Slapping Therapy Doesn’t Work
How magical nonsense is killing people
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Slapping therapy is an alternative medical technique that has gained some prominence over the last few years. Perhaps that’s because, unlike other fantastical beliefs, slapping therapy — otherwise known as “paida lajin” — involves self-flagellation to the point of bruising, often over the majority of your body.
Yes, you hit yourself until it hurts.
It doesn’t take a doctor to see why that might be something of an issue medically.
The other reason slapping therapy has risen to light is because the person who invented it claims that it can cure anything. He says that you can go off all medicines, leave your worries behind, and slap your way to good health!
People believe him. They stop taking their medicine.
Some of them have died.
Slapping ‘therapy’
Much like chiropractic, homeopathy and many other alternative practices, slapping therapy is a modern invention supposedly born of ancient ideas.
The inventor of this violent modality, Master Xiao, claims that he got the idea from his past life as a Taoist monk, and that he was helped along the way by a Buddhist monk who magically* appeared on his door one day. After travelling for years learning every kind of mystical treatment (acupressure, acupuncture, literal magic), Xiao was walking on a mountain when the Buddhist monk appeared again and taught him self-flagellation as a cure.
Having had the truth revealed to him, he decided to go out and teach this self-cure to the masses.
According to Xiao, the name ‘paida lajin’ roughly translates as “to slap…to strike even stronger” and “striking the wall”…
