No Stone Unturned

Originally, this book was going to be called Charisma and a Horse. I borrowed the phrase from web-based alternative health critic Dr Bob. His site on rogue medicine includes the following text:

“Anyone with charisma and a horse could travel from town to town hawking his wares. Medicine shows would be interrupted by the pitchman who would extol the virtues of a certain nostrum; a stooge in the audience would buy a bottle, sample it and proclaim himself cured, demanding another bottle. The quacks working the audience would carry only one or two bottles so they could frequently cry out, “All sold out!” thus stimulating frenzied buying, then rush to the stage for more provisions.” ¹

Dr Bob’s text shows how easy it is to bamboozle a crowd ² As long as you had that certain spark about you and as long as your ‘miracle cures’ didn’t cause anyone to keel over during your performance, you could be flogging any old powder and you’d be guaranteed a pile of cash, where’er you pitched your tent.

It’s not just the vagabond healer who holds us spellbound though. Our frenzied buying of all things medicinal has given enviable job security to conventional and alternative practitioners alike. In our bid to guard against physical and mental ills, to recover from them, to halt the next ‘terrifying’ pandemic (media-inspired or otherwise), to combat the ageing process or to dissipate the fat or the blues, we’ll entertain some very strange theories and swallow some even stranger pills and potions. 19^th century physician Sir William Osler said, “Our desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature that distinguishes us from the animals.” We’ll be looking at what it is about doctors and medicine and particularly alternative medicine that lulls us into such wide-eyed submission.

Conventional medicine has many benefits of course and there have been some incredible advances in recent years, particularly in keyhole, reconstruction and tumour surgery, in joint, limb and organ repair and replacement along with some quite breathtaking A & E interventions and procedures. This is just a small glimpse of the excellent doctoring being practiced today. Unfortunately though, these positive aspects are set against a backdrop of pharma-toxicity, the over-prescribing of ineffective drugs for profit, unwarranted and inaccurate testing procedures leading to false positive diagnoses which, in turn, lead to unnecessary (and often extremely invasive) surgery and pharmaceuticals, all adding to the phenomenon known as iatrogenic (doctor-induced) illness and death. ³ As one rankled contributor to Ben Goldacre’s blog against homoeopathy wrote:

“A question to ponder for you doctors. Do you actually understand the makeup and effects of the drugs you are prescribing and the cross toxicology when prescribed alongside sometimes several drugs in one patient. No? What you do is then give another drug for whatever side effect presents itself, thus compounding longer term problems and feel your methods are working. Good luck to you if that’s how superficial you think true healing is but it’s not for me and many more like me.” ⁴

So, what exactly does the CAM enthusiast believe? While critics refer to CAM as a middle-class fad, empty remedies for the worried well etc., etc., followers look upon the therapies as a ‘kinder, gentler, more wholesome’ way of treating illness and dis-ease and a welcome alternative to the ‘toxic and invasive conventional medical machine’. Holistic health we are told, embraces the whole person, promotes disease prevention, self-responsibility, self-education and self-discovery. No bad thing there so far. The conventional view of the body, says the CAM therapist, is that of a mechanical system (the heart a pump, the kidneys a filter etc., etc.,) and that most dis-eases need to be ‘fought’ with an array of combating chemicals. Just think how many conventional treatments are prefixed with the word anti (against): inflammatory, acid, viral, fungal, even biotic (bio - life). Against life? We’ll be touching on antibiotics a bit later. But again, nothing too outlandish so far.

. CAM healing theory views the body as a suffused network of invisible channels that carry a subtle form of life energy and that various blockages along these channels are the cause of our dis-ease. And this is where we begin to enter less familiar territory. Counselling against most conventional treatments which, says the CAM therapist, only compound our health problems, the therapist will instead prescribe what he describes as ‘time-honoured, natural, gentle and non-toxic’ treatments which work with the body to ‘unblock’ these energy channels and restore the flow along these invisible lines, thus restoring harmony and balance to the individual in body, mind and spirit. Here’s some typical CAM prose, in this instance describing the benefits of reiki massage:

Reiki is a safe, gentle, non-intrusive ‘hands on’ healing and enlightenment system, used to heal and energise the body, mind, emotions and spirit... through reiki, emotional and mental blockages can be released and deeper causes of disharmony, depression and unhappiness are often brought to the surface, allowing in depth healing to take place... reiki is known to accelerate the healing of cuts, burns, allergies and broken bones and can greatly assist in helping to cope with chronic illness like, cancer, fibromyalgia, MS and ME... animals and plants also respond well to reiki... the client is not healed by the practitioner; the healing comes from the ‘spiritually guided universal life force energy’ which flows through the practitioner’s hands, benefiting both client and practitioner...” ⁵

No grating, mechanistic conventional terminology here. Rarely foot-noted or referenced but always patient-friendly, this style of writing with its many bold claims has been adopted across the board by holistic authors. ‘Reiki is known to accelerate the healing of cuts, burns, allergies and broken bones.’ But is this really the case? ‘Reiki can greatly assist in helping to cope with chronic illness like cancer, fibromyalgia, MS and ME.’ Is that a fact? And what’s all this about ‘spiritually guided universal life force energy’? We’ll be looking at the special language of CAM to reveal some startling loopholes and get-out clauses.

CAM therapists will also very often promote their medicines as possessing nil pharmacological content. Consisting mostly of water and various inert essences, these remedies, say the therapists, work at a subtle, spiritual, energetic level and are beyond conventional means of verification. We look at the supposed mystical processes used to make these ‘new age’ medicines and discover it’s actually very easy to make an expensive ‘water-only’ remedy sound ‘mystical, powerful, gentle and effective’.

Therapists will also point out their treatments are ‘ancient’ and ‘time-honoured’. Whilst there are a number of centuries’ old plants, herbs and natural extracts of proven medicinal benefit, we will see that antiquity doesn’t always equate to efficacy.

We look at the role of self-limiting illness in today’s CAM healing statistics. Millions of consumers are buying expensive remedies for conditions that were going to go away anyway ⁶ And yes, the same is also true for many conventional medicines, the multi-million pound cold and flu remedy market a case in point.

‘If it feels right, it is right!’ is another popular CAM phrase looked at in more detail. A Mind-blowing Magical Mystery Tour reveals a number of subtle, psychological mechanisms at work in the CAM setting that make it easy for therapists to believe they've been instrumental in the recovery process and for even the sharpest of minds to be fooled into believing they’ve felt and experienced a magical CAM healing when other factors entirely have been responsible for feeling and getting better.

We look at the pivotal role of placebo in the CAM healing setting. Placebo is probably best described as a treatment containing no active constituent but is administered for its psychological effect on the patient. ‘Ah yes, but hang on a minute,’ says the therapist. If the success of a treatment is down to placebo, then what about the amazing healings seen in children and animals - a patient group surely not susceptible to the placebo effect? A Mind-blowing Magical Mystery Tour shows how today’s widely reported veterinary and paediatric ‘holistic healings’ are no more than common sense recoveries, wrapped in CAMvincing, wow-factor terminology.

As already noted, CAM practitioners are most certainly not charlatans by default. But equally, just because a therapist is dedicated and caring and has the utmost faith in his therapy and has spent the last twenty years practicing it, this does not make that therapy or therapist bona-fide. In Helios homoeopathic pharmacy in Tunbridge Wells for instance, a remedy is available for those suffering from insomnia, consisting of sugar, water and moonlight.

To make this moonlight ‘medicine’, a beaker of natural spring water is exposed over a six-hour period to the light of a full harvest moon. A few drops of this ‘moonlight-impregnated’ water are then added to a test tube filled with distilled water which is then diluted a few times further. Another few drops of the final moonlight preparation are then sprinkled into a little brown glass bottle filled with tiny sugar pills. The bottle is shaken a few times to ‘spread the moon energy’ through the contents which is then authoritatively labelled Luna 6c and promoted as a medicine for those who find it hard to sleep.

The fact the dedicated, caring and no doubt highly-qualified staff at Helios believe diluted moonlight juice creates any kind of medicine, let alone a sleeping pill, is one thing; the fact we’re also buying this moonlight mixture at approx £7.50 a bottle, no questions asked, is a clear indication of the demise of critical thinking. We shall see though that diluted moonlight is just the tip of the iceberg. A Mind-blowing Magical Mystery Tour details the most unbelievably weird and wacky therapies being practiced today and gives readers an ‘access all areas’ pass into the extraordinary ‘science’ and mind of CAM.

In a roundabout way, the fact so many CAM remedies are devoid of substance has led to their begrudging support from some conventional quarters. If there’s nil toxicity involved, reason the doctors, and if consumers believe therapy x, y, z is helping them and if GP waiting rooms are less full as a result, then where’s the real harm? That’s all well and good, providing intellect and common sense play no part in any health care plan. In calling for caution over the therapies, Donald Gould, former editor of The New Scientist raises an exceedingly good point.

“Why not make the most of what the non-conformists have to offer and to hell with uncharitable logic? There is, I suggest, a powerful reason for rejecting this superficially attractive option. Truth is a fundamental value. If we accept uncritical thinking in one area of our lives for the sake of convenience or because of the popular appeal of a seductive myth, then we are all the more likely to adopt the same strategy in other situations. The result is likely to be unhappy and stands a decent chance of proving a disaster. Irrational beliefs are always dangerously corrupting, even when they only relate to the cause and cure of piles.” ⁷

At a deeper level, A Mind-blowing Magical Mystery Tour looks at the more damaging aspects of the philosophy underpinning the therapies, particularly the claim we can be healed not just in body but also in mind and spirit. It seems this ‘three in one perfect state’ - the holistic holy grail if you like, is just a mirage - an expensive CAM dream that vaporises in the face of real life experience. In all the years I’ve been talking with people who have bought these expensive new age box sets or Arizona retreat packages looking for a deeper, more spiritual kind of healing, I’ve yet to meet anybody who can tell me they’ve ever truly got there. In a discussion thread on the DCImprobable Science blog, one contributor wrote,

“The temptation to spin the woo is great. In my work as a therapist I was constantly aware of the complete readiness, not to say eagerness, of many of my clients to believe every single word I said. It would be very easy to just step over the boundary and they would willingly follow. It’s not just stupidity, or gullibility - it’s the desperate longing for AN ANSWER. When it is so easy to give an answer, it is not surprising that many people make a killing out of peddling them. As for shame, those who feel it find a way to justify what they are doing to themselves, and those who don’t feel it, don’t feel it, and there is not much we can do about that. We can educate people about evidence and not being gullible as much as we like (and we should), but I doubt we will get even near eradicating that longing for AN ANSWER.” ⁸

We’ll be looking at a few of these cult-figure charlatans with their honey-tongued prose - the true shysters in this new age healing business, those who have stepped way over the boundary, peddling lies as truth, who don’t ‘feel it’ and who are knowingly making a fat killing... at your expense even?

We’ll also discuss the best way forward for the health seeker in all of this sorry mess. Because, despite the avarice and quackery on both sides, I’d like to think there is a sensible path we can navigate through the therapy jungle. I like the analogy of the straight stick used by the speaker D L Moody, who said: “The best way to decide whether a stick is crooked or not, is not to spend time arguing over the matter, but simply to lay a straight stick beside it.” I don’t pretend to have all the answers by any means, so I’ll go as far as to say I hope this book will serve as a straighter stick.

And if you have any comments on anything I’ve written, please do send them to info@mindblowingdecisions.com Good or bad, they will be posted on the comments section on the site.

And that my friends, is as succinct a summary of our journey plan as I could muster.

Thanks to Kathy for her love, patience and support over the years; to Donald Gould for his unfashionable reminder that truth is a fundamental value; to Manchester Central Library - everyone should visit this magnificent treasure trove at least once in their lives; to all the people I have met and interviewed over the years, and to Michael Legat, author of How to Write Non-Fiction, in which he most helpfully suggests never to title the opening chapter Introduction. After all, who reads them?

Chapters

about the author

1. The Ultimate Temptress FREE
2. No Stone Unturned FREE
3. Homoeopathy: The Formative Years FREE
4. Death by Doctoring
5. Hahnemann’s ‘Secret’ Powders
6. Like Cures Like?
7. Just My Imagination Running Away With Me
8. Less is More?
9. The Memory of Water And other Fancies
10. Our Wonderful Immune System
11. A Certain Charm
12. Veterinary Homoeopathy
13. The Dance Of Homoeopathy
14. Gimme The Moonlight!
15. Hahnemann’s Latter Years
16. Homoeopathy Today
17. Bach Flower Remedies
18. Acupuncture FREE
19. Naturopathy
20. The Feng Shui Horrorscope
21. Reflexology, Iridology and other Intolerances
22. The Medicine Business
23. Ooooh! Heaven is a Place on Earth!
24. My Kingdom for Consistency!
25. Nothing New Under the Sun
26. References