks with their loved ones, as well as their inheritance.

I think we have to recognize that 98% of the time when one is sick, one will recover.  And that’s whether or not there was any treatment.  With good medical treatment that remaining 2% goes up so that the figure is, say, 99.8% recovery.  So, that means that no matter what kind of crackpot “treatment” they are supplying, if they treated 60,000 patients they would have 58,800 recoveries which they would call “cures”.  Of course, if they have fewer than that ratio, it may mean that their treatments are actually doing a bit of harm.

Occam

Occam - 26 July 2008 02:51 PM

I think we have to recognize that 98% of the time when one is sick, one will recover.  And that’s whether or not there was any treatment.  With good medical treatment that remaining 2% goes up so that the figure is, say, 99.8% recovery.  So, that means that no matter what kind of crackpot “treatment” they are supplying, if they treated 60,000 patients they would have 58,800 recoveries which they would call “cures”.  Of course, if they have fewer than that ratio, it may mean that their treatments are actually doing a bit of harm.

Occam

After extensive research, it has been unequivocally shown that if left untreated, the common cold lasts a week, however, with treatment, it clears up after 7 days.

It’s also probably true that 98% of cults such as this one will fade into oblivion within a few decades.
Such is the fate I wish for with this one, although they have managed to persist under one name or another
for over 30 years now with the same leader.

laarree - 26 July 2008 11:14 PM

It’s also probably true that 98% of cults such as this one will fade into oblivion within a few decades.
Such is the fate I wish for with this one, although they have managed to persist under one name or another
for over 30 years now with the same leader.

Unfortunately it is a case of ‘find a need and fill it’. When these quacks disappear, like a hydra, more will pop up. One could only hope that people will become less gullible with time, but with the state of our education system, it is highly unlikely.