"Psychic Claims Readings are 95 Per Cent Right" by Mike Solomon
This article originally appeared in The Mississauga (Canada) News, c. 1978
The health readings of a Toronto psychic are astounding a Mississauga doctor who says the method – if scientifically proven out – could change the face of health care.
Michael Bodnar, a chiropractor operating on Mississauga Rd., said in an interview Monday night that psychic Doug Cottrell, of Langley Ave., Toronto is right “about 95 per cent of the time.”
Cottrell, who says he has no training in medicine or health care, discovered his ability to read other people’s health problems in the traumatic years after he and his wife Karen had a deformed and mentally retarded daughter born in 1968. The girl, they were told, amounted to “a vegetable.”
No Hope
Interviewed in Mississauga and at their home last week, the Cottrells told their personal horror story of how they had given up hope of daughter Cheri surviving, how she spent 4 1/2 years in a mental institution and how Michigan psychic Ross Peterson turned it all around for them.
Peterson, an internationally-known trance-type psychic, gave a health reading for Cheri about 4 years ago, describing in trance how the little girl might be saved. A combination of digestive tract and bone problems at the neck and head were, he said, causing the girl’s mental difficulties. Ordinary doctors everywhere had written off Cheri as a hopeless case.
Now, Cheri is recovering from her problems and one day will walk upon a stage where her story will be told, Doug Cottrell told The Mississauga News.
Spread Word
The Peterson “reading” so impressed Cottrell that he determined to spread the word. Within a couple of years, with the help of a doctor friend who helped him to learn to relax, Cottrell discovered that he, too, possessed the ability to “read” other people’s health problems.
“Ross said I could,” he said.
Bodnar said he and Cottrell have no business relationship (“it’s a health relationship”) and that he cannot just take Cottrell’s readings and use them on his patients.
He said that Cottrell, if he “reads” the need for chiropractic work on a person to whom he has given a reading, recommends them to Bodnar if they lie in the area.
He also sends people to MDs, surgeons, or anyone else who could treat patients according to the readings.
“They come to me and they mention that they have been to him and that he has recommended chiropractic are,” Bodnar said.
Tape
During the readings, in trance state, a tape is made of the questions and answers.
“I do what I was trained to do – a physical examination, a neurological examination, and if X-rays are called for, I take X-rays.
“After that, if they are willing to, I take their (patients’) tape and listen to it while they are there and I compare my findings with those given in the readings.
“I have found that in approximately 95 per cent of cases, Doug has been accurate.”
Bodnar, who said he was at first a skeptic because of his training as a scientist, says more research is warranted. He said that he and another doctor are trying to set up scientific, objective tests to put Cottrell’s accuracy on the line once and for all.
He said Cottrell doesn’t diagnose for him but that the diagnostic readings Cottrell makes are so accurate that they could change the face of medicine.
“Doug’s one helluva guy – that’s the way it is,” he said. “Every time I’ve taken X-rays and compared them with Doug’s tapes, they’ve been confirmed.”Said Bodnar, “some people might say it’s quackery; the thing that we need really is more open-mindedness.”
Psychic Peterson was in Toronto last week and when interviewed in his room at The Inn-On-The-Park Hotel, confirmed that he gave the Cottrells a reading in late 1974.
Peterson said he advised Cottrell as part of that reading that he was the type of sensitive person who could do the same thing.
“Anyone can do it – it might take some people 13 weeks, it might take some 13 years; it might take 13 lifetimes,” he said.
“I learned that you don’t have to lose your conscious to use your psychic perception to rely on inner feelings – you are often aware of material you don’t know of consciously.”
He said all it took in Cottrell’s case was the adversity in his life which gave him the key to try it. Peterson said it was adversity which also led to the discovery of his psychic abilities. A man who enjoyed physical life, he fell of [sic] a truck and broke his back. there followed about 35 different jobs – none of which lasted for long.
The work of the famous Edgar Cayce, the trance reader of the 1930s and 1940s, led Peterson to the psychic life.