I don't doubt that the author is sincere, and is passing on information that she believes is true and will be helpful. But as someone who had spent much of his life working with people who had disabilities, I read this with trepidation.

I remember when Facilitated Communication, developed ,in Australia by Rosemary Crossley, came to the United States. This was a technique to allow nonverbal individuals with autism to communicate on a keyboard, with a trained facilitator gently supporting the individual's arm. The methodology was hailed as a tremendous breakthrough, and rapidly spread across the country and throughout the autism communiuty. Excited parents shared with one another the loving notes they were receiving from their heretofore silent children, and were often amazed by how academically advanced they had become.

But there was a darker side. Sometimes a child would say, through facilitation, that a parent, teacher or other individual had molested or improperly touched him or her. In some cases, individuals were arrested and prosecuted--and in too many cases, they were convicted of abuse.

Nearly fifteen years passed before someone decided to subject the methodology to double blind testing. This was fairly simple: the facilitator and the person with autism sat close enough for facilitation, but a partition ensured that the facilitator and the subject were viewing different screens. A series of pictures appeared on the screens ... but not necessarily the same picture for both parties. After each image was on the screen, the person with autism would type what he or she had seen--with the support of the facilitator.

And then it all came crashing down. In no case did the individual type what was on his or her screen if that differed from what the facilitator was seeing. Instead, they typed what appeared on the facilitator's screen, even though they were unable to see it.

Clearly, the facilitators were unconsciously influencing what the individual with autism was typing, through the ideomotor effect. Once the first test demonstrated that Facilitated Communication was ineffective, many more trials were undertaken--and with the same result. A decade and a half had slipped away before a simple, scientifically valid test was administered ... a decade and a half of false hope, ugly accusations, careers derailed, innocent people .incarcerated.

I am not going to venture an opinion on materialism as the basis of reality, but I will say without hesitation that scientific methodology remains our most reliable source of information. Positing "fields which cannot be seen or measured," is asking the reader to take a leap of faith.

Too often, as in the case of Facilitated Communication, that leap takes one into the abyss.