You want to do whatever puts you in a positive, receptive frame of mind. Some people do magick. Some pray to the Christian god. Some use magnets, or herbal treatments or holistic treatments. As long as you don’t hinder whatever the medical professionals are doing, they’ll let you have at it.
IAN an M.D. or an R.N., but it seems logical that medical treatment would have a better effect on a person feels that they’re also doing something to help themselves. And if they can’t be cured, at least they can be comforted psychologically.
Anyway, the chapter I quoted from describes a healing ritual, where a group of people meditate and chant for the benefit of the patient. The patient doesn’t have to pay anything for the service. Now what Mr. Steward did was different: he was charged a ridiculous amount of money to drink what was basically moonshine.
From evilbeth: “Belief in magick and New Age healing didn’t kill this man. A former nurse using an unlicensed product incorrectly killed this man. Now, you want to rant about unlicensed medical professionals obtaining and using (incorrectly) unregulated and unlicensed medical procedures and treatments, I’ll get behind you. However, you can fuck off with your “magick kills innocent people” bullshit.”
She said it best; I won’t bother trying to rephrase it.
I’m coming into this argument mid-stream, so I may not have read all the relevant posts. Leaving aside the con-artists and complete quacks, there is a role for “alternative” therapies in health.
As a non-magickal example - you consume calcium (either in food or supplements) on a daily basis and do weight-bearing exercises to promote healthy bones. But if you break your leg sipping herbal tea isn’t going to help you - you get to a doctor and have the bone set. While you’re healing, the doc might ask you to increase your calcium intake and perhaps do exercises after the cast comes off to restore mobility and strength. Your diet and excercise aren’t typically considered “medicine”, but they do have a role in your recovery.
With something like cancer, a devastating disease that, even if it does go into remission, can leave you disfigured from treatments or have life-long effects, it would be foolish to deny that there is a tremendous impact on the mental life of the individual. Attitude does impact survival. There are valid, scientific studies that show that mental attitude does affect quality of life and survival of cancer patients. Prayer can help. Vizualization can help - in fact, it’s now a standard adjunct in many cancer programs. Magick can help. Even if a lot of folks view magick as nothing more than a fancy placebo - well, placebos have been known to help, too.
If an herbal concoction makes a person feel like they’re doing something to help themselves (as long as it’s not doing them harm), if joining a ritual improves their outlook and strengthens the their will to live, if a spell makes a woman who has lost her breasts to cancer come to terms with her scars, if prayer in a Christian church reduces the stress an ill person is under and allows them to use their strength against their disease, then I see nothing wrong with it. I’m not advocating replacing medical therapy, I’m just saying that a person is not just a disease in isolation, they are a person with other connections to the world. And if a disease becomes terminal then magick/prayer/whatever can help them prepare for death and make the last days of their life the best they can be.
I do, however, get pissed off at folks who touted miracle cures, who encourage the seriously ill to throw out their drugs and ignore the benefits of medical science. I especially got pissed off at Ms. Somers when I saw the portion of her Larry King interview where she mentioned something about not wanting to lose her hair to chemo. Well, I am sorry, you self-centered little bitch, that chemo can do that but hair grows back you fucking idiot. Even if it didn’t - buy a goddamn wig. Fucking vanity! From the sound of it, it seems they caught her cancer early so maybe she’ll get away with this stunt, and I defend her right to refuse treatment, but the way she is going about this, and they way she is talking, will encourage some (not all) other women to do the same, and maybe those women will be in a more advanced stage than she is and suffer for following in her footsteps.
How bout two heads are better than one.
To find out about the pain in my side I went to my MD, my doctor that works with pressure points and herbs, and my chiro. Low and behold, none of them could figure it out, so they sent me to yet another doctor, and then another.
You run out of options, time, and health.
You know what? I love alot of the people here, and I respect what they have to say.
But, if I were to take everything said here as goddess’ gospel I would truly be ignorant.
We come here for debate, conversation, to try to squelch a touch of ignorance, and to possibly find some enlightenment ourselves.
Hopefully if someone came searching here for the answers to their health problems they would realise that aside from the few professionals we have here, the most we can do is offer help, support, encouragement, guidance, an ear for listening, and a shoulder if needed.
I have had my fair share of problems that I have shared with the folks here, and have asked for nothing more than stated above.
Here’s a question for you just because I feel bitchy tonight…Give me one good reason why I should belive in you. I mean how can I be sure that you really exist?
Does it matter? Your belief won’t change my existential status one whit. You can believe with all your might that I don’t exist, and I’ll STILL be around, scratching my nuts, spitting snot all over the place, watching crappy porn off the Internet…
SPOOFE, buddy, pal, friend, it was more of a general you than a specific you, but really what kind of existance could you possibly have by watching crappy porn for cripes sakes?!
Okay, now don’t take this the wrong way, but a spin on your words here…work with me folks…
Just because you believe that something doesn’t exist doesn’t change that something.
I mean if someone believes in something strongly, to them it is real.
Just because someone doesn’t believe in the same thing, doesn’t make it any less real to the first person.
Isn’t that what belief systems are about? I know some are built on fact, but you have to figure they all didn’t start out that way. There is a process about it.
Yeah, and some are built totally on faith but who is to say that someday there won’t be fact to them through process and progress?
