Nina Knowland at large in Trowbridge!

[julia]

Here's somewhere to avoid like the plague should you ever find yourself in Trowbridge: You Beauty at 60 Fore Street. Every Thursday it holds a "healing clinic" with a lady we're all too familiar with - Nina Knowland!

Nina is an Intuitive energy healer and psychic surgeon and has performed some incredible healing. She is currently being studied by PRISM and Professors from University of London as they cannot believe how she performs her gift.

Hang on a minute. PRISM, set up by notoriously credulous psychic researchers Archie Roy and Patricia Roberts, doesn't even exist - it was wound up long ago. And who exactly are these "Professors from University of London" who "cannot believe how she performs her gift"? I think we should be told. I e-mailed Professor Chris French at the University, who told me that he knew nothing about any tests involving Nina Knowland. Mind you, we know from past experience that Nina has a habit of exaggerating (well, it's a kinder word than "lying") about the people who are supposedly testing her "gift". Last year she claimed to be working with a team from Glasgow University, when in fact the team were - yes, you've guessed it, Roberts and Roy working under the auspices of the Scottish Society for Psychical Research...

You Beauty also offers the utterly nonsensical K-Test for food allergies. This little gem of pseudo-science is sold by Kymatika (www.k-test.co.uk), and supposedly works by measuring how the body’s “natural resting voltage” is affected when exposed to the unique “resonant frequency” of various foods. What did the panel of experts from the charity Allergy UK have to say about the K-Test? Says Muriel Simmons, CE of Allergy UK, “They said, "No, we wouldn’t recommend it".

Something tells me that Nina should feel thoroughly at home at You Beauty.

[Deleted]

How very interesting...

[julia]

Hayley, I e-mailed You Beauty to point out Nina's dishonest claims. This is their reply:

"Thankyou for bringing this to our attention. We will address the matter immediately and get our web designer to amend the copy to read differently. We have to say that Nina occasionally works here and we have personal experience of some remarkable work that she has carried out, so she does indeed have a special gift. However, we do not want to be misleading our Clients regarding professional bodies. We will take action and once again thankyou for pointing this out."

I have to wonder how much the spokeswoman for You Beauty knows about the placebo effect, cold reading and the other factors that make life so easy for parasites like Knowland, whose website includes this testimonial from a cancer patient:

I came to Nina on the 4th October 2008 through recommendation by my sister's friend. I had been diagnosed with womb cancer which had spread to my liver and was also found in my lymph nodes and Aorta. Through this disease my stomach had distended. I was feeling fatigue, and had increasing pain, I lost a stone and a half as I had difficulty eating.

I had to have help with the house and home so my partner took time off work to look after me.

After my first session with Nina (before my first chemo therapy treatment) I was able to eat a little food, and I had less pain.

After further sessions with Nina my appetite increased, my energy levels went up and my pain has disappeared to a point I have needed no pain relief. My stomach also reduced in size quite dramatically.

My partner was needed less at home, I have been able to go out shopping and recently was able to drive the car which I have thought not possible.

At this time my symptoms have gone and my stomach continues to go down in size.

I wait a further scan.

I would certainly recommend Nina to anyone with this condition.
A WATKINS, PEWSEY, WILTSHIRE

You'll notice that A Watkins doesn't say if her condition continued to improve AFTER the chemotherapy started. She seems to be giving Knowland all the credit, and I find it worrying that she is recommending other cancer patients to her. I hope anyone with cancer has the sense to seek mainstream treatment as well as Knowland's mumbo-jumbo, not as a replacement for it.

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

All we can do is keep sending emails, keep complaining and keep fighting.
No one else is, so it is left to us

[julia]

I checked the You Beauty site today and Nina's lies about PRISM and the University of London have been removed.