Kimberly SchmidtMM asks: “I was wondering if the book Parables of the Flesh by Dr. Kimberly Schmidt is new age or not?”
After watching a 23 minute presentation by Schmidt, a Colorado-based chiropractor, on her ideas about how to treat the whole human person, I came away convinced that her practice is a mish-mosh of untested methods which are very much associated with the New Age mixed with a little Catholicism.
For instance, she employs muscle testing techniques which she vehemently claims is not New Age and she’s right – it’s not based in New Age, it’s based in the occult.
She mentions the energy in the body in a way that doesn’t reveal whether she’s speaking about veritable (scientifically proven) or putative (non-proven, i.e., universal life force) energy, but one of her slides in the presentation specifically mentions acupuncture points which is referring to the nonexistent putative variety.
She also relies on the neuro-emotional technique (NET) which is considered to be an unscientific approach to healing so-called “emotional blocks” that allegedly cause illness in the body. Practitioners focus on releasing these emotional blocks from where they are stored in the body’s “memory”.
If patients don’t get well with the NET approach, practitioners then begin to search for NEC’s (neuro-emotional complexes). Schmidt describes NECs as aberrations which occur as a result of the body being in a low state of resistance at the time of some kind of traumatic event. When this event is then recalled to memory – either consciously or unconsciously – this low state of physiological resistance will be duplicated in the present-day body.
When this happens, Schmidt resorts to what she calls Incarnational Healing which supposedly corrects these NECs by providing the patient with a solid Catholic-Christian worldview through which to process them.
To her credit, the consent form that must be signed by all patients clearly states that Incarnational Healing is a form of emotional work that is not currently taught in chiropractic schools and is considered “unproven” by the Colorado Board of Chiropractic Examiners.
Schmidt’s book, Parables of the Flesh, is described as a “grand tour of your body that explores the rich symbolism and poetry that was woven into your flesh at your creation. You’ll come to understand the sweetness of a God who enfleshes his words spoken to your heart. You’ll come to see everything that ever happens to you as his love notes that are intended to soften your walls and win your love for all eternity.”
It sounds nice, but we already have a book about the exquisite beauty of the body and what it reveals about ourselves and our Creator – it’s called Theology of the Body. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to learn about this subject from a reliable source, such as a canonized saint, rather than a chiropractor who utilizes untested methods in her practice.
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