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The Natural Healing Alliance...

Started by PickelledEggs, October 14, 2015, 10:54:26 PM

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PickelledEggs

This is the organization that is fighting for "holistic" and "energy" healing in my neck of the woods. If I knew of a way to shut them down for promoting bullshit, I would.

Take a look and if you want, check out the video of these indigo children circle-jerk themselves and their idea of what relevant medicine is.

http://naturalhealingalliance.org/

Baruch

I have known a Qi Gong or Reiki practitioner.  These phenomenon are not unlike what happens in Pentecostal churches.  As best I can tell indirectly, they are powerful placebo and cathartic events ... areas not usually studied by the regular medical community ... since they are not reproducible.

On the other hand, right in the center of the web site is "insurance".  Perhaps this is a new fangled way to sell health insurance?  More mystical but no more valid than the quackery of Obamacare.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

PickelledEggs

#2
It's not reproducible because it's strictly a placebo effect at most. I have a lot of experience with these natural-paths and even had some practice on me (both before and after I turned full-skeptic). Light touch healing for instance... is basically guided relaxation, but the practitioners won't give off that impression. They want you to believe, and some light touch healing practitioners even believe themselves, that there is energy balancing/flow increase/cleansing/etc. But basically what happens is you are guided in to relaxation. If that was what they were marketing, there probably wouldn't be a problem.... but these people claim to be able to cure diseases and illness...

BTW.

Has anyone else noticed that the main population of people practicing ancient eastern "medicine" is compiled of middle aged white women?

EDIT:
I forgot to address the insurance part...
It seems to me like the main coverage for the insurance that they offer is for liability for the practitioner... like if something goes wrong or their stuff gets stolen. Not as a "health insurance" kind of thing.

drunkenshoe

Quote from: PickelledEggs on October 14, 2015, 11:57:04 PM
Has anyone else noticed that the main population of people practicing ancient eastern "medicine" is compiled of middle aged white women?

Yep, mostly. It's the same where I live. Also they are mostly in the 'teaching' or leading positions now. Most of them are my peers.

My mother told me that my eldest aunt asked why I don't go to reiki meetings when I was depressed years ago. Apparently she had just said something "She is not interested in that stuff" and as she is a tactful, nice old woman didn't make any offensive statement, but it dawned on me eventually that we don't make close with certain relatives, esp. in the last decade or so. :lol:

The thing with this bullshit is that it varies in a predictable way according to certain classes. Everything that sort happening in the US or Europe gets imported to here in light speed and places pop up.

When you look at these places the people are attending or hosting are mostly women with no jobs or retired ones from a certain socio economical class. They are mostly educated and well off.

I also know people -again they are women at least the ones I know- interested in 'spells' -seriously- and there is an obvious but interesting connection between who is interested in what part of magical bullshit and how.

Well there area lot to say on this...but no time for now.




"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Baruch

Ditto on the usual practitioner, older white women.  Though the Qi Gong I knew was a male disciple of a male teacher (Eastern not Western).  Some present as a massage therapist in a positive way.  I would suspect this is a woman on woman thing ... in the sense that many women are not comfortable with men touching them, and most doctors are male.  My mother is opposite, she allows a male doctor, but not a female doctor.  And some influence might be ideological, as part of the masculine suppression of women's healing arts in general, dating back to early modern times.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Solitary

Actually our bodies heal themselves, if given the right tools, or surgery. I still can't believe acupuncture is allowed in the United States to treat diseases, or for that matter, talk therapy.  It make people feel better just like religion does, but it cures no disease. One might as well go to a witch doctor, or shaman, that would have the same results from the placebo effect. And why are placebos allowed in medicine in the first place. In any other profession that would be unethical to sell a product that doesn't actually work.
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

jonb

Quote from: Solitary on October 15, 2015, 11:46:00 AM
Actually our bodies heal themselves, if given the right tools, or surgery. I still can't believe acupuncture is allowed in the United States to treat diseases, or for that matter, talk therapy.  It make people feel better just like religion does, but it cures no disease. One might as well go to a witch doctor, or shaman, that would have the same results from the placebo effect. And why are placebos allowed in medicine in the first place. In any other profession that would be unethical to sell a product that doesn't actually work.

I think there is some evidence that in trials acupuncture has been shown to be effective for a limited number of conditions especially to do with pain relief.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Acupuncture/Pages/Evidence.aspx

That is not something I know about though, what I find interesting about acupuncture is that the the body of iceman Otzi who lived between 3359 and 3105 BCE found in the Alps has tattoos on acupuncture points and these places are the very points a modern acupuncturist would place needles to help the conditions his body shows evidence for.
The other strange thing about this find is that it puts the use of acupuncture back before the Chinese were supposed to have invented it.


Otzi as found in the Alps


Tattoos on Otzi's body.

GSOgymrat

Quote from: Baruch on October 15, 2015, 06:23:02 AM
Some present as a massage therapist in a positive way.  I would suspect this is a woman on woman thing ... in the sense that many women are not comfortable with men touching them, and most doctors are male.  My mother is opposite, she allows a male doctor, but not a female doctor.  And some influence might be ideological, as part of the masculine suppression of women's healing arts in general, dating back to early modern times.

For years I have been getting a massage about once a month. Of course it feels good but I always suspected that it helped my muscles recover faster. This video indicates there is research to support my experience but even if there were no direct health benefits would still get massage just because it feels good. It doesn't matter to me if the massage therapist is male or female as long as he or she really gets in there and applies pressure.

https://youtu.be/YhO73Fnd14A

Baruch

Quote from: Solitary on October 15, 2015, 11:46:00 AM
Actually our bodies heal themselves, if given the right tools, or surgery. I still can't believe acupuncture is allowed in the United States to treat diseases, or for that matter, talk therapy.  It make people feel better just like religion does, but it cures no disease. One might as well go to a witch doctor, or shaman, that would have the same results from the placebo effect. And why are placebos allowed in medicine in the first place. In any other profession that would be unethical to sell a product that doesn't actually work.

Medicine is a business, as unethical as any other.  Bank robbers don't use stethoscopes though.  It is most successful in the US, because it extracts more lucre from the patients than any other national system.

But as I pointed out long ago ... medicine is placebo or poison/injury.  People will stop at nothing to feel better, and get better if possible.  I see no reason to deny them.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Sal1981

I would deny this woo like I would deny any harmful product/practice, given the power to do so.

But, since I do not, I'll just complain.

As long as it's harmless and doesn't affect others, then do whatever you feel like. But with this kind of 'alternative practice', that's rarely the case. People goto these 'practitioners' instead of going to real doctors, who in the end costs lives and money.

SGOS

Quote from: PickelledEggs on October 14, 2015, 10:54:26 PM

Take a look and if you want, check out the video of these indigo children circle-jerk themselves and their idea of what relevant medicine is.

http://naturalhealingalliance.org/

Now, now!  Let's look at this impartially.  First, look at the introduction titles.  There's clouds, stars, amorphous changing shapes, and flowering looking animations accompanied by pleasant, although hardly new age music.  When the introduction is done and we are about to watch the actual presentation, the transition is signaled by the ringing of a tiny bell, "PING."  Just one single ping, not a loud frantic ringing, but just a simple magical sound that helps summon the spirits of healing.

This is obviously not some greedy national corporate enterprise.  It's being aired on what appears to be a local community access channel in New Jersey, hosted by normal looking people, who might even be your neighbors, so you know it's a trusted source run by honest and caring people who are not interested in getting your money.

Hell, I'd trust it.

Baruch

#11
The primary "engineering" of the American medical system, is social and financial engineering.  Of course they can sometimes produce useful medicines and procedures ... for a price.  A price ... is inevitable (no, not communism ... Joe) ... the primary disconnect in America isn't the price ... it is the blind faith that medicines and procedures don't have unfortunate consequences, that have to be judiciously considered ... and that everyone is entitled to expensive medical care.  I certainly wouldn't deny anyone an aspirin (if they aren't allergic to it) ... but the idea of a bottomless sugar daddy, paid for by exporting inflation to Third World countries ... is that ethical?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.


Baruch

Yes, maybe Joe is a Dalek ;-)  BTW ... good morning here, and lunch time where you are.

The primary objection of alternative medicine isn't that it isn't scientific, but that it is not easily monetized by the usual folks ;-)  But I am sure, if people did take a walk more often, or did a de-stressing meditation ... they would reduce their need for those very monetized products and services ... and we would be required to satisfy some quota of regular medical products .... oh ... it is called Obamacare.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

jonb

I agree, and would add so much of the media's reaction to our cultures belief in individuality, is that the individual is something to be blamed rather than empowered.