ABSTRACT
This chapter is a brief examination of the ways in which certain deceptive practices, commonly associated with magic, stage illusion and stage mind-reading, can be and have been employed by various religious, spiritual groups and organizations, and the intention behind their uses. Spiritualism, as a movement, came about in the mid-nineteenth Century. Its primary belief is that the spirits of the dead can and do communicate with the living, most commonly by speaking to or through a trance medium. Warner admitted that many forms of modern psychotherapy have little innate healing capacity, and the benefits have more to do with the therapist than the mode of treatment. It has been demonstrated by a large number of scientific studies, to the chagrin of various types of psychotherapy. Shamanism also makes the claim that it can have both a beneficial and a negative effect on a person's health, healing an illness or cursing an individual.
