Health Fair Thing at Work.

[Dildo Argentino]

There is an idea, put forth by some people looking through cadavers, that acupuncture meridian lines may correspond with fascia lines. That would make a lot of sense considering the nature of fascia and my own thoughts on how that tissue stores endocrine fluids that have to do with the emotional aspect of bodywork

Do you have any literature for that, Alty, please?

[Salty]

There is an idea, put forth by some people looking through cadavers, that acupuncture meridian lines may correspond with fascia lines. That would make a lot of sense considering the nature of fascia and my own thoughts on how that tissue stores endocrine fluids that have to do with the emotional aspect of bodywork

Do you have any literature for that, Alty, please?

Sadly, I do not. Especially the cadavee work, can't remember who told me that, but it may be someone I'm mad at. But i can recommend the book Job's Body. Very beautifully written and quality work.

[Dildo Argentino]

I keep waiting for someone to go on a killing spree with an orgone shooter. They'd find a hundred dead people with no allergies, childhood traumas, or alien soul infestations, all on a sunny day.

   

[Dildo Argentino]

It's "imbalances".  My body is a flywheel.

Well more like a spinning top, really. In more ways than one.

The capacity of the organism in homeostasis to maintain and regain active equillibrium is a marvel* to behold. This capacity can be compromised an an amazing number of different ways. I suspect that given the overbearing presence of a neocortex in our heads, we may have developed some amazing new ways of compromising our ability to maintain homeostasis - which may be pretty amenable to treatment via ritual. I also hold out for miracles*.

*In a strictly scientific sense! Marvel, in the sense of inspiring intellectual awe, and miracles in the sense of interesting effects in the ultimately physical universe for which we are at a loss to supply an explanation as yet!

[Reginald Ret]

It's "imbalances".  My body is a flywheel.

Well more like a spinning top, really. In more ways than one.

The capacity of the organism in homeostasis to maintain and regain active equillibrium is a marvel* to behold. This capacity can be compromised an an amazing number of different ways. I suspect that given the overbearing presence of a neocortex in our heads, we may have developed some amazing new ways of compromising our ability to maintain homeostasis - which may be pretty amenable to treatment via ritual. I also hold out for miracles*.

*In a strictly scientific sense! Marvel, in the sense of inspiring intellectual awe, and miracles in the sense of interesting effects in the ultimately physical universe for which we are at a loss to supply an explanation as yet!

You are translating the concept of imbalance to a scientific concept.
This is not how the WooWoo crowd understands it.
The only reason you think you agree with (some of )their words is because you are not listening to what they are saying.
You are listening to what you want them to mean.

I think you are overstretching yourself in an attempt to understand those wastes of space.
Then again, some WooWoos may actually think like you do but have learned to keep their SCIENCE! thoughts to themselves.

[Dildo Argentino]

You are translating the concept of imbalance to a scientific concept.

Well maybe I am! I am a translator, after all. But actually, no, I'm just saying, while the great majority of the alternative medicine circus consists of narrow-minded individuals working the Garden of Get-Some-Money with a corny holier-than-thou expression and deeply questionable ethics, IF there is a reasonably workable worldview behind the bollocks, it's something like what I outlined. It doesn't have to be scientific to work. Prescientific ways of interpreting experience can still be honest, also empirical, also undergoing increasingly good alignment with reality. Of course, they can just as easily be misleading, deceptive and fancy ways of dressing up human existences that objectively appear to be dead ends, as they tend not to have the relationship between tradition, knowledge, evidence and the suchlike worked out too well, and because, well, humans, but I refuse to believe that humanity consisted of easily bamboozled woo-ists before science turned up.... because, after all, if that had been the case, science would not have turned up. So I tend to imagine that if a particular practice claiming health-improvement has a long tradition and somewhat stringent standards as to who is allowed to claim to be a practitioner, there is probably some grain of truth. The practice is likely to work to some extent, not necessarily for the reasons the parctitioners attribute to it, but still.

This is not how the WooWoo crowd understands it.

While I agree with you that in general that is indeed not how they understand it, you know as well as I do that there are interesting people at the edge of Woo-Woo, in places where it is actually quite hard to tell...

The only reason you think you agree with (some of )their words is because you are not listening to what they are saying.

To be perfectly honest, I don't particularly care whether I agree with them, just gleaning their views is too much like hard work in most cases. All I'm saying is, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, just because a certain doctrine attracts a really bad audience and an even worse set of wannabees, doesn't mean it is completely pointless. The teachings of one Jeshua from Nazareth one of the literally thousands of cases in point.

You are listening to what you want them to mean.

I'm trying to avoid the mistake of writing off large chunks of humanity on account of a few superficial views they claim to subscribe to. I know people who are into astrology, tarot, homeopathy, a hierarchy of spirit entities fighting an unending war for our planet, and these people are pretty OK. Sometimes I am tempted to add "otherwise", sometimes not even that. And then of course I know and indeed see whereever I look when I'm out in public very many people who appear to be into loopy shit for entirely the wrong reasons... a surprising number of those are actually hard-core science-believers, check out any 'secular' board, really, with their own saints and dogma and holy stories...

I think you are overstretching yourself in an attempt to understand...

You are too kind to concern yourself with my health, but really, I can stretch quite far without any danger of overstretching...

those wastes of space.

Now THAT'S what I call a really edgy, scary, difficult mindspace to get into.

Then again, some WooWoos may actually think like you do but have learned to keep their SCIENCE! thoughts to themselves.

Convoluted statement, that, gone over my head. Can you simplify?

[Reginald Ret]

Then again, some WooWoos may actually think like you do but have learned to keep their SCIENCE! thoughts to themselves.

Convoluted statement, that, gone over my head. Can you simplify?

Some people who seem to be full of magickal thinking are actually rational but have adapted to an irrational social context.

[Dildo Argentino]

Then again, some WooWoos may actually think like you do but have learned to keep their SCIENCE! thoughts to themselves.

Convoluted statement, that, gone over my head. Can you simplify?

Some people who seem to be full of magickal thinking are actually rational but have adapted to an irrational social context.

Then again, some people who seem to be full of magickal thinking are actually rational and pursuing lines of experience and reasoning you rejected on insufficient grounds or never even seriously considered.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Then again, some WooWoos may actually think like you do but have learned to keep their SCIENCE! thoughts to themselves.

Convoluted statement, that, gone over my head. Can you simplify?

Some people who seem to be full of magickal thinking are actually rational but have adapted to an irrational social context.

Then again, some people who seem to be full of magickal thinking are actually rational and pursuing lines of experience and reasoning you rejected on insufficient grounds or never even seriously considered.

Here we go again.

[LMNO]

It was only a matter of time.

[Dildo Argentino]

No-no, I was just kidding.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Too late.
Thread ruined.

[Dildo Argentino]

Too late.
Thread ruined.

well done

[Salty]

I like to think of good threads like beautiful snowflakes, brilliant, unique, gone in an instant.

Covered in urine, on ocassion.

[Telarus]

And that's just it. I feel chakras may be a handy landmark/map of sorts for the brain. Whatever is going on, unless it involves bacteria*, is some function your internal preasure*, or some other function, the brain must still control it, ja?

So why not those spots? They correspond quite neatly with our anatomy, because form/function/ Lo5s. But they're useful for some people. The way ritual is good for people, and tge way that taking 10-30 min out of your day to reflect, relax, and do sonething good for yourself.

Acupuncture does not work the same way vaccines or antibiotics work. It depends on the practitioner, the receiver, the mood, the time, the chemical ease between two people who can get along, or not. The skill of one, the openness of mind...

And you know, the front of the.mind rarely has much to do with it.

Point being, it's more art than science. Which is less than good, sometimes.

*Which it may.
°Which would include just about every other system that makes up your body.

[Aside.. very interesting comment about Fascia there. I remember you bringing that up in a previous massage thread.]

Don't forget the enteric nervous system (gut-brain and related networks) and the autonomic nervous system, I think these have a lot to do with regulating anti-inflammatory elements in our systems. (I have a hunch that our "personality" is distributed over these systems as well as the CNS (brain), but no research yet to back that up.)

I also think triggering localized anti-inflammatory effects (especially through the fire/heat treatment as described by ECH) is one of the primary actions of acupuncture.
Some recent research:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/may/30/acupuncture-pain-relief-adenosine-mice

And this study was just completed (results not posted yet):
http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01945190