The Kadir-Buxton method is so odd that some suspect it to be a parody. I suspect that there’s nothing so strange that someone with an interest in alternative health will not honestly believe in it. Some alternative treatments are superficially plausible (but unproven or disproven, nonetheless), but some are just plain bonkers: Homeopathic Paper Remedies (pretty much everything about homeopathy is bonkers, but for me paper remedies take the biscuit); Magic Crystal Skulls; Reiki; Reflexology.

The Kadir Buxton method, if it is not a spoof, at least looks like it might belong in the latter category. At first glance, the website advertising the Kadir Buxton method seems amusingly daft enough (see for example the page on The Orgasmic Nose), but if you look a little closer you will see that there are some slightly disconcerting statements.

Kadir Buxton claims to have “discovered a cure for mental health problems” and describes this ‘cure’ on his website:

The procedure stuns and resets the brain of the patient, so that the patient returns to a normal condition. The Kadir-Buxton Method is done by making a fist of both hands, and striking both ears of the patient at exactly the same time and pressure with the soft part of the inner hand which is where the thumb joins the hand.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the website is the claim to be able to help people who have been sexually abused or raped. If Kadir Buxton is a spoof, then it’s a spoof that is in poor taste. According to Kadir Buxton, manic depression and eating disorders are caused by trauma and the memory of the trauma must be dealt with. The patient is asked to remember the trauma as vividly as possible, and the stun technique is then used three times.

Here’s a sample quote from his website:

With rape victims, the Kadir-Buxton Method should be done only twice, so that most of the trauma of the rape is taken away, and yet the victim can still remember the incident for any future court case. Similarly, paedophiles can be made to stop attacking children when the Kadir-Buxton Method is used twice, if my method is used three times the paedophile can be so shocked by their previous behaviour that they commit suicide.

I’ve yet to see any examples of the press promoting the Kadir Buxton method, but there was one local newspaper that published an uncritical piece about Kadir Buxton’s claims that he could save the planet from global warming. The Bourne Local.

He came up with the idea in 1986 and has sent correspondence to Government in America, Australia, Canada, Germany, Russia and New Zealand. But Mr Kadir-Buxton claims that only one country tested his idea – the then West Germany, by Helmut Kohl, and successfully generated as much electricity as a nuclear power station. But the testing was classified as an official secret.

If what is written in the Bourne Local is true, and he has been writing to people about his odd ideas since the 1980s then surely Kadir-Buxton must be for real. I find it difficult to believe that a satirist or a troll could be that persistent. That last excuse is quite brilliant though: the testing was successful… but no-one is allowed to tell you anything about it. I look forward to reading about positive trials of homeopathy that have been classified as official secrets.