Camilla spent ten days at the end of October in a sophisticated meditation and fitness center in southern India. Life has recently been hectic for the Queen Consort: at 75, she has been in a non-stop succession of various ceremonies for the funeral of Elizabeth II, always one step behind her husband, not to mention her new status as sovereign… Enough to block her chakras in no time.
She came to the resort with her bodyguards and a handful of friends and was able to take advantage of the tailor-made treatments concocted for her by the master of the house, Dr Issac Mathai, who created this high-end holistic centre on a dozen hectares of scented gardens near Bangalore. The program includes massages, herbal steam baths, yoga, naturopathy, homeopathy, meditation, and Ayurvedic treatments to “cleanse, de-stress, soothe and revitalize the mind, body and soul”, as the establishment’s website states.
Guests are required to follow an individualized, meat-free diet, with organic food from the resort’s vegetable gardens, based on lots of salads or soups – Camilla is said to be a fan of sweet corn soup with spinach. Cigarettes and mobile phones are not allowed, although it is assumed that Camilla must have some privileges due to her status… and the basic rate for the suites, which starts at $950 a night – the price of the rooms varies between $260 and $760, the rate including a consultation with the doctors.
Charles and Camilla have been fans of the Soukya Centre in India for a decade. The place corresponds in every way to their deep-rooted convictions about health. Like her husband, Camilla is a follower of organic food, she also practices yoga and treats her face with creams made from nettle and bee venom. For his part, Charles has long been an advocate of alternative medicine, homeopathy, acupuncture, aromatherapy, and also hypnosis… He even set up a foundation to support complementary medicine by lobbying the British health service to include it in complementary therapies for certain patients, which caused an uproar among the pundits of traditional medicine.
________________________
If you suspected I was (yet again) sarcastic about the royal couple, you are mistaken. The text above is only my (slightly shortened) translation of an article published in the French magazine LE POINT (even the title is theirs). I found the article amusing and interesting; so, I looked up the Indian health center. Here are some of the things I found:
The 1st impression is that they are not shy about promotion calling themselves THE WORLD’S BEST AYURVEDA TREATMENT CENTER. The doctor in charge was once a ‘Consultant Physician’ at the Hale Clinic in London, where he treated a number of high-profile people. As his professional background, he offers this:
M.D. (Homeopathy); Hahnemann Post-Graduate Institute of Homeopathy, London M.R.C.H, London; Chinese Pulse Diagnosis and Acupuncture, WHO Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China; Trained (Mind-Body Medicine Programme) at Harvard Medical School, USA
The approach of the center is described as follows:
The fundamental principle underlying Holistic Treatment is that the natural defense and immune system of an individual when strengthened, has the potential to heal and prevent diseases. In the age of super-specialisation where human beings are often viewed as a conglomeration of organs, it is crucial to understand ourselves as multi-dimensional beings with a body, mind and spirit. These interconnected dimensions need to be in perfect harmony to ensure real well-being.
And about homeopathy, they claim this:
Homeopathy originated in 1796 in Germany, and was discovered by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, a German scientist. Homeopathy is popular today as a non-intrusive, holistic system of medicine. Instead of different medicines for different parts of the body, one single constitutional remedy is prescribed. As a system of medicine, Homeopathy is highly scientific, safe, logical and an extremely effective method of healing. For over 200 years people have used Homeopathy to maintain their good health, and also to treat and cure a wide range of illnesses like allergies, metabolic disorders, atopic dermatitis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Auto-immune disorders.
At this stage, I felt I had seen enough. Yes, you are right, we did not learn a lot from this little exploration. No, hold on! We did learn that homeopathy is highly scientific, safe, logical, and extremely effective!
The question, however, is should we believe it?
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Long ago in high school, I encountered the following saying: “Gutta cavat lapidem – non vi, sed saepe cadendo.”
Or, in its rather more recent (and unpleasant) incarnation: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Anyway, I’m curious how Camilla liked her Triple Brain Blaster cocktails with mercury, lead and arsenic. Because it appears that like many ayurvedic quacks, this Issac Mathai Nooranal person considers these highly toxic heavy metals to be to be legitimate (and even beneficial) ingredients in ‘medicinal’ concoctions.
I hope Charles still has a few bottles of his DUCHY ORIGINALS DETOX TINCTURE to save her life.
Ah, yes, he should still have a stash of those.
Well, that’s sorted, then 🙂
Well, in case anyone here wants to “follow the science” (rather than “follow your own beliefs”), here’s a meta-analysis from 1994, published in a respected conventional journal, that shows measured benefits from homeopathic treatment of toxicological substances:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/096032719401300706
Ah, I guess asking you to “follow the science” is a non-starter here if the results of such research doesn’t spin in your direction.
“Very few studies were independently replicated using comparable models.”
I wonder why!
The paper is from 1994, Dana
“Further research with special attention to methodological detail and independent replication should be done”
Plenty of time has passed for this to happen, Dana. 28 years. Hasn’t happened, though, has it. So we can happily recognise the paper as the bit of useless, handwaving nonsense it is and ignore it. You know. Like the rest of science and medicine has done.
Mister Insignificance strikes again.
@Lenny
Well, to an extent, it has. Klaus Linde and others have done several subsequent studies, and each one of those was both of higher quality and less favourable for homeopathy than the preceding one.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(97)02293-9/fulltext
“The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are completely due to placebo. However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homoeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16125589/
“This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects.”
@Dana Ullman
Have you found this 12C+ homeopathic preparation yet that shows unequivocal effects or even its sheer presence in independently replicated tests?
Every known substance on earth makes it through this simple test. Not one homeopathic preparation has ever managed it. Which is what I might call a hint that you’re
humpingbarking up the wrong postman’s leg …Oh Mr Ullman, I’m glad you have looked in. Could you take a moment to name a laboratory that can distinguish homeopathic water from other water? You said in this Blog that “only fools or liars” doubted this could be done. So who can do it. Forty-first time of asking……
And here’s an article that provides many more references to more recent research:
https://medium.com/@danaullman/what-homeopathic-medicine-offers-to-people-with-lead-poisoning-and-other-environmental-exposures-7a5634a4842b
Hi Dana,
please name the best clinical trial that, in your opinion, shows that homeopathy eliminates lead from humans – preferably AFTER APOLOGIZING FOR CALLING ME A LIAR.
Here’s a study on rats and lead:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8070841/
Can you please explain the mechanism of the placebo response in rats?
I asked for a clinical trial
homeopaths might be rats, but the rest of us aren’t!
and while you are at it: you still need to apologize!!!
“Can you please explain the mechanism of the placebo response in rats?”
I think it is important to know how to differentiate genuinely knowledgeable persons from numpties, quacks, woomeisters, fecking eejits, and menaces to public health (MPH).
I can [am able to] explain it to someone who understands science and is in the former group.
Neither I nor anyone else is able to explain it to someone who is in the latter group, such as the person who wrote this [my emphasis]:
@Dana Ullman
Pardon me for losing my patience here, but instead of coming up with increasingly bad-smelling pieces of crap that you call ‘study’, can YOU please explain the far more basic question:
Why is there NOT A SINGLE 12C+ homeopathic preparation has EVER been found to produce robust effects, or even show its nature, in arbitrary, independently repeatable tests?
You keep posting endless amounts of homeopropaganda here that implicitly suggests that there must be countless such homeopathic preparations, as each and every one of your pieces of quack drivel claims that, yes, homeopathic preparations have robust effects.
Yet not only can you not even identify ONE (1) such preparation that has indeed shown to have consistent effects in repeated scientific experiments, you even ignore the question (even though I am absolutely certain that you have read it).
This tells me that either you are well aware that you are peddling nonsense, and are therefore just a dishonest person (a.k.a. fraud), or else you have brainwashed yourself to such an extent that you let your personal beliefs prevail over even the most basic common sense. Either way, what you are proclaiming cannot be trusted and is certainly not worthy of respect.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783669/
And here’s a load of specious ignorant bumwash and special pleading written by a halfwit who exists only as an insignificant object of ridicule.
There y’go, Dana. Fixed it for you.
Perhaps they went to chill out before the next series of The Crown starts.
Though Camilla always struck me as more of a gin and tonic and a packet of Woodbines type.
I think you can do both- an holistic approach with SCAM therapies will counter the Gs&Ts and Woodbines (other brands of unfiltered toxins are available).
The placebo effect in rats?
I don’t know about rats specifically but when it comes to pets and farm animals who decides the animal’s condition has improved? Could it be the same human owner who decided to embark on this treatment? Or the homeopath who prescribed the treatment? So given the regression to the mean and the often subjective nature of “improvement” I see no need for any further explanation.
one element of the placebo effect was discovered in animals [dogs] by Pavlov
What’s so interesting here is that you’ve just proven that you didn’t read the rat study…and what’s more interesting is that no one here even seems to give a fig that you’ve shown your “intelligence” by proving your ignorance and your desire for ignorance…which is par for the course here.
na, na Dana!
and I thought you are back to apologize.
FAIRLY SOON, I WILL HAVE TO CALL YOU A LIAR IF YOU DON’T!
Mr Ullman, would you please name a laboratory that can distinguish between homeopathic water and other water, which in this blog, you said ‘only fools or liars’ doubted could be done?
FORTY-SECOND time of asking. Why, I am beginning to suspect that you don’t, because you can’t……. I mean, it’s not a hard ask, is it, if such a place exists?
Mr Ullman on Saturday 05 November 2022 at 16:19 (above) pointed us to one of his documents in which he also claims [my emphasis]:
Which laboratory can repeatedly verify this claim?
Dana
Your link is to an abstract, not a paper. So we can’t read it.
And neither can you.
And neither have you.
You really are an idiot.
@Socrates
There are other mechanisms apart from placebo effects that can cause positive study outcomes, the most important one being simple chance. A certain percentage of studies will come up positive due to chance alone – and this percentage increases with decreasing population size, effect size, and study quality. So if you just keep churning out study after study, you will inevitably get false positive outcomes, even if bias or fraud played no role.
And that is what you see in homeopathy: a couple of hundred positive studies that our water-shaking brethren keep coming up with as evidence for their beliefs. However, not one of those studies has been or can be replicated by independent scientists(*) – which means that they’ re probably one-off flukes. And no doubt, a far greater number of studies was actually done but came up negative, and remained unpublished.
*: Which is what I keep hammering on: do homeopaths have a positive result? OK, fine, but that result is says exactly nothing unless it can be replicated by independent scientists – and not just once, but (almost) every time the crucial experiment is carried out. None of this has ever happened; I believe the highest number of successful replications was two or three – by the same scientist, who probably made the same error every time. Because when other scientists tried to replicate her positive results, they all failed.
@ Socrates, I hope you find these interesting…
My comment about placebo terminology.
I thoroughly recommend reading the following, which includes the term “true placebo effect” proposed by Edzard Ernst (1995)[1]:
Placebo, Are You There?, by Jean Brissonnet, translation by Harriet Hall, MD.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-are-you-there/
[1] Ernst E., Resch KL. (1995). Concept of true and perceived placebo effects. BMJ 311: 551‑553.
Presentation on Placebos in Animals, SkeptVet, which expands on Edzard’s reply to you:
See also
https://skeptvet.com/Blog/?s=placebo
Thanks for that. It’s pretty much what I thought. I can’t comment on farm animals but I have seen the way some homepathically inclined pet owners act. Their beloved critter is a bit off colour with some unspecified lurgy so they give it the magic pill, pamper it with treats and fuss then, what do you know, it perks up!
And some animals are quite capable of learning behaviour which brings rewards.
It would of more help to her health if she gave up smoking!
Just a suggestion.
Nah, no doubt court homeopaths have assured her that the filters on her cigarettes dilute the noxious fumes to 30C, which would mean that by smoking, she is in fact protecting herself against lung cancer, COPD and that host of other nasty conditions associated with smoking.
How can I measure the level of dirt in/on my chakras if I want to do a before and after assessment?
I use the APP Chakra Test (Ital App). You can download it on Google Play Store.
I’m not quite clear which App that is, Gustavo? I see that on Google Play Store there are several “Chakras” Apps, from different developers.
What does the App measure, and how?
Chakra Test by ItalApp on Google Play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.italapp.chakratest
I enjoyed this review:
“Worst app I have ever seen not only on Chakras, but overall. First you have to answer like 50 or more questions, that are not in proper English. Then it says: download another app, the Pro version, to see your results. It’s the first time I write a review for an app, I just want to warn you guys out there: do NOT download this app, it’s NOT worth even a minute of your time.”
[Retrieved 2023-08-28]
Marvellous 😀
I created a chakra assessment with 163 questions!
“I created a chakra assessment with 163 questions!”
If there are 7 chakras, each of which has only 2 possible states, say {dirty, clean}, then the total number of states of the set of 7 chakras is:
2^7 = 128
If each chakra has 3 possible states, the total number of states is:
3^7 = 2187
If each chakra has 4 possible states, the total number of states is:
4^7 = 16384
etc.
@DavidB
If I were the developer, I’d have the app measure the user’s payments, and deem their chakras healthy as long as money is rolling in. After all, that is also the modus operandi of real-life alternative practitioners such as bioresonance charlatans and orthomolecular quacks.
it measures the health of the chakras through the individual’s way of being and thinking
Thank you for your responses, Gustavo.
What is the unit of measurement for chakra health?
As you know, for everything that can be measured, the measurements are expressed in a unit of measurement – e.g. centimetres or inches for length (measured against a calibrated scale); Kg or lbs for mass (often measured by deflection of a spring against a calibrated scale); degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit for temperature (often measured by expansion of mercury or alcohol in a tube against a calibrated scale) etc.
So, what, please, is the unit of measurement for chakra health?
Thank you.
As scientists have not yet been able to detect the spirit in their laboratories, the health of the chakras cannot be accurately measured, so we use questions, as all parts of the spirit and body are affected by thoughts and actions. There are rare people who can see the chakras, they report that they measure a few centimeters, around 15 cm, are round and have colors that vary according to the elevation or lowness of thoughts and actions. In the book “The Chakras”, by CW LEADBEATER, he tells that he interviewed Indian masters who could see the chakras, then he compiled a table with the information given by them. The halos above the saints’ heads is the representation of the chakra associated with a healthy relationship with God. Thank you DavidB!
“…theosophists Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater wrote a book called Occult Chemistry [1908] in which they used clairvoyance to create a series of completely erroneous pictures of atomic structures.”
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Clairvoyance
“Charles Webster Leadbeater (/ˈlɛdˌbɛtər/; 16 February 1854 – 1 March 1934) was a member of the Theosophical Society, Co-Freemasonry, an author on occult subjects, and the co-initiator, with J. I. Wedgwood, of the Liberal Catholic Church.
Originally a priest of the Church of England, his interest in spiritualism caused him to end his affiliation with Anglicanism in favour of the Theosophical Society, where he became an associate of Annie Besant. He became a high-ranking officer of the Society and remained one of its leading members until his death in 1934, writing over 60 books and pamphlets and maintaining regular speaking engagements.
Legacy
Leadbeater remains well-known and influential in New Age circles for his many works based on his clairvoyant investigations of life, including such books as Outline of Theosophy, Astral Plane, Devachanic Plane, The Chakras, and Man, Visible and Invisible dealing with, respectively, the basic principles of theosophy, the two higher worlds humanity passes through after “death”, the chakra system, and the human aura.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Webster_Leadbeater
I am Brazilian, from the Kardecist spiritist religion (Christian). In addition to religion, spiritism is a philosophy and a science. This religion has already produced, through psychographics, thousands of books by hundreds of disembodied spiritual authors.
The greatest medium of all times of humanity was a Brazilian called Chico Xavier, through him 450 books and 10,000 letters were written.
https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Xavier
I live in the city of the most imminent spiritist alive, Divaldo Franco, for whom more than 250 books were psychograded.
https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divaldo_Franco
Many psychograde spiritist books teach us how to have physical and spiritual health.
QUOTE
Chico Xavier (1910–2002) was a Brazilian spiritualist medium and claimed psychic healer. He was a major figure in the Spiritism religion.
Over a period of sixty years Xavier produced over four hundred books, all of which he claimed were actually written by spirits. He termed this style of writing “psychography”. He is also known for his abnegation and charity work.
Controversies
A fellow medium and close associate of his, Waldo Vieira (1932–2015), is sometimes quoted as having exposed him as a fraud, although this is subject to debate.
Xavier would receive information about his clients from staff at his spiritist center (Centro Espírita Luiz Gonzaga). According to an article in the Skeptical Inquirer:
There are also embarrassing photographs of Xavier with another medium Otília Diogo dressed in white bed sheets as a spirit.[2]
2. https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/spiritualism-in-brazil-alive-and-kicking/
END OF QUOTE
Source of my quote:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Chico_Xavier
What are the deep reasons why you are like this? no need to answer here. Good job and best of luck!
My spirit guide is using me as a channel.
It seems that your guide is using you as a tool.
That`s ok, you won.
@Gustavo
It’s not about who ‘wins’. It’s about truth and reality with regard to sickness and health. Chakras almost certainly don’t exist, and neither do spirits that write books. If you give other people health advice based on these imaginary things, you run a serious risk of harming instead of helping them – which, incidentally, is also what this blog is mostly about.
There isn’t much of a problem as long as this health advice is generic and based on common, proven knowledge (healthy diet, plenty of exercise, that kind of stuff), but if you claim that you can diagnose and treat serious health problems, then you are really not doing your customers a favour.
Also note that people’s health in countries such as India was absolutely appalling before the introduction of modern, more science-based medicine, despite their thousands of years of relying on yoga, chakras and whatnot. On average, people didn’t even live to the age of 50 until the 1970s.
About this ‘orchestra’ metaphor in defence of believing in all sorts of esoteric things: I understand your point, but I think that the more reality-based scientific approach is at least as beautiful and intriguing. Knowing the details (‘specifications of the violin’s wood’) does not detract from this at all – quite the contrary, I find it absolutely astounding to see how our body and ultimately also our mind can function the way they do based on pretty simple basic, mostly chemical principles(*), and that these simple principles can produce the myriads of processes and systems all working together to produce organisms that can live and thrive. And all that without needing any divine intervention or ‘subtle life energy’. One could almost call this a religious insight, were it not for the fact that religion allows for supernatural phenomena, something that is a no-no in science.
*: Which I think are at least as amazing as the concept of chakras, with the added bonus that we can examine them in all their intricate detail – something that is not possible with chakras and other imaginary things.
There are many things that are true and real but not visible and material that fight disease and promote health. Personally, despite believing in the existence of chakras, I don’t care about their appearance, as it is more important to act on the causes of problems, which are unbalanced thoughts, emotions and actions.
As for spirits, if you knew even a little of the wonderful content of spiritist books, which are written at an absurd speed, incompatible with the capacity of the greatest geniuses of humanity, you would believe in spirits. I was also skeptical, but my willingness to have a fair opinion on the subject made me better informed, read many books and today I am grateful for having given me this opportunity.
Here in Brazil, it is common to have spiritist centers that perform spiritual surgeries. I had a mild prolapse of the mitral valve without insufficiency and the spirits fixed it for me (I have the before and after exams to prove it. I had a patient with very painful bursitis in the right shoulder, she could not raise her upper limb even by 20°, and I saw her being operated on by a spirit who used the body of a psychic friend. She left the office raising her right limb to the maximum of its range of motion and thanking her very much. I had a patient, who I still keep in touch with, who had a tumor in her midsection of the central nervous system, and was operated on at the André Luís Spiritist Center, she had a CT scan before and after that surgery, proving the cure. She is still alive and healthy today. Detail, none of them had to use any material equipment, such as a scalpel and no not a drop of blood was shed.
On the other hand, working at the hospital, I once had a patient named Fernando, a 17-year-old boy with a tumor near the pineal. On Tuesday I took him for a walk in the hospital parking lot and bought him a popsicle (it was forbidden to do that). On my next day at work there, on Thursday, the head nurse told me that he was looking for someone to walk with him and give him a popsicle, but no one took it. That day he was operated on and never returned to that life.
I had a patient with Crohn’s disease, a 32-year-old boy who had already been admitted to the hospital, he was my patient and he was happy to see me again. I also had fond memories of him. I noticed that he had a lot of vitality, he didn’t even seem to be sick. But after they put in a colostomy bag, he suffered a lot, including sepcemia and died.
These 2 former patients were victims of the second cause of death on planet Earth, Adverse Events (errors by health professionals in hospitals). There are 2.6 million deaths per year in the world, according to the WHO, and a good part of adverse events are not reported, either because of vanity in admitting the error, or because of fear of losing their job and/or professional registration, shame in being sued and lack of interest in compensating the patient’s family. In Brazil, 3 people die every 5 minutes in hospitals, according to UFMG. That is, if a therapist diagnoses that the patient has all the chakras misaligned and recommends that he go to a hospital, he will “contract” the second cause of death, and maybe he will leave there in a black bag.
In addition to these adverse events, there are the side effects of allopathic remedies, that is, a person takes an anti-inflammatory for back pain and develops a stomach ulcer, then goes to a hospital, where he will “contract” the second cause of death . I don’t think this system is cool. How many allopathic remedies are there in the world? Probably thousands. And how many side effects? Probably millions.
Some think that the main problem in healthcare is the “threat of complementary therapies”, I think this is quite unrealistic.
I live in a country where most people believe that they are a soul living a life in matter and that after death, they will go to heaven, purgatory or hell. Although I believe that illnesses originate in unhealthy thoughts, emotions and actions committed in past lives and also in this current existence, I do not try to convince anyone that I believe in past lives. A disease that may have taken hundreds of years to develop can be alleviated in a short time, thanks to the resources of medicine that takes care of the body, but if we do not take care of the soul that thinks, feels and acts, it can make the same mistakes and return to develop the same illnesses again. Although many people, especially in Western countries, place great value on the body, it is in the soul that the majority of health problems lie. Treating the body helps the soul, but does not definitively solve its problems.
Each country has its strengths and weaknesses. It cannot be said that the terrible material health conditions in India are to blame for Yoga, which promotes physical, mental and emotional health, not only there, but thanks to enlightened beings like Yogananda, spread throughout the western world. I believe that if Europe had not created 2 world wars, and had invested that money in basic sanitation and education in India, both Europeans and Indians would have a better life today.
Through meditations, which are part of Yoga, a culture of peace and balance is created on planet Earth, generating health.
I think it’s beautiful that physiological and pathological phenomena are described in medical books. Today the function of each cellular organelle and each molecule involved in diseases is known, but when we read the paragraph that would reveal the cause of the disease, most of the time we are disappointed because it is there: “this disease has an unknown cause” or “not yet if the cause of this disease is known” or “this disease has an idiopathic cause”. Sometimes they cite factors that aggravate or initiate diseases, such as “stress”, ingestion of some food or drink, but they do not explain why other people make intense use of these same foods and do not develop the same diseases. It would be good if they studied psychosomatics or knew that crimes committed in past lives generate illnesses in this life.
@Gustavo
Most medical problems do not originate from ‘unbalanced thoughts’ (I can’t even imagine what those are, and I suspect that you don’t know either) or emotions. As for actions: OK, a lot of the things we do (eating, lifestyle habits) can indeed influence our health, but many medical problems ‘just happen’, without a clear cause. And no, this does not mean that you can make up arbitrary causes.
… are a complete and utter scam. There is not a single scientifically documented case of a ‘spiritual healer’ who could demonstrate their healing talents in a controlled setting. But there are MANY documented cases of fraud, where people who claimed to perform such fake surgeries were found to use sleight of hand and props such as chicken entrails to fool their patients. The late James Randi demonstrated this trick on multiple occasions. No need for spirits whatsoever, just a little training as a magician.
Ah, that nonsense again … and even bumped up from third to second leading cause of death … Sorry, but as with most of your claims, this is completely wrong. Just think about it: if what you claim here is true, then one in every three deaths would be caused by medical error. Given that in the US, about 35% of deaths happen in hospitals, this would mean that ALL deaths occurring in hospitals are due to medical error. Which is of course absurd when you think about it. In reality, about 4% of hospital deaths involve medical errors, and overall, medical error is something like the 12th cause of death. Which I think is more than high enough already.
Sorry, but you are completely wrong again, and it’s easy to see why: with 8 billion people in the world and an average life span of 70 years, you would expect to see 8E9 / 70 = 114 million deaths per year worldwide, not 2.6 million. And what is the relevance of this number anyway?
Let’s see … 3 people every 5 minutes = 36 people per hour = 864 people per day = 315,360 people per year. Now Brazil has a population of 214 million and an average life expectancy of 74 years, so we would expect to see 214,00 / 74 = 2.9 million deaths per year in Brazil(*). So roughly 1 in every 10 deaths happen in hospitals, which sounds plausible. And this once again also tells us that medical errors in hospitals can’t possibly the second leading cause of death in Brazil, even when making the crazy assumption that all hospital deaths are the result of medical errors.
Alas, when you look at the history of countries such as India, you will see that all that meditation has not done much for either peace or health. India still lags way behind western countries in both respects.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at this. Thank you for letting us have a look around inside your head.
*: Note that these life expectancy numbers are not corrected for historical increase (older people have in fact a lower overall life expectancy when calculated from their time of birth), but they’re close enough to prove the point here.
Examples of unbalanced thoughts: A co-worker of mine got angry because the bus was full and left without taking her, so she punched the bus and fractured the fifth metacarpal of her right hand. A man argued with another in traffic and was shot. A person was worried about some problem and decided to start smoking, and with each new concern, he smoked more and more. This is how “diseases” and “accidents” begin, with a single unbalanced thought or emotion.
In college we learned that we cannot control the functions of the organs, only breathing and for a short time. You don’t need to study psychosomatics to know that thoughts of hate generate bruxism and headache, because the head was made to think about good things as well as the feet to walk. If I decide to kick a coconut because I’m angry, that will hurt too. Who has never felt a sudden fear, due to some bad news, and got diarrhea? There are unhealthy emotions hidden in the subconscious that act on the organs for years, such as hurt, remorse, guilt, dissatisfaction, fear, anger and many others, generating illnesses without anyone noticing. People usually just refer to weird sensations like a tightness in the chest or throat, a burning in the stomach, etc. Only homeopaths listen to these people and can help them. Ordinary doctors do tests at this early stage and find nothing.
It is true, some diseases “just happen”, but not by chance, those who are spiritists know that, for example, a person who throws a lot of pesticides on vegetables that causes cancer in other people, can, both in this and in the next lives (incarnations), suffering from a “mysterious cancer”. If human security cameras make criminals pay for their actions, imagine the eyes of God that are everywhere, even in our conscience.
The disembodied spirits who perform spiritual surgeries only think about helping the sick person to strengthen his faith in God. Skeptics and pseudo-skeptics, when they see cures performed by disembodied spirits, do not admit them, saying that it was “a spontaneous cure, which are rare, but it happens”. These spirits do not need material tools or mediums to perform spiritual surgeries. One of the strategies of dark spirits is to use bad people to distort something good. True spiritual surgeries do not cause pain, do not cause blood loss, do not leave sequelae and do not kill. If scientists want to verify these cures, I believe that the spirits will accept the proposal.
However, we already have thousands of books written by disembodied spirits, which people can take with their own hands and read. What have scientists done so far with these books?
I know of only 1 article published in a scientific journal, in which Spiritist books were used:
Historical and cultural aspects of the pineal gland: comparison between the theories provided by Spiritism in the 1940s and the current scientific evidence
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24522019/
About adverse events, the links:
https://www.medicina.ufmg.br/a-cada-5-minutos-tres-brasileiros-morrem-nos-hospitais-por-falhas-que-poderiam-ser-evitadas/
https://medicinasa.com.br/eventos-adversos-ibsp/#:~:text=De%20acordo%20com%20o%20Plano,adversos%20anualmente%20em%20pa%C3%ADses%20emergentes.
If this data is wrong, please send me the correct ones through links.
@Gustavo
With all due respect for your beliefs, but if you seriously think that organisms do not heal spontaneously (i.e. through evolved mechanisms) but through ‘disembodied spirits’, and that these ‘disembodied spirits’ do this to strengthen the patient’s belief in a god(*), then we’re definitely done talking. It is utterly useless to argue with someone who comes up with spirits and other religiously inspired explanations for natural phenomena such as sickness and healing. And please also stop calling yourself a scientist, because you most definitely are not.
(And I gave you the link to the debunked ‘third leading cause of death’ myth already, but here it is again:
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health/medical-error-not-third-leading-cause-death )
*: So plants and animals also need a strengthened faith in god? Because they too have spontaneous healing mechanisms, just like we do.
I did not say that I did not believe that organisms cannot heal themselves, but that healings performed by spirits are not generally accepted by scientists, who are generally skeptical.
I didn’t express myself clearly. I meant that “as a serious scientist usually does (not me, but who is a scientist).
Regarding adverse events, where I wrote “second cause of death”, consider that it was the third, it doesn’t make much difference. But knowing how human nature is, I believe that these events are underreported, and in fact it is the first or second. It will never be known for sure how many millions are killed every year.
World Health Organization website:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/patient-safety
And the study that estimates the number of deaths at 2.6 million:
4.National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Crossing the global quality chasm: Improving health care worldwide. Washington (DC): The National Academies Press; 2018 (https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25152/crossing-the-global-quality-chasm-improving-health-care-worldwide, accessed 26 July 2019).
Despite our differences, I enjoyed talking to you, God bless you even more!
Thank you for your response, Gustavo.
Above, you said regarding the App you mentioned: “it measures the health of the chakras through the individual’s way of being and thinking”.
But you are saying now that chakras cannot be measured? If they cannot be measured, how can one measure their health?
Is it not that case that in fact chakras cannot be DETECTED? Obviously if they cannot be detected, they cannot be measured.
Second-hand reports of people who met people who said they could see them, do not provide a basis for measurement.
I said it couldn’t be measured accurately by scientists in their labs, but it can be measured by App indirectly.
The 163-question quiz is a 4-column, 7-row table (one for each chakra). In the first column, the name of the chakras, in the second the physical aspects, in the third the psychological/emotional aspects and in the fourth the score of that chakra. The patient values 0, 1, 2 or 3 for each physical or psychological/emotional symptom (the higher the number, the more intense the symptom). As there are 14 spaces in the table, referring to the physical and psychological/emotional aspects, each aspect addresses around 11 symptoms.
I turn the 163 responses that patients enter in the table into numbers. For example, a patient can get 10 points in the first chakra, 25 in the second, 2 in the third…
With the complete answers, I teach the patient about how psychosomatics relates the physical symptoms to the psychological/emotional ones presented. This table occupies only 1 sheet of A4 paper.
From the moment the patient becomes aware of his health condition and how thoughts and emotions affect the physical body, he can choose to live healthier. With the result of this table, other therapies can help, such as meditation and hypnosis.
I would like to see the chakras and help patients more, but since I don’t have that gift, I developed this way of helping.
Gustavo has reminded me of a delightful carrier bag I saw in a shop, inscribed with the words:
Unicorns are REAL
The mermaids told me
laughing is a great therapy! Thank you!
Chico Xavier was elected on a Brazilian television program as the greatest Brazilian of all time, chosen by popular vote.
https://youtu.be/g5DY6WGJGGo?si=UtyoRlYWJr0k89TS
He is the Brazilian Yogananda. India with Yoga and Brazil with Spiritism balance the scientism, skepticism and materialism of countries that are more interested in the specifications of the violin’s wood than in the splendor of the orchestra.
And Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, chosen by popular vote.
He didn’t compete against all-Americans ever.
You seem to be trying hard to deflect from these facts:
• Dr Mike Sutton asked: “How can I measure the level of dirt in/on my chakras if I want to do a before and after assessment?”
• To which you replied: “I use the APP Chakra Test (Ital App). You can download it on Google Play Store.”
• You are not simply a users of that app, you are its developer.
• Chakras do not actually exist, they are a figment of the imagination.
https://edzardernst.com/2021/01/the-integrated-medicine-alliance-a-large-corpus-of-evidence-for-homeopathy-has-accumulated-which-stands-the-most-robust-tests-of-modern-science-oh-really/
It seems that you are more than a little lost, and fishing in the wrong pond for customers. Perhaps you haven’t bothered to read and understand the About page on this website:
https://edzardernst.com/about/
Notwithstanding, you have provided a little entertainment.
As a serious scientist, who admits to the existence of biases in his research, I have already admitted that the chakras have not yet been discovered by scientists. I’m not the developer of the App, in fact I used part of his questions to make the table I use with patients, with 163 questions. When the patient answers all the questions, he indirectly finds the dirt of each chakra. After guiding him on psychosomatic issues, I ask him to take the table home, put it in a drawer, and try to improve his way of thinking, feeling and acting. After 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or whenever he wants, he can reread all the items he quantified in the table and evaluate how much garbage he has already eliminated from the chakras.
“As a serious scientist…”
Oh, I see: I had no idea that you are a serious scientist. I searched for scientific papers having author "Uzeda GF", but cannot find any. Perhaps you will be kind enough to tell us where to find the scientific papers that you have published.
Going back to your previous comments:
“In the book ‘The Chakras’, by CW LEADBEATER, he tells that he interviewed Indian masters who could see the chakras, then he compiled a table with the information given by them.”
Sorry to nitpick, but as you are a serious scientist, I’m sure that you will appreciate the enormous difference between the two claims:
1. “he interviewed Indian masters who could see the chakras”
2. “he interviewed Indian masters who said that they could see the chakras”
I’m mentioning this due to the striking similarity to the experiments with N‑rays.
QUOTE
N-rays are an early classic example of pathological science, the “science of things that aren’t so”. The N‑ray was a hypothesised form of ionizing radiation described by French physicist Prosper-René Blondlot in 1903, and initially confirmed by others, but subsequently found to be illusory, to the ruin of Blondlot’s previously stellar reputation.
The interest for the modern scholar lies in the fact that people did successfully duplicate the experiments despite the fact that N‑rays provably do not exist: it is a cautionary tale of confirmation bias.
…
American physicist Robert W. Wood, known as a debunker of nonsense, was prevailed upon to visit Blondlot’s laboratory, where he secretly removed an essential prism from the experimental apparatus. The experimental operators still insisted that they saw the N‑rays. He also replaced a large file claimed to be an emitter with a piece of wood, with similar results. His report was published in Nature and N‑rays were exposed as purely subjective, with the scientists involved having recorded data that matched their expectations.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/N-rays
END OF QUOTE [my bolding]
You wrote “I have already admitted that the chakras have not yet been discovered by scientists.”
Yes, for exactly the same reason that N‑rays “have not yet been discovered by scientists”:
THEY DON’T ACTUALLY EXIST
Or to be precise:
THEY DON’T EXIST IN ACTUALITY
THEY DON’T ONTOLOGICALLY EXIST
To believe otherwise would be an example of ontological confusion; a category error arising when something is referred to in ways that imply it belongs to a category of things to which it does not.
https://edzardernst.com/?s=ontological+confusions
I didn’t express myself clearly, sorry. I meant that “as a serious scientist usually does (not me, but who is a scientist)”.
CW LEADBEATER’s book on the chakras is interesting, but there are others on the subject that were written by spirits through psychographics (a spirit on the other side of life writes using the hand of a person on that side).
Spiritism, in addition to being a religion and philosophy, is also a science, studying what disembodied spirits teach us through the thousands of books written by them.
For example, the article below analyzes information about the pineal gland cited in several books written by the spirit André Luís through the medium Chico Xavier:
“Historical and cultural aspects of the pineal gland: comparison between the theories provided by Spiritism in the 1940s and the current scientific evidence”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24522019/
I believe in the existence of chakras largely due to spiritist books.
isn’t there a spiritual cure for your verbal diarrhea?
I’m sorry if what I wrote was too much for you. I have no intention of displeasing.