alternative therapy

[nari]

This is not intended to distract from Diane's thread on manips - but it is vaguely relevant. On our ABC-TV channel each week they have a 30 minute segment on alternative therapies. It is mind boggling.....
Example:

Discussion between the Commentator and a Reflexologist, around the benefit of reflexology: the practitioner cited a case of Bell's Palsy which was totally cured in ONE session.
Another one which left me nonplussed: an Aura Therapist 'cleaned' the aura of a person who was feeling down and out; and took pre and post cleaning pictures. The pre cleaning shot showed technicolour waves around the head; the post cleaning shot showed a pristine yellow glow. The owner of the aura was much better, and parted with $160 for the effort, and said yellow was her favourite colour now.

Another classic was an arthritic woman who attended a Reiki practitioner and after several costly sessions, was able to perform quite normally, and cease all medications.

Does paying money for mystery indicate a placebo effect and a half??:eek:
We are missing something, guys....are we? :confused:


Nari

[flaviovitor]

Nari, I do think we are missing something... in competition field of course!

Some questions arouses in my mind:

- Is Human kind going crazy?
- Is that sort of thing necessary for those people, or for human beings?
- Would these people had been treated really properly for persistent pain disorders by, for example, a physiotherapist? Or not? Think about that, we are entering the world of disillusionment. It is nothing personal, but a few people do see gnomes! Since the time of my faculty, I have never again seen any friend who saw a gnome! Just a joke! :angel:



Flávio.

[nari]

The sad thing is, of course, Flavio, that these shows only select the patients who do wonderfully well. What about the percentage who 'fail'?

Placebo effect is alive and well (which we know anyway) and it is a pity that some PTs regard it as a non treatment. It's there, and we should make the most of it.



Nari

[emad]

Hi Nari :

Of course , there are still plenty of missings , always i belive in non-completeness .

The other thing , we are honest , we take the whole box the good and bad ,the postive and negative , although sometimes i am beinf selective .

The other thing , the placebo ,we have only one obligation concerning that curative element which is working with it consciously .

Best Regards

Emad

[bernard]

Well,

Alternative or not? That is a question without a real response!

Our 'modern' societies show that alternative therapies are more and more used by patients but studies show, also, that patients aren't going better or much bad with these ones. It is quite the same.

We may conclude in only one direction:

Alternative = Orthodox but this statement is false because it doesn't take account of the patient will.

Thus you'll be facing to:



Alternative = Orthodox (but I do not care...)

Alternative > Orthodox (but I'm an alternative patient)

Alternative < Orthodox (I'm orthodox)


Here are some placeboic effects but media is seeking only to marvellous and sensational news/effects (and orthodox is far from miracles).

Thus we have some others conclusions:



Alternative medicine governs media

Show business is going mad (quite true!!!)

Orthodox medicine governs media... (evil but...)

media are objective...

[bernard]

Thanks Luke :thumbs_up

But some questions remain for me:

Aura => differences seeen with Kirlian pictures
Healing => Illness cured mysteriously (approved by Science/Medicine /and/or Religion).
Gifts => Some people are able to cure burns... I saw it.

[Luke Rickards]

Bernard,
I don't doubt that phenomena that are difficult to explain do exist. I do feel the need to discriminate very carefully when it comes to explaining such things though. There is a entire culture (the New Age) that seems to accept just about any story that has the words 'ancient wisdom' and 'energy' in it and that any treatment that utilises these concepts can heal everything.

There probably is a handful is 'gifted' souls on the planet, but there is also an aweful lot of wishful thinkers - in my neck of the woods anyway.

Luke

(for more on Kirlian photography - http://skepdic.com/kirlian.html )

[nari]

Luke

I like your ad - it should be published somewhere. Must be interesting living in Bondi - haven't been there for some years.

(For those wondering what Bondi is, it is Australia's most wellknown beach, a short drive (at least at 3 am) from the city centre. It is not the best as far as beaches go, but anything seems to go on its sands)

Bernard

I have heard of Kirlian photography, and I'll accept we might have auras - but cleaning them? :confused:

Tell us more about the rapid burns healing that you saw.

I had a patient who insisted that she practise some Reiki on me; and was quite disappointed that I felt no warmth from her suspended hand. I failed her, in more ways than one because I didn't change her LBP much either.


Nari

[bernard]

Hi Luke and Nari,

I agree with Kirlian explanation for a bit. If moisture was the only simple one...
But cells and bodies contain ionic imbalances and ionic imbalances create electrical/static fields and electrical fields may be "captured" by kirlian pictures. And a field may be perturbed by another? (just an idea...)

The problem with all these alternative things is they come with a lot of mystical, esoteric stuff...:sad:

Tell us more about the rapid burns healing that you saw.
A woman was hardly burned on her R hand. I saw the "bubbles" and oedema (burned with boiling oil). The burned area was limited to the half of her hand and three fingers were turned to hot red (pain +++) and she went to the healer (the next day), (he said that his gift works only for burns). I saw her 2 days after and there was no signs of any burned area. She said that when he practiced, pain went away in seconds and the day after oedema has gone.

He does not take any money but like to have a drink...

[Diane]

Luke, I loved your job description! :D
The only thing you left out of it was that the applicant must be multiply re-incarnated to have obtained experience sufficient to meet the work load and capacity to do the job adequately, and ask applicants for an estimate. :angel:

Bernard, love the guy that will heal your burn for a drink. Hope his breath is tolerable.. :p
Diane

[Luke Rickards]

Fantastic story Bernard.

Regarding auras:
If the philosophy concerning auras referred to a subtle electromagnetic field that is reflective of the individual's ion concentration then I think more conservative folks would have less of a problem. However, an 'aura' is a reflection of the spiritual status of one's soul, and is composed of 'etheric energies' supposedly so subtle that their potency is beyond our dimension...in the Astral Worlds.

I really can't see how electrical photography was ever attempted in order to image this when an understanding of the philosophy would clearly make it counter intuitive. To me Kirlian photography is an obvious gimick, usually appealing to those who long for spiritual experience without having to sit under a tree for half their life (or people interested in bioelectromagnetism). What is spiritual about a computer readout telling you who you are is beyond me.

Here is another story.
When I was in India 12 years ago I met a well known yogi/doctor/healer in Goa. At the time, two Americans where there with a Kirlian camera and they wanted to get his interpretation of the colours for the computer readout interpretations. He said that they are wasting their time because it cannot be done. He continued "the camera has some uses but it does not image the aura and to interpret another's aura requires a high degree of self-mastery and spiritual insight". There was a young, rather thin Danish man there at the time and he wanted his photo taken. After the polaroid had developed it showed very little colour anywhere. He asked the Americans why that was and they didn't know. He then asked the doctor, and he said "I didn't want to tell you this, you have leukemia". The man passed out. When he aroused we found out that he already had 2 immediate family members die of leukemia. The doctor said "If you stay here for 6 months I can help you". He went back to Denmark that week.

Funny, this doctor drank like a fish too.

Luke

[Luke Rickards]

Thanks Diane,
We laughed ourselves silly doing that. Your additions are in. For a bit of fun we are going to pin it up on the noticeboard at the 'Earthfoods Store' down the road. I'm sure there will be a few giggles had along with the soy dandelion lattes.

Luke

[Diane]

Luke,
"Mirthful marriage manifests couple karma into eternity." I just made that up, sound good? Think anyone might kneel at my feet for that? I don't drink, at least not much.. therefore maybe I won't rate as a spiritual advisor or very good healer. I could get to work on my PT system for measuring auric outcomes, or just go on dealing with the physicality of the human body and its physiological behavior.. decisions decisions. Hmmn. :)
Diane

[Luke Rickards]

That is a very tough one Diane. You could be missing some pretty big parts of the picture - unlike the healer my wife happened to be hearing about at a party last night, just when I would have been writing my last post. She was talking to a guy who's friend's partner does Auric Cleansing and he was encouraged to have a treatment this week for something. Apparently he had a few loose bits of DNA floating around his aura and some iron filings in one of his chakras.

Its OK though, she cleared them out. My wife (who is is great at sarcasm) wanted to test it so she went and got a fridge magnet and started placing it on different parts of his body, and guess what - it didn't stick anywhere. Amazing.;)

Luke

[Diane]

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Probably your wife could have handled the whole iron filing crisis with the fridge magnet, by putting it further away from the body (where the aura is reputed to exist) to clean out all those dang iron filings. They likely get trapped in etheric webs or something, and need special magnetic untangling/swooping movements to "release" them.. Time is known to not be rigid, so she could have done her fridge magnet therapy after the other person's "healing" and accomplished a superior treatment.

Is your wife also an osteopathic student? I think I like her, even though I've never met her.
Diane

[Luke Rickards]

No Diane, Emma is a lawyer (environmental and human rights), but she has decided on a career change. She is starting a PhD next year involving an academic exegesis on self-translation theory in poetry and a book length collection of poems, half written in English and translated by her into French and half written in French and translated into English. She is very smart and very funny - you two would get on well.

Luke

[nari]

Luke. your wife sounds fascinating with her interests and skills; but that is not to say that you aren't either!

Loved the iron filings story. That pesky DNA really does get around, it should stay where it's meant to be. Delusions of grandeur, it has. Wonder if the guy was anaemic due to that free floating Fe??


Nari

[Luke Rickards]

Nari, it sure is amazing what DNA gets up to these days. :angel:

[bernard]

Hope his breath is tolerable.. :p
Not really, I met the man and needed to stay a meter from him.:D
Many Chefs send their employees when a burn occurs and thus they come back at work without any rest!:angel: => productivity!:thumbs_do

But I do not know if he fails sometimes...

[Diane]

Maybe his breath is his secret weapon; people pour on the coals and heal miraculously just to get away from him! :D
Diane