Backed by Science? Building a lucrative spiritual empire based on potentially “questionable” publications
Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is the founder of Trivedi Global, Inc., a provider of health and wellness products and services. His Google Scholar profile lists 795 publications with a collective citation count of 12,032 (as of July 31, 2024). This prolific output reached its peak in 2015, with 268 papers.
“How is this possible?” you may ask. Here's the reason. Only 17 of 795 articles are indexed in PubMed. All the others were published in journals that do not meet the quality standards of MEDLINE. {This is a fact.}1
The National Library of Medicine decides whether a journal is included in MEDLINE (the source database for PubMed) based on:
- Scope and Coverage
- Editorial Policies and Processes
- Scientific Rigor/Methodological Rigor
- Production and Administration
- Impact
So-called “predatory” journals – first documented by librarian Jeffrey Beall – do not meet the quality standards for MEDLINE.
According to Wikipedia, predatory publishing “is an exploitative academic publishing business model, where the journal or publisher prioritizes self-interest at the expense of scholarship. It is characterized by misleading information, deviates from the standard peer review process, is highly non-transparent, and often utilizes aggressive solicitation practices.”
In such journals, the time between manuscript submission and acceptance for publication is alarmingly short, leading some to question whether adequate peer review had taken place.
Here are several examples for Trivedi et al. (2015). Note that time from submission to publication was 8-10 days.2
In vitro Evaluation of Biofield Treatment on Viral Load Against Human Immunodeficiency-1 and Cytomegalo Viruses
American Journal of Health Research (Volume 3, Issue 6)
Received: 9 October 2015 Accepted: 19 October 2015
Evaluation of Plant Growth Regulator, Immunity and DNA Fingerprinting of Biofield Energy Treated Mustard Seeds (Brassica juncea)
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Volume 4, Issue 6)
Received: 11 October 2015 Accepted: 19 October 2015
Agronomic Characteristics, Growth Analysis, and Yield Response of Biofield Treated Mustard, Cowpea, Horse Gram, and Groundnuts
International Journal of Genetics and Genomics (Volume 3, Issue 6)
Received: 12 October 2015 Accepted: 21 October 2015
Evaluation of Biochemical Marker - Glutathione and DNA Fingerprinting of Biofield Energy Treated Oryza sativa
American Journal of BioScience (Volume 3, Issue 6)
Received: 12 October 2015 Accepted: 21 October 2015
{Qualification: Science Publishing Group claims that articles are peer-reviewed, although some have compiled evidence to the contrary.}
Why is this important? When a company tries to sell products and services that are “backed by science,” we are free to evaluate the evidence for these claims.
My previous post introduced you to Mr. Trivedi and his Divine Connection:
“Guruji Mahendra Kumar Trivedi is an Enlightened and miraculous being with Divine Embodiment, gifted to transform living organisms at the genetic level & non-living materials at the atomic level. … Guruji’s Blessing has impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people globally, and has been validated globally with cutting-edge scientific research.”
I read a 2023 paper, The role of biofield energy treatment on psychological symptoms, mental health disorders, and stress‐related quality of life in adult subjects: A randomized controlled clinical trial (indexed in PubMed), and found irregularities and questionable results. I’m confident that some of the reported data are physiologically impossible. Thus, I urged the journal to reconsider the paper and the publisher (Wiley) to retract it from the scientific literature {if warranted}.
The bottom line (so to speak) for Trivedi Global, Inc. is net revenue from sales of Remote Blessing Memberships:
1 Blessing, $250 per month (only $200 per month for blessings from his wife, Dahryn)
2 Blessings, $400 per month ($300 per month for Dahryn)
…
Daily Blessings, $2,000 per month
Path to Enlightenment Memberships
Platinum, $10,000 per month
Caveat emptor.
Footnotes
1 Any statement in curly brackets is an effort to avoid a lawsuit. See Appendix.
2 Other bursts of productivity include June 2021 (19 papers) and July 2021 (17 papers). Most of these reported findings from Sprague Dawley rats.
The Appendix provides links to previous news articles, blog posts, and lawsuits related to Mr. Trivedi, followed by an egregious example of self-citation (which artificially elevates the h-index).
Appendix
Mahendra Kumar Trivedi : Transform Your Life With The Science Of Miracles
Mahendra Trivedi along with other Trivedi Masters have the supernatural ability to transform living organisms and non-living substances through the power of their thoughts, known as The Trivedi Effect®.
Trivedi effect® – the Skeptic's Dictionary
TE is an “unknown” energy. Well, it was unknown until 1995, when Trivedi “received 'guidance' from Universal Intelligence that the gift he had been given was now to be used for the welfare of mankind.”
Mahendra Trivedi was tested extensively at the Penn State University’s Materials Research Laboratory on several occasions from June – September 2009, and we did not observe any changes in materials or their properties as a result of his “blessings”. We tested MANY solid, powdered and liquid materials, including radioactive materials. “Blessed” samples were unchanged. While there were sporadic changes to a handful of water samples as observed with 785 nm Raman spectroscopy, it must be understood that the changes (a) were not reproducible, (b) occurred sometimes to the blessed samples and sometimes to the control samples and (c) were most likely due to a problem we were having with an unstable laser source on the Raman spectrometer, which was knowen to fluctuate in intensity and produce the kinds of sporadic results that were observed.
Mr. Trivedi sued Dr. Slawecki (see PDF) for these and other statements, but the case was dismissed.
Self-Citations from: An Impact of Energy of Consciousness (The Trivedi Effect®) on the Physicochemical, Thermal, Structural, and Behavioral Properties of Magnesium Gluconate. Biomedical Sciences. Vol. 3, No. 2, 2017, pp. 42-54.
https://www.walshmedicalmedia.com/publish-with-us.html
Figure 4 (Trivedi et al., 2024): Proposed schematic representation explains how biofield energy transmission forms quantum entanglement that leads to positive outcomes of this therapy. PPR, Practitioner-patient relationship; PPQE, Practitioner-patient quantum energy entanglement; E, Energy; h, Planck ’ s constant; v, Frequency. © 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
posted by The Neurocritic @ 11:37 AM
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