Reiki versus dogs just being dogs

Let me start right here by repeating yet again my oft-repeated assessment of reiki. Reiki is clearly nothing more than faith healing that substitutes Eastern mysticism for Christianity. Think of it this way. In faith healing, the faith healer claims to channel the healing power of God into the person being healed. In reiki, the reiki master claims to be able to channel "life energy" from what they refer to as the "universal source." Big difference, right?

Wrong. It's the same thing.

Let me also point out that, as much as I detest quackery, I'm particularly not a big fan of subjecting innocent animals to quackery. That's why I've been particularly critical of subjecting animals to acupuncture, the way Cesar Milan does sometimes on his show The Dog Whisperer. I also haven't been much of a fan of reiki masters subjecting animals to reiki. As large animal veterinarian David Ramey puts it, the use of such therapies as acupuncture is a triumph of style over substance. The only good thing I can say about subjecting animals to reiki is that at least it doesn't involve sticking needles into the poor creatures. The other thing I can say is that frequently it involves some hilarity on the part of reiki masters, particularly "reiki animal shamans." I found yet another example of this not too long ago at the About.com Guide to Holistic Healing in the form of an article by someone named Phylameana lila Desy, who describes herself thusly:

Phylameana is certified in Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki and the Science of Intuition from the Holos Institutes of Health. She is an energy medicine practitioner, clairvoyant, intuitive counselor, flower essence consultant, and owner of Spiral Visions. Her lifework includes writing, web-publishing, and healing work. Author of The Everything Guide to Reiki, (January 2012). Phylameana's writing resume includes contributed content published in a variety of healing texts including: The Meditation Sourcebook, Living Well with Autoimmune Disease, and Sacred Stones. Her Chakracises were referenced in an article published in Body and Soul Magazine (March 2006).

As you can see, Phylameana is not exactly what you would call a skeptical person. She embraces all manner of non-science-based woo, as befits a reiki master. This embrace produces hilarious results in an article by her, What if My Dog Prefers Petting Over Reiki?, in which she solicits a response to this very question from Rose De Dan. We've met Rose before when she counseled another reiki practitioner who tried to heal a dog who had been hit by a car and a cat with a fatal viral infection. Unsurprisingly, neither worked. The best Rose could answer was to blithely tell this hapless reiki master that "the practitioner does not always get what they want, but the recipient always gets what they need." Mick Jagger analogies aside, Rose took the hilarity one step further by suggesting that the reiki master "consider sending Reiki back in time for yourself, to the point of origin of your need to make a difference or 'heal'" and "send Reiki back in time to the situation, the occasion of the passing of each animal, for the highest good of all, thereby opening possibilities for them."

As I put it at the time, where's The Doctor when you need him?

But back to the problem at hand. Why would a dog prefer petting to reiki? Heck, why would a dog prefer treats to reiki? Any dog owner would know the answer to that: Dogs love food, and most dogs are pretty food-driven. Most of them also love to be petted. As for reiki itself, in case you don't know what reiki actually involves, I'll tell you. Basically, in order to channel the "life energy" from the "universial source" reiki masters sometimes do do an elaborate series of hand gestures. Sometimes they simply hold their hands over the person who is to receive their "healing," much as practitioners of "therapeutic touch" do, which is not surprising given that, if anything, therapeutic touch resembles various "energy healing" modalities like—you guessed it—reiki. Oh, you'll sometimes see arguments over whether touching is permitted or whether the woo works if there's actual skin-to-skin contact, but in the end it's all basically the same thing: Magic healing based on wishful thinking.

So let's get to the question:

Is there a right/wrong way, or suggestions how to do Reiki on my dogs? I have been attuned in Reiki 1 (a few years ago) & Reiki 2 (in March). It occurred to me I hadn't done Reiki with my 2 dogs so I tried to do it. They don't want me to just hold my hands over them or in one spot as they want to be petted by my hands (of course -- they are dogs). So while stroking my dog, I made the master symbol just intended for the higher good; one itches a lot so I'm going to see if Reiki can help with that. But, my hands have to keep moving or he gets annoyed/confused. Any right or wrong way about this (in terms of keeping the movement versus stationary)? Or would it be more effective to do a distance healing?

I'm going to surprise you by saying that "distance healing" would be at least as effective as doing standard reiki. Well, maybe it's not such a surprise. The reason that both are equally effective is that neither are effective. It is, however, rather amusing, this reiki woo-meister's dilemma. In a way, dogs are smarter than humans in that they don't fool themselves into believing that hand motions are anything more than hand motions. They'd much prefer to be petted than to have some silly human making pointless hand symbols over them. I know what my dog would probably do if I were to try to make these hand symbols over him in order to "heal" him. He'd probably think I was playing with him and get very excited. My dog and I sometimes wrestle, and there are few things my dog likes better; he even likes this better than chasing a ball. Of course, big doofus that my dog is, wrestling often results in accidental scratches—to me on my hands and arms. The same thing used to happen with the last dog I had who liked to play this way back when I was a teenager. Alternatively, he might become confused or annoyed (like the hapless reiki master's dog in the letter) and try to escape, particularly if he's not in the mood to play or if there's a distracting squirrel or bird in the yard.

So what is Rose's advice? This:

I would suggest asking your dog to help you practice your new skills. Approach the session by stating (to yourself), "I ask that this Reiki be offered for your highest healing good, and that if you do not wish to receive it, I respect your desire." This enlists his support, shifts focus from your need to his, and releases your focus on "fixing" the issue.

Next I would tell him the steps that you intend to take. Imagine yourself going through the steps in your mind, with your hands being still--this will give your dog information about what to expect and how he could cooperate.

Yeah, I'm sure that'll work, just as it'll work if you ask your dog "permission" to do anything. Of course, this whole "asking permission" thing is the perfect out if the animal doesn't get better. Obviously, if the dog (or whatever animal) stays the same, he must not have wanted to be healed! Of course, humans frequently perceive their dogs' behavior in terms of their own wishful thinking rather than on the more—shall we say?—basic motivations that drive dogs, in essence anthropomorphizing their dog's behavior and perceived motivations. Reiki is perfect for driving this misinterpretation. You can bet that virtually anything the dog does will be perceived as "giving permission." Well, anything perhaps, except dying, as the dog unfortunately did in my previous deconstruction of this nonsense.

Rose then suggests:

It sounds like you were trained to do Reiki hand positions above the body rather than making contact as I do. If that is so I would suggest placing your hands directly on your dog since he will understand that better. However, it is not necessary to keep both hands still during a session for it to be effective. One hand can stay in the intended hand position while the other is involved with the expected petting.

In other words, Rose is advising this hapless reiki master simply to pet her dog with one hand. Of course the dog will like it! Dogs love to be petted. Sure, the dog would probably prefer to be petted with both hands, but dogs are adaptable. They'll take what they can get from their owners. Looking at the hand positions described, I'm even more convinced that, were I to try this with my dog, he'd think it was time to wrestle, particularly because several of the hand gestures shown involve covering the face.

Rose then concludes with advice regarding the dog's itchy skin, suggesting both reiki, dietary modifications, and "detoxification" (of course!) in order to alleviate the dog's symptoms.

I must admit that I find this particular article a lot less disturbing than the last foray into animal reiki by Rose that I discussed, not because reiki is any less pure quackery, but because at least in this case the animal getting the reiki is not dying, as the dog hit by a car was. At least in this case, although reiki isn't doing the dog any good, at least it's not causing harm by delaying definitive treatment—or at least palliation—of painful injuries. On one level, the owner's expressed frustration that her dog is in essence just being a dog is highly amusing, but at least the dog isn't suffering. The danger is that, should her dog develop a real health issue that requires real medical treatment, she might be slow to seek real medical treatment because she wants to try magical faith healing first.

More like this

Judith @9:03 am 28 Jun

it’s mostly random people I spot who are in pain or have compromised mobility, who tend to look at me quite skeptically to begin with but are willing to try what I offer because they are sick and tired of being in pain.

And do you follow up on these random people? Or just declare victory that one time?

Can you understand why it’s difficult for some of us to share your absolute belief in your ability?

@scottynuke
No one is compelling you to read anything I write.

@JGC
Physiologic effects for energy healing _have_ been demonstrated. The mice Dr. Bengston wrote up in "Resonance, Type II Errors and Placebo Effects" showed increased spleen weight and hemoglobin levels consistent with increased immunological activity as their tumors (which histological analysis showed to be cancerous) healed. You could also take a look at http://www.centerforreikiresearch.org for the most up to date information on Reiki research.

And yes, people have "inherent confidence [in] Ibuprofen, or Enbrel, or Benadryl, or Claritin, or Cialis, or Humalog", but they also had inherent confidence in Vioxx, Thalidomide, and Avandia before they died from taking stuff or before their babies were born missing limbs.

@Chemmomo
Most of the time I am able to follow up with my random people. I totally understand why it would be difficult for you to share my confidence (not belief) in the efficacy of what I do. Please understand that I started from a place of curiosity and skepticism. When I went to my first Reiki training I plunked my money down figuring that it was money wasted. It came as a big surprise to me that it wasn't. Not only did I distinctly "feel" the attunement, I also felt the "energy" afterwards, and there was nothing subtle about it. It felt like a freight train. For the first six weeks or so I kept waking myself up at night because anywhere my hands touched my skin they felt like a furnace. I stress that I had no expectation of this; in fact if anything it was rather annoying. Healing effects came later, when I tentatively decided to try to see if Reiki did anything at all. I had no expectation that it would. In fact if you take a course with Dr. Bengston, you will find that he teaches that expectation and belief get in the healer's way and decrease his or her effectiveness.

I must also stress that a true skeptic has an open mind. A true skeptic is willing to change their position on available evidence. For all of you the only acceptable evidence is in the form of double blind studies created by other skeptics like yourselves. I submit that first-hand experience also counts. Take a Reiki course as a true skeptic (not as as a an absolute non-believer) and try it for yourself.

@AdamG
I responded to your question. I would have to see repeated evidence with my own two eyes that outweighs the evidence I have seen so far. BTW I am no great believer in the infallibility of scientific studies, and I seem to have company:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483509a.html

As they say in my former line of work, Judith, if ya didn't write it down, it didn't happen.

They were talking about equipment maintenance records but the principle is the same. Don't you keep case notes on the people who have come to you? If not, why not?

Repeating over and over again that you believe the evidence of your own eyes doesn't cut the mustard. That's what they used to say about cupping and leeches.

Judith @ 3:59 pm 28 Jun
You said:

A true skeptic is willing to change their position on available evidence.

I’m not sure that you actually have all the evidence.

Would you be willing to consider that you are an excellent provider of the placebo effect? Would you consider that some of your success might be people telling you what they think you want to hear?

Would you be willing to test that out? Would you be willing to spend some time keeping records of all the people you treat - including all who did not respond and thank you - and then handing those records off to a distinterested party who will do the follow up on them?

P. S. The only way I’d consider taking a Reiki course would be if it were offered for free. I hate wasting money. I suspect you hate feeling like you’ve wasted money too.

@chemmomo
If I am an excellent provider of the placebo effect, then the placebo effect needs to be studied more widely & doctors need to stop telling patients that they are going to die in 3 months, because the placebo effect works both ways.

Yes, I am willing to keep such notes. But as I mentioned before, I do have the lab test results of the stage-4 pancreatic cancer patient we treated, whose family was told he was dying when we began treating him, and whose blood values returned to near-normal after six weeks of treatment. At the time he was not receiving any other treatment, since he was expected to be dying. Alas, the effect was temporary and he only lived ten more weeks. BTW if that was placebo, then we need more placebo in our hospitals.

And before a bunch of you now come out and say "write it up", I heard you the last time.

What you DON'T seem to have heard is that, without the careful application of the scientific method, what you've seen with your own two eyes proves absolutely nothing.

And before a bunch of you now come out and say “write it up”, I heard you the last time.

How about "your secretiveness and evasion on the subject severely undermines your credibility and is kind of creepy"?

Ah Judith, the strength of your convictions, that you have. Also, what Adam G is trying to get you to see is that you are not willing to see the evidence against your beliefs. You call us close minded skeptics, but we (I think we all, but I should really speak for myself) have looked at all the evidence and are willing to change our minds if the evidence is there. It's not.
I bet most of us here - skeptics - at one time had alternative beliefs, I know I did. But as I looked and listened I saw the errors of my ways and became the skeptic I am. You keep seeing the same things in the same way and expect us to change. You actually have the closed mind.

Dear All,

So long as I am helping people, I am unwilling to see the error of my ways.

Ultimately that counts far more than whether or not a group of skeptics agree with me.

I invite you to go try it for yourself. There are many reputable Reiki masters out there who will not charge you an arm and a leg for attunements.

BTW I am in Rupert Sheldrake's camp. And Larry Dossey's. And Wayne Dyer's. Consciousness matters. What I see with my own two eyes matters more to me than any number of double-blind studies conducted by any number of scientists whose consciousness also matters, and affects the outcome of the studies they conduct no matter how objective and unbiased they purport to be.

So we will respectfully have to agree to disagree.

BTW I am in Rupert Sheldrake’s camp. And Larry Dossey’s. And Wayne Dyer’s.

What, no Koot Hoomi?

So long as I am helping people, I am unwilling to see the error of my ways.

Selfish and amoral to the core. 'I assume based only on my perceived infallibility that I am helping people, and as long as I think I am helping people, I am unwilling to consider the possibility that I am fallible."

People who are truly interested in helping others listen and truly engage with all the ideas on the table in order to find the one that is most effective at helping people.
People who are truly interested in helping others are able to admit that they might be wrong about something if the well-being of others is at stake.

People who are only interested in themselves refuse to engage with and truly understand opposing arguments.
People who are only interested in themselves do not possess the strength to even consider the possibility they might be wrong.

On which side does Judith fall?

And does she preface her treatments with any kind of information to allow the patient to give informed consent? I can't see any patient in the hospital without telling them what I am going to do and making sure they understand. IF I were to engage in some pseudoscientific nonsense, my college regulates that I have to first inform the patient that what I am about to do is considered controversial and is not backed up by medical studies.
(I know, I wanted a much stronger worded regulation, but the woo-ists won out).

@AdamG: I'm sure you realize that from Judith's point of view we're doing the exact same thing.

@Judith: To my mind, this is the question I wonder about. Are you looking for scientific validation of your experience? If so, why? Or are you looking to reinforce your belief by proving your prior believ that scientists and skeptics are all just blind

By Infuriatingly … (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

Consciousness matters?
Oh, I thought it "loads the dice".

Be that as it may, if I had not been burning the candle at both ends this past week and preparing for a flight, I might address the *other* C word.

Woo-meisters and other mysterians like to toss the word about to instill awe in their audience because obviously NO one understands this most intimate of unknowns: they often treat it as a cherished outcropping of the divine spirit within- gushing power soulfully. Well, it ain't magick.

Psychologists study consciousness and its fruits all the time .And not just physiologically but the simple, mundane awareness of awareness. What you think, recall, feel, remember, attend to, how you envision problems, choose a word, see things in your mind's eye, imagine impossibilities, rehearse your next interaction, learn.

Infusing the everyday with an air of mystery is a way to convince others that you are someone special, gifted, above the commonplace.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

Oops, messed that one up. Actually didn't intend to post, but cat's out of the bag now. That'll teach me to work things out in notepad, not on the actual site...

.....Or are you looking to reinforce your belief that modern medicine is terribly imperfect (which it is), but doctors, scientists and skeptics are by nature so dogmatic that they simply won't accept any possibility that subjective experience has anything to do with healing or quality of life?"

I experience all kinds of things that can't be scientifically proven or disproven. That doesn't mean anything other than I'm one of 7 billion people with my own screwed-up brain. I'm simply inclined to go "I dunno" vs "ZOMG - I've discovered a magic secret!".

By Infuriatingly … (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

@Agashem

Yes, I do tell people what it is that I am doing and I seek their permission. I tell them it may not work and that they will know in very short order whether it does or not.

@Infuriatingly Moderate

I joined the discussion because I felt that people were commenting from a biased point of view based on insufficient information. I tried to provide some. It appears the information I brought to the discussion did not persuade people, even the scientific studies, which were summarily pronounced to be invalid.

I do not believe scientists and skeptics are blind and I am not looking for scientific validation of my experience. I was trying to get people curious about the phenomenon of energy healing rather than reflexively condemning, as Orac is.

I watched a video of a talk by Rupert Sheldrake yesterday on his book _The Science Delusion_. In it he says that to some scientists science has become a religion with an orthodoxy that views all dissenting views as heresy. He says such scientists heap great erudite scorn on anyone who does not follow the orthodoxy. Rupert Sheldrake is a scientist with a PhD in biology. James Oschman, the author of _Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis_, is a scientist, also with a PhD in biology. Claude Swanson, author of _Life Force: The Scientific Basis_, has a PhD in physics. The many scientists involved in the Society of Scientific Exploration also have PhDs and day jobs at respected universities, and yet the orthodoxy heaps great scorn on the SSE as a woo organization. Mehmet Oz, Larry Dossey, Depak Choprah, Norm Shealy are MDs. They too get their share of scorn. I would like to see people go past the scorn and begin to ask what it is that these unorthodox scientists/MDs see.

If one person scratched their head and said "hmm, interesting, I didn't know that" about anything I wrote here, the discussion from my point of view has been worthwhile.

Judith, if you are truly interested in exploring both sides of the issue, I urge you to give Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World a read.

@AdamG
Can do.

Judith, the scientific studies were pronounced to be invalid because they were invalid. They were essentially a crock. A good meta-analysis of the available studies http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1742-1241.2008.01729.x/abs… find no value in Reiki. That left those of us who like to see evidence, with nothing in support of Reiki except some obviously silly mumbo-jumbo. Hence, I don’t think there is any good evidence in support of Reiki. It strikes me as a bunch of hand-waving and imagination.

You then fall into the fallacy of Appeal to Authority. I don’t care how many Ph.D.s Richard Sheldrake and others have. That does not trump the evidence. Scientists with Ph.D.s can get things wrong. Even Nobel Laureates have been known to have whacky ideas – Luc Montagnier thinks homeopathy is real!

It is the ideas we should be interested in. How good are they? What is the evidence base? This is what we should be teaching everyone to look at.

Judith

I would like to see people go past the scorn and begin to ask what it is that these unorthodox scientists/MDs see.

In the case of Deepak Chopra, the opportunity to get rich and stroke his own ego by spouting vacuous crap.

In the case of Mehemt, Oz the opportunity to have his own TV show and make way more money with less effort than he made from doing surgery.

For all them, a lucrative market peddling their ideas to a gullible audience who do not ask for any proof beyond stories rather than having to meet more rigorous standards of proof.

Given the huge number of people with PhDs in Physics and Biology, it is not surprising to find a few kooks and charlatans among them. The tobacco industry has no trouble finding a few PhDs to deny the harmful effects of tobacco smoke and the Fossil Fuel industry has no trouble finding a few PhDs to deny climate science. You seem to place great stock in the scientific credentials of the tiny number of people who share your viewpoint while disregarding the credentials of the overwhelming number of scientists who consider it to be nonsense.

As for "day jobs at respected universities", there is this thing called tenure. There was a psychologist or psychiatrist at Harvard who believed that people who claimed to have been abducted and probed by aliens actually had been abducted and probed. He even treated them for the psychological trauma. The university couldn't get rid of him because he had tenure.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

@ Militant Agnostic:

John Mack. His book read like a screenplay.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

I watched a video of a talk by Rupert Sheldrake yesterday on his book _The Science Delusion_. In it he says that to some scientists science has become a religion with an orthodoxy that views all dissenting views as heresy.

Robert Sheldrake?
The guy who denies that DNA codes for morphological traits?
The one who believes...
From wiki

...that there is a field within and around a "morphic unit" which organizes its characteristic structure and pattern of activity. According to Sheldrake, the "morphic field" underlies the formation and behaviour of "holons" and "morphic units", and can be set up by the repetition of similar acts or thoughts. The hypothesis is that a particular form belonging to a certain group, which has already established its (collective) "morphic field", will tune into that "morphic field". The particular form will read the collective information through the process of "morphic resonance", using it to guide its own development. This development of the particular form will then provide, again through "morphic resonance", a feedback to the "morphic field" of that group, thus strengthening it with its own experience, resulting in new information being added (i.e. stored in the database). Sheldrake regards the "morphic fields" as a universal database for both organic (genetic) and abstract (mental) forms.

I think I first came across Sheldrake's "hypothesis" on a Creationist/ID website.

My memory is a bit vague at present. Judith perhaps you can help me? How does Sheldrake explain away the dramatic (starting with something simple and fairly well known) morphological changes that arise from knocking out genes in flies?

How does his/this morphological field operate under those circumstances?

By Sauceress (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

Judith
p.s. Any explanation wouldn't need to involve flies. For example, genetic manipulation of plant characteristics could be addressed.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

There you go all go, heaping scorn again on the heretics.

Luc Montagnier may be right. Rupert Sheldrake needs to be read more thoroughly than what's on Wikipedia or creationist websites.

None of you seems willing or able to look beyond what you were taught in school.

@ Judith

So long as I am helping people, I am unwilling to see the error of my ways.

Ah, there's the rub, as the Bard said. What people are trying to point out here is that you think that you're helping people. Sadly, we humans are extremely good at deluding ourselves that our personal observations and experiences are the whole of the truth. This is why the scientific method was developed -- to get around that strong tendency towards self-delusion.

One of the simplest delusions (or logical fallacies, to give them their proper name) is the idea that "I did X and then Y happened, therefore X caused Y." For you it is "I administered Reiki and my patient reported feeling better." The problem here is that you haven't eliminated all of the possible things besides Reiki that could have made the patient feel better. Some conditions are self-limiting (they get better on their own, or fluctuate.) People are highly suggestible, so telling someone that you're going to make them better can have a positive effect.

Without documenting your cases, and (apparently) without any follow-up, there's no way to be sure that the effects of your treatment actually last. Or that those effects are even real.

I understand that you are sincere in your desire to help people, and sincere in your belief that you are helping people. But to convince the rest of us, you have to provide more than simple assertions. This is especially true since there are lot of things we know about the universe (i.e. physics, chemistry, psychology) that tell us that it's more likely that you're self-deluded than actually using any kind of healing energy.

You've made extraordinary claims that, if true, would overturn much of what we know about the universe. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Anecdotes and assertions don't even rise the level of ordinary evidence.

Rupert Sheldrake needs to be read more thoroughly than what’s on Wikipedia or creationist websites.

So here's your chance to explain why that is. Have at it Judith.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

@ArtK
Please read the thread.

None of you seems willing or able to look beyond what you were taught in school.

Taught in school? No I'm coming from the experimental evidence produced from the number of transgenic experiments I've personally conducted...starting back in my first year of uni.

As I said Judith...have at it.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

Many years ago, I saw The Amazing Kreskin perform. He convinced a stage full of volunteers (college students in the sciences, primarily) that they could not close their hands until he gave them permission to. It was not hypnosis (by his words), merely the power of suggestion.

Just sayin'.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

There you go, @Mephistopheles, the great power of the mind. If we could harness it, it would beat chemo hands down. Just sayin'.

@Sauceress, you are being lazy : )

There you go all go, heaping scorn again on the heretics.

No, merely heaping scorn on quacks and loonies.

@Shay

... proving my point once again ...

Oh and Judith..
The reason I cite wiki is because it's been my constant experience over many years of addressing pseudoscience is that:
1) its defenders most often do not have the educational background to parse the research papers presented to them, and/or 2) may not have access to reputable studies behind paywalls and/or 3) rarely even bother to read a research paper presented to them. Critical appraisal of "Methods and Materials" Never! Critical appraisal of Results & Discussion?

FSM forbid...no!

The usual MO of pseudoscience groupies is to cherry pick an abstract which they believe suits there purposes or, most often, just regurgitate an analysis they read on another pseudoscience website. When anyone (who has objectively read the paper in question) invites the anyone from the pseudoscience cult to discuss pertinent points...just forget it!
The reaction is to avoid the questions, try to change the subject by throwing out some red herring or non sequitur.

Just as you have constantly done.
Everyone here, and no doubt, on every other science blog is nauseating familiar with the tactics of the pseudoscience True Believer (TM).
When I look at a wiki page, I also look at the citations. Oh my...what a novel idea!
There are 74 references cited at the bottom of that wiki...pick a couple. Discuss!
Or perhaps, more simply, you could point out where the wiki on Rupert Sheldrake has it wrong?

By Sauceress (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

Sauceress, you are being lazy

Please explain? Hey, it's your fantasy.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

Rupert Sheldrake needs to be read more thoroughly than what’s on Wikipedia or creationist websites.

OK, let's look at his very own FAQ.

"According to the Hypothesis of Formative Causation, morphic fields also contain an inherent memory given by the process of morphic resonance, whereby each kind of thing has a collective memory. For example, crystals of a given kind are influenced by all past crystals of that kind, date palms by past date palms, giraffes by past giraffes, etc."

Oh, great, it's a cosmic Dewey Decimal System. Are all coffee cups influenced by all cake doughnuts that have gone before, or is it the other way around?

Judith:

There you go, @Mephistopheles, the great power of the mind. If we could harness it, it would beat chemo hands down. Just sayin’.

Your inability to comprehend nervous system function would be touchingly naive if you weren't an apologist for rank quackery.

By Composer99 (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

None of you seems willing or able to look beyond what you were taught in school.

Judith, I am willing and able to look beyond what I was taught in school. I am asking you for the evidence in support of Reiki. I wasn't taught about any of that in school. What you have produced so far does not cut the mustard. So what else is there? What evidence is better than the meta-analysis I linked to? Why should I accept Reiki does what you claim?

We are 500 posts into this thread and I am still waiting. All that has been produced so far is one rubbish paper full of uncontrolled tests with dubious explanations published in a vanishingly obscure journal.

Good night, one and all. Sweet dreams.

Good night, one and all. Sweet dreams.

Good night Judith. Don't forget to do your homework.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

Hmm.. I left out one of the most common pseudoscience tactics in my comment at #11:10pm..
(4) Switch to tone trolling.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

From Rupert Sheldrake

crystals of a given kind are influenced by all past crystals of that kind,

Ah, so he is a proponent of this crystal thingy?

I was reading a book debunking this a while ago, it was put in the form of new adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Quite enjoyable and nice scientific vulgarization. How to learn stuff you didn't get in school.

Re: crystals influencing each others, the authors of this book were pointing that there was some true in it, as follow:
Once a chemist or whoever succeeded at crystallizing a specific molecule, he would very likely write letters and send articles and notes to whichever colleague ask details about his experience.
However, his lab is now contaminated with small fragments of the new crystal, because the crystal has been handled, sliced, crushed, dropped... It's everywhere, including on the packages he is sending.
As a result, the people receiving his letters are likely to introduce unwittingly some of these crystal fragments into their own experiment.
And these crystals will act as the starting point for these people's own crystallization, accelerating the experiment, resulting in that feeling that the discovery of the first crystal is influencing the creation of the following crystals in other laboratories.

By Heliantus (not verified) on 28 Jun 2012 #permalink

@Judith,

There you go, @Mephistopheles, the great power of the mind. If we could harness it, it would beat chemo hands down. Just sayin’.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that, just not on your say so or any of the evidence that's out there so far. Got any data? You've said you have no interest in proving that energy healing works, so I'd guess not.

I've also seen politicians convince people to give them money so that the politician can get a high paying job. I've seen people convinced that fortune tellers provide more than a few minutes dubious entertainment. I've seen people who think that psychics can talk with the dead and that well known scams are real signs of the afterlife.

Is that the great power of the mind too?

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 29 Jun 2012 #permalink

@ Judith

Brilliant rebuttal there Judith. It's on a par with the rest of your reasoning skills.

I know/know of several MDs who offer Reiki or some form of energy healing in their offices as part of their service to patients. More often than not the service is offered out of the recognition that many conditions are caused by stress (I read the statistic that about 80% of medical visits are somehow relatable to stress) and it is offered as an adjunct to regular medical care. Sometimes it is offered if the medical option doesn't work. How many of you doctors out there can say that a patient walked in to see you bent over with backpain and walked out straight and pain free? Since you are already being scathing in your responses, I will infuriate you further by adding that sometimes I feel sorry for you because you have to rely on your pill kit to offer your patients relief. How long do you talk to them? How quickly do you send them off for diagnostic tests? How many of you give last-ditch chemotherapy or radiation knowing that it will likely not do any good and only hasten the patient's death? How many of you prescribed Vioxx or Avandia fully ignorant that it could harm/kill your patient? How many of you had a patient die, or know of a patient who died, due to a prescription drug reaction, a drug mix-up, a surgical error, or an untreatable hospital-acquired infection? Medicine is not harm-free, even if about 20 or 25 per cent of what doctors do is backed by science. Just because a medication is shown to act a certain way in a certain number of patients in a handful of experiments, it doesn't mean that it will act that way in everyone in the population at large once it's on the market. The effects of longterm use or use in combination with other medications are seldom tested. And I have to laugh every time I hear the side effects rapidly listed at the end of pharmaceutical commercials, especially when I hear that one of the side effects of the drug prescribed is the symptom it is being prescribed for. More chilling are the oft-repeated "kidney failure and death". The whole system is nuts, and you are the purveyors of it, and you sneer at anyone who tries a different route.

PS: I am fully cognizant that you would not visit your nearest alternative practitioner if you had a compound fracture or were lying in a pool of blood on the highway after a car accident. I have the greatest respect for what modern medicine can do for trauma, heart attacks, strokes etc. But there are conditions it doesn't treat so well where there is room for collaboration with alternative practitioners who might have better solutions.

I still want to know what's up with this Sheldrake "of a given kind" routine. Something tells me he doesn't mean space groups. Of course, Judith hasn't answered the coffee-mug question yet.

@Judith.

You have no point. I've been reading this thread since the inception and you've said nothing except "I know I'm right, I know, I know! I don't have to prove anything because I'm right."

I must say that your footwork is impressive. You must have been great at dodgeball when you were a kid.

I still want to know what’s up with this Sheldrake “of a given kind” routine.

I doubt Judith can help. It seems her awareness of Sheldrake's musings is limited to: he's got a PhD in biology and says some cool things I agree with which feed my energy healing fantasy.

As to his use of the term "kind", I've almost exclusively seen term used as a creationist alternative to "evil evolutionist" taxonomic system of classification. Google "Bariminology" if you're unfamiliar with creationist idiocy. The terms 'holon" and "holos" are used interchangeably with the term "Baramin" by creationists.

Quoting wiki:

Conditions for membership in a (holo)baramin and methods of classification have changed over time. These include the ability to create viable offspring, and morphological similarity.
Some creationists have suggested that kind refers to species, while others believe it might mean any animal which may be distinguished in some way from another.

Most distinctively, originally the term "kind" was used by creationists to refer to "kinds" of animals that were present on the Ark.

I'm guessing Sheldrake is also a fan of Arthur Koestler (The Ghost in the Machine) who is credited with coining the term "holon". (philosophical context)

According to his biography Sheldrake on his website, he is a..

Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, near San Francisco, and a Visiting Professor and Academic Director of the Holistic Thinking Program at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut

Rational wiki gives a brief overview of "Noetic Science":

The Institute of Noetic Sciences is the primary outlet for this form of woo. It was co-founded by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell and former Exxon executive and crank billionaire Paul N. Temple, who is also associated with the fundamentalist Christian organization The Family. According to the Institute:

"Noetic sciences are explorations into the nature and potentials of consciousness using multiple ways of knowing—including intuition, feeling, reason, and the senses. Noetic sciences explore the "inner cosmos" of the mind (consciousness, soul, spirit) and how it relates to the "outer cosmos" of the physical world."

Then there is his wife's webpage: The Healing Voice.
My advice after revisiting all of the above: Be wary eating mushrooms and/or drinking the Koolaid at the Fr Bede Griffiths Ashram.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 29 Jun 2012 #permalink

Blockquote fail. Not sure how that happened seeing as the first time I used the tag was when quoting wiki on the Baramin entry!

le sigh...

By Sauceress (not verified) on 29 Jun 2012 #permalink

@Narad
They are mutually co-arising.

@Infuriatingly Moderate
That was hilarious.

@Sauceress
I see you are very adept at mining Wikis. I read Rupert Sheldrake a number of years ago. The reason I proposed that you read him yourself is because he builds an interesting incremental argument. In order to summarize it I would have to re-read the whole thing myself. You were the one who asked the question, so you should be the one doing the work.

@everyone else
From http://www.reikicouncil.org.uk/Research/tabid/76/Default.aspx

"Can you measure Reiki in some way?
Reiki is often regarded by practitioners as being a ‘hot’ energy. They feel extra heat as Reiki flows. The University of Arizona has used an Extra Low Frequency meter to see if it could pick up heat changes in the body. When practitioners reported that they were flowing Reiki, the ELF (extra low frequency) meter picked up significant increases in emissions from e.g. the palms of the hands. The emitted energy was more marked in people who had studied to third degree/master level. Researcher Melinda Connor said: ‘We have discovered a number of things: First, that master healers seem to be emitting at the same time in the extra low range from 20Hz - 1000Hz, in the ultra violet, the visible light, the infrared, the gamma and x-ray and at the 3 GHz range. I do not have the equipment to map more ranges yet. So it turns out that potentially millions of frequencies are being emitted from a single cell.”
Arizona University recruited only highly regarded and experienced Reiki practitioners for its research who also were regularly giving Reiki. (Communication from Melinda Connor, 2006)

This is a response to similar questions to yours from Pamela Miles, a Reiki master who has been working hard for years on getting Reiki accepted by the medical establishment:

"The problem of sham Reiki is a real problem in research. I was at a 2-day research conference at the NIH on just that question: what is an appropriate control? The answer is...It depends, and there is no perfect study design for multifactorial practices that cannot be realistically reduced to a design that is well suited for an intervention that has a linear action aka a pharmaceutical.
....
the sham practitioner has been used but is also criticized. After all, what we are really doing then is comparing Reiki to touch. The acupuncture studies have also been criticized in that needling itself may have therapeutic value, regardless of the accuracy of the points used.

Controlling for placebo is a very knotty puzzle when researching practices that elicit complex responses from the body. Additionally, Reiki practice is not complaint or condition-specific. Rather, Reiki practice seems to influence the body toward balance, optimizing its own ability to self-heal, and there is some data to support that. So we could conceptualize the benefit of Reiki being that it reminds the system how to rest effectively and thereby heal itself. This seems to be happening through a vagus nerve activation, but science does not yet have a clue what the mechanism of action for that to occur might be."

I see you are very adept at mining Wikis.

Rupert Sheldrake doesn't warrant anything more than quoting wikis. As I said if you can point out the errors in those wikis...please do so.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 29 Jun 2012 #permalink

@Sauceress:

Most distinctively, originally the term “kind” was used by creationists to refer to “kinds” of animals that were present on the Ark.

I very nearly settled on this analogy before settling on the Dewey Decimal System, and I do not follow creationists in any way, viz., I hadn't heard it before.

I’m guessing Sheldrake is also a fan of Arthur Koestler (The Ghost in the Machine) who is credited with coining the term “holon”. (philosophical context)

I'm pretty sure I still have a copy of The Roots of Coincidence lying around here, and of course Wholeness and the Implicate Order. The former is better than the latter as I recall, if only for being able to focus in some fashion. It's still not very good.

The point, of course, is that the attempt at taxonomy is just abysmal. It makes the Dublin Core look like revealed mystical widsom. Speaking of which...

@Judith:

They are mutually co-arising.

Perhaps you'd like to clarify whether you're referring to crystals or S¹ × S¹, as this might very well be taken to be complete mush suggesting that "morphic resonance" doesn't mean anything. Or maybe you're trying to drag Buddhism into it, beats me.

@Sauceress
That just shows your bias. When @Mephistopheles suggested I read Sagan's book on the scientific method I didn't willy-nilly refuse to read it on the basis that it would be a waste of my time. Your suggestion that reading Sheldrake would be a waste of yours is nothing more than evidence of a closed mind.

Oh, right, entity names are right up there as well. S¹ × S¹.

@Narad
I was answering your question "Are all coffee cups influenced by all cake doughnuts that have gone before, or is it the other way around?"

And the answer is, they are mutually co-arising. Yes, I am dragging Buddhism into it.

And Judith, keep in mind that, as expressed by Sheldrake, this is a temporally linear chain of memories conveyed between objects and apparently mediated simply by names, so it has to be possible to trace backward.

And the answer is, they are mutually co-arising.

Allow me to make certain that you understood the question. Are hula hoops and cake donuts "mutually co-arising"?

Yes, I am dragging Buddhism into it.

That was a really bad idea.

Judith
I read enough of Rupert Sheldrake (from his own writing) back when I came across his name being pimped by creationists.

I have enough developmental biology, genetics and molecular biology under my belt to know when someone is manufacturing pseudoscience in those areas. Unlike the groupies that peddle it...obviously.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 29 Jun 2012 #permalink

So, Judith... Leaving aside the small issue that you've just pretty much equated Buddhism with animism, can reiki make merited karma disappear?

Oh and Judith..
I take it from your silence on the issue that you didn't find any errors on those quoted wikis? Did you even bother looking?

By Sauceress (not verified) on 29 Jun 2012 #permalink

@Narad
If you are talking Buddhism, everything that exists is mutually co-arising. I don't see why bringing Buddhism into the discussion is a bad idea. Have you heard of Nagarjuna's tetralemma?

@Sauceress
If you don't want to look at Shedrake, look at Fritz-Albert Popp and Stuart Hameroff. All three postulate the existence of mechanisms allowing communication within the human body beyond the existing biochemical model which you studied. I note that they too studied biology, extensively, and they came up with different conclusions.

@Judith - thanks for thinking of me, but it was AdamG who suggested Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. Sagan was a scientist of considerable accomplishment who was also able to explain concepts clearly to non-scientists. I can't say that the same is true of Sheldrake.

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

@Mephistopheles
Indeed it was.

I can't believe this discussion is ongoing. Judith, so much of what you have described is known to us in the medical field. You should really watch Penn&Teller Bullshit episode about alternative medicine and watch real people feel better with oven mitts and magnets. They really walk with less pain. Watch for yourself and see if you don't recognize the type of people you are 'treating'. What you fail at doing is recognizing when you are genuinely helping someone or when you are not.

@Agashem
Now quoting scientists Penn & Teller. BTW the take-away from this is not that alternative medicine doesn't work but that the placebo effect can be hugely powerful and needs to be more extensively applied/studied. You will recall the studies involving sham surgeries for bad knees & angina. How do you know that half of what doctors do is not effective due to placebo? Drugs decline in effectiveness over time as doctors' become less enthusiastic about them. Placebo now outperforms Prozac. Harvard study shows placebo to be effective even when experimental subjects are told it's a placebo, and the container is marked "PLACEBO" in large script. Maybe medicine could become less invasive and less expensive if the placebo effect were more extensively and properly deployed.

Are you saying that Fritz Albert-Popp and Stuart Hameroff are known to you & others in medicine?

What has that got to do with what you are claiming? Everytime a question is posed to you, you drag out another alternative theory.
I am aware enough to know that what I do can invoke placebo effect. All of us in medicine know this. The question is, how to study it? Often telling someone you are studying the placebo effect destroys that effect. But I am sure you know this being so well informed.
The point of Penn and Teller was for you to watch ordinary people in a mall feeling better with no intervention other than suggestion. That you might have seen yourself in there is obviously too scary. I have seen this with my own patients. And I believe it was Dr. Novella who pointed out that if someone is 'healed' that fast then it calls into question the origin of the problem. That is what you don't get.

@Agashem
The point of the Harvard study is that it showed that placebo can work even when people know it's a placebo and that telling people that they were studying the placebo effect did not destroy it.

The point of my bringing Fritz-Albert Popp and Stuart Hameroff (and earlier Rupert Sheldrake) into the discussion is that there could well be mechanisms working in the human body beyond the biochemical models we already know and recognize and that these mechanisms could explain/give rise to new therapies, such as bioenergetic healing.

I note no one has commented on this:
Reiki is often regarded by practitioners as being a ‘hot’ energy. They feel extra heat as Reiki flows. The University of Arizona has used an Extra Low Frequency meter to see if it could pick up heat changes in the body. When practitioners reported that they were flowing Reiki, the ELF (extra low frequency) meter picked up significant increases in emissions from e.g. the palms of the hands. The emitted energy was more marked in people who had studied to third degree/master level. Researcher Melinda Connor said: ‘We have discovered a number of things: First, that master healers seem to be emitting at the same time in the extra low range from 20Hz – 1000Hz, in the ultra violet, the visible light, the infrared, the gamma and x-ray and at the 3 GHz range. I do not have the equipment to map more ranges yet. So it turns out that potentially millions of frequencies are being emitted from a single cell.”
Arizona University recruited only highly regarded and experienced Reiki practitioners for its research who also were regularly giving Reiki. (Communication from Melinda Connor, 2006)

Probably no one has commented because it hasn't been published in a peer reviewed journal yet and so is considered speculation at this point. I will say I don't have knowledge of low frequencies etc to really comment myself.
That there may be alternative mechanisms going on in the body is rank speculation. Where is the evidence?
Further, you still haven't acknowledged what I said. You need to recognize that the 'miraculous' healings you are seeing are quite likely not what you think they are. Until you can acknowledge that, there is really no point in discussing things with you further. And no, it is not that I can't argue my corner, it is just that you are walled up in yours and are unreachable.

@Agashem
Why would I recognize that the miraculous healings I am seeing are likely not what I think they are if you will not recognize that there could be mechanisms in the body at work that the medical establishment knows nothing about that may not be amenable to double-blind study? How on earth do you do a double-blind study about the involvement of photons in nerve transmission and healing? Good luck turning off the photons in control subjects. What you are unwilling to recognize, and perhaps understandably so, are the limitations of a science based on 17th and 19th century precepts. We need new precepts and new experimental protocols.

This is the issue.
You describe someone bent over for many months seeing you and in one session, they are not stooped any more. This is abject bullshit. If they had been stooped for that long it would take much more time to straighten out than that. Or if someone hasn't been able to raise their hand over their head for a long time and one session with you they can, then they were lying to you or themselves. Tissues tighten, shorten and do not comply that rapidly to being supple again. Simple physics, no need for photons (BS). Try it for yourself, don't raise your hand over your head for a month. I mean, no reaching in cupboards or on shelves, barely able to wash your hair, and then after that month, if you are truly honest and keep your hand below the 90 degree flexion mark, try lifting your hand above your head. There is an experiment you can do on your own, no double blinding needed. You will then see how impossible these 'miracles' are.

Harvard study shows placebo to be effective even when experimental subjects are told it’s a placebo, and the container is marked “PLACEBO” in large script.

Yes.

Yes, we know about this study.

We also know why it really doesn't represent any impressive new scientific revelations.

WHAT WE ALREADY KNEW: If a Medical Authority gives a patient a sugar pill and tells them "this is the medicine Fakium; our scientific understanding says Fakium is a powerful medicine that should make you feel a lot better if you take it as directed" the patient will likely pay a lot more attention to any subjective improvement than to any disimprovement, and will attribute improvements that were not caused by the sugar pill to the sugar pill.

WHAT THE STUDY SHOWED: If a Medical Authority gives a patient a sugar pill and tells them "this is a plain sugar pill; our scientific understanding says that a sugar pill is a powerful medicine that should make you feel a lot better if you take it as directed" the patient will likely pay a lot more attention to any subjective improvement than to any disimprovement, and will attribute improvements that were not caused by the sugar pill to the sugar pill.

WHAT THE STUDY DID NOT SHOW: That a placebo, whether it's presented as "the powerful medicine Fakium" or "the powerful medicine Placebo", brings any actual improvement.

You've heard the o

By Antaeus Feldspar (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

If you are talking Buddhism, everything that exists is mutually co-arising.

Not insofar as coffee cups and hula hoops are related, no, not in any meaningful fashion. Pratityasamutpada is not an excuse for an incoherent taxonomy.

Now, I will ask again: Can reiki make merited karma disappear?

I don’t see why bringing Buddhism into the discussion is a bad idea. Have you heard of Nagarjuna’s tetralemma?

Yes, Judith. I'm also familiar with the shmoo-like history of the catuskoti in Western interpretations. And here's a good example of why this diversionary maneuver was a bad idea: all of your flailings about reiki are absolutely grounded in ontological dualism. If you had the slightest grasp of Madhyamaka, the contradiction would be apparent. You are attached to name and form.

I suggest you review case 11 of the Blue Cliff Record. Or just quit digging.

@ Agashem

Everytime a question is posed to you, you drag out another alternative theory.

It's the woo version of the Gish Gallop. Much like wrestling with a water balloon.

@Antaeus Feldspar
The punchline to the Harvard study is that another IBS group taking an approved drug reported the same degree of improvement as the placebo group that knew it was taking a placebo -- which would lead one to the conclusion that the approved drug was pretty damn useless, even though it was somehow approved. I'm curious what happened with Prozac now that it too performed dismally against a placebo. Is it still being prescribed?

@Agashem
On what grounds, other than belief in the accepted dogma, would you dismiss Fritz-Albert Popp & Stuart Hameroff? I'm being serious here. The physics you cite is 17th-c. Newtonian physics -- we've have come a ways since then.

To be fair, when I refer to a person bent over with back pain I am not talking about someone who has been bent over for months -- few people will wait that long before seeing a doctor when they are in that kind of pain. My experience with it has been with more recent injuries. But I have treated long term shoulder immobility and knee pain, and have seen the kind of improvement you say is impossible. People have told me they could feel structures realigning in their shoulder or knee, or something "pop" deep inside; usually this kind of realignment is accompanied by a significant change in mobility. Additionally sometimes they also say they feel muscles stretching around the injury site, even though I'm not touching them.

The weirdest case I've ever seen was with a man who had injured his knee, who was on crutches for six weeks because his knee was immobilized at a 90% angle in a cast; who then could not straighten his knee after the cast was removed because any attempt to do so caused him excruciating pain; and whose knee straightened by itself, painlessly, as I was treating it. His comment was "I'm not doing this. Are you doing this? What's going on?" In his case the improvement was lasting. He was able to stand on his own and walk with a cane. After the next treatment he no longer needed the cane either.

In other cases where I was able to do follow-up I found that in some cases the improvement was lasting, and there was no need for further treatment. In some, the improvement lasted a few days or a few weeks, at which point the pain returned, but to a much lesser degree. If I then treated them again, they would go to a higher baseline of functionality with each treatment. And before you "that's just time", please note that one of these cases was a frozen shoulder that resolved in one week and another was a dancer who had been receiving physio and chiropractic treatment for the injury for YEARS. Not every injury can be fully resolved: after a while you can reach a plateau where the client is happy with the level of mobilty and freedom from pain they are at, and then they consider themselved "done". And I will also add that there is a small percentage of people for whom it doesn't work at all.

But thank you all for your comments, which made me think more deeply about what I was doing and the reasons and beliefs behind it. The next logical step is for me to attempt to team up with an MD and ask him of her for patients, and document, document, document.

Bless you, @Narad. I am attached to name and form. And also, clearly, to self.

Judith,

the placebo effect can be hugely powerful and needs to be more extensively applied/studied

I assume that by "placebo effect" you mean improvements in a patient's condition that cannot be attributed to an objective effect of the intervention. If you look carefully at the literature you will find that when compared to doing nothing this effect only acts on the patient's perception of their condition, and has little or no objective effect on illnesses. For example you won't find any positive effect of placebo on cancer, or infection, and placebo vaccines don't work. You will find it claimed that placebos can cure cancer, but the only documented case seems to have occurred 60 years ago (Google my 'nym) and has never been replicated, suggesting it was mere coincidence.

You might find it instructive to look up a recent study using sham acupuncture, a fake inhaler or an albuterol inhaler to treat asthmatics. All the groups reported an improvement, but only the albuterol showed an improvement using an objective measure of lung function.

You will recall the studies involving sham surgeries for bad knees & angina.

Those studies compared sham surgery with real surgery and found no difference, or in some cases those who had the real surgery did worse, proving that the real surgery was ineffective or even dangerous. For example studies on angina suggest that internal mammary artery ligation and internal mammary artery implants don't work very well, not that placebo surgery has a miraculous effect. The pain of angina, like other pain, responds well to placebo, but not the objective risk of a heart attack, which is probably more important.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

I'll just mention that I had a frozen shoulder some years ago, very painful and extremely inconvenient. My GP suggested a cortisone injection into the joint, but said that the doctor in the practice who was the most skilled at doing this was on vacation, and suggested I wait until he returned in a week's time. I waited, the frozen shoulder resolved without treatment. It happens.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen
How long did you have the frozen shoulder before you went to the doctor?

@Krebiozen
You might have healed yourself to avoid the painful injection :-)

Ugh. I thought that by spacing out the colon and the closing parenthesis I could do the emoticon and still avoid the smiley face. Delete smiley face.

I am attached to name and form. And also, clearly, to self.

And, so, you barfed on your shoes while gurgling "Nagarjuna" for what reason, exactly?

Test. : )

How long did you have the frozen shoulder before you went to the doctor?

Only a couple of days, I woke up unable to lift my arm so I got an appointment ASAP. The important point is that many things do resolve without treatment, or change in severity for no apparent reason,.and placebos can affect people's perception of pain. The only way to find out if something real is going on is a double blind trial. If you are really claiming that people can just heal themselves without reiki (or whatever) we don't need reiki masters, do we?

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

I note no one has commented on this:
Reiki is often regarded by practitioners as being a ‘hot’ energy. They feel extra heat as Reiki flows. The University of Arizona has used an Extra Low Frequency meter to see if it could pick up heat changes in the body.

Possibly because the Great Infallible Google has no record of something called an "Extra Low Frequency meter", other than (a) press releases from the Reiki Council, and (b) a ghost-hunter who's coined the term independently. As far as I can tell, the Human Energy Systems Laboratory of the University of Arizona have a Magic E-meter that they wave at things.
If Calli Arcade is going to quote the Alan Parsons Project, it'I will trump that with the liner notes from Tubular Bells:
"This stereo record cannot be played on old tin boxes no matter what they are fitted with. If you are in possession of such equipment please hand it into the nearest police station."

The hypothesis is that a particular form belonging to a certain group, which has already established its (collective) “morphic field”, will tune into that “morphic field”.

I prefer Terry Pratchett's concept of Narrativium as the explanatory element.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

@Krebiozen
Sudden conditions can suddenly clear up. BTW if people could cure themselves, we wouldn't need doctors either : )

@Narad
Now you are just being unnecessarily rude and crude, so in the interest of peace I will ignore you.

If Calli Arcade is going to quote the Alan Parsons Project
Apologies for misspelling Arcale. I can't even blame the keyboard this time.

By herr doktor bimler (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

Now you are just being unnecessarily rude and crude, so in the interest of peace I will ignore you.

If you are just going to continue introducing notions and fail to be able to say anything coherent about them or--as in this case--demonstrate mind-boggling ignorance, patience will wear thin. Does reiki only work as a transmitter?

When you're done with the bit from the Blue Cliff Record (heh), I suggest that you mull over case 3 from the Mumonkan. It's quite apropos.

Sudden conditions can suddenly clear up.

The doctor I saw told me it would resolve on its own without treatment, but that would likely take several months or even years. She was wrong. If I had had some treatment, whether reiki, another CAM treatment or conventional treatment, I might well have been telling people how it had miraculously cured me and the practitioner would have chalked up another success.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

I suspect that one of Judith's problems is that she doesn't understand the difference between feeling better and actually being better. The placebo effect only gives you the first.

Judith@8:15 am

@Sauceress
If you don’t want to look at Shedrake...

Can't imagine where you got that idea because I do want to look at Sheldrake...very much so!
However at the moment I'm expecting visitors and will most likely be offline for the next few hours.

In the meantime do you think you could familiarize yourself with Sheldrake's "MORPHIC RESONANCE AND MORPHIC FIELDS: An Introduction."
(It's on his website)
I think you'll find it useful to look up "HOX gene" and "Morphogenesis" from other sources.

Oh...and look up "Antennapedia"
There's a nice image of that on wiki.

By Sauceress (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

Krebozien: My sympathies. I screwed my shoulder up in a car accident a couple of years ago, and had a very limited range of motion in my right arm for a month. Also resolved without any sort of treatment. I'd injured the same arm in a bike accident before that- spent a week with my arm in a sling before I popped my shoulder back into place.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

Can’t imagine where you got that idea because I do want to look at Sheldrake…very much so!
However at the moment I’m expecting visitors and will most likely be offline for the next few hours.

It's thoroughly unclear why Judith can't distance-manifest a visualizable morphic field through the reiki channel. Then everybody could just hang out with an image of him.

@ArtK
Poor reading and comprehension skills.

Two people wake up in an expensive hotel; despite the luxurious appointments, each has developed muscle pain.
Visiting the fashionable section, the gentleman decides to hire a masseur to work on his pain.The lady however, decides to walk about, drink tea and winds up buying an expensive pair of pearls, each one suspended on a fine chain that in turn, is suspended from earwires and worn as earings.
Both of them feel much better. Can we explain these differences? ( -btw- true story)

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 30 Jun 2012 #permalink

They both did something that was relaxing for them. All healing is self-healing. All health practitioners facilitate such self-healing. You can't "cure" anyone else.