Atlas›Domain XII · Complementary, energy & biofield›Guide 036
Guide XII-036

Mass and broadcast healers (Gröning, Kashpirovsky, Chumak)

Bruno Gröning, Anatoly Kashpirovsky, Allan Chumak1949Germany and Soviet Union
A 32 · L 60 · M 815 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: three distinct movements are covered: (a) the teaching of Bruno Gröning as the present-day Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends (Bruno-Gröning-Freundeskreis) publishes it in its public lectures and as German, French and US church, consumer-protection and press sources describe it; (b) the televised and stadium "health sessions" of the Soviet psychotherapist Anatoly Kashpirovsky (Central Television, from October 1989); (c) the televised and radio "healing sessions" and "charged" water and creams of the journalist Allan Chumak (from 1989). Sections 1–3 describe these methods as their organisations and reliable reporting present them; section 4 is the psychotherapist's own work alongside a client who uses, used or is drawn to them. The psychotherapist never performs, sells, prescribes or recommends any of them.

What it is. Mass and broadcast healing means one healer addressing very large audiences at once, in halls, stadiums, by television or radio, by printed photographs or by objects said to carry the healer's power. The three figures here are historically linked in German and Russian-speaking communities and still shape how some clients (and their parents) think about healing.

  • Bruno Gröning (1906–1959). Born in Danzig; became known as a "Wunderheiler" (miracle healer) after press reports in 1949 that he had helped a boy in Herford, Westphalia, after which thousands, many of them war-disabled, gathered at the house [source: Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012; VELKD 2014, Trenkel/Lamprecht]. He said he received God's healing power, the "Heilstrom" (healing stream), and passed it on "like a transformer"; he also handed out small foil balls ("Gröning-Kugeln") and photographs said to carry it [source: Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012]. He was barred from healing and from public appearances (a state-level ban in 1949 is reported by a secondary source [uncertain: secondary, unverified]; a 1954 ban in West Germany is reported by VELKD 2014), and in 1958 was convicted of negligent homicide and of breaching the German law on non-medical practitioners (Heilpraktikergesetz) after a girl with lung disease died without medical treatment [source: UNADFI 2018; Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012] (details in the Harm account). He died of stomach cancer in Paris in January 1959 [source: UNADFI 2018; VELKD 2014].
  • The Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends. Founded in 1979 by Grete Häusler (spelling varies across sources), based in Siegburg, Germany, and active on every continent by its own account [source: UNADFI 2018; VELKD 2014]. Doctrine was assembled by the group from Gröning's statements rather than left by him as a system [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht]. Its "Medical-Scientific Group" (Medizinisch-Wissenschaftliche Fachgruppe, MWF, reported as founded 1992) presents itself as "a World-wide forum of independent medical doctors, psychologists and health care professionals" that documents healing reports [source: City of Sydney event listing; UNADFI 2018].
  • Anatoly Kashpirovsky (1939–2026). A psychotherapist trained at the Vinnytsia Medical Institute who worked for about 25 years as a clinical psychotherapist/psychiatrist [source: Kommersant 2026; Velminski/MIT Press Reader 2022]. After a 1988 televised remote-suggestion analgesia during surgery, Soviet Central Television broadcast six "health sessions of the doctor-psychotherapist Anatoly Kashpirovsky" from October 1989 (first-broadcast date given as 8 or 9 October [uncertain]), with audience estimates of 180–200 million [source: Kommersant 2026; Bogdanov; The Insider]. He later held mass sessions in halls and stadiums, sold "charged" salt, water, photographs and discs, and resumed mass sessions in Russia in the 2000s [source: Kommersant 2026]. He died on 3 October 2026 [source: Kommersant 2026].
  • Allan Chumak (1935–2017). A sports commentator and television journalist who said he began to perceive auras and energy flows in the late 1970s; first on air on 24 May 1989, then in the morning programme "120 minut" [source: 360.ru]. Viewers were invited to place jars of water, creams and ointments in front of the screen to absorb his "energy"; newspapers carrying his "charged" photograph sold out in 1989 [source: 360.ru; The Insider; Bogdanov]. From 1990 his company sold "charged" drinks and creams, and he held paid sessions [source: The Insider].

Core idea of change, as each holds it (attributed, not endorsed or dismissed). Gröning's followers hold that illness follows humanity turning away from God and that a divine healing energy, made tolerable to humans through Gröning, can be received by anyone who adopts the right inner attitude; negative thoughts block it and positive thoughts let it flow [source: VELKD 2014; UNADFI 2018; Toledo Blade 2008]. Kashpirovsky presented his sessions as psychotherapeutic suggestion delivered to a mass audience ("setting" or "tuning" the viewer) [source: Velminski/MIT Press Reader 2022; Kommersant 2026]. Chumak presented himself as transmitting bioenergy or "bioactive information" by hand passes into people and objects [source: 360.ru].

2. Framework

2a. The methods as their organisations present them

Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends (current).

  • Entry: free public information lectures and documentary-film screenings, often in rented halls, churches or online; expenses covered by voluntary donations; the group states members can leave at any time without obligation [source: Toledo Blade 2008; City of Sydney listing].
  • Personal practice ("tuning in", Einstellen): sitting still with hands open, palms up, arms and legs uncrossed, turning attention away from illness and towards pleasant thoughts, to receive the healing stream; followers are advised to tune in daily at fixed times of day the group recommends [source: Toledo Blade 2008; UNADFI 2018; VELKD 2014].
  • "Regelungen" (regulations, adjustment pains): pain or symptoms during or after tuning in are taught as the healing stream at work, not as illness [source: UNADFI 2018; VELKD 2014, Lamprecht; Toledo Blade 2008].
  • Community hours: local groups meet about every three weeks (some online), facing a photograph of Gröning, with silence, music, tuning in, a talk by the group leader, readings of healing reports and members' own reports; hiking retreats in Austria combine silent walks with tuning in [source: UNADFI 2018].
  • Success reports: collected and edited under set procedures; the MWF presents them as medically documented [source: UNADFI 2018; City of Sydney listing]; the group also claims healings of animals, plants and technical devices [source: VELKD 2014].
  • Stated stance on medicine: "No medical advice, consultation, examination, or treatment is given, advised against, or interfered with" [source: Toledo Blade 2008, quoting the group]; the group's own event text says the teaching "stands above the narrow categories of medicine and religion" [source: City of Sydney listing, The teachings of Bruno Groening]; critics report that disinterest in treatment can nevertheless be subtly encouraged (see Harm account) [source: UNADFI 2018].

Kashpirovsky's broadcast sessions (1989) as described. A televised session opened with the healer speaking to camera and then to a cinema audience with soft music; home viewers were told to relax, let thoughts wander, sit in a stable position, keep away from sharp objects and fire, and to have a vessel of water ready, the water being described as "charged"; seriously ill viewers, epilepsy being named, were told not to take part [source: Velminski/MIT Press Reader 2022]. In live mass sessions, participants were reported to fall to the floor in trance [source: Bogdanov].

Chumak's broadcast sessions as described. Silent hand passes towards the camera while viewers sat in front of the screen with water, creams or ointments set out to be "charged"; later radio sessions and paid in-person sessions [source: 360.ru; The Insider].

Regulation and status, one line each.

  • Germany: spiritual healing presented as a religious act is not treated as requiring a Heilpraktiker licence, while diagnosis and medication remain reserved to doctors and licensed practitioners [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht]; Gröning himself was convicted under the Heilpraktikergesetz [source: UNADFI 2018].
  • Russia: mass healing sessions, including through the media, were barred under the 1993 health-legislation fundamentals and a 1993 Ministry of Health order on non-traditional methods [source: 360.ru; Bogdanov; Kommersant 2026 attributes a 1993 ban to President Yeltsin]; current Federal Law 323-FZ Article 50 requires a regional permit for folk medicine, excludes "occult-magical" services and imposes liability for unlawful practice or harm [source: Consultant.ru, 323-FZ Art. 50]. Whether today's statute itself still names mass sessions [uncertain: not verified].
  • Ukraine: a 2009 law reportedly permitted folk medicine except mass healing [uncertain: not verified].
  • Other countries (US, UK, Australia, France): no healer licensing specific to these groups; consumer-protection, advertising and medical-practice law apply generally [synthesis]. Government assessments of the Circle of Friends are not summarised here, as no primary government report is cited [uncertain].
  • Evidence status: no controlled evidence that broadcast, mass or distant healing affects physical disease; the large EU EUHEALS distant-healing study found no effect on chronic fatigue outcomes beyond the effect of patients' expectation [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht]. A Russian Ministry of Health and Academy of Medical Sciences review found Chumak's method had no scientific basis and was a hidden threat to public health [source: 360.ru].

2b. The psychotherapist's own framework alongside it [synthesis]

This is not a phased therapy. It is a set of tasks woven into whatever therapy the client is in:

  1. Notice and ask (any session): routine, non-judgemental enquiry about healing groups, broadcasts, recordings and "charged" objects; record it. Move on when the use, its frequency, cost and any medical-care changes are known.
  2. Understand (1–3 sessions, alongside the main work): meaning, hopes, explanatory model, group role. Move on when the therapist can state the client's model in the client's words and the client agrees.
  3. Check safety (immediately if red flags): medical care, medicines, children, psychosis or dissociation, finances, group pressure. Any red flag moves straight to risk response (4.7–4.10) before anything else.
  4. Support decisions and coordinate (as needed): values-based decisions, consent to contact the doctor or pharmacist.
  5. Ongoing: review at each change in physical health, in group involvement or in family conflict; report where duties apply.

3. Guiding principles

  • Never perform, sell, prescribe or recommend. The therapist does not tune in with a client, "send" healing, use charged objects, play broadcast recordings or endorse a group. Practical meaning: if asked to join in, decline warmly and return to the client's experience [synthesis].
  • Ask without judgement. Shame drives concealment. Practical meaning: ask about healing practices as routinely as about sleep or alcohol, with neutral wording [synthesis].
  • Attribute, do not adjudicate. Describe the Heilstrom, bioenergy or "charging" as the client and the group hold them; neither affirm them as fact nor ridicule them. Practical meaning: "in your group's teaching…" rather than "the energy…" or "there is no energy…" [synthesis].
  • Medical care is never the therapist's to change. Practical meaning: any question about stopping, reducing or delaying a medicine or treatment is routed to the prescriber or pharmacist, with consent to share [synthesis].
  • Symptoms are information, not tests of faith. The "Regelungen" teaching reframes new or worse symptoms as healing [source: UNADFI 2018; VELKD 2014]. Practical meaning: agree in advance which symptoms always go to a doctor, whatever they are thought to mean [synthesis].
  • Separate belief from blame. Teachings such as "nothing is incurable" can shift blame onto the ill person for not recovering [source: VELKD 2014, Trenkel and Lamprecht]. Practical meaning: listen for guilt and self-blame and address it directly [synthesis].
  • Respect spiritual meaning and community. Many members value belonging, hope and prayer-like practice. Practical meaning: work with what helps (calm, company, hope) while keeping physical health decisions informed [synthesis].
  • Autonomy with safety. Competent adults may choose spiritual practices; children and people without capacity are protected by safeguarding duties. Practical meaning: adult choices are explored, child-related risks are acted on [synthesis].
  • Watch for psychosis, dissociation and control experiences. Broadcast suggestion and distant healing have been linked to relapse of mental illness and to feeling controlled by a healer [source: Kommersant 2026 (reported allegations); 360.ru; VELKD 2014, Lamprecht]. Practical meaning: screen, and refer to psychiatry when indicated [synthesis].
  • No conflicts of interest. The therapist does not sell products, courses or memberships to clients and does not hold roles in such groups while treating members [synthesis].
  • Document. Record what was asked, what the client said, what was coordinated and why [synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

All interventions below are the psychotherapist's own work alongside the client's involvement with a mass or broadcast healing movement. Unless a source tag is given, the procedures are general clinical practice presented as [synthesis]; the facts about the movements that each step relies on are sourced in sections 1–2 and the Harm account. Example language is illustrative throughout.

4.1 Routine, non-judgemental enquiry and recording

  • Purpose / when: at intake and at reviews, and whenever a client mentions Gröning, "the healing stream", "tuning in", community hours, Kashpirovsky or Chumak recordings, "charged" water, photographs, foil balls, creams or newspapers. Clients from German, Austrian, Russian-speaking and Ukrainian backgrounds, and their adult children, may have family histories with these figures [synthesis].
  • Steps: (1) Normalise: say you ask everyone about healing and spiritual practices. (2) Ask open questions: what, how often, alone or in a group, since when, any cost. (3) Ask specifically about medical care: "Has anything changed with doctors, tests or medicines since you started?" (4) Ask about others in the household, especially children. (5) Record in neutral words (e.g. "Attends Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends community hours; daily 'tuning in'; no reported change to medical care").
  • Example language (illustrative): "I ask everyone about anything they do for their health outside the doctor's surgery, including spiritual or healing groups. There's no right answer, it just helps me understand you." / "When you tune in, what is that like for you?"
  • Watch for: hesitation or testing of your reaction (shame or expected ridicule); vagueness about medicines; mention of being told symptoms are "regulations". Working: the client names the practice openly and keeps telling you about it.

4.2 Exploring meaning, hopes, expectations and explanatory model

  • Purpose / when: once use is known; before any decision talk. Draws to these movements can include hope where medicine has offered little, community and belonging (regular community hours, retreats [source: UNADFI 2018]), religious meaning (healing as turning back to God [source: VELKD 2014]), distrust of medicine, and, for older Russian-speaking clients, memories of 1989 broadcasts as a shared national experience [source: Bogdanov; Kommersant 2026].
  • Steps: (1) Ask what drew them and what it gives them. (2) Elicit their explanatory model of their illness: cause, what keeps it going, what will help. (3) Ask what they hope will happen and by when, and what it would mean if it did not. (4) Reflect back the model in their words and check accuracy. (5) Note what is valuable and safe in it (calm, company, hope, prayer) separately from any physical-health claims.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What did you find in the group that you hadn't found elsewhere?" / "In your understanding, where did the illness come from, and what will make it better?" / "If things don't change in the way you hope, what would that mean to you?"
  • Watch for: fixed timelines for cure; beliefs that doubt or negative thoughts will block healing (taught in the group [source: UNADFI 2018]), which can make honest talk feel dangerous; isolation from sceptical relatives. Working: the client can hold both the meaning and some uncertainty in the same conversation.

4.3 Mapping involvement, time, money and relationships

  • Purpose / when: when involvement seems to be growing, or when family members raise concerns. High-control features described for the Circle of Friends by critics include encouragement to volunteer, donate, take responsibilities and recruit relatives or vulnerable people, and treating doubt as "negative thoughts" [source: UNADFI 2018]; Kashpirovsky and Chumak sold "charged" items and paid sessions [source: Kommersant 2026; The Insider].
  • Steps: (1) Draw a simple timeline: first contact, deepening, roles taken on. (2) List weekly time given and money spent (donations, travel, retreats, products, recordings). (3) Map relationships: who is in, who is out, any cut-offs. (4) Ask how the group responds to doubts or to leaving. (5) Summarise in a neutral way and ask the client how they see it.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Can we sketch out how your involvement has grown over time?" / "What happens in the group when someone has doubts?"
  • Watch for: debt, pressure to recruit family, loss of other friendships, fear of leaving. Working: the client describes the group's demands in their own words and can say what they would like to keep or limit.

4.4 A shared symptom plan (when symptoms may be reframed as "regulations")

  • Purpose / when: for any client with a physical illness, pregnancy or new symptoms who practises tuning in. The teaching that pain and symptoms are "Regelungen" (the healing stream working) [source: UNADFI 2018; VELKD 2014, Lamprecht; Toledo Blade 2008] can delay medical assessment.
  • Steps: (1) Ask how the client tells a "regulation" from a symptom that needs a doctor. (2) Without disputing the belief, agree a written list of signs that always go to a doctor or emergency service, whatever they are thought to mean; base it on what the client's own doctor has told them (ask the client to check with the doctor) and on general emergency signs. (3) Agree who else knows the plan. (4) Revisit after any new symptom.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm not here to decide what the pain means. Can we agree that some signs go straight to your doctor anyway, just to be safe? You can tune in as well, if you choose."
  • Watch for: a client saying "it's only a regulation" about new, severe or worsening symptoms; the therapist drifting into medical advice (do not). Working: the client follows the plan and reports seeking care.

4.5 Supporting informed, values-based decisions without coercion

  • Purpose / when: when the client is weighing whether to rely on the group's healing, a healer's recordings or "charged" products alongside or instead of medical care. No published decision aid specific to these movements is cited here [uncertain: not verified].
  • Steps: (1) Clarify the decision in the client's words. (2) Elicit values (living longer, symptom control, faith, belonging, not being a burden). (3) Ask what the client knows from their doctor about options and outcomes; list unanswered questions to take to the doctor. (4) Distinguish "adding" a spiritual practice from "replacing" treatment. (5) Check for pressure from others. (6) Leave the medical decision with the client and doctor; record the discussion.
  • Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like faith and staying alive both matter a great deal to you. Many people keep both: their practice and their treatment. What questions would you want answered by your doctor before deciding?"
  • Watch for: persuasion by you (in either direction), urgency, decisions made under group or family pressure. Working: the client can say what they are choosing and why, and has their doctor's information.

4.6 Coordination with the client's doctor or pharmacist

  • Purpose / when: when medicines or treatment may have been stopped, reduced or delayed; when the client wants the doctor to know; when risk is present.
  • Steps: (1) Explain why contact may help. (2) Obtain specific, written consent: who, what, for what purpose. (3) Share factual, respectful information (involvement in a spiritual healing group; any reported change in medical care; any mental-state concern). (4) Never advise the client yourself to start, stop or change a medicine; route those questions to the prescriber or pharmacist. (5) Record consent and contact. (6) If consent is refused and there is serious risk, follow local law and policy on disclosure without consent.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it be all right if I let your GP know you've stopped your tablets, so they can talk it through with you? I won't tell them anything you haven't agreed to."
  • Watch for: the client fearing the doctor's ridicule (prepare them; offer to help them say it); doctors unfamiliar with the group (give a neutral one-line description). Working: the doctor and client talk directly about the change.

4.7 Risk: stopping or delaying medical care

  • Purpose / when: whenever treatment has been or may be stopped, delayed or refused. Delayed treatment is the central documented harm of these movements (Gröning's 1958 negligent-homicide conviction; doctors' reports of more advanced cancer and psychiatric relapse among people who relied on 1989 TV healers instead of treatment) [source: UNADFI 2018; 360.ru].
  • Steps: (1) Ask directly what has changed and when. (2) Assess urgency: serious illness, insulin or other medicines where stopping is dangerous (the doctor decides this, not you), pregnancy, children. (3) If urgent, encourage immediate medical contact and, with consent, contact the doctor; if life is at imminent risk, call emergency services. (4) If non-urgent, use 4.5 and 4.6. (5) Record.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I hear how important the healing stream is to you. I'm worried about your health without your treatment. Would you be willing to see your doctor this week and tell them what you've decided? You don't have to give up your practice to do that."
  • Watch for: the client concealing changes; claims that the group never advised stopping (the group states it does not interfere with treatment [source: Toledo Blade 2008]; critics report subtle discouragement [source: UNADFI 2018]). Working: medical contact resumes.

4.8 Risk: children, pregnancy and dependent adults

  • Purpose / when: when a child, a pregnant person or an adult lacking capacity is affected. The Circle of Friends teaches the healing stream to children from a young age and runs youth activities [source: UNADFI 2018].
  • Steps: (1) Ask whether children's illnesses are taken to a doctor and whether treatments are continued. (2) Spiritual participation itself is not a safeguarding concern; withholding necessary medical care is. (3) If a child is being deprived of needed medical care, follow your jurisdiction's child-protection procedures and consult your safeguarding lead. (4) In pregnancy, check antenatal care continues. (5) For adults lacking capacity, follow adult-safeguarding procedures. (6) Record decisions and reasons. Never name a child outside the necessary safeguarding record.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When your son is ill, how do you decide whether to take him to the doctor?" / "I have a duty to make sure children get the medical care they need. Let's talk about what that means here."
  • Watch for: symptoms in a child explained as "regulations"; missed appointments or vaccinations; a parent's fear that doubt harms the child's healing. Working: the child's medical care continues.

4.9 Risk: psychosis, dissociation and feelings of being controlled

  • Purpose / when: for clients with psychosis, bipolar disorder, dissociative disorders or epilepsy who watch recorded or live mass-suggestion sessions or practise distant healing; and for any client who reports hearing a healer's voice or feeling influenced by a healer. Reported harms include relapse of mental illness after Kashpirovsky's sessions and some people hearing his voice directing actions, including suicide (presented as allegations) [source: Kommersant 2026]; the session itself warned epilepsy patients not to take part [source: Velminski/MIT Press Reader 2022]; distant-healing clients may come to feel controlled or manipulated by the healer ("Verhexungssyndrom" in the parapsychological literature) [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht].
  • Steps: (1) Ask about voices, passivity or control experiences, sleep and mood since starting. (2) Carry out a standard mental-state and risk assessment, including suicide risk, using current practice. (3) Where psychotic or manic features are present, arrange urgent psychiatric assessment. (4) Agree with the client to pause exposure to mass-suggestion recordings while acute (offer, not order) and inform the treating psychiatrist with consent. (5) For dissociation, use grounding and stabilisation before any trauma work (cross-ref Domain II) [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Since you started watching the sessions, have you had any experiences like hearing a voice or feeling someone is influencing you?" / "Some people find these sessions unsettling. If that's happening, we can work out together what to do."
  • Watch for: command hallucinations, persecutory beliefs about the healer, trance states outside sessions. Working: symptoms settle and the client has psychiatric follow-up.

4.10 Risk: financial exploitation and group pressure

  • Purpose / when: when spending, recruitment or pressure is reported. Sources describe sales of "charged" salt, water, photographs, discs, drinks and creams, and paid sessions (Kashpirovsky, Chumak) [source: Kommersant 2026; The Insider; 360.ru], and, for the Circle of Friends, voluntary donations together with encouragement to give, volunteer and recruit, and the casting of doubt as harmful negative thinking [source: Toledo Blade 2008; UNADFI 2018]. Church observers judged the Circle only "conditionally dangerous" but actively missionary, with some members described as possibly very fanatical [source: Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012, quoting H. Hemminger].
  • Steps: (1) Use the map from 4.3. (2) Ask about debt, savings used, pressure to buy or give. (3) Explore the client's own limits and what they would want to keep. (4) If an older or dependent adult is being financially exploited, follow adult-safeguarding procedures. (5) Offer information about independent advice on religious and worldview groups available in the client's country (e.g. church or state worldview-advice services in Germany) [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "How do you feel about the money you've put in so far?" / "Is there anything you'd find hard to say no to in the group?"
  • Watch for: secrecy about money, guilt at the idea of stopping giving, cut-off from doubting relatives. Working: the client sets and keeps limits they chose.

4.11 Guilt, self-blame and "not being healed"

  • Purpose / when: when a client has not improved, has worsened, or has lost someone despite faithful practice. Teachings that nothing is incurable and that negative thoughts block healing can place responsibility for non-recovery on the ill person or their supporters [source: VELKD 2014, Trenkel and Lamprecht; UNADFI 2018].
  • Steps: (1) Ask directly what the client tells themselves about why healing has not come. (2) Validate the pain without arguing doctrine. (3) Separate responsibility from illness: illness happens to faithful and doubting people alike; explore whether their wider faith tradition also holds this. (4) Use standard CBT or compassion-focused work on self-criticism. (5) If grief or regret after a death is present, use grief-focused work; offer a faith adviser if wanted.
  • Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like you've been blaming yourself for having doubts. Can we look at that together?" / "Many people of deep faith still become ill. Being ill doesn't prove you did something wrong."
  • Watch for: depression, suicidal thinking, hiding worsening symptoms to avoid shame. Working: less self-blame, renewed openness to medical care.

4.12 Health anxiety and somatic symptom presentations

  • Purpose / when: when a client's interest is driven by persistent health worry, medically unexplained symptoms, or symptom monitoring that tuning in or "regulations" intensify. Cross-reference Domain II for the established approaches (CBT for health anxiety; CBT and related approaches for persistent physical symptoms).
  • Steps: (1) Assess with standard health-anxiety and somatic-symptom assessment (Domain II). (2) Build a shared formulation including the role of scanning, reassurance seeking, and interpreting sensations as signs (of illness or of healing). (3) Agree medical review boundaries with the client's doctor (4.6). (4) Treat with the Domain II protocol, including the healing practice as a possible safety behaviour only if the client agrees it functions that way.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you tune in and notice a sensation, what goes through your mind?" / "Let's see whether paying close attention to the body makes the sensations louder."
  • Watch for: framing the practice itself as the problem (it may be a source of calm); increasing reassurance seeking from the group. Working: less checking, more flexible interpretation of sensations.

4.13 Family conflict, leaving and staying

  • Purpose / when: when relatives are alarmed, when the client is estranged from family, or when a client is considering leaving the group. Critics note isolation from disagreeing relatives [source: UNADFI 2018]; counselling services report cases where a healing-related worldview change broke up relationships [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht].
  • Steps: (1) For relatives: help them stay in contact, avoid ridicule and ultimatums, and focus on concrete concerns (medical care, money, children). (2) For the client: explore what each relationship means and what contact they want. (3) For leaving: plan for loss of community, routine and meaning; build alternative supports; address fear that leaving will cause illness. (4) Offer joint sessions if both sides wish.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What would you want your family to understand about why the group matters?" / "If you stepped back, what would you miss and what would you need in its place?"
  • Watch for: fear-based beliefs about leaving, grief for lost community. Working: contact is maintained and decisions are the client's own.

4.14 Reporting routes

  • Purpose / when: when a product, service, advertisement or person causes or risks harm.
  • Steps: (1) Health claims in advertising or sales of "charged" goods: consumer-protection or advertising regulator of the jurisdiction (e.g. FTC in the US, ASA and Trading Standards in the UK) [synthesis]. (2) Unlicensed medical practice: in Germany, the local health authority (Gesundheitsamt) under the Heilpraktikergesetz [synthesis]; in Russia, the regional health authority that issues folk-medicine permits (323-FZ Art. 50) [source: Consultant.ru]. (3) A registered health professional promoting these methods to patients: their professional regulator. (4) Children deprived of medical care: child-protection services; vulnerable adults: adult safeguarding. (5) Crimes (fraud, coercion, assault): police. (6) Record what was reported and when.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm concerned about what you were told about the product. Would you like help to report it?"
  • Watch for: reports without the client's knowledge where not legally required (discuss first unless doing so increases risk). Working: concerns reach the body that can act.

4.15 Boundaries when asked to join in, endorse or share

  • Purpose / when: when a client invites the therapist to a lecture, asks the therapist to tune in, plays a broadcast recording in session or brings a "charged" object.
  • Steps: (1) Thank them and acknowledge the trust. (2) Decline participation clearly and kindly; explain that you do not take part in or recommend any healing practice so the space stays theirs. (3) Explore what it would mean to them if you joined. (4) Record.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I can see how much this means to you, and I'm glad you've shared it. I don't take part in healing practices myself, so this stays your space. What would it have meant to you if I had joined?"
  • Watch for: the client feeling rejected; repair if so (see 5). Working: the alliance holds and the topic stays open.

5. Handling problems

The sources describe the movements, not therapy with their members; all responses below are [synthesis] unless tagged.

  • The client fears doubt will block healing. The group teaches that negative thoughts obstruct the healing stream [source: UNADFI 2018], so open discussion can feel dangerous. Response: say explicitly that you will not ask them to doubt their faith; frame questions as practical ("what would your doctor need to know?") rather than evaluative. Slow down; return to 4.2.
  • "It's only a regulation." The client attributes new or worsening symptoms to the healing stream. Response: do not argue the meaning; return to the agreed symptom plan (4.4); if none exists, make one now. Severe or emergency symptoms: urge immediate medical help.
  • Resistance because the therapist is seen as a sceptic or an agent of medicine. Response: name it ("you might expect me to dismiss this"); restate that you don't perform, recommend or ridicule any healing practice; show curiosity about meaning; repair if you have been dismissive.
  • Stuck: repeated hope then disappointment. Response: map the cycle (new hope, intensive practice, no change, self-blame); work on self-criticism (4.11) and on what the client values whether or not cure comes; consider grief work for the life the illness has changed.
  • Overwhelm. A seriously ill client, family pressure on all sides, financial strain. Response: prioritise safety (4.7–4.10), one concrete step per session, involve the doctor with consent, consider a social-work or palliative-care referral where relevant.
  • Non-adherence to the medical plan. Response: explore reasons without blame (side effects, distrust, group expectations, cost); with consent, bring the prescriber or pharmacist in (4.6); never adjust medicines yourself.
  • The client says the group never interferes with medicine. The group does state this [source: Toledo Blade 2008]; critics describe subtle discouragement [source: UNADFI 2018]. Response: accept the statement and ask about the client's own experience ("has anyone in the group ever reacted when you mentioned your treatment?").
  • The client brings or plays a mass-suggestion recording in session, or reports trance or voices after watching. Response: decline to play it (4.15); assess mental state (4.9); urgent psychiatric referral for psychotic features; advise discussing continued use with the treating psychiatrist. Flag: Kashpirovsky's own broadcast warned seriously ill viewers, epilepsy named, not to take part [source: Velminski/MIT Press Reader 2022].
  • Relatives demand that the therapist "get them out". Response: explain confidentiality and your role; offer relatives their own support; avoid coercive "deprogramming" approaches; focus on contact, safety and the client's own choices (4.13).
  • Rupture after the therapist declines to join in or raises a concern. Response: acknowledge the hurt, explain the reason (protecting the client's own space and choices), invite feedback, and continue.
  • Death or serious deterioration after relying on healing. Response: support the bereaved or the client without blame; address regret, anger at the group or at oneself, and family conflict; offer referral to palliative care or bereavement services; consider reporting routes if exploitation is suspected (4.14).
  • Language, culture and generation. Russian-, Ukrainian- or German-speaking older clients may hold strong positive memories of 1989 broadcasts or of Gröning stories passed down in families. Response: use professional interpreters, not family; treat these memories as part of their history, not as a symptom.
  • The therapist's own reactions. Either warmth towards spiritual healing or contempt can bias work. Response: supervision; check that your language is neutral and that medical decisions stay with client and doctor.

Harm account

What was actually done

Gröning, 1949–1959.

  • In 1949, after press reports of a boy helped in Herford, Westphalia, thousands besieged the house where Gröning stayed, many of them war-disabled [source: Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012]. He told crowds and visitors that he passed on God's healing power, and distributed small foil balls made from cigarette-packet foil and photographs said to carry it [source: Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012].
  • Authorities restricted him repeatedly: a state-level ban on acting as a healer in May 1949 [uncertain: secondary, unverified]; in 1954 a ban on healing and on public appearances in West Germany [source: VELKD 2014].
  • A girl with lung disease, described in a secondary source as 17 years old [uncertain: secondary, unverified], did not see a doctor because she trusted in his healing power and died [source: Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012]. In 1958 Gröning was convicted of negligent homicide, because his healing promises had delayed necessary treatment, and of breaching the Heilpraktikergesetz, with an eight-month sentence [source: UNADFI 2018]; another account mentions suspended sentences and fines [uncertain: secondary, unverified]. A historian's study gives the illness as tuberculosis, with the treatment stopped while she was under his care [source: Publishers Weekly review of Black 2020].

The Circle of Friends, 1979 to today.

  • Members are taught that pain or symptoms during practice are "regulations" caused by the healing stream, not by illness; followers may then call themselves healed although symptoms are unchanged [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht; UNADFI 2018].
  • Doubt and critical thinking are presented as negative thoughts; a group text tells members to set aside thinking oriented to science and logical reason (as quoted by UNADFI) [source: UNADFI 2018].
  • Testimonies are collected and edited under set procedures and presented as medically documented by the group's MWF; no independent scientific validation is reported [source: UNADFI 2018; VELKD 2014, Lamprecht].
  • Children receive the practice from a young age; youth publications and annual gatherings exist [source: UNADFI 2018].

Kashpirovsky, 1988–1990s.

  • 1988: televised remote suggestion used as pain relief during surgery; one account states a patient with contraindications to anaesthesia was operated on without it [source: Bogdanov; Kommersant 2026].
  • October 1989 onwards: six prime-time Central Television broadcasts to an audience estimated at up to 180–200 million; viewers set out water to be "charged"; he claimed to have cured 10 million people [source: Kommersant 2026; Velminski/MIT Press Reader 2022; The Insider].
  • Stadium and hall sessions in which participants fell to the floor in trance [source: Bogdanov]; sale of "charged" salt, water, photographs and discs; a 1991 UN appearance claiming help for radiation effects, scars and AIDS [source: Kommersant 2026].

Chumak, 1989–1990s.

  • Morning television and radio sessions of silent hand passes with jars of water, creams and ointments set before screens; claims of help for digestive, heart, joint, allergic, skin and nervous conditions, and for "charged" objects curing all diseases including cancer [source: 360.ru; The Insider].
  • 1989: newspapers carrying his "charged" photograph sold out (August or September 1989 [uncertain]); some people reportedly ate pieces of the newspaper [source: Bogdanov; The Insider].
  • From 1990 a company selling "charged" drinks and creams, paid sessions and "charged" cassettes and portraits [source: The Insider; 360.ru].

How it caused harm

  • Delayed or abandoned treatment. The mechanism in the Gröning conviction: trust in healing replaced medical care, with death as the outcome [source: UNADFI 2018; Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012]. Russian doctors reported more advanced cancer cases among people relying on TV healers instead of treatment [source: 360.ru]; the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences commission on pseudoscience described short-term relief followed by neglected illness [source: The Insider, quoting E. Kruglyakov]. The UNADFI analysis calls this "perte de chance" (loss of the chance of effective treatment) for people weakened by physical illness, psychological illness or addiction [source: UNADFI 2018].
  • Symptom reframing. The "regulations" teaching turns warning symptoms into signs of success, removing a natural prompt to seek care [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht; UNADFI 2018].
  • Psychiatric harm from mass suggestion. Psychotherapists reported relapses among mentally ill viewers of Kashpirovsky's sessions; some reportedly heard his voice directing their actions, in some cases towards suicide (reported as allegations) [source: Kommersant 2026]; psychiatric relapses are also reported among people relying on these healers [source: 360.ru]. Distant healing can lead to persistent experiences of being controlled by the healer [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht]. No systematic count of seizures, admissions or deaths from the broadcasts [uncertain: not verified].
  • Self-blame and spiritualised illness. If illness follows wrong thinking, the sick person is at fault for not recovering [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht and Trenkel].
  • Relationships and isolation. Isolation from disagreeing relatives [source: UNADFI 2018]; relationship breakdown after healing-related worldview change [source: VELKD 2014, Lamprecht].
  • Financial harm. Purchases of "charged" goods and paid sessions [source: Kommersant 2026; The Insider]; donations and volunteer pressure [source: UNADFI 2018].
  • Public-health harm. A Ministry of Health and Academy of Medical Sciences review concluded Chumak's method had no scientific basis and was a hidden threat to public health and found no genuine cure of seriously ill patients [source: 360.ru].
  • Most at risk: people with serious or chronic illness, those offered little by medicine, people with psychosis, bipolar disorder, dissociation or epilepsy, children of members, isolated older people, and people with addiction [source: UNADFI 2018; Kommersant 2026; Velminski/MIT Press Reader 2022; synthesis].

Recognising it today

  • Phrases and concepts: "Heilstrom" / healing stream; "Einstellen" / tuning in; "Regelungen" / regulations; "God is the best doctor"; "nothing is incurable"; "impossible does not exist" [source: Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012, quoting H. Hemminger; UNADFI 2018; VELKD 2014]; "medically documented success reports" from the Medical-Scientific Group [source: City of Sydney listing]; free lectures on healing "on the spiritual path" [source: Stuttgarter Zeitung 2012]; "charged" water, salt, creams, photographs and recordings; online replays of mass-suggestion sessions [source: Kommersant 2026; The Insider].
  • Red flags in a group: promises that any illness can be healed; symptoms reframed as healing; doubt framed as harmful; testimonial collections presented as medical proof; pressure to recruit relatives; children's symptoms handled within the group [synthesis, drawing on the sources above].
  • Red flags in a colleague's practice: offering group suggestion, distant healing or "charged" items for physical disease; playing mass-suggestion recordings to patients with psychosis or epilepsy; selling products or memberships to clients; advising clients on medicines [synthesis].
  • How legitimate practice differs [synthesis]: clinical hypnosis for pain or anxiety is individually assessed, consented, delivered by a qualified clinician, adjunctive to medical care and makes no curative promise; spiritual and chaplaincy care supports faith without asking people to forgo treatment; peer support groups share experience without healing claims.

What to do instead and how to help those harmed

  • Safer alternatives [synthesis]: usual medical care plus, where wanted, evidence-based psychological care for the condition (Domain II for health anxiety and persistent physical symptoms), clinical hypnosis only from appropriately qualified clinicians as an adjunct, spiritual care from the client's own faith tradition or a healthcare chaplain, and peer support without cure claims.
  • Assessment of affected clients [synthesis]: current medical status and any untreated condition (with the doctor); mental state, including psychotic or control experiences linked to a healer; trauma from group experiences; guilt, regret and complicated grief, including in relatives of people who died; financial losses; ongoing group contact and pressure; children's welfare.
  • Treatment [synthesis]: stabilisation and safety first; then work on self-blame, grief and regret (4.11), relationship repair (4.13), rebuilding meaning and community after leaving, and health anxiety where present (4.12).
  • Ethical, reporting and legal duties [synthesis]: follow your professional ethics code on avoiding harm, conflicts of interest and exploitation; act on child and adult safeguarding duties where medical care is withheld or exploitation occurs; report misleading health claims and sales to consumer or advertising regulators, unlicensed medical practice to health authorities, and registered practitioners to their regulator (4.14); document reasons for all decisions.

Sources

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