H0agh

So if you're "still talking" why do you take very sick and even terminal ill people with you on your tracks up the Himalaya and have them pay a lot of money for it? (like most famously Wubbo Ockels before he passed away from cancer).

I have respect for your achievements but not for this part of your business model at all, you're abusing peoples desperation to make profit and promote your method. You give them false hope.

EDIT: Here is the broadcast of Dutch talk show Pauw en Witteman with Wubbo Ockels (terminal cancer), a multiple sclerosis patient and someone suffering from chronic rheumatism. You hear Wubbo Ockels speak as a true believer that he can be fully cured following Wim Hofs method. He passed away not long after.

http://programma.vara.nl/pauwenwitteman/media/308869

12 minutes in the host asks if he should not be careful to make false claims and give hope to people where there is none.

Host: "But do you make the claim? Do you say, I will cure you?"

Wim Hof: "No that not. I say life is a miracle and you can cause that. And I have seen that too many times already. At a certain time you realise "It really works".

Then further on they discuss the research being done at Radboud University in the Netherlands, and if Wim expects his method to be recognised as an actual cure and covered by insurance. He says he does. This was 2 years ago, just to underline what his "we're still talking" comment really means.

EDIT 2: And for those saying he promises nothing to people:

Hey guys, scientific studies are ongoing. We do not only believe we are right, we prove it.

His last lines in the OP from this AMA. So for sure he doesn't just tell them he can make them climb Mt Everest or whatever. Just look at the website he is promoting for all the different courses too and their descriptions. This AMA was basically a marketing ploy and Wim Hof himself has already left the building hours ago. And just to make one thing very clear, I'm okay with AMA's being marketing devices, if it is to promote a movie or the next season of Game of Thrones. In this case on the other hand..

EDIT 3: If all he did was say he offered a meditation method I'd be completely cool with that. Heck, help you endure the elements better by breathing exercises. Sure! He's proven he can do it!

But he goes further by claiming he can boost your immune system, defeat disease, etc. by taking ice baths and walking in your shorts up the Kilimanjaro. This might be fine for a healthy person but a terminally ill person? Let alone the hope you promise them when they do make it up in their shorts for a hefty fee?

Proof of these type of claims you can easily find on his website as well as in the course and trip descriptions.

Check the only one of his courses that is actually translated into English on his website and the claims it makes:

Australia trip:

• Boost Your Immune System To Bulletproof Yourself
  • Become A “Super” Version Of Yourself
  • Learn Ancient Techniques In Combination With Modern Cutting Edge Strategies
  • Increase Your Health And Wellbeing
  • Hack Your Body To Feel Energized During The Day, While Sleeping Like A Baby At Night.

The inner power is a force accumulated by full awakened physiological processes. It also influences the very core of our DNA.

In the brochure itself he claims you're able to influence your own DNA by using your 'inner power'.

Here is the relevant part in his interview on the Joe Rogan experience as well about taking very ill people with him on hikes up the Kilimanjaro. He is not completely honest here either:

"The Kilimanjaro expedition of 2015 didn’t go as well as the company of Hof (Innerfire.nl) was trying to let the world believe in their press release as I had set out in January last year (‘Iceman’ Wim Hof over the top). In Koud Kunstje the expediton is also mentioned and in the book Hof corrects the claim that they reached the summit in almost the same words as he used on Twitter to answer my question. However on Kloptdatwel.nl (the website on which I had written the original Dutch version of that blog), we were contacted by one of the participants of this expedition who told us that the expedition had been even far less succesful than we had already reported. Not only had a lot of the participants who didn’t make it to the edge of the crater shown clear symptoms of altitude sickness, but a big part of the group had to be evacuated off the mountain by car because of their poor physical condition. Among those Wim Hof himself, who had been exhausted and had been suffering from injuries to his feet. I checked this story carefully with a couple of other participants, who confirmed this version of the story, before contacting Hof’s company. Hof and his son Enahm were not willing to indicate specific flaws in the reconstruction, but offered to talk about ‘the context’ on a cup of coffee."

See the section More on the Kilimanjaro Expedition in this article.

And remember, his actual courses and trips aren't cheap, it's a business, even for the terminally ill.

And for those saying he never claims to cure anyone, here's this little outtake.

Wim: "...So bacteria have no chance, things like that."

Joe: "That's crazy, because that's a, that's also..I had a friend who got a staph infection, horrible staph infection, I posted a photo of it online the other day, cause he got MRCA which is medication resistant staph infection. It's horrific, horrific."

Wim: "He should do this."

Joe: "You think that this somehow this could help that?"

Wim: "Oh I think, I'm sure about it. But hrmh, my son, my team is always saying "Don't say you are curing people...unless it is totally scientifically proved!"

Wim Hof:

"It is so, but if I see the person, always, they won't get worse of it, at least. And..I saw miracles happening, because life is a miracle and I saw people getting back to life. You know, to be in connection with life and trust within their own natural ability and then changing all the disbalances so much that they felt confident within their own bodies again. And taking away...errr...regaining control over their immune systems. And then, yeah, diseases go!! And it's very simple, you just need to do it!"

EDIT 4 (Last one I promise): Since this kind of blew up and people might visit this thread in the future, I wanted to just add this last bit of proof that he does indeed claim he can cure cancer. Dutch program "24 hours with", 38:30 minutes in he says the following speaking about influencing your DNA by will of mind alone:

Wim: "....That we have impacted that deeply, that means that 206 other substances, genes, also can be switched on and off."

Theo: "Yes, you told me that."

Wim: "What kind of consequences does that have!?!? Cancer is there as well! They don't tell me that! I want to learn!! I try to push! But look! University of Maastricht, University of New York, Radboud, departments between eachother, work together and you will see that THIS (his method) is the Holy Grail!"

Theo: ".......Yeah I think that they're also afraid that they give false hope to people.."

Wim: "Well yeah, they say it using THAT excuse? Radboud I have a lot of respect for, and I respect what they have done there, but I will be and stay a wild idiot researcher who goes so far to the bottom of things, and even further, until he has found the solution. And in this case, the power in mankind itself. And I will keep continuing. And I know I'm not allowed to say this, like, like, calm down...Nothing calm down! As long as people are dying from all kinds of idiotic hopelessness, powerlessness, misery and pain, and nothing is being done about it. People are constantly dying! We are just demonstrating "hey why?" Why is something so simple not accepted? Fuck you all, I will help humanity!"

Here's an exerpt from his biography "Pijn" (Pain).

The above links to the passage in the book about the time he took a public enema on the fountain in the Vondelpark and pretty much blew his intestines out.

He says more there though:

It doesn't seem normal to me that you get all these diseases and pains, but you have to do something to ingite the system. Therefore I say: Don't go to the doctor that quickly, just listen to your body

I myself as a researcher use my body as a labatory.....I believe that for what I have done I deserve a Nobel Prize.

I don't know in which field he feels he deserves it but my guess would be Medicine?

Lastly, check out this comment by /u/SOULJAR and click on the link he provides there, since it offers a lot of further insight, especially in the "False Hope" section:

L1: ‘I just asked you: can you cure cancer with these methods?’

Hof: ‘I believe that every disease, any disease whatsoever, is essentially a disbalance of the immune system and that this immune system …’

L1: ‘But do you claim that even cancer can be beaten with these methods?’

Hof: ‘Yeah, but proper research is necessary for this.’

L1: ‘OK that’s clear, it has not yet been proven, but you think it is possible?’

Hof: ‘I think absolutely that there, uh .. 95 percent of all diseases, amongst which are numerous types of cancers, can be cured.’

Now have a look at his website www.innerfire.nl The courses it promotes, the certified Wim Hof Method instructors, the plans to create Wim Hof University and expand into the US, then tell me how he is not making a business out of exploiting peoples desperation?

Who was your most annoying passenger ever and why?

So about the Adderall Gin combo, any other interesting mixes I should def try out some time?

Regards,

Hank.

I still don't understand why you need to call it religious, which by the word itself implies a religion being involved.

A follow-up question would be, do you imply "atheist" science can't be morally just?

Does wonder at nature's marvels immediately have to imply some religious connotation? Am I as an atheist not allowed or able to admire these marvels of nature just the same? Or feel a moral obligation to threat the planet, and all living beings on it with respect?

It does sound very New Agey to me which I'm sure looking at your credentials is not the aim of what you're trying to bring across at all.

First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer me Dr. Ursula.

My New Agey comment comes from it sounding vaguely religious but hidden under assumptions of just admiring or "being one" with nature and fully respecting the wonder of it.

In any case, it's also a way of me saying it all sounds a bit "hippyish" for lack of a better word? A bit out there.

And I'm sure if I read more into what you're actually saying that's not true at all.

It might be a generational thing, whereas the younger generations tend to associate themselves less and less with anything to do with religion these days, especially because most we see or read about it is about restriction our rights, freedoms, etc.

I think the entire notion of calling it religious naturalism immediately carries negative associations with it for a lot of people, which is why I would much prefer a less loaded term that doesn't have millenia of history behind it and doesn't assume you can only truly appreciate the wonder of life if there's some sort of religious sentiment behind it;

"A divine miracle of creation" instead of just "Wow, isn't nature amazing!"

TLDR: I do believe the simple word religion/religious is a loaded term these days that implies you're coming from a certain point of view from the outset.