Thanks, Endlessness. I see your concerns.

- However my post is soley geared to those who personally choose to make a decision, for themselves, based on INTELLIGENT informed choices. I wasn't suggesting otherwise.

Citta- I completely see where you're coming from. But i guess the true argument lies in the definition of what is considered "alternative medicine".

I hope that you would no doubt agree that diet is a vastly huge important part of a humans overall health and well being. The human body must get the correct amount of vitamins and minerals to function at peak capacity. Yet there are still people out there who would consider eating healthy home cooked meals as a form of "alternative medicine".

Along those lines, herbs are usually always considered as "alternative" but yet there are some herbs which have been proven by SCIENCE, such as St. John's Wort for depression. So I do not think it was entirely fair of you to claim ALL alternative medicine is bunk.

intellectually intelligent choices are really hard to make because there is an enormous lack of data in this field. Many contradictory information and whatnot.

There are effective and ineffective treatments, finding the right one under adverse conditions while the time is ticking is difficult. Even more difficult if you are open to the possibilities of what is nowadays called alternative medicine, but that opens many more options then school medicine alone. But there is no miraclecure at the other end of the rainbow either.

If someone is convinced that all alternative medicine is bunk it is almost impossible to convince them otherwise, except by curing them by these methods. Thats usually a quite convincing experience.

Yes, of course our diet is very important, and this is a fact we know because we have fields such as chemistry and biology that study these nutrients and their effects on the human body. This has nothing to do with alternative medicine, but are well established facts from our science. Just for the record, I eat very healthy myself =)

Yes, and this is why I say that 99 percent of alternative medicine is bunk. The last 1 percent is stuff like you talk about, and other things where they don't use "Energetic" bullshit terms, and stuff like Qi and "Life-force", "Healing crystals", "Divine water" or "Quantum living" and shit like that.

Almost no alternative medicine cures anything. This is so well known in medicine, and that is why we don't use it. It has been researched over and over again. Some alternative treatments may give some psychological balance and make you feel better, sure, but it doesn't cure for example cancer or AIDS or something. This mental effect is what we call placebo.

- "That's right!, those visions you're see'ing on an ayahuasca trip is simply a placaebo effect. That afterglow is an illusion. Those visions of alien beings cannot be scientifically measured or recorded, therefore it must be crap. Your depressed mind that you say has been cured, is still depressed"

.....Gee, doctor...i was just starting to believe that Ayahuasca worked, untill you told me otherwise, now the beautiful experience has been turned into a nightmare....help!!!.....

Uhm, what are you talking about, Chris?

Oh dear, i'm having a little laugh!

I neither understand. A cure for a disease has nothing to do with the psychoactive effects of a brew (which are well known and demonstrated). Also gaining insights under such experiences is of a totally different order than, again, curing a serious disease

Now of course, as a part of a greater systematic treatment, these substances can help in the treatment of many conditions (PTSD, anxiety, depression, etc), whether it is by offering palliative symptom reduction, or by allowing insights, or by upregulation of neuroreceptors, etc, as it also has been demonstrated in clinical trials. But lets not over-react and claim 'cures'. Let's keep investigating whichever different plants and alternative medicines seem promissing. This way, with scientific questioning, we can separate the false claims from the objective facts.

But why? I don't see what the humor is in the initial context. Yes, there is a time and place for humor, but when people are trying to have a legitimate discussion with you and you type something unintelligible and then follow it up with a post like this, it's really quite annoying, even to those merely following the discussion.

-Think of it as an "intermission".

> An injection of a "sense of humour intermission"!

Ok, but remember, it's only an intermission if sensible/logical discussion returns. (And you still haven't actually answered/replied to Citta)

I do believe that Citta was addressing Bindu, before i rudely joked. So i'll bow my head in shame, and say sorry for my sillyness, and bid this thread farewell as i sail the seas of mainstream television.... and leave these channels free for Citta and Bindu to flow.......

Well WE use it and have had a lot of success specifically with cancer. Wanna finance some clinical trials for us?

I'm not sure if you can necessarily say that 99% of alternative medicine is bunk, simply because the term "alternative medicine / healing" is so broad and vague. Like I said earlier, the argument lies in what you are defining as alternative. To me (and probably a lot of other people), alternative healing is anything that is NOT a doctor or pharmaceutical. IE: herbs, meditations, health stones, diet, accupuncture, ect. The problem is that while many herbs do work to help heal (scientifically proven), I don't think it is fair to flop in into the same category as healh rocks (keep this stone in your pocket and never have cancer!) or quantum states.

To me it seems as though for the most part you're characterizing all of the "energy" healings, or talk of "quantum states" and things of that nature as alternative, and also bunk. I do agree with you that there are a RIDICULOUS amount of people out there who are peddling that sort of thing as a CURE ALL, which it is definitely not even a cure some. But I have to raise the argument that a lot of monks consider meditating as controlling or centering your energy, and we do know that meditating can have an impact on physical health, mainly because of its stress reducing properties.

Maybe you could give us what exactly you are defining as alternative medicine?

P.S. Good for you on eating healthy!

What kind of success with cancer? Did it stop the uncontrolled growth of the cells?

A pharmaceutical is any chemical agent that is intended for use in medical diagnosis, cure, treatment or prevention of disease. Herbs that are proven to be effective falls into this category, and thus out of your definition of alternative medicine. Things that are proven to be effective is not alternative medicine, things that are not proven to be effective is, on the other side, alternative medicine. This is the common notion of alternative medicine, and the one I am running with.

Diet also falls out of this definition of alternative medicine, as a balanced diet is necessary to prevent a variety of illnesses that may occur in the wake of for example vitamin deficiency etc. This is well known in medicine, thus not alternative medicine.

Health stones certainly fall under the category of alternative medicine, as it is evidently just silly; it doesn't have any effect apart from perhaps placebo - meaning you feel better because you think the stones are gonna make you feel better. Tricky bastard that one. Acupuncture also falls into the category of alternative medicine, as it is not proven to be really effective. And the theoretical basis for acupuncture is also just silly, namely the notion of these mysterious lines of life energy (chi) flowing through the body, and that the flow of this energy is responsible for health and illness. Acupuncture is supposed to free up blockages in the flow of chi energy. This theoretical foundation is having a party with Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, where we can also find our guest "alternative medicine" getting too drunk to party.

So, when something is proven not be effective but claimed to be, it is alternative medicine, and since it is not proven to be effective... it is not effective! Hence; 99% of alternative medicine is bunk. Not such a great leap of logic, is it?

Modern medicine has gotten very good at treating symptoms, but is abysmally bad at healing. The focus is all upon supressing symptoms of disease not at getting at the root causes to actually make people better. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the most simple one is that healed people don't spend money on further "treatments". If modern medicine is so good then why are cancer rates/heart disease/and any number of other health problems higher now than in the past? Modern medicine for the most part has lost its way. There are some valuable uses for it and it is necessary in many cases, but it is not the end all be all savior you are elevating it to.

Alternative medicine (ie: anything not allopathic) is not 99% bullshit. Allopathic medicine will never cure you, its just not good for business. There are plenty of alternative modalities that have been proven to work for a variety of issues, and to dismiss them all as bullshit is just plain irresponsible. Naturopathic medicine and Acupuncture are two that have excellent success rates for many people.

100% Correct, Saidin!

-You saved me writing those thoughts which i was gonna express also, thanks. This is why i'm all for allowing individuals the opportunity to make well informed choices. It's called personal freedom. And i don't see what's wrong, like have just stated, with allowing alternative medicine a place in medical treatment,etc.

-Like you say Saidin, generally modern medicine treats symptoms, and DOESN'T cure people. Just look at anti depressants for example. Some of them you are supposed to take for life or at least many years. They say that they aren't addictive because once you've found the " sweet spot" you don't need to increase the dose, but you must keep on taking the damned things. Now why am i thinking bad thoughts about the big pharma industries???? Sure anti depressants aren't addictive in that twist of words, but you are still drug dependant aren't you. And isn't that what really scares people the most???

-Whereas, alternative therapies, such as the use of psychadelic treatments in depression,etc, are about treating and addressing the CORE issues, and thereby CURING them. It has been suggested that just a few psychadelic sessions can get more breakthroughs in dealing with mental ills, than years of expensive professional psychotherapy!!

-Ayuravedia, and TCM also works by allowing the body to heal itself, etc, rather than treat the symptoms, etc.

>> So there, scientific movement, go chew on a few home truths!! We prefer to fix the heart of the problem, and don't like to walk about wounded with "sticking plasters over our festering wounds of continuous money gulping pharma maintaining treatments"!!

Results vary depending on many factors which i wont elaborate here, cures have been achieved and are possible. Extension of life with increased quality of living is almost always possible, even in terminal stages.

Of course the tumor growth is stopped, its even reverted. The natural Immunetherapy we use does not kill the cancer itself, it activates the immune system and induces selective apoptosis in the malignant cells. Your body becomes able to destroy the cancer by itself. Combined with some other techniques and problem solved.

Just because you have been trained to think inside of a certain box for many years it doesn't mean that it describes all the possibilities of reality.

Get out of your box man, its time....

Alternative medicine is then, by your definition, 99% bunk. But your definition sets it for failure by saying that anything that IS proven to work is not alternative medicine. Even though some herbs are SCIENTIFICALLY proven, I would still consider them alternative medicine.