by Englishman 124 Replies latest jw friends
Larc, I understand the principle you're pointing out, and I'm sure that it is applicable to some extent. However, the placebo effect does not totally explain this phenomenon.
Saying "placebo effect" is concomitant to throwing any unexplained occurrences into the "coincidence" bucket. These are catchall phrases and dismissive. Acupuncture fell into the "placebo" category for a very long time.
Additionally, Larc, I don't actual believe that the healing touch has anything to do with "mystical" powers. I think that it is rather an ability that all humans have, but it is more developed in some.
Larc,
Can you give me the explainable, scientific term for "love" is it documented? Is there scientific proof of this emotion?
wendy
When I first moved here, I got in a car accident (some 16 year old failed to notice that I had stoppd for a red light!). I found a really good massage therapist. His name was Pao Cha, and he was Hmong. ( I know Shauna knows what this means).
Anyhow, his dad was a 'medicine man' in the highlands of Laos, and he had a small portion of the gift.
When I would go in for my massage, sometimes he would be just fine after it (one hour) , and sometimes he was dripping sweat and would have to sit down. On those days he told me that my energy was very strong, and that my body was sending shooting energy into his hands, which was very painful for him. (May the FORCE be with you and all that crap.)
I should add that this was not a weak man, he was well trained in many of the martial arts. But sometimes he wouldn't be able even to talk to me or look at me afterwards. It was too physically and emotionally draining for him.
So, although I don't have the gift, I think some do.
I apologise for not reading the previous six pages,but regards
Quantum Thouch Therapy, Reiki, and therapeutic touch there are studies being done now in Chicago to the effectiveness. of it.
I am a Level II Reiki Practitioner(yes the beginning of the end of the JWS for me)
While most of this is new to me..it should not be a foreign concept...... we are all matter and or energy...the exact relationship between people being attuned or laying their hands on others is not new at all. We have(most of us) been told that the MIRACLES ...ended with the apostles........and If someone can show me I might consider this..but I have seen to many good results from myself and others with Reiki. to deny this Universal Life Force, it purports faith in a higher power and a sharing of this energy
http://www.reiki.org/FAQ/HistoryOfReiki.html
this may help
toodles
S
Hi Wendy,
There is a lot of science pertaining to love and other emotions out there. Harry Harlow comes to mind, I suggest SInger and Schacter as well,that work has to do with with the subjective experience of such emotion,being the result of integrating information from current social context,past experiences and autonomic arousal.....there's lots more out there,but I'm not anywhere near my personal library at the moment.......it's interesting reading,regards,Tina
RHW,
My comments did not at all reflect the idea you asserted. I did not say that this phenomena indicated coincidence or that the term is in any wasy dismisive. I said, if you reread me, that it demonstrates the curative power of the mind. When people believe that something will help them, some get better even when nothing theraputic has been done to them. As I recall, the figure is about 20%. To me the placebo effect is just as interesting and exciting and worthy of study as any other repeatable finding in the study of human behavior.
Mommie,
Regarding your question about "Love". No emotion or internal state can be measured directly. However, there are a number of ways of making indirect measurement, the simplest being self report. In other areas of measurement, there have been questionaires developed to get a somewhat more reliable self report of emotional states. These include the Beck Depression Scale, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, the depresion scale of the Minnesota Multiphsic Personality Inventory, and the Matlack Job Burnout Scale to name a few. Aslo, many studies have been conducted to measure psysiological and behavioral correlates of self report measures. These studies determine what is called the Construct Validity of self report measures. That is, can we reliably measure a term or lable we have developed and show that is has operational meaning. The same approach has been used to measure motivation, by David McClelland and others, since his pioneering work. The measure of intelligence would be another example.
All these items I used as examples above can be measured and studied, much to our benefit.
Tina mentioned Harlow's work. He demonstrated, with rhesis monkeys, the critical importance of contact comfort in the new born. Infants who did not recieve this, grew up to be maladjusted, extremely withdrawn and could not raise their own offspring properly. Renee Spitz, showed that children raised in orphanages that did not provide contact comfort became withdrawn and retarded intellectualy. Some of them died in early childhood.
By the way, Harlow also showed that the deprived monkeys could recover in early childhood if they were provided the compansionship of healthy peers.
RHW,
I would suspect that the healing ability is a combination of close presence, soothing sounds and comforting touches. These things sure helped my kids and our pets. If there is more to it than that, I would like to know what you think it is.
It seems that some people here think that because they believe in paranormal experiences they are some sort of minority and they are one step ahead of modern science. That is not the case. All throughout history and even today, the majority of humankind has believed in the supernatural. Only with the advent of science has a minority of rational thinkers rejected this popular view. It is actually this minority who is like Galileo. Our ideas are scoffed at because they go against human intuition, but scientific discovery always wins out in the end. We are the real risk takers. This is easily shown when we are persecuted simply for providing scientific evidence for our position. It’s the rational thinkers who are ganged up on by the majority on this thread.
I also cringe when I hear that these supernatural ideas are scientific. They are not. Frauds and Charlatans throw around scientific sounding jargon all the time to make their claims sound more believable. A red flag should always go up when you hear the words “quantum mechanics”, “positive ions”, “frequencies”, “vibrations”, etc. The people who use these words to back their claims can’t even explain what they mean by using them. They are just used to make their claims sound scientific (which they are not) and to confuse people into thinking that they would never be able to understand how the thing works.
People like Galileo held their evidence to a higher standard than the norm. Today it is the same. The standard for evidence is pitifully low for most people. It is the minority of rational thinkers who have held a higher standard that is today called the Scientific Method. They are the true innovators of the modern world.
Think about this for a second – if you didn’t know that a magician was just performing tricks, wouldn’t you think he was actually performing real magic? Magicians do phenomenal mind reading tricks all of the time. Even though I know they are only tricks, I am amazed. How much more are we amazed if we don’t actually know it’s just a trick! Humans are extremely easy to fool – until we get the information we need to keep from being tricked. It may still be our senses that are tricked, but at least we know the underlying principles behind the trick – and we understand that it is not magic, paranormal, or supernatural.
I urge everyone to read some of the books I recommended above. I guarantee you will be enlightened. You will be able to better hone your BS detectors and keep from being hoodwinked by these frauds.
rem
