My Experience...

[Rockhopper]

With alternative therapies.

My friend John told me about special vegetarian diets, megavitamin therapy, fasting, colonics, mud baths, iridology, cytotoxic blood testing, Rolfing, acupressure and acupuncture, chiropractic and massage therapy, negative ions, pyramid power, and a host of weird things with which I was unfamiliar. Being a fairly inquisitive fellow, I thought I would try these things to see for myself whether they worked. I once fasted for a week on nothing but a strange mixture of water, cayenne pepper, garlic, and lemon. At the end of the week, John and I walked up Mt. Herbert some seven miles each way. About halfway up the mountain I collapsed, violently ill from the concoction. John and I once went out to a health spa near Lake Ellesmere for a mud bath that was supposed to suck the toxins out of my body. My skin was dyed red for a week. I set up a negative ion generator in my bedroom to charge the air to give me more energy. It turned the walls black with dust. I got my iris read by an iridologist, who told me that the little green flecks in my eyes meant something was wrong with my kidneys. To this day my kidneys are functioning fine.

I kept trying weird things because I figured I had nothing to lose and, who knows, maybe they would increase performance. I tried colonics because supposedly bad things clog the plumbing and thus decrease digestive efficiency, but all I got was an hour with a hose in a very uncomfortable place. I installed a pyramid in my apartment because it was supposed to focus energy. All I got were odd looks from guests. I starting getting massages, which were thoroughly enjoyable and quite relaxing. Then my massage therapist decided that "deep tissue" massage was best to get lactic acid out of the muscles. That wasn't so relaxing. One guy massaged me with his feet. That was even less relaxing. I tried Rolfing, which is really deep tissue massage. That was so painful that I never went back.

We went for cytotoxic blood testing because it was supposed to detect food allergies that cause blood platelets to clump together and block capillaries, thus decreasing blood flow. By now we were a little skeptical of the truth of these various claims, so we sent in one man's blood under several names. Each sample came back with different food allergies, which told us that there was a problem with their testing, not with the blood. I slept with an "Electro-Acuscope," which was to measure my brain waves and put me into an alpha state for better sleeping. It was also supposed to rejuvenate my muscles and heal any injuries. The company swore that it helped Joe Montana win the Super Bowl. Near as I can figure, it was totally ineffective.

The Electro-Acuscope was the idea of my chiropractor. I began visiting a chiropractor not because I needed one but because I had read that energy flows through the spinal cord and can get blocked at various places.

I discovered that the more I got adjusted, the more I needed to get adjusted because my neck and back kept going "out." This went on for a couple of years until I finally quit going altogether, and I've never needed a chiropractor since.

I decided that megavitamin therapy, along with colonics, iridology, Rolfing, and all these other alternative, New Age therapies were a bunch of hooey.

Since that time I have noticed about extraordinary claims and New Age beliefs that they tend to attract people on the fringes of academia—people without formal scientific training, credentialled (if at all) by nonaccredited schools, lacking research data to support their claims, and excessively boastful about what their particular elixir can accomplish.

Beginning with Martin Gardner's 1952 classic, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Gardner's numerous essays and books over the next four decades, such as Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus (1981), The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher (1991a), and On the Wild Side (1992), established a pattern of incredulity about a wide variety of bizarre beliefs. I share the same view!

Tim.

[Monk (in hiding)]

Many people believe 'diets' will cure anything.

I don't know, sometimes you just got to let nature take it's course.

Healing can be a slow process, and there are times when one just has to adjust and deal with what they have - not easy.

Case in point, I want to get to the bottom of what's up with mi feet, waiting for Mayo Clinic exam..

[Stirky]

Alternative therapies work for a lot of people Tim, I have even had experience of therapies working on animals who of course are not susceptible to any placebo effect. So you might not believe any of the 'mumbo jumbo' works for you, but I know it does work for many and gives considerable benefit and comfort. Yes some of these therapies are less genuine, but a lot are very real.

[Rockhopper]

Fair enough Stirkles, if it works for you go for it.

Same for your too VM, crook feet stuffs up your mobility!

Tim.

[Stirky]

I am a holistic therapist Tim lol

[Monk (in hiding)]

I am a holistic therapist Tim lol

Ok, cure mi feet!

[Stirky]

If I lived close to you I would come and see you VM

[Rockhopper]

I am a holistic therapist Tim lol

I'll bet you very good at it too Stirkles!

Tim.

[Monk (in hiding)]

If I lived close to you I would come and see you VM

[Mordae]

Very interesting article, it goes into what can be done with shungite as well as what linking to some of the research.

Is Science Finally Catching up to What The Ancients Knew About Crystals?

Despite the plethora of anecdotal evidence that exists on the healing powers of stones and crystals, the debate continues to rage in the scientific community over whether crystals actually have any real healing power. For example, a basic internet search reveals many articles claiming crystal healing to be pseudoscience. In fact, one recent study argues that crystals have absolutely no healing power and that the placebo effect accounts for people’s healing experiences with them.

As a trained research scientist, I am naturally critical and curious about everything in my life. Despite having a fascination with rocks and crystals in childhood, I forgot about them and was drawn away from them during my time in school and doctoral training. Then in my late 20′s, during a highly tumultuous time in my life, I began meditating, and during my meditations I began to see visions of crystals. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to touch them and hold them. But I brushed it aside, still new to listening to my intuition, and figured I was just having random hallucinations.

About six months later my boyfriend Jimmy Ohm took me to a crystal healing course taught by a Reiki Master, Thao Le, who walked us through a bunch of different stones, allowing us to hold them and perceive their energies. In what was very much a “blind” experiment, I found that even with my eyes closed, I could feel how each stone was different, and how it resonated and vibrated in my hand. I felt something real that I could not explain or ignore.

Fast forward a few years, and I am now a complete crystal fanatic. I use them on myself during Reiki, I apply them in healing sessions for others, I sleep with them under my pillow, I grid my house out with them, I keep them in my car, and I gift them to loved ones and random strangers.

WHY do I do this?

Because I have to trust my intuition. Maybe this is just the placebo effect and these crystals that resonate so deeply with me are just dumb rocks, but on some deeper, spiritual level, I know that this is not the case. Some people might criticize me for this perspective or call it pseudoscience, but I bet those same people are reading this article right now on their device’s LCD screen (which stands for Liquid CRYSTAL display), which is powered by a processor chip made of SILICON (an element derived or synthesized from silicate minerals in the earth’s crust, AKA, crystals). So are crystals are just random rocks? Or are they are some of the most powerful and intriguing materials on this planet, necessary for the functioning of modern technology?

The Science of Crystals

Crystals are millions of years old, forged during the earliest parts of earth’s formation. They are the most orderly structure that exists in nature, meaning they have the lowest amount of entropy (a measurement for disorder). Crystals are structured in such a way that they respond to the inputs of all different energies around them, leading them to oscillate and emit specific vibratory frequencies. Because the crystal lattice is so balanced and orderly, the energy it emits is consistent, and when dissonant energy is inputted, it is balanced and transformed into a harmonic energy. (Note: I am a psychologist, not a physicist, so for more specifics on the physics behind this, check out this great article by Aleph Healing)...

[Kaere]

I <3 Shungite, it's very powerful for me.

I feel that crystals don't carry the power in themselves but that they act as amplifiers of our own energy. Different crystals have different resonations and each will act differently to different people because of the differences in those energies (goes along with the last paragraph there).

[Rockhopper]

Yes Ka. Crystals change light so it stands to reason that they can do the same with energies.

Tim.

[Kaere]

They don't just change light. They're used in many things, like mentioned above, they're used in LCD screens, etc. The one example that I like to use is watches that use a crystal to regulate the time. That is how they work, isn't it? Electricity from a battery passes through to make a crystal vibrate at a specific frequency. Or am I wrong?

[Rockhopper]

Yup you nailed it. Quartz has the property that means when AC electricity is passed through it, it vibrates and a specific frequency and locks the AC into step with that frequency.

LCD screens have a liquid form of Gallium that polarises light according to the way electricity flows through it. The colours are put in by filters mounted in front of the liquid crystal. Another polarising screen is put in place over the crystals to show that light.

Here's a bit of fun you can have; Get an old LCD monitor and carefully remove the outer screen from it. Get a pair of cheap glasses and remove the lens'. Then take pieces of the removed screen and put it across the glasses frames.

Anyone else seeing the screen will just see a white area. But you will see what's on the screen through the glasses.

Tim.

[Stirky]

I love the energy of crystals and truly believe they have healing powers, but being a crystal therapist and being as we also sell crystals, I would say this wouldn't I

[Sponsored content]