Here's a thread dismissing most pre-"rationalist" age human experience as "prescientific hearsay:"

[villager]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=102731&mesg_id=102731

I guess that would include the entirety of experience of tribal peoples, et al?

Of course it's brought to you by your always open-minded pals in the "Health" forum! ;-)

I guess I should mention it's an attack on herbal remedies, healing, etc., in favor of the "remedies" provided instead by big pharma...

[Kookaburra]

1. Wow!

That kind of unbelievable arrogance never fails to surprise me.

[get the red out]

10. The difference between that mentality and the religious right is

nothing.

[MorningGlow]

2. Awww you made me look!

I should know better. The Health forum is a poo-flinging nightmare that rivals Religion/Theology and the Dungeon. :scared:

[villager]

3. I don't know what I was thinking, even posting there. You notice how my requests for dialogue

...were treated.

[MorningGlow]

4. I confer sainthood upon you for even making an attempt

Bless you, my child. :rofl:

[kimmerspixelated]

5. I used to hang out there, thought I could try to help people

as a wellness consultant since I do an awful lot of research and know at least a few things that work. But God, those bully types are really full of themselves, aren't they??? I used to get really steamed at them, and then I wound up putting most of them on ignore...and then I took the higher road, and never went back. It is tempting though, I know...like a wreck sometimes, you can't look away.

[villager]

6. Their arrogance -- which sparks their rage -- is something

You'd think, if they were that sure of themselves, they wouldn't need it, and would welcome conversation.

Alas, just the opposite there...

[kimmerspixelated]

7. so true, so true.

[WolverineDG]

9. you should see them in R/T

talk about people who just don't get it....they just can't figure out why no one likes them, even though they repeatedly call people who believe in God or a higher power "stupid," & their beliefs "fairy tales." :crazy:

dg

[BanzaiBonnie]

21. And there's the rub villager

They are fearful and unsure of themselves and must defend. It's a matter of, "methinks they doth protest too much."

[WolverineDG]

8. Way back in the early 70's, my mom insisted to our family doctor

that aloe vera was good for sunburns. (this was before aloe vera became used in everything) He continually dismissed that as an "old wives tale" until he & my dad went fishing one day & came back with sunburn. Mom did what she always did & sliced up some aloe vera. The doctor decided to "test" it on himself, even while he said he knew it wouldn't work. He put aloe on one arm & nothing on the other. He & dad got to talking & a while later he said "hey, the arm I put aloe vera on feels much better than the one I didn't." :think:

I'd like to post that in "Health," but don't feel like dealing with those folks.

dg

[kimmerspixelated]

11. I know what you mean, but AV I think by now

is almost as well established as Vit C. It's hard to refute facts and years of cases just like the one you just described, but they (those guys) would argue with the moon.

[WolverineDG]

13. I love how they argue with those of us who have been helped by chiros

and how the extreme pain I was in for months, which wasn't helped by the addictive narcotic medication my doctor gave me, was really really "just all in my head" because it went away after I visited a chiro.

Vitamin C? Woo.
Aloe vera? Woo.
Chiropractic care? Woo. Snake oil. (well some of it, I admit, is way out there, but the care I had worked for me)
Homeopathic care? Woo. Snake oil.

Want to really make their heads spin & mouths foam? Just mention "Shroud of Turin." One of the largest flame fests I was ever involved in was over some show on History about a bunch of (get this) scientists attempting to do a facial reconstruction of the image in the Shroud. It was an interesting program, with amazing results, but oh noes! Can't talk about anything that *might* lend credibility to the claims around the Shroud. Their reaction was so vicious & extreme, it made me wonder just what they were afraid of.

dg

[villager]

14. What! "Prescientific hearsay" worked on the doctor's arm!?

;-)

[WolverineDG]

16. I know!!

whoda thunk it? :P

dg

[Celebration]

12. typical

typical, typical, typical

I too have been caught up in such non-discussions with the same parties.

[villager]

15. It became a very weird thread -- I was repeatedly insulted for wanting to discuss

A lot of projection, too: Snarky posts saying my questions were "snark," etc.

Sigh. Sad, more than anything.

[kentauros]

25. You mention a word that is basically a "four-letter word" on all of DU:

"discuss" ;)

Other than our pleasant corner of the board and a few others (the Texas forum comes to mind) having an actual discussion is not why they came to DU in the first place. There's a lot of chest-thumping, gloom'n'doom disasterbation, and plenty for whom arguing is their only way of communicating with the rest of us. I have yet to see the author of that thread have an actual, reasoned, point-by-point discussion with anyone, other than perhaps his peers. The rest of us are to be beat down and put in our places :eyes:

And yeah, it's the same in R/T. I have rarely seen a discussion there, much less of just theology. As MG has put it to me, it's a "shooting gallery" for those intent on deriding and defeating all spiritual thought. It's just not worth your time, effort or energy. And we can do the "Health Forum" here, anyway :D

[villager]

27. Good points all, kentauros.

I'm hard-pressed to disagree with a-one.

So I won't! ;-)

[kentauros]

28. Oh come on!

Disagree with something! It's the nature of this place :P

I think as I read more of the big places like GD, LBN and R/T, it was easy to come to that conclusion. Also, be wary of injecting humor into a "discussion" as too many did not come to DU to laugh ;)

[villager]

29. well, like our friend in "Health," I could paste in a bunch of snarky

...dismissive similies. That would be more "DU"-like I guess! :P

[felix_numinous]

17. The idea of integrative medicine

is rabidly opposed by posters on the main forums. I am greatly disappointed to find that people who consider themselves liberal or progressive are actually very regressive when it comes to healthcare. You cannot discuss herbs or indigenous wisdom of any kind without being attacked outright. The strong bias in much of the the scientific community now closely resembles a fundamentalist religion. I wonder if many of these attacks are from paid sockpuppets, because of they invariably gang up on anyone daring to introduce alternative subjects.

The mainstream is a strange place on DU, marijuana legalization is backed, medical use of the herb is just becoming accepted (or not attacked any more). Truly open minded people have been increasingly systematically marginalized in our society, even from what is considered the left. I think this is a very serious phenomena, to witness the ridiculing of creativity and of ancestral knowledge.

This is why I consider all the pioneers in their fields, Carolyn Myss, Christiane Northrup, Susun Weed, Rosemary Gladstar, Barbara Brennan Alex Grey and all the rest to be vitally important in our society now., and for all of us to keep their wisdom alive.

Like Clarissa Pinkola Estes said (I listen to her audio tapes), it is the poets, the artists, the healers, the visionaries who are silenced first, since to do so is to completely change a culture. But then-- she adds that she believes that all of this wisdom is then dreamed back into existence through the collective unconscious, that this is what is happening now. There is so much wisdom being made available.

[kimmerspixelated]

18. Couldn't agree more!

The only thing that will ever change these folks minds is if they get seriously ill, and realize that their ways are not going to save them. They'll try something when nobody's looking, and quietly (tail between the legs) come around..maybe?

[Celebration]

19. I just think the naysayers are VERY LOUD

Most people at DU are neutral/average/okay about it. But stark materialists do have a strong foothold, and they are loudest.

The internet in general is just fabulous for sharing this kind of material.

[bigmonkey]

23. I used to live in Vermont, and Bernie Sanders was my rep at the time.

He became Senator Sanders later. He introduced legislation to heavily control or eliminate the availability of herbal remedies. Since I was depending on them at the time, I found myself in the strange position of opposing Sanders, and being grateful for the support of Orrin Hatch!

I think Sanders was coming from a place of thinking that all herbal medicines were hokum, and people should be protected from being duped by them. At least I hope so, because the alternative is to think he was on the side of Big Pharma. I think, over time, he became a little less adamant. Vermont is an alternative place, and I'm sure many people gave him an earful.

Still, one of the strangest political situations I've ever been in. The "Anti-woo" position is often adopted with very little actual thought behind it.

[Celebration]

30. honestly

Dare I say this? Some Democrats really ARE a bit too nanny statists, and could use a bit of a dose of the libertarian. Sanders sees people being duped and wants to protect them. I see big pharma protecting their profits by denying us what we choose to ingest.

[villager]

24. They really are fundamentalists. Quite rigid and narrow, actually.

I guess I should quit being surprised by the narrow-mindedness. I guess the "protest too much" part comes from trying to maintain that rigidity.

[lildreamer316]

33. You lead me to a point....

..and I'm going to try to make it before I lose it out of the sieve that is my mind sometimes...

What kills me about those that call themselves progressives and that have a problem with both religion and indigenous medical wisdom is this: to my mind, if one believes that humans could not be so in tune with nature as to find ways that heal intuitively, then one is almost automatically buying into the religion-based concept of original sin. In other words, they are saying that humans are fundamentally flawed in some way and are separate from nature...which is exactly what (for an example) Christianity was asking you to believe.

Quite a condradiction, in MHO.

[felix_numinous]

36. Yes! The teaching that humankind is separate from nature,

is in fact above it all, is very destructive. To deny that there could be any other forms of consciousness, in the cosmos or on Earth, seems to originate from a human ego more than any all-encompassing deity.

What is missing, the feminine aspect of connectivity of all things, was cut out of existence with the age of 'reason'. Without this atunement we became a closed system, shutting out wisdom, shutting off extra sensations, so the result left a vacuum, a hunger that could not be satisfied on the physical level.

People try to fill this space with things, identify with their ego selves--it is very difficult for a closed system to open up to other possibilities. It becomes a trap, and supports itself with circular reasoning: Because I have not experienced other forms of wisdom/consciousness (or it is not written in The Book), they cannot exist.

This struggle to me has always mirrored the two hemispheres of the brain--the logical left side (which serves the 'male' right side of the body, and expressed socially as the linear hierarchic Right), and the intuitive right hemisphere (which serves the 'feminine' left, and is expressed as the flexible liberal Left in society). It is the sacred inner marriage of our two aspects that if manifested would have a balancing effect on the world.

That is what is most interesting of the social left-right linear paradigm, is that we as individuals have been divided from within. Not only our families and communities have been divided into 'left' and 'right' but psychologically there are so many influences that have discouraged us from integrating these two aspects of our nature. (Religion divides these aspects as 'wrong' and 'righteous'--as polarities-the woman was demonized.) So what we hunger for is the feminine aspect-- to acknowledge the relationship of all things.

Wow what a long post :) but this has bothered me for a long time, like my whole life.

[BanzaiBonnie]

20. The solution is simple

It's the same answer as someone on DU proposed the other day about abortion. If you havee a beief that is against abortion, don't have one.

By the same token, don't use herbal remedies or alternative healing methods.

There are some subjects on which we will not reach agreement. We need to stop defending our positions, live our own truth and let others live theirs.

[WhiteTara]

22. it reminds me of the experience Mirija Gimbutas

wrote about when she was exploring archaeological sites with male archaeologists. They would pick up a figurine, one after another with female symbolism, discarding them without thought and then every 100th or 1000th would be a male figure and they would shout, "God symbol!"

Unless we as a species remember that we are a female based planet and revere that, we are doomed.

[lildreamer316]

34. Oh, that made me laugh

but it shouldn't. I know what you mean.

[kentauros]

26. I propose that we fully embrace the "Alternative Healing"

portion of our group, as far as posting helpful articles to the general public. Our group can be viewed by all, so people would still get to read whatever information we want to share. And, per the rules of our group, there would be none of the standard "discussions" that go on in the groups for Health and sometimes Science.

Let them be the voice for the rigidly materialistic and we can be the voice of the alternative and integrative :D

[JustAnotherGen]

31. I love reading in here though I don't post much

I understand what you are all saying. I've tried sharing my experiences with 'food's ability to alleviate pain and heal' and it wasn't received well either. In my case - as it relates to an autoimmune disease I have and by treating it in the same way my great grandfather's mother did with the old 'ways of Mediterranean' France. I remember posting once about my awesome experience of pain relief with 'ginger tea' (pure ginger, dried, steeped, old 'French Wives Tale') and was told by someone that I was 'fooling myself'.

I just don't post much about my berries and yogurt and ginger treatment of A.S. - but I'll look forward to reading posts here about home remedies, tribal remedies and the old ways. ;-)

[MorningGlow]

32. Gee, you mean the same ginger that's now recommended by every ob/gyn

to alleviate morning sickness? Guess that's all in every pregnant woman's mind, too, eh? Oh yeah--and all the kids and adults who have calmed their nausea by sipping ginger ale. ;)

Stick with what you know, JAG, and don't let the naysayers get you down. My grandmother had lots of home remedies that worked great. It's simply not possible to do double-blind double-secret-probation in-lab stand-on-your-head-and-hop-on-one-foot testing of every single home remedy; sometimes hundreds (or thousands) of years of experience is going to have to suffice. ;) (But if they did test all those home remedies, I'll bet they'd surprise themselves.)

[JustAnotherGen]

38. Exactly

:rofl: My Rheumy that JUST retired made sure to sell his practice to as he calls him - a Little Pup that shares my philosophy of: We aren't here to load people up on pills - we are here to ease their pain and do anything we can to heal. The NSAIDS make the stomach bleed. For folks with AI Diseases - this doesn't allow us to get ahead of ourselves. So I have Alleve as a back up - but I eat between 85% and 90% raw foods (think home made greek yogurt, berries, raw organic nuts, etc. etc.) and drink things like ginger and mint tea - and it helps me to manage my pain while at the same time? The 'flares' are greatly reduced.

We don't give enough credit to the ability of the earth's bounty to help us heal and feel better. If we came out from the deep - then it makes sense that when we reconnect with the deep - we balance our health. I know - up in the air and a bit esoteric, but when I reconnected - it helped me to feel better.

[lildreamer316]

35. Do post!

I'm always interested in learning about ways to work with our bodies and what Mother Earth has provided to heal ourselves.. :)
Is that ginger tea homemade? I drink one from Tulsi Tea,but I bet it's not as good.
..and welcome.. :hug:

Edit to add: just make sure that you add a disclaimer when you post what has worked for you; as per DU rules I believe (might want to check that).

[JustAnotherGen]

37. Thanks

What works for me! ;-) What works for me is what you are drinking but . . . if you have fresh ginger - grate and place in a tea ball and let steep for 15 minutes. It's what I'm drinking as I type this so I don't have to take a few Alleve before I head over to the Y for a nice swim this morning!

[AC_Mem]

39. The negativity on that "street" in the neighborhood

Is very interesting. I've been the recipient a couple times (ha!). Whatever - pffftttt.

Share, Share, Walk Away.

I've been working with and teaching about therapeutic grade essential oils and energy for YEARS and have witnessed such positive results.. there is no way I could ever deny their effectiveness.

Who are they to say that chemicals work better than what our Creator has given us? Everything we need to heal and be healed can be found in The Creator's Plant Kingdom. Not in a laboratory.

Hugs,
Annette