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Debunk Alternative Medicine Therapies

  • 31-10-2011 5:02am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭


    When I was younger I used to get terrible mouth ulcers where I couldn't eat or talk properly. I used to sometimes get 6 or 7 at a time and they plagued me for about 15 years. My mother (being borderline mentally deficient, I put it down to inbreeding) decided to bring me twice on separate occasions to reiki. Each time I went I was very skeptical, I thought how is this supposed to work, someone standing over me healing me with new age music and incense. But each time I went for about altogether 2-3 hours of 'therapy' my mouth ulcers got worse for about 2 days and then they disappeared and I would be mouth ulcer free for a few months. The second man I went to had a conventional office and he said to me that he manipulated (bad?) energy and he got rid of it and that he didn't know how it worked that it just did. I don't know how it worked, I don't believe it was spiritual healing, I think it was possibly psychosomatic but I wondered if any of you might be able to explain it.

    Thanks in advance.


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    As you're a single data point and your story is far too vague it's quite probable that the walk or journey as far as the alternative medicine centre was what actually got rid of the ulcers. One of the reasons medical trials are double blind is because even if a person gets better after taking a certain pill there's no actual guarantee it was the actual pill that cured them. Remember that the next time someone claims lemsip or paracetamol got rid of their cold.:D


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,515 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    I'd highly recommend Ben Goldacre's book, Bad Science.

    It's a great read and shows how studies of alternative medicine are deeply biased and flawed. Everyone has a cold remedy but you always get better from a cold...

    Also checkout Trick or Treatment by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    Yes but each time I went I had a similar experience. It wasn't a cold it was mouth ulcers that appeared to be directly affected in similar ways on two separate occasions. It was just reiki, and I didn't take any homoeopathic medicine. Literally it was just me lying on a table for an hour. Then for 2 days they got really bad and then they disappeared for a long time or longer than ever before. These answers have been pretty poor.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,109 ✭✭✭Cavehill Red


    The answers have been utterly sanguine and scientifically accurate. They aren't poor at all. You just don't like the answers because they don't tally with your own unscientific conclusion that by lying on a table for an hour your ulcers were magically though only temporarily cured.

    So let's take this slowly: most mouth ulcers are caused by trauma, such as biting the inside of your cheek by accident. The cause of recurring mouth ulcers is not known (or rather there is no generic cause for this in all patients). So we move to trigger items and things which increase the statistical chance of recurrent mouth ulcers. The NHS kindly offers a list. This includes stress and anxiety as the top two listed statistical triggers.

    Now, if you're lying down getting all relaxed with the reiki, that relaxation in itself functions against the recurrence of the ulcers, since lying around on a table reduces the stress and anxiety.

    If we couple that with the placebo effect then we have a perfectly logical and scientific explanation.

    But we can go further again. As has been suggested to you, you are a data set of only one person, so we could consider both the simple fact of coincidence (ie the fact that you lay on a table and later your ulcers receded are not necessarily linked) and the possibility that you are an outlier on a bell curve (at the lucky thin end where occasionally your ulcers go away for longer periods).

    Note that I haven't mentioned reiki at all. Because in none of this is it remotely relevant, except insofar as it might relax you a bit. Equally, you haven't mentioned it either, in the sense that you haven't offered an explanation or a causal effect of how reiki might go about curing mouth ulcers.

    That is your suggestion, and this thread is your invitation to ask people to prove a negative, which I think has been done admirably. But since you don't like those pesky scientific proofs, allow me to ask you to prove the positive. Tell us how reiki cures mouth ulcers, please.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    The answers have been utterly sanguine and scientifically accurate. They aren't poor at all. You just don't like the answers because they don't tally with your own unscientific conclusion that by lying on a table for an hour your ulcers were magically though only temporarily cured.

    So let's take this slowly: most mouth ulcers are caused by trauma, such as biting the inside of your cheek by accident. The cause of recurring mouth ulcers is not known (or rather there is no generic cause for this in all patients). So we move to trigger items and things which increase the statistical chance of recurrent mouth ulcers. The NHS kindly offers a list. This includes stress and anxiety as the top two listed statistical triggers.

    Now, if you're lying down getting all relaxed with the reiki, that relaxation in itself functions against the recurrence of the ulcers, since lying around on a table reduces the stress and anxiety.

    If we couple that with the placebo effect then we have a perfectly logical and scientific explanation.

    But we can go further again. As has been suggested to you, you are a data set of only one person, so we could consider both the simple fact of coincidence (ie the fact that you lay on a table and later your ulcers receded are not necessarily linked) and the possibility that you are an outlier on a bell curve (at the lucky thin end where occasionally your ulcers go away for longer periods).

    Note that I haven't mentioned reiki at all. Because in none of this is it remotely relevant, except insofar as it might relax you a bit. Equally, you haven't mentioned it either, in the sense that you haven't offered an explanation or a causal effect of how reiki might go about curing mouth ulcers.

    That is your suggestion, and this thread is your invitation to ask people to prove a negative, which I think has been done admirably. But since you don't like those pesky scientific proofs, allow me to ask you to prove the positive. Tell us how reiki cures mouth ulcers, please.


    I am very sorry but what you have just done is called the straw man fallacy. I am a skeptic and an atheist and I unlike many other atheists I do not believe in some spiritual force which among atheists the number which do is statistically very high.
    The answers have not been adequate or addressed what I have asked including yours, though yours is better, especially than the first reply which was pretty incomprehensible. I gave an example of the 2 times I was brought to reiki and both times seemingly similar and hard to explain effects took place. I only went for 1 or 2 sessions at the most. Each was 1 hour in length in a 3-4 day in-between appointment period (and the separate occasions were separated by 3 years). Both times I went my mouth ulcers became a lot worse each time for 2 days and in the same similar manner and then disappeared for months which never happened before. Explain how an hour or 2 of reiki or 'relaxation' has those effects which last for months. You haven't done that, instead you insult me and offer nothing based on fact but what to you seems plausible (and I mean to you) and you get ahead of yourself. I never stated the cause of my mouth ulcers but it was probably anxiety in most cases.


    p.s. I also don't appreciate your condescending tone. And you should note that your answer is merely hypothetical and based on assumption, you have not investigated any ambiguities but jumped to conclusions, and the idea an hour of relaxation would cure them is ludicrous. Some of that may be my fault for not explaining thoroughly enough. And I have a theory for how reiki worked in this instance but I would prefer if you would acknowledge your faults from the above post first, but even then I doubt you could comprehend the answer I will give you as it will be by default wrong to you as it may not fit in with your Weltanschauung.


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,386 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    EKClarke wrote: »
    I am very sorry but what you have just done is called the straw man fallacy.
    No, Cavehill Red has asked you to back up your claim that Reiki has influenced your mouth ulcers with something stronger than correlation.
    EKClarke wrote: »
    Explain how an hour or 2 of reiki or 'relaxation' has those effects which last for months.
    Many medical problems come and go on their own. When people abandon scientific medicine for CAM practitioners, they're very often on the down part of the cycle, after which it naturally clears up. If it doesn't, then most people usually have enough sense to abandon the CAM practitioner. While, if it does clear up, the CAM practitioner gets (and often claims) the credit, regardless of whether or not anything they did actually helped or not.
    EKClarke wrote: »
    instead you insult me
    Cavehill might have been mildly ironic, but he/she did not insult you -- chill a bit :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,109 ✭✭✭Cavehill Red


    EK, you have no idea what a straw man fallacy is, and this isn't the place to educate you on that. Google is your friend.
    I concur with Robindch's points above and merely reiterate my question to you:
    If you do not accept that your ulcers cleared up simply as a result of any of or a combination of:
    1) Coincidence
    2) Placebo
    3) Statistical outlier
    then please do tell us, how did Reiki cure your ulcers?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    Well I don't see it as a down to chance. What I think happened is not exactly the placebo effect. I think it is psychological. I went to a psychologist once who hypnotised me without my consent. It wasn't the act like a chicken hypnotism but it was just he shook my hand an held onto it and I went into a state of disorientation, with all the common traits of hypnosis like going into a trance. I feel the atmosphere in these reiki places creates certain mental states and coupled with the relaxation of the mind and the ability (not magical) to manipulate a person in these states is how it was done with ample help from the subject. I think this because I remember well what was going on at the time and what I experienced, at a subconscious level as I have a very odd brain. Even though it was so long ago and when in these states memory does no come easily afterwards.

    I do have to say though that I am disappointed in the answers I got. They seemed to be from rote based on the predicate of what is conventionally rational and just a regurgitation of acceptable knowledge. What it must be, conventionally, rather than what it could be. Like it or not this is a huge hole in the many a skeptics logic in an approach to an argument, its basically bias.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    EK, you have no idea what a straw man fallacy is, and this isn't the place to educate you on that. Google is your friend.
    I concur with Robindch's points above and merely reiterate my question to you:
    If you do not accept that your ulcers cleared up simply as a result of any of or a combination of:
    1) Coincidence
    2) Placebo
    3) Statistical outlier
    then please do tell us, how did Reiki cure your ulcers?

    I know well what a straw man fallacy is, I think it was you who didn't before you googled it. You misrepresented my views and standpoint in this argument-hence straw man fallacy. I will accept your apology.

    A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position, twisting his words or by means of [false] assumptions.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2] Generally, the straw man is a highly exaggerated[citation needed] or over-simplified version of the opponent's original statement, which has been distorted to the point of absurdity. This exaggerated or distorted statement is thus easily argued against, but is a misrepresentation of the opponent's actual statement.
    The answers have been utterly sanguine and scientifically accurate. They aren't poor at all. You just don't like the answers because they don't tally with your own unscientific conclusion that by lying on a table for an hour your ulcers were magically though only temporarily cured

    The bolded quote above from you I think adequately shows a straw man fallacy. You must have misread my opening post at the start of the thread. It is also ad hominem. I will accept your apology if you offer it.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,515 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    No, it's pure skepticism. You've received polite replys and in the case of Cavehill Red a nuanced and well written reply which for some reason you think is offensive.

    You are a single data point. There are so many unknown influencing factors in your experience that we cannot accept your claims or offer anything other than the facts.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,109 ✭✭✭Cavehill Red


    Arguing from a position based on the available medical and scientific evidence is not bias.

    The cause of recurrent mouth ulcers is not known currently; however, as explained, they are often triggered by stress and anxiety, and hence it is logical that resolving stress and anxiety serves to resolve the ulcers.

    The placebo effect is also well-researched and documented. Your attribution of a mystical mind state produced during reiki indicates that you believe that the reiki process has an effect, just as those who receive sugar pills believe they have an effect, hence the placebo effect is likely involved here.

    If you are suggesting that your explanation, which you haven't explained very clearly, is unconventionally rational as opposed to merely irrational, then you need to demonstrate its rationality. Because currently, it sounds like 'magic cured my mouth ulcers.'


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    5uspect wrote: »
    No, it's pure skepticism. You've received polite replys and in the case of Cavehill Red a nuanced and well written reply which for some reason you think is offensive.

    You are a single data point. There are so many unknown influencing factors in your experience that we cannot accept your claims or offer anything other than the facts.

    How can you offer facts to something you claim not to fully understand. There are very few unknown influencing factors. I have ALREADY explained this. 1 hour lying on a table they get very bad and then disappear for a similar amount of time the both times I undertook this therapy in the same manner in two different clinics separated by 3 years with no difference to my lifestyle.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,515 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    You are being deliberately confrontational. Your sole experience is not evidence. There are a multitude of uncontrolled for factors. That is why scientists carry out trials. The books I've linked to explain the trial process in remarkable detail.

    Any large, double blind study of alternative medicines has shown them to be no better than placebo. That is a fact. What more can we say?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    Arguing from a position based on the available medical and scientific evidence is not bias.

    The cause of recurrent mouth ulcers is not known currently; however, as explained, they are often triggered by stress and anxiety, and hence it is logical that resolving stress and anxiety serves to resolve the ulcers.

    The placebo effect is also well-researched and documented. Your attribution of a mystical mind state produced during reiki indicates that you believe that the reiki process has an effect, just as those who receive sugar pills believe they have an effect, hence the placebo effect is likely involved here.

    If you are suggesting that your explanation, which you haven't explained very clearly, is unconventionally rational as opposed to merely irrational, then you need to demonstrate its rationality. Because currently, it sounds like 'magic cured my mouth ulcers.'

    I never said that was bias I said how it is approached logically in your mind is biased based on a predicate.

    Yet again you misrepresent my views. I never said it was mystical ffs I said it was trance like, I mention a ****ing psychologist and likened the experience to being hypnotised. Were your parent cousins as I never claimed it was mystical? This actually in a nut shell is a straw man fallacy. I do not believe what reiki therapists say about their own 'abilities' I am pointing out . That was obvious from my post as I never mentioned the word mystical or that I believed it to be anyway attributable to spiritual healing. Please don't reply to any more posts I make I have explained myself adequately. Are you a troll?

    In relation to when I mentioned conventional rationality that was in relation to the type of responses I got.

    Do you know what a trance is? I think you don't.
    Do you understand that in a case like this where as I have alluded to the cause being anxiety that this is curable as you have alluded to yourself? But this cure was not brought on by an hour of relaxation. Have you used your superior intellect to process what I wrote in my original post and found that they plagued me for years. So an hour of 'relaxation' is hardly enough to cure them for a few months, something which had never happened before using conventional medicine, and this worked on 2 separate occasions. Now pause for a second and use that superior intellect of yours and think about what I posted in previous posts. I said even in the opening post I thought it was psychological, hence being possible to cure to some extent if one wished to manipulate me or I wished to do so to myself not necessarily the anxiety but my knowledge of it and it's effects. I already alluded to hypnosis, a conventional form of treatment and likened it to that, with the therapists being able to have an input in minimal ways as you both set out to get rid of it and such an atmosphere in such a state can have effects upon it, PSYCHOLOGICALLY. I made this clear earlier on.

    I have a feeling here that you don't even believe the information I am giving you, so why would you bother answering when you do not have the information at hand to form a rational, concise answer as you have alluded to this yourself?


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,109 ✭✭✭Cavehill Red


    So, it was something like this, perhaps?

    LevitationColor2small.jpg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    5uspect wrote: »
    You are being deliberately confrontational. Your sole experience is not evidence. There are a multitude of uncontrolled for factors. That is why scientists carry out trials. The books I've linked to explain the trial process in remarkable detail.

    Any large, double blind study of alternative medicines has shown them to be no better than placebo. That is a fact. What more can we say?

    I am not referring to the placebo effect I am referring to a psychological explanation other than the placebo effect. Covert hypnosis in a relaxed state. Please look up hypnosis somewhere other than Wikipedia. These people claim to have powers. So do mediums. In reality they can cold read people and do what mentalists do. Derren Brown? Heal moth ulcers caused by anxiety? Sound rational? Hypnotism wears off after a certain amount of time.

    Is it likely given that it is done by hypnotists anyway and mentalists and it is aided by the relaxed state one is supposed to take during reiki added to the reason one is participating in reiki in the first place it can be very easy to manipulate the schemata since this is so fresh in the short term memory especially during these states where thought association is very free and allows the association of this into the mind behind and beyond thoughts, which is the way all thought association works.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    So, it was something like this, perhaps?

    LevitationColor2small.jpg

    Ad hominem much?:rolleyes:

    Supposedly a rational skeptic like yourself should be better than this.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,109 ✭✭✭Cavehill Red


    EKClarke wrote: »
    Ad hominem much?:rolleyes:

    Supposedly a rational skeptic like yourself should be better than this.

    You've been presented with a series of rational explanations for your subjective account. You have chosen irrationally to dismiss all of them. Your proffered explanation is not only self-contradictory (it's 'covert hypnotism' curing ulcers yet hypnotism 'wears off') but also entirely undefined, unfounded and unsupported by any evidence.

    Therefore, since you're insistent, in the face of all logic, that it was not coincidence, placebo, statistical anomaly nor the infection cycle of the condition, the only remaining answer must be magic.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    You've been presented with a series of rational explanations for your subjective account. You have chosen irrationally to dismiss all of them. Your proffered explanation is not only self-contradictory (it's 'covert hypnotism' curing ulcers yet hypnotism 'wears off') but also entirely undefined, unfounded and unsupported by any evidence.

    Therefore, since you're insistent, in the face of all logic, that it was not coincidence, placebo, statistical anomaly nor the infection cycle of the condition, the only remaining answer must be magic.

    You have not taking all the information that I offered to you.
    Self contradictory how?
    I am trying to offer a rational explanation for supposed healers, something which you have not caught onto.
    You know nothing of hypnosis yet you dismiss it out of hand.
    I likened the state one is in when undergoing reiki to hypnosis as they are very similar. You are in room just yourself and a therapist, a bit like being in a a room and it is just yourself and a psychologist. In hypnosis many things happen, you are a lamb for the slaughter as you cannot think straight, you forget the time every 2 minutes, you have no peripheral vision and the respective roles seem to be reversed.
    I am drawing a link between the mental trance of hypnosis used to cure mental illness by schematic reorganization, and similar circumstances one finds themselves in reiki where you are relaxed by incense with your eyes closed listening to music. Someone stands over you supposedly healing you.
    Now if the problem one has can be cured psychologically, as I said anxiety caused the ulcers, why then could reiki not if its real benefit was relaxation. And if you knew anything about hypnotism or anything at all about the human mind then this therapist would not have to actually hypnotise you as it is already a requirement of reiki to be in a trance like state. Suggestion, even through emotional transmission is possible. That is in fact, emotional transmission, one of the biggest dangers of hypnotism. Just so you know hypnotism you can be completely alert during it. If you were ever hypnotised you would seriously consider it a possibility. Not that it is exactly similar but fundamental similarities between the two are uncanny. I am not saying reiki or spiritual healing could heal cancer, but if you go for a sore muscle it can help. In this case anxiety can be mentally blocked or relieved for period of time. The mind experiences things very differently in a suggestive state which are internalised into the subconscious and have effects long past the trance. We just don't notice them because they are associated into a succession of mental thoughts.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,386 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    EKClarke wrote: »
    My mother (being borderline mentally deficient, I put it down to inbreeding)
    EKClarke wrote: »
    Were your parent cousins [...] Are you a troll?
    EK - this is your second and final warning to behave. Your next offense will earn you a card, and for continued bad temper after that, a forum ban.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,109 ✭✭✭Cavehill Red


    EKClarke wrote: »
    You have not taking all the information that I offered to you.
    Self contradictory how?

    See my previous post where I demonstrated that you said a transient effect was also a permanent effect.
    EKClarke wrote: »
    I am trying to offer a rational explanation for supposed healers, something which you have not caught onto.

    You haven't offered a rational explanation. You're going to find you can't either, because 'healers' don't heal.
    EKClarke wrote: »
    You know nothing of hypnosis yet you dismiss it out of hand.

    You know nothing about me, yet you think you can assess my knowledge of hypnosis? I know more than you think I do, actually. Much more.
    EKClarke wrote: »
    I likened the state one is in when undergoing reiki to hypnosis as they are very similar. You are in room just yourself and a therapist, a bit like being in a a room and it is just yourself and a psychologist.

    You can be hypnotised in a crowd live on stage. Being alone with someone does not have any impact on inducing a hypnotic state.
    EKClarke wrote: »
    In hypnosis many things happen, you are a lamb for the slaughter as you cannot think straight, you forget the time every 2 minutes, you have no peripheral vision and the respective roles seem to be reversed.

    This is amusing. Care to cite some supporting evidence that these are the effects induced by hypnosis?
    EKClarke wrote: »
    I am drawing a link between the mental trance of hypnosis used to cure mental illness by schematic reorganization, and similar circumstances one finds themselves in reiki where you are relaxed by incense with your eyes closed listening to music. Someone stands over you supposedly healing you.

    Some supporting evidence for the controversial assertion in bold would be needed also.
    EKClarke wrote: »
    Now if the problem one has can be cured psychologically, as I said anxiety caused the ulcers, why then could reiki not if its real benefit was relaxation.

    You will find that I suggested that any correlation between the bouts of reiki and the ulcers clearing up might have been due to relaxation and you rejected it a page ago.
    EKClarke wrote: »
    And if you knew anything about hypnotism or anything at all about the human mind then this therapist would not have to actually hypnotise you as it is already a requirement of reiki to be in a trance like state. Suggestion, even through emotional transmission is possible. That is in fact, emotional transmission, one of the biggest dangers of hypnotism.

    Relevance?
    EKClarke wrote: »
    Just so you know hypnotism you can be completely alert during it. If you were ever hypnotised you would seriously consider it a possibility. Not that it is exactly similar but fundamental similarities between the two are uncanny. I am not saying reiki or spiritual healing could heal cancer, but if you go for a sore muscle it can help. In this case anxiety can be mentally blocked or relieved for period of time. The mind experiences things very differently in a suggestive state which are internalised into the subconscious and have effects long past the trance. We just don't notice them because they are associated into a succession of mental thoughts.

    So your argument now is that hypnotic relaxation induced during reiki cured your ulcers?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭EKClarke


    See my previous post where I demonstrated that you said a transient effect was also a permanent effect.

    Cannot see evidence of this.
    You haven't offered a rational explanation. You're going to find you can't either, because 'healers' don't heal.

    I never said healers heal by some mystical power. I tries to offer a rational explanation as to how in this instance I was healed. In this instance where they were caused by anxiety I tried to show how it is possible for them to have been cured by a technique similar to hypnosis. And I pointed out the similarities between the two therapies. I also tried to offer how these supposed healers could work with out the use of mystical powers. I never once said that they cured people by the techniques that they claimed using ki.

    http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/a/hypnosis.htm


    You know nothing about me, yet you think you can assess my knowledge of hypnosis? I know more than you think I do, actually. Much more.

    See below.
    You can be hypnotised in a crowd live on stage. Being alone with someone does not have any impact on inducing a hypnotic state.

    Wrong. Being alone with someone who knows how to cause someone to enter hypnosis can have a bearing on inducing a trance. In a trance you can be be perfectly aware of your surroundings. You are, rather frustratingly, confusing different sorts of hypnosis. One is stage hypnosis, the other is clinical hypnosis.
    This is amusing. Care to cite some supporting evidence that these are the effects induced by hypnosis?

    You mustn't know anything about hypnosis or else you would know that the effects it causes that I gave are perfectly rational and common in hypnosis. I cannot find the link I had and I have looked for ages but time distortion, a lack of peripheral vision and the apparent switching of roles between the psychologist and the subject are common effects of hypnosis.


    Some supporting evidence for the controversial assertion in bold would be needed also.

    http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/a/hypnosis.htm

    Symptoms of ADHD. Anxiety. Self hypnosis is also a technique used that would assert that claim as that is what it is in the first place as is nearly all forms of therapy. A reorganization of information in the brain. Only in these instances it is influenced by an outside party in a suggestive state where thought association is different as well as what one experiences.
    You will find that I suggested that any correlation between the bouts of reiki and the ulcers clearing up might have been due to relaxation and you rejected it a page ago.

    Not relaxation, but the relaxation one enters during reiki as similar to a trance one enters during hypnosis. A trance is not a drooling state of unconscious but similar to what I have said above. It alone does not cause it.
    Relevance?

    There does not need to be a verbal suggestion in hypnosis. If you actually knew anything about hypnosis you would know that.
    So your argument now is that hypnotic relaxation induced during reiki cured your ulcers?


    Not hypnotic relaxation. I will try and explain it slowly.

    In hypnosis suggestion does not have to be verbal to enter a trance or during a trance.

    The trance one enters in reiki is similar to that of hypnosis. You are supposed to relax in reiki. The effects one experiences during it are not the same but the effects on the mind are the similar.

    A hypnotist can give covert suggestions through body language, tone of voice or NLP. The act the therapist takes of standing over one can have curative effects, not in itself, but in a similar manner a psychologists demeanour and body language and non verbal suggestion and the influence it can have on the mind when in these states especially since one is processing information, in these lucid states, through the filter of the problem at hand (ulcers), and these can affect the mind.

    I remember very well what I experienced when I was hypnotised. I immediately afterwards found the similarity in the sate the mind is in to reiki even though it had occurred more than 10 years previously. You see the psychologist is in control in one of these instances and the therapist in another (I have already explained the power both can have and how it can be felt). I tried to offer a rational explanation as to how reiki works by likening it to hypnosis. Others have done the same before me and have seen the similarities between both.

    And please use your intellect. Do you have to be told what to think or can you use your own mind to establish rational possibilities to explain phenomena or do you wait for you subscription to Skeptic Monthly magazine to arrive in the post.


  • Registered Users Posts: 86 ✭✭38Flowers


    you are so funny


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 10,515 Mod ✭✭✭✭5uspect


    38Flowers wrote: »
    you are so funny

    erm... you're replying to a two year old comment, by someone who has since closed their account.


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