In recent years Terence Palmer has
built a reputation as a practitioner of Spirit Release Therapy (SRT). This is a method that its advocates claim can
be used to alleviate distress in individuals afflicted by entities which have
attached themselves unbidden and are having a negative impact on sufferers’
lives. Those in this situation may have
tried more conventional therapeutic techniques, with no effect.
The field is mainly understood to
involve discarnate spirits which are earthbound, though there is debate as to
whether they are all objective, as some might be subjectively created by the
experient; self-generated thought forms rather than spirits of the deceased (in
effect tulpas). Either way they have a
‘disembodied consciousness’ of some kind capable of communication and reason. The object is to detach the spirit and move
it into the light, thereby bringing relief to the victim. SRT should not be confused with the religious
rite of exorcism, thus ‘spirit attachment’ is often used in preference to possession,
and malicious damaging spirits labelled ‘dark force entities’ rather than
demons.
So how does SRT work? According to Palmer’s website, Healing the Wounded Spirit with Dr Terence
Palmer PhD, the first step ‘is to uncover the nature of the attached entity
and ask it to reveal its objective,’ which is done psychically. Then the practitioner acts as an intermediary
to resolve the conflict between the entity and the person to whom it is
attached, to their mutual benefit. As
well as the release itself there is the need to address the cause of the
attachment and consider future protection.
This is all achieved by working with the spirit guide of the ‘patient’
through the ‘etheric field’ using telepathic and clairvoyant ‘methods’.
Palmer has contributed a lengthy
article to the Society for Psychical Research’s Psi Encyclopedia which lays out the scope of SRT. In it he says that ‘The treatment evolved
from the pioneering clinical experience of practitioners who discovered the
benefits of entering into dialogue with the “possessing entities”, bypassing
preconceptions about whether they really existed, or their nature.’ Preconceptions may have been bypassed
previously, but SRT’s efficacy is based on the assumption of attachment by
earthbound entities having harmful consequences. He rightly notes that SRT’s claims have yet
to be substantiated by rigorous empirical studies.
I had come across Palmer through
the Society for Psychical Research and had assumed that SRT was something he
did as a free service. So I was
surprised when looking at his website to see that he charges clients £100. What then made me really take notice was the
entry on his website, dated 26 November 2018, which stated that a target of 200
cases had been reached.
If they all paid £100 each, that
is £20,000, in addition to a Patreon page which charges to access articles and
income from his book The Science of
Spirit Possession (2nd edition), retailing at £52.99 hardback, £37.99
paperback. He is involved in a ‘School
for Spirit Release’ which offers an accredited certificate (from the
International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine) allowing the holder to
practise SRT. It costs, for courses held
in the UK, £247 per weekend for two
weekends; and for those outside the UK, £494 for four consecutive days (attendees
can have 20% off his book even though the preface specifically states it is not
a manual for student SRT practitioners).
It is even possible to participate in a course with Palmer to learn SRT
in Mexico in March 2019, a mere US $695 for a four-day workshop. There is clearly money to be made from
releasing spirits.
One might assume that the £100
fee covers expenses, but no travel is involved.
The ‘fees and booking’ page of Palmer’s website states that the therapy
is administered ‘remotely’, because conveniently for all parties, ‘Procedures
are conducted in the ‘spiritual’ dimensions – not the physical. This means you
don’t need to be in any particular place at any particular time to receive a
remote procedure as they are conducted beyond time and space.’ According to the ‘A Spirit Release
Intervention Protocol’ page on Palmer’s website, which lists 56 numbered steps,
‘Experience has taught us that the average time taken to use this protocol for
an intervention is about fifteen (15) minutes. Simple ones can be done in eight
(8) minutes.’
Two individuals split the fee:
the facilitator (presumably always Palmer) and the medium (presumably always
his colleague Andrew Porter who collaborates with the spirit guide ‘Chen’. Palmer and Porter are both listed as ‘course
trainers’ at the School for Spirit Release (‘Dr Terence Palmer PhD is the
principal instructor, ably assisted by his colleague, the gifted medium Andrew
Porter and the spirit guide “Chen”’) and Porter can be seen working with Palmer
in YouTube videos). The attitude to
money expressed on the website is fairly brusque:
‘We live in a world where it
costs money just to exist and occupy space on the planet. Maintaining this
device costs money, as does communicating with anyone by phone, email or any
other means. We are not funded by the NHS or any charity and our research costs
are not covered by an institution. Unfortunately this means that we are not
able to provide a service free of charge. If you are not able to acknowledge
any value for the services offered here then perhaps you can find someone else
who can give you a service for free.’
It does not sound very spiritual,
and does sound like a business (Palmer freely uses his membership of the Society
for Psychical Research as a credential, which probably contravenes the second
of the Society’s members’ guidelines, which states: ‘Membership of the SPR may
not be used for personal gain of any kind’).
However, Palmer says in his Psi
Encyclopedia article that ‘...the modern Spiritist movement in Sao Paulo,
Brazil engages thirty-five hundred mediums from all walks of life from humble
illiterates to lawyers who provide their services to the suffering for no
charge,’ and it is a fair bet that it costs money ‘to exist and occupy space’
in Brazil, just as it does in East Kent.
In addition to his website and
the SPR article, anyone who wants to learn more about Palmer’s activities can
find about 140 of his videos on YouTube.
They include an intriguing one from December 2018, ‘Case no. 269.
Dialogue with intelligent reptilian using a human for incubating is (sic)
offspring.’
Palmer undoubtedly achieves
positive results with at least some of his clients (there are eight testimonials
from grateful clients on his website at the present time); but whether this is
due to the efficacy of SRT or to the placebo effect, or possibly to
conventional treatments being undertaken at the same time, must be open to question
in the absence of any properly-conducted research, along with the contentious
reliance on mediumship and spirit guides.
More worryingly, as the subject of spirit possession is speculative,
despite its claim to be scientific, it must be impossible to say whether his
and Porter’s efforts might not make the situation worse for some
individuals. There are references to
dissociative identity disorder on Palmer’s website, but they are couched in
general terms, and I could find nothing to indicate that SRT may be unsuitable
for some individuals. If such guidance
is there, it should be more prominent to prevent unrealistic expectations by
vulnerable individuals.
NB All quotations are correct at
the time of writing.
References
Palmer, Terence. The Science of Spirit Possession (2nd
Edition), Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2014.
Palmer, Terence. Healing the Wounded Spirit (website), https://www.terencepalmer.co.uk/.
Accessed 11 January 2019.
Palmer, Terence. ‘Spirit Release
Therapy’, Psi Encyclopedia, https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/spirit-release-therapy.
Accessed 11 January 2019.
Society for Psychical Research
‘Member Guidelines’, https://www.spr.ac.uk/membership/member-guidelines.
Accessed 12 January 2019.
