It’s been a rough week. No, it hasn’t been rough here on the blog; personally I think I’ve managed to serve up heaping’ helpings of the usual expected Insolence–and then some–if I do say so myself. Rather, it’s been a bit rough at the old job. Ah, well, it can’t all be sweetness and light. Fortunately, there’s always some woo to lighten the mood. In this case, it came from, of all places, P.Z. Myers, who took a break from writing about biology, cephalopods, and atheism and led me to some quackery I hadn’t seen before. Well, not exactly. It’s definitely quackery that I’ve seen before many, many times. It’s just that I haven’t seen it applied in this…unusual manner before. Meet Bund Katholischer Ãrzte (the Association of Catholic Doctors in Germany). Now, the website is in German (as you probably figured out if you clicked the link), but fortunately the almighty Google Translate can provide an English version that is readable, if full of strange sentence constructions that only add to the air of looniness of the text. For instance, Bund Katholischer Ãrzte has a problem with homosexuality:
Dear colleague,
Doctor and visitors, because of the increased interest and current questions about “curing homosexuality” would like to Catholic Medical Association BKÃ information from a medical-theological point of view give.
It is not about outing or intolerance, but a medically-Catholic contribution to this ancient theme.
Oh, goody. Bund Katholischer Ãrzte thinks it can “cure” homosexuality (whatever that would mean). So you know right from the start that they’re not exactly proceeding from the reality-based world. But it gets worse than that. How do you think Bund Katholischer Ãrzte wants to cure homosexuality? What are its proposed treatments? Easy. It’s homeopathy:
The homeopathy treatment has the following structure:
The therapeutic approach is short:
“Detoxification” and “constitution therapy”1) Homeopathic first consultation (90 minutes)
2) Basic treatment:
– Detoxification (of old diseases, using nosodes)
– REJECTION (Sulphur)3) “series of …”
Old, not healed consequences of (psychological) injury concern.4) Special treatment of the actual evil,
Gift of the ‘Simile’ constitutional therapy
Ah, yes. It’s The One Quackery To Rule Them All, One Quackery To Bind Them, One Quackery To Bring Them All and in the darkness fleece them. (Apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien.) So, what do the Catholic doctors say about homeopathy? What can it do, other than function as some sort of magical, mystical gay-be-gone? Well, in a radio interview, we learn:
1) Does homeopathy for women?
Yes, homeopathy works for all people, even in animals and plants.
Homosexual inclinations can be treated with WOMEN as well as in men.
Good to know that it’s all equal opportunity quackery.
2) Homeopathy for “abuse by clergy?”
Yes, homeopathy can in all people (not just priests!) Are applied, sexual abuse operate and do seek help.3) Homeopathy for pedophilia?
YES!
Even better to know that all you have to do to cure a pedophile of his harmful attraction to children is to give him water. Homeopathy is, after all, water. One wonders, however, how to apply the homeopathic principle of “like cures like” in this case. What would be the remedy that the homeopath would dilute into nonexistence? It would have to be “like,” which means it would have to be something that causes pedophile-like urges. I shudder to think what that might be.
I’d also be curious what would be the basis of homeopathic remedies for homosexuality? How does one find the “like” in “like cures like” for that? Start out with ground-up Queen or Village People CDs, perhaps? Gay porn, maybe? I just don’t know. If anyone has an idea, please enlighten me in the comments: What sort of substance would fulfill the principle of “like cures like” and therefore, when diluted to nonexistence in a 30C dilution, be able to “cure” homosexuality? How would you “prove” it in a homeopathic proving? Would we look for a tingling sensation down below? Again, I just don’t know. As for the homeopathic cure for pedophilia, I really, really, really don’t want to know what that might be. In fact, I shudder in disgust just thinking about the concept.
Whatever it is, we’re assured that it’s really all about the science, maaan:
Q: On what scientific basis do you recommend the listed “therapeutic possibilities of homosexuality”?
A:
1) Medically-psychotherapeutic, philosophical and theological literature,
2) the minority views of psychotherapists.
3) teaching of the Catholic Church, the Holy Scripture,
4) Samuel Hahnemann, homeopathy;
Well, at least they admit that it’s a minority view of psychotherapists that homosexuality can be cured. Still, it is rather amusing that the Catholic doctors threw in the teaching of the Holy Church and the Holy Scripture as part of the “scientific basis” of their treating homosexuality. Since when is the teaching of the Holy Church and the Holy Scripture science? I’m also amused at how these Catholic doctors lump medical and psychotherapeutic modalities together with the philosophical and theological literature. Of course, I can’t make up my mind which woo is the woo-iest, homeopathy or lumping Catholic teachings together with science. Hmmmm. That’s a tough one. And I was raised Catholic.
Of course, the bottom line is the question: Does it work? Does homeopathy rid those poor suffering homosexuals of the gay? Let’s see what the Catholic Doctors themselves say:
4) Have you already own success with homeopathy for homosexuality had?
No, because so far no one has this desire in me to herangtreten.But I hear from former homosexuals who are happy to have been freed from their addiction.
I am convinced that the homeopathic way of healing is a serious and ultimately beneficial.
So, basically, no one’s approached this guy asking him to use homeopathy to rid himself of the dreaded gay, but he’s still “convinced” that the homeopathic way of healing is beneficial. Now it all makes sense. Homeopathy is a lot like religion; evidence is not necessary for belief.
More about this story here.
166 replies on “Taking the “e” out of homeopathy”
Erstaunlich. Ausgezeichneter woo!
[Astonishing. Outstanding woo!]
My sympathies on being a manager. I was one for a while, and am much happier down in the trenches with the rest of the proles. While I was managing, my usual shtick was also a Tolkein reference: “…. I wish the Ring had never come to me … “
Ok, I’ve kind of waited for this to come up here, too.
1. Homeopathy is rampant in Germany
2. Homophobia is not.
This group is a ridiculous small extremist group with very little to no real influence. They are not even interested in maintaining their own website propperly. The guy behind it is a fanatic anti-choice and anti-gay activist, and despite their name, the group is also not affiliated with the RCC (they are well aware that this would cost them even more members).
So, please don’t think that there’s ex-gay therapy or even gay boot camps in Germany like in the USA.
Oh, and mostly no water, mostly sugar-pills in Germany
In before daedalus tells us homosexuality is caused by a lack of NO.
Oddly enough my mother was heavily into homeopathy when I was a child, and I’m still a homo.
Perhaps I need some ‘Gay be gone -detox footpads’ or some Rescue Remedies made from pansies, would that work on women?
I love the assertion that homeopathy works for plants. I honestly did not realise that they enjoyed water so much. I’ve been feeding mine with Brawndo.
I can’t help but picture an old German Catholic doctor running around with a net trying to capture Tinkerbell for her Fairy Dust.
“Gift of the ‘Simile'”
Somehow I imagine a solemn ceremony, with robes and incense and chanting, at the end of which the applicant is given the Gift of the ‘Simile’, a scroll on which is inscribed “My love is like a red, red rose”, as his step on the long road to become a True Poet.
I also like this: “therapeutic possibilities of homosexuality”
Therapeutic possibilities of yoga
Therapeutic possibilities of cannabis
Therapeutic possibilities of homosexuality…
Brilliant. Can I steal that?
As for the “like cures like” conundrum, I think I can see how it might be done: dip a peen in water, then use that water to make homo(e)pathic pills. Of course, it would have to be a gay peen, else you might accidentally “cure” for heterosexuality and we can’t be having that, can we?
Proof that homeopathy doesn’t work: homeopathy advocates put stupid in little sugar pills and they’re still stupid afterwards.
I’m still maintaining LGBT is normal, it’s society that needs changing, via education. When someone can’t live with him/herself and thinks they need to be “cured”, there’s something seriously rotten in the state of more than just Denmark.
PS Words in double quotes here are being handled with virtual pincers to avoid contamination.
Interesting disclaimer at the bottom:
So the Bkà doesn’t take a stance on homeopathy, but is not averse to providing front-page space to it.
Personally I’ve had infuriating discussions of homeopathy in my German class, where most of the familiar canards (Enten?) came up (close-mindedness, science doesn’t know everything, real medicine has placebo effect too, it works for my cat…). One that struck me as very naive is that if the homeopath has an official looking practice with a plaque and everything, then he must be legit.
Agreed, teapot: normal is not a binary, it’s a bell curve.
I just accidentally a homeopathy. Is this bad?
Iâd much rather accidentally a woman⦠(no homophobe)
Like cures like…Got one!
They mention sulpher. That might do the trick in that sulpher is related to/part of the devil’s fire and brimstone and, of course, homosexuality is the devil’s work. Or something.
I’m much more concerned about the total infiltration of normal medicine with quack. I swear you can hardly find a GP or a Ped who doesn’t do woo.
“Nurse, this man is suffering from acute Homosexuality! Give him 30C of Justin Timberlake! Stat!”
Hmmm…perhaps a 30C dilution of Tom Cruise?
@PatchUp, no, tincture of pansies wouldn’t work on us women. Maybe an infinitesimal bit of leather from a softball or a sensible shoe, ground up, shaken and diluted in water a hundred thousand times would do the trick.
Rather than taking the “p” out of it?
Men are designed to eat semen. There are several obvious evolutionary advantages to it.
But that’s beside the point. Orac I’d love to read your thoughts on acupuncture. I’m of the opinion that it’s a very strong placebo effect, but some claim that ‘science’ has fount the ‘meridians’. wth?
Isn’t there a tribe who all live in the same longhouse together and do everything publicly, including sex, as a result there is no mystery, no hang ups, and no pedophilia?
I’ve tried to find the source but google fails me..
anyway, my question please for Orac is have you looked at Acupuncture? I heard that the meridians have actually been found, and they transmit light? Is that true? I thought acupuncture was just a highly convincing placebo?
Giliell, I wouldn’t know about that, having not been to the doctor’s. I’ve noticed that woo is well integrated in pharmacies though, more so than in the UK. I worry when I buy OTC medicines that I’m accidentally buying something with nothing in it.
Jacob, there is a search box on the left. Search for acupuncture, and you get this.
Jacob–
Orac has posted a lot about acupuncture. Try the search bar on the upper left part of the blog.
Well, magic water has been a part of church doctrine for thousands of years. The amazing part is that it took the Catholic Church this long to latch on to homeopathy!
I came across this unusual application of homeopathy a while ago on this website that looks like very much like satire, that I hope is satire, but that I suspect is not.
The remedies used are natrum bromatum, which I assume is sodium bromide (reputed to dampen sexual desire), and extract of elm trees (elm trees are hermaphrodites and also, “amongst natures most homosexual trees”). I know that there is no connection at all between bromide, hermaphrodites and homosexuality, but making sense isn’t homeopathy’s strong point. The selection of these remedies seems to be based on some ignorant and garbled version of sympathetic magic, which is superstitious nonsense to begin with.
Vicki he hasn’t covered that latest rumour about meridians being ‘optical channels’? Or did I miss that?
The homosexuals already contain the active ingredient (after all, they ‘like’ their own sex) so all you have to do is give them a drop of water and SUCCUSS them! 🙁
“The only thing in common with acupuncture is the needle sticking part, and the investigators might as well conclude that this study validates ear piercing for pain relief.”
It’s true. My friend had a broken heart so he got his left ear pierced to take his mind off it.
Then he dislocated his right shoulder, so had to sleep on his back where he couldn’t breath because he was a fat alcoholic. Serves him right! Druggie!
Re:”Like-cures-like”- in the interests of science, I will attempt to truthfully re-construct what my uncle, an out gay man *way* before his time, “liked”** :
The Opera, the Ballet, the Rose Horticultural Society, his city garden, a *salle de bain* painted magenta, a Chinese-themed parlour, caviar on New Years’, Rock and Rye, small yappy dogs, Syrian gentlemen, a heavy silk ecru dressing gown, very expensive dress shirts, his friend who worked for a well-known director of stageplays , pseudo-nyms, large cities,liberal politics, et *moi*.( I know, you can’t grind up *people* but you may dilute their aura or something).
** I swear that this is not just a stringing-up of stereotypes but *reality* as I knew it. His influence hasn’t appeared to hurt me. I’m sure others would disagree.
Maybe a succession of cannabis, say at 100C and given to stoner commenters that threaten to run away from the blog, and then stick around and shoot salad at everybody. It’s like a nightmare Gallagher show that you can’t escape from.
Surely the magic water might have contained effective cthonic medical ingredients, up until round about the time of christ, then there was a move towards reducing the active ingredient and increasing the amount of praying.
Clearly, from the church’s perspective, if the people can’t heal themselves as effectively, they are easier to control.
Here have this root
don’t be a heathen that root is witchcraft – pray instead
don’t be a moron, praying is superstition, have this pill
this pill gives me a tummy ache – where’s that root?
The cycle goes on until we break it. Root, Pill, Prayer, and Surgeon. What else do you need?
Controlling the ‘folk medicine’ is a great white obsession! medicine trolls can kill.
I was watching Randi on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U )yesterday and he mentioned that one of the steps in preparing a Homeopathic preparation was the Proving. This consists of giving someone a substance and observing their reaction/symptoms. So my question is what substance(s) causes gay symptoms and who did they use as their Proving subject.
JayK,
have you and your hadrocodium friends been drinking?
Thought experiment time. As Orac and others mentioned, part of coming up with a homeopathic solution is the Proving, whereby a substance is given to healthy people and the substance causes symptoms in the healthy person that are to be cured in those who are unhealthy and show those symptoms.
So, for this, they’d want to find some substance that turns a straight person gay. So the ones who came up with the homeopathic solution were going around making straight people homosexuals. Might that not be frowned upon by the church?
Let’s assume, for a moment, that they found a substance that did this (after all, arsenic [used in homeopathic dilutions to treat arsenic poisoning] in normal doses does indeed cause arsenic poisoning). For their Provings, might one then surmise that they used several “healthy” clergy members as test subjects? The only problem is that, since homeopathic dilutions don’t work, they were unable to reverse what was caused by the Provings.
I wonder what this magical substance is that gives people teh gayz.
quoting
“1) – Konstitutionsbehandlung mit Homöopathischen Mitteln
(in Hochpotenz; z.B. Platinum)”
not that I would know how to to get platinum into solution in the first place ( if one merely used a platinum salt one would add the effect of the acid radical too and what effect that might have I do not want to consider )
” While elemental platinum is generally unreactive, it dissolves in aqua regia ” now we know that Homeopathically dilluted substances work stronger , I do NOT, repeat NOT want to consider the strengthened effect of Aqua Regia on the human body – although – in the traditon of a German traditional folksong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Andreas_Eisenbarth
first stanza :
I’m Eisenbart the doctor
Valleralleri, Hurrah!
Curing ‘the people’ in my way
Valleralleri, Hurrah!
I can make the blind walk
Valleralleri, juchheirassa!
And that the lame see again!
Valleralleri, Hurrah!
all the following umpteen stanzas record how people were extremly permanently cured.
In this spirit strenthened Aqua Regia would indeed cure any sexual aberration ( but also hangnail, dandruff, fever, the common cold, ….. life)
DW:
Well, you can’t grind up Saturn either, but they still keep trying. :p
Water works better than sugar pills for plants. Supposing it’s sand diluted to zilch, to treat a dessicated plant.
What? No pragmatic studies, patient case series or small unblinded self-report studies? For shame, people! These German homeopaths have a lot to learn about higher standards of dubious non-evidence from the American NCCAM.
Oh well. They go on to report an n value of 0. Anecdotes about having once heard an anecdote somewhere, n values of zero, and argument from authority instead of even unblinded pragmatic studies – truly this is homeopathic evidence. It’s stronger in its absence! And reading it should cure people of belief in the point it was trying to make. Hey, wait a minute…
Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails maybe? I suppose that would be the cure for pedophiles that go after little boys…
Every time I read things about homeopaths, I have visions of Shakespearean witches, “Double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble…”
I’m wondering about the homeopathic proving for a substance that causes pedophilia though, like Orac, I’d rather not think about what that substance might be.
Altar boys?
Eye of Newt? Gimme a break?
It’s
“I of Neut”
It means, teh gods eye view. Lose the ego to know what we know.
ORAC: “it would have to be something that causes pedophile-like urges. I shudder to think what that might be.”
Given all the pedophile priests, perhaps it’s the communion wine.
Proving?
I have it! Play “YMCA” or “In The Navy” by the Village People at a party, you will immediately notice that everybody temporarily becomes gay.
And that Granny knows the words by heart…
MDMA makes U GAY.
What’s autophagy?
I get it now: Cannabinoids may have an anti-tumour action.
Direct competition for the Cancer Surgeon.
ORAC? Are you SURE you don’t have a conflict of interest?
cannabis quack medicine my arse.
Orac, I thought you were going to remove comments by this cannabis/ETOH/addled schizophasic scamming troll?
For homsexuality in women, I’m assuming they collect the steam used for vag-cleaning that Orac wrote about a few months ago, and dilute?
The ‘proving’ for the gay cure is making me think of Tim Minchin.
“I know, I know, I’ve seen the problem, too
There’s a rumor that I am straight, that’s true
It hurts to admit it, but I’m about as bent
As Wossy himself – or Fiddy Cent
But I’ve already thought it through
You know, there’s preachers in America who reckon they can do
Sexuality conversions – I’ve heard them assert
They can cure a man of trouser-love and turn him onto skirt
Well, I don’t see why they couldn’t pull the same trick in reverse…”
One of my favourite aspects of reading the RI posts is the comments, including the ones that make poor arguments – they give people a chance to counter what is being said, and that’s usually interesting and informative. But Jacob’s comments are often irrelevant and largely incoherent. I can choose not to read them of course, but then other people respond to them and I’ve got to go back and see what they’re responding to. It’s got more than a little annoying (even more so when he does three comments in a row). Maybe there should be a limit to a troll’s freedom, in situations like this..??
One of my favourite aspects of reading the RI posts is the comments, including the ones that make poor arguments – they give people a chance to counter what is being said, and that’s usually interesting and informative. But Jacob’s comments are often irrelevant and largely incoherent. I can choose not to read them of course, but then other people respond to them and I’ve got to go back and see what they’re responding to. It’s got more than a little annoying (even more so when he does three comments in a row). Maybe there should be a limit to a troll’s freedom, in situations like this..??
One of my favourite aspects of reading the RI posts is the comments, including the ones that make poor arguments – they give people a chance to counter what is being said, and that’s usually interesting and informative. But Jacob’s comments are often irrelevant and largely incoherent. I can choose not to read them of course, but then other people respond to them and I’ve got to go back and see what they’re responding to. It’s got more than a little annoying (even more so when he does three comments in a row). Maybe there should be a limit to a troll’s freedom, in situations like this..??
One of my favourite aspects of reading the RI posts is the comments, including the ones that make poor arguments – they give people a chance to counter what is being said, and that’s usually interesting and informative. But Jacob’s comments are often irrelevant and largely incoherent. I can choose not to read them of course, but then other people respond to them and I’ve got to go back and see what they’re responding to. It’s got more than a little annoying (even more so when he does three comments in a row). Maybe there should be a limit to a troll’s freedom, in situations like this..??
One of my favourite aspects of reading the RI posts is the comments, including the ones that make poor arguments – they give people a chance to counter what is being said, and that’s usually interesting and informative. But Jacob’s comments are often irrelevant and largely incoherent. I can choose not to read them of course, but then other people respond to them and I’ve got to go back and see what they’re responding to. It’s got more than a little annoying (even more so when he does three comments in a row). Maybe there should be a limit to a troll’s freedom, in situations like this..??
Orac please nuke the druggie troll for the sake of our sanity. The twit is not even worth the electrons it takes to spit his inane thoughts out to us.
Second A&O’s comment. I love a robust discussion as much as anyone, but after slogging through the train graveyard created from the threads Jacob has derailed, there are only 2 things that are clear.
1) Jacob likes Cannibis
2) Jacob wants…….something
I have no doubt that there is someone, somewhere to whom Jacob can vent his grievances. But it is painfully clear that this is not that place.
I keep hoping for a cage-match between Jacob, Thingy and Augustine. Either they’d do for each other like the Killkenny Cats, or they’d be so self-absorbed that they wouldn’t even notice that there was someone else in the cage with them. We could even have Neil Craig referee.
Water works better than sugar pills for plants.
Especially if it contains homeopathic ELECTROLYTES.
@Todd W.:
…
Ah, but provings are actually carried out using homoeopathic dilutions (Hahnemann himself recommended using 30C remedies for provings).
There would be nothing to reverse.
I liked the part that said, “Homosexual inclinations can be treated with WOMEN”. If I told them I was gay, would they treat me with women?
Do we REALLY need to remove Jacob? He seems innocent despite his silly posts. A little spice for our soup? A little neurodiversity?
Wait, wouldn’t a homeopathic preparation of that increase sexual desire?
What? How can trees be homosexual? And they could, how could you tell?
www. epjournal .net â 2011. 9(2): 207-23
At some point a ban would help me to move on. Kerala would be nice 🙂
@ Jacob: You seem to want to discuss your life in detail with the many educated people here : why not seek out a person with whom you can talk to face-to-face: the internet is no substitute for real meaningful conversations about life-issues, although what you’ve done here can be a start toward defining and then, achieving your goals. ASD, mental health, and substances are not to be dealt with lightly- people devote their lives to studying these issues and can help: take care of yourself! D
DW, I’m doing a job here, I will be done, and etc,
I’m not here for therapy, despite your needs.
I devote my life to ASD, and I will PROVE EVERYTHING I HAVE CLAIMED.
Provided you are willing to receive proof on film, with me there handing it to you.
I’ll sort out the crew, I just need your skepticism to lure you to where I (sorry, my boss), needs you to be. Don’t worry, I won’t eat you (on camera).
Do you really need me to keep explaining?
Back on topic http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP092072382.pdf
The cannibal hypothesis of autism, minus the eating people part. I rest my fingers. For now.. x
As for my problem, it is simple, even my psychiatrist can work this one out:
Either I get the law changed in my own country or I move to one where my medicine is legal. D’uh.
What I do not do is listen to amateurs who are communicating inappropriately.
I am here to get either silence or a ban when I ask Orac if he knows that cannabinoids, at last count, have 8 separate anti ‘cancer’ actions?
So obvious, can’t you guys read between the lines? Cannabis Fraught-ism!
@Jacob:
I kind of doubt your stated motives when you say that smoking cannabis gives much finer dose control than pills.
I’m surprised no one mentioned Ted Haggard, the head of a large evangelical church who was involved with a gay guy and paid for his sex and crystal meth. When the gay escort went public, Haggard was forced out of the church, lost all the prestige, his income and considerable benefits.
Haggard “underwent” intensive “therapy” with a group of pastors and found his way back to God and to the marital bed. At various times, he has claimed to be heterosexual and at other times has stated, “I guess I am, what the kids call, bisexual”….makes for some interesting reality show fodder, I suppose.
I have noticed the way my daughter and kids younger than her feel about LGBT contemporaries. They don’t merely “accept” their differences…differences have no impact whatsoever on their friendships. But then, she was brought up this way.
@Finn – I’d like to see them pry my Doc Marten’s from my feet. I may be a cripple, but I could easily take on a few German clergymen.
@Finn – I’d like to see them pry my Doc Marten’s from my feet. I may be a cripple, but I could easily take on a few German clergymen.
@Finn – I’d like to see them pry my Doc Marten’s from my feet. I may be a cripple, but I could easily take on a few German clergymen.
@Finn – I’d like to see them pry my Doc Marten’s from my feet. I may be a cripple, but I could easily take on a few German clergymen.
@Finn – I’d like to see them pry my Doc Marten’s from my feet. I may be a cripple, but I could easily take on a few German clergymen.
“What I do not do is listen to amateurs who are communicating inappropriately.”
Wow that’s pretty damn hilarious coming from someone as completely and totally inept at communication as you have shown yourself to be.
@Mathew, yes.
You can also get better dose control through vaporising, although the chemicals delivered are not modified in the same way as when you smoke.
I have not tried it myself but Sativex, the sublingual spray from GWPharma has been tried by many MS sufferers in the UK, and most are of the opinion that it is inferior to smoking, I assume they mean in terms of keeping the balance between symptomatic relief and normal executive function.
In other words, if you eat it you get stoned in a funny way and you can’t do your job. If you smoke it you control the dose more finely and you *can* do your job (depends on the job, the person and the unique circumstances of the individual patient).
If you smoke too much, or eat to much, or spray too much of the legal version (sativex) you will get high, or fall asleep. Or order a pizza…
You can find plenty of videos on Y00T00B where legitimate Doctors explain that smoking is better but the politics wont go there until it’s more acceptable as medicine in ‘cleaner’ forms. like cookies or lollipops or cola. They’ve got it all in California!
80 years of damage to our perceptions. Gently does it…
Even insufflating is better than absorption through the intestines. I very much doubt you have any relevant expertise on the matter, unless you can convince us otherwise?
I move to one where my medicine is legal.
California?
8 separate anti ‘cancer’ actions?
A phrase so vague that I could put just about anything under the umbrella.
I’m completely in favor of legalization of marijuana, but you’re not helping the case one bit.
Jacob, one cannabis enthusiast to another, SHUT UP! You’re making us ALL look like idiot stoners!
@Roadstergal:
Agreed. Especially the “look it up on YouTube” bit.
@Jacob:
We’ve encountered other people who encourage taking various medical herbs directly, none of which have the stigma of also being a recreational drug, and we respond to them exactly like we respond to you: figure out which chemical is actually having the medical effect, either purify or synthesize that chemical, then precisely deliver it via some method (pill, injection, dermal patch, inhaled spray, whatever). But this is the first time I’ve seen someone advocate not just taking the herb directly instead of in a purified form, but also burning it, which just adds another set of complications.
It might be that there are other chemicals in cannabis besides THC which are effective at treating [whatever], and it might be that inhalation of those chemicals is a better method of drug delivery than ingestion, which would account for why people find smoking cannabis better at symptom relief. But if you want to claim that isolating those other chemicals and then delivering them via inhalation would still be inferior to smoking, well, you’re going to have to come up with something better than “please see these YouTube videos”.
Jacob, I’m just not impressed by your feat of “curing” autism with cannabis so that you are indistinguishable from a non-autistic stoner. Please stop embarrassing the rest of us autistics who wish to retain the ability to write comprehensible English instead of word salad and citations to YouTube, OK?
One thought on this from the conservative Christian perspective: From my experience, even among those who support the traditional Christian prohibition on “active” homosexuality, there is limited support for any stated aim to “cure” or “convert” gays. I believe it has come to be accepted that sexual orientation as an innate quality of a person, and that this is distinct from sexual behavior. And, on that note, it can be said as a criticism of the “cure” idea that, if a gay man is disposed to clearly unhealthy sexual behavior, he would probably be equally disposed to it if he were straight!
David N. Brown
Mesa, Arizona
You have to be supercareful there, because pahramcists love to sell you the uber-expensive woo instead of real medicine. Some weeks ago my husband went to buy anti-allergic eye-drops and he came back with an “anthroposophic remedy based on homeopathy”. He hadn’t checked when they just handed him a small bag and the stuff costed 3X as much as real eye-drops.
I’d also be curious what would be the basis of homeopathic remedies for homosexuality? How does one find the “like” in “like cures like” for that? Start out with ground-up Queen or Village People CDs, perhaps?
Ooh, ooh! I know! Wait until Richard Simmons works up a sweat …
It’s The One Quackery To Rule Them All, One Quackery To Bind Them, One Quackery To Bring Them All and in the darkness fleece them.
A possible alternative:
“One Woo To Rule Them All, One Woo To Find Them, One Woo To Bring Them All and in the Darkness Blind Them.”
gotta love Germans and their truthfulness!
I truly believe that gays and lesbians (and those in-between) will be accepted after alll of the old bigots die and make way for the generations who are being socialized to be as accepting of a variety of sexual orientations as they are of various hair colors.
unfortunately I think homeopathy and other various types of woo will persist as long as humans feel the need to find magical solutions to everyday problems.
Dear lazy unhelpful people.
You are lazy and unhelpful.
Even a layman concedes that.
Ruining the good image of ‘stoners and Autists’? Lol?
Dr Robert Melamede appears to be helpful, but then I am not expert.
What does ‘Physician certifies Basal Cell Carcinoma in remission after application of topical cannabis extract oil.
YES! Cannabis is MOAR than one chemicals so it is too HARD a topic for j00s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_flower_essential_oil
I’ll give you a clue. Limonene makes some varieties of ‘Skunk’ smell like Lemons, and these varieties of ‘SKUNK’ (F1 Hybrid Cannabis), have many of the same healing properties as lemons.
Why don’t you experts carve yourselves a new nice in cannabinoid medicine for autism. It’s a HUGE untapped field.
O LOL Luzs
I’m not here for Narcissistic supply.
I don’t claim that YOU’RE not 😉
P.S.
Whenever I give any proper IDs or links to proper cannabinoid research,
The posts don’t get published. Orac holds them back.
Why?
Dear lazy unhelpful people.
You are lazy and unhelpful.
Even a layman concedes that.
Ruining the good image of ‘stoners and Autists’? Lol?
Dr Robert Melamede appears to be helpful, but then I am not expert.
What does ‘Physician certifies Basal Cell Carcinoma in remission after application of topical cannabis extract oil.
Cannabis is more than one chemical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_flower_essential_oil
Limonene makes some varieties of ‘Skunk’ smell like Lemons, and these varieties of ‘SKUNK’ (F1 Hybrid Cannabis), have many of the same healing properties as lemons.
Cannabis medicine was nearly dead, it had a very week pulse. It’s still not out of the woods:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=7105
http://www.cashhydefoundation.com/
Do Not Read!
This one has a doctor’s note:
http://www.cannabisscience.com/download/cancer_extract_kills.pdf#page=2
REFERENCES
Toth, B. I. et al. Endocannabinoids Modulate Human Epidermal Keratinocyte
Proliferation and Survival via the Sequential Engagement of Cannabinoid Receptor-1
and Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid-1. J Invest Dermatol (2011).
Bilkei-Gorzo, A. et al. Early onset of aging-like changes is restricted to cognitive abilities and
skin structure in Cnr1(-/-) mice. Neurobiol Aging (2010).
Van Dross, R. T. Metabolism of anandamide by COX-2 is necessary for endocannabinoidinduced cell death in tumorigenic keratinocytes. Mol Carcinog (2009).Biro, T.,
Toth, B . I. , Hasko, G. , Paus, R. & Pacher, P. The endocannabinoid system of the skin in health
and disease: novel perspectives and therapeutic opportunities. Trends Pharmacol Sci
(2009).
Wilkinson, J. D. & Williamson, E. M. Cannabinoids inhibit human keratinocyte proliferation
through a non-CB1/CB2 mechanism and have a potential therapeutic value in the
treatment of psoriasis. J Dermatol Sci 45, 87-92 (2007).
Casanova, M. L. et al. Inhibition of skin tumor growth and angiogenesis in vivo by activation
of cannabinoid receptors. J Clin Invest 111, 43-50 (2003)
@Jacob:
If you post more than two links (or more than one?) your comment gets held up for moderation.
As for the links you’ve just given, the treatment of nausea with ingested cannabis oil and the treatment of cancer with topically applied cannabis oil has nothing to do with treating autism with cannabis or with smoked cannabis as a method of drug delivery.
Interesting.
I have just inhaled 0.1 gram of burnt plant material.
Now I feel the same embarrassment as you when I look at my un-medicated posts.
I, an autistic lightron, am capable of feeling lightron’s remorse, when cannabis stimulates the part of my brain known as Shatner’s Bassoon (Located superior to the ponce).
Can anyone remember the technical name for the ponce? It’s the part of the brain that serves as the pivot point in the Indian Head Wiggle Reflex?
Sorry guys. I feel really bad about my deviance.
I can see now.
All you want is ‘Encyclopaedic’ material from me, about cannabis for autism.
If it can’t stick to Wikipaedia, It won’t stick here.
Just try to update the Autism treatments section on wiki with the Kurz study as a citation, it well of course get rejected.
The people who control the Autism pages on Wiki are people who profit from interventions other than cannabinoid based interventions.
@Jacob:
What symptom(s) of autism lead to the writing of difficult-to-understand verbiage like that? I’ve read the writing of other autistic people and they weren’t anything like your “un-medicated posts”.
Yes Mathew. The word salad control. It allows us to adjust for the confounds of adhomonim and adpopulous responses from the commentariat.
All your base are belong to us.
You can keep your Rule 22.
Jacob,
Flooding a thread is enough to finally get me annoyed enough to put you on automatic moderation. From now on, all your posts will be moderated. As a result, that means they might not show up for several hours, if I happen to be doing other things than monitoring the blog. I’ve had enough.
“He is testing the strength of our guns using the lives of his warriors!”
(It seems like an eternity ago) Several days ago, Jacob began a barrage of nonsensical opinions about the genesis of autism…back then it was nonsense about nutrition.
As I recall, (wrongfully assuming that it was not troll-talk), I mentioned ABA as effective treatment to help autistic kids to learn and to function in the education setting. Troll then went on a rant about ABA and cannabis.
Since then, troll has derailed each and every thread by interjecting word salad, some research that troll supposedly participated in, some mysterious knowledge that is “under embargo”, blah, blah, blah.
Troll seems to be an addict having revealed a history of alcoholism along with troll being a pothead and also some serious deranged thinking manifested in the multiple brain droppings that troll inflects on us. The only thing missing from the brain droppings is the fact that troll was “self-medicating” himself…the usual addict’s cop-out.
Troll then also interjects in many posting some problems with gender identity…while still labeling itself as being a recently identified person with autism. Then the mysterious “Karala” as a place of refuge to be accepted. I know what the Karala, India reference is, you fool. In Karala, there are a group of transgender males who are not stigmatized and are considered a third sex. They are not phony autistic individuals and they are not addicted to pot, MDMA (Ecstasy) or any chemical that you have ingested, sniffed, injected or popped.
None of us give a good goddamn what your sex is, what your gender is, how you “score” your multiple addictive substances and the many bullshit studies that you claim to have participated in. Go to Karala…hopefully you won’t have access to the internet.
शिवà¥à¤½à¤¹à¤ शिवà¥à¤½à¤¹à¤®à¥ | à¤à¥à¤£à¥à¤¡à¤²à¤¿à¤¨à¥ शाà¤à¥à¤¤à¤
‘Druggie’ is cognate to ‘bahkhsheen’.
It means ‘You are worthless and you should be sacrificed before puberty.’
Words DO have power. DO NOT use those words on people if you don’t want to reflect badly on your race.
I am intrigued to ( see #55- my paraphrase follows) receive proof on film, with Jacob handing it to me, compleat with crew, after my said scepticism had lured me to where his boss required me, etc.
See, I attempt to draw someone out and I get friggen, pure *noir* like a page lifted from Tarantino: fortunately I have a classic trench and dark glasses: oh, what I do for scepticism!
I tried to ignore the troll, but I will mention he’s fallen into a couple of behaviours I’m getting used to seeing.
1 – Wikipedia articles as authoritative references.
2 – Claims of having loads of secret evidence, not presented.
3 – Claims of comment censorship by Orac. As if.
4 – Chemical equivocation, claiming canniboids in human metabolic pathways in any way support smoking pot as a safe or effective treatment for autism.
@ Denice & Scott: I suspected trollism several hundred postings ago. The troll was adamantly against ABA, which I suspect was employed by its therapists for an earlier addiction (ETOH and/or other street drugs). Then too, troll states it was “diagnosed” with autism in later life…no doubt to get some of the government goodies/support/medication offered to disabled individuals.
Getting back to one of my prior posts about “treatment for homosexual” behavior…what do you think of the cure experienced by Pastor Ted Haggard?
I can say that I’m probably not the only real* autistic person who’s been reading this blog that the troll has managed to piss off deeply. Thank you, Orac.
* Having seen the pattern of troll’s behaviour since it turned up here, I’ve seen basically very little or nothing that would suggest to me a diagnosis on the autistic spectrum. I have seen the typical ‘clang’-association type of word-salad stuff that happens in dromal schizophrenia, and some discourse that would probably – in a real-world setting – lead to a diagnosis of a personality disorder. Our very respected lilady mentioned its ‘schizophasic’ output sometime back and it made sensee to me why she called it that. SC’s list of things observed is interesting, and does not typify anything autistic (as far as I know, and I specialised in autism in my M. Ed., including its diagnosis). DL-DW, you are also one with a serious psychological background … what do you see going on?
Personally, I’m not into dx-by-net, but I’m thinking that troll is a troll (fucking annoying type, with very irritating features).
Dunning-Kruger + internet -> trollistic spectrum disorder, yes?
Yes lets stick to irl diagnosis.
It’s a pain in the ass when people get all obsessed with your psychosis instead of looking at the person and the message that lurks beneath the salad layer.
How do you know I haven’t just copied and pasted all the ‘word salad’ from a psychosis I had earlier? Or last year even? Or from a database of nut-job raving?
One thing’s for sure, MY real personality is completely safe from the audience actually knowing anything about it. Seeing as you all seem to have caught UMD off the AVM, I’m glad of this.
>:) Study hard! x
Someone please explain?
What causes ‘word salad’ or ‘Schizophasic output’ or ‘dromal schizophrenia’?
From Psychopathology. 1985;18(4):226-9.
Long-term study of schizophasic patients.
“paralogism, echolalia, verbigeration, stilted speech, neologism, hypotonic thinking, retardation, derailment, and incongruous answers.”
An excellent description of alcohol intoxication. I don’t recognise any of those symptoms in myself. Of course, if you were in a hurry, you could be mistaken.
Hmmmm? Is it still neology if the word was ‘lost’ rather than not invented yet? Can I use the word ‘Lightron’? I don’t know how you would spell it nowadays?
@ David N. Andrews: Thank you for the compliment. DL-DW, is on the same page…we understand how true developmental disabilities and true mental disorders are manifested. We also know how trolls “game the system” by claiming such disabilities. I didn’t embark on my advocacy on behalf of disabled people years ago, to have goldbrickers and drug addicts use that advocacy to enable them to capture the goodies (Medicaid, Medicare, and SSI) that rightfully belong to the disenfranchised developmentally and mentally disabled and medically impaired/medically labile members of our society.
I’ve been viewing the proposed DSM V guidelines and (thankfully) there is no “Trollistic Spectrum Disorder” listed. That does not prevent us from using your very apt label on this blog….brilliant!!!
David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E.
It’s easy to find pictures of you on the web. You actually do look a bit like a troll. No offence.
Hyperlexic
I like to call a spade a digging implement.
Words DO have power. DO NOT use those words on people if you don’t want to reflect badly on your race.
I would be happy to offer myself up for permanent read-only status in exchange for this one. It’s a static /29.
Ignore the “Trolistic Spectrum Disorder” poster.
Anecdotal but true story about my daughter. She worked in the reservations department at a major airline, years ago during recesses from college. It was a nice crew of young people who partied and socialized on the job and after hours.
There was a young woman who made some very inappropriate comments to her. My daughter was savvy enough to understand that there was some sort of attraction expressed by this young woman and also diplomatic enough to speak to her about her sexual orientation (straight) and unwanted sexual advances.
Fast forward about 18 years, when my daughter first started dating her (soon to be) husband, and met a very handsome, personable male business associate of her boyfriend. Toward the end of the evening, handsome personable male business associate came up to her and described the major crush he had on her, when they worked together….as young women at the airline.
Hi. Can we have our Liytron back now please?
Has it been annoying you? Sorry.
@lilady:
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Very welcome, I assure you. I am the first psychologist in the family after a long line of … would you believe, nurses?! My dad was an army nurse, and his mother was a surgical nurse (actually got up to the heights of being theatre sister!), and her mother was a midwife (which required a nursing qualification first. And one gf of mine in the past was RGN, CM, RHV; I kinda understand a lot of what you write about – not with the same level of brilliance as you do, I would wager.
“DL-DW, is on the same page…we understand how true developmental disabilities and true mental disorders are manifested. We also know how trolls ‘game the system’ by claiming such disabilities.”
Yes. And I’m really of the opinion that the schizo-anal junkie is one such troll. I for one am not convince that it is even close to the autistic spectrum, let alone on it. It was however claiming to have been involved in research with SBC’s lot. Well, here’s an interesting thing: my daughter was diagnosed first by SBC and his team. If trollish drug-addled troll-bastard can get SBC to email me regarding its diagnosis, stating categorically that troll has a formal diagnosis of Asperger syndrome (which is what trollish drug-fucked rat-bastard claims it has been diagnosed with), then I shall eat my words and formally apologise on here. I can practically guarantee that such a diagnosis doesn’t exist for the troll: I know SBC’s email address, and occasionally correspond with him, since he has conducted a study with my daughter as one of the participants. So if anything comes to me purporting to be from SBC, but doesn’t come from that email address, I know that trollish git-wizard troll-shite is lying.
“I didn’t embark on my advocacy on behalf of disabled people years ago, to have goldbrickers and drug addicts use that advocacy to enable them to capture the goodies (Medicaid, Medicare, and SSI) that rightfully belong to the disenfranchised developmentally and mentally disabled and medically impaired/medically labile members of our society.”
Ditto. The services for them are already there. It’s the developmental disabilities being left out of the mix here.
“I’ve been viewing the proposed DSM V guidelines and (thankfully) there is no ‘Trollistic Spectrum Disorder’ listed. That does not prevent us from using your very apt label on this blog….brilliant!!!”
I thank you!
Re: anecdote – that’s sweet! 🙂
Check this out:
“Hi. Can we have our Liytron back now please?
Has it been annoying you? Sorry.
Posted by: Micheat | June 4, 2011 7:42 PM”
I think that’ll be going soon… the link gives it away!
I have a feeling that yon dipshite needs to leave the weed alone and give its brain some chance to do some neuronal regeneration. If it’s not already too late. Which it probably is!
And now … my bed time. Good morrow, lilady.
*bows courteously and takes his leave*
can orac please advise if I should go along with this?
Can she get information about my health from SBC without me being involved?
It all seems very underhand. Why not just call me on the telephone first to see if I really do have ‘word salad’?
Email me and I’ll give you my mobile. No problem.
@ David N. Andrews, M.Ed., C.P.S.E.
Well, I couldn’t diagnose anyone but I do feel that several things are going on, like you and lilady said . It resembles those Celtic knot patterns that appear to be 4 strands but may actually be two… remember that diagnoses may share characteristics: interpersonal communication and person perception skills can be amiss in developmental as well as psychiatric. All exacerbated by smoking.
The linguistic stuff worries me a bit as it uses more “far” ( idiosyncratic) associations than I would like. I don’t think that it is a writer-ish person f–cking with us: that stuff wouldn’t sound as alien and discomforting) probably would sound more like a normal person’s free association, i.e. semantic links. About the “revelation of hidden secrets”: it’s a common enough meme in woo-world- hey, where would our web woo-meisters or RFK, jr be without it? They got the goods on pharma, etc. ( I hear that the “quackbusters” (sic) will get theirs on Monday-) Hidden conspiracies are attractive to those who are out of contact with how the world works- multi-causally.
Reality may be a b-tch but it’s certainly better than any of the available alternatives.
DL-DW: “It resembles those Celtic knot patterns that appear to be 4 strands but may actually be two… remember that diagnoses may share characteristics: interpersonal communication and person perception skills can be amiss in developmental as well as psychiatric.”
Indeed. Thankfully, I stuck with developmental more than what we see as psychiatric, and how we try to disentangle development from other influences (although, in a way, it’s all developmental … a lot seems to depend on precipitating factors for characteristic behaviours that then lead to diagnoses). I like the ‘visual’ that you invoke: as part of my studies, I read Irish Studies … and a lot of it was based on archaeology and art. And the funny thing is that, when one is doing an assessment, it is actually very much like an archaeological dig: you’re having to work backwards rather than forwards; youre having to carefully ‘take off the layers’ and note what is observed as accurately as possible; and you can only do it once. Didn’t Jung once refer to psychology as the archaeology of the soul?
“The linguistic stuff worries me a bit as it uses more “far” (idiosyncratic) associations than I would like.”
Absolutely. This is why I found lilady’s ‘schizophasic’ description so interesting.
“I don’t think that it is a writer-ish person f–cking with us: that stuff wouldn’t sound as alien and discomforting) probably would sound more like a normal person’s free association, i.e. semantic links.”
Agreed.
“About the ‘revelation of hidden secrets’: it’s a common enough meme in woo-world- hey, where would our web woo-meisters or RFK, jr be without it? They got the goods on pharma, etc. ( I hear that the ‘quackbusters’ (sic) will get theirs on Monday-) Hidden conspiracies are attractive to those who are out of contact with how the world works- multi-causally.”
Exactly … all very delusional stuff.
“Reality may be a b-tch but it’s certainly better than any of the available alternatives.”
Yep.
Matthew Cline @54: How can trees be homosexual? And they could, how could you tell?
I am reminded that Linneaus came under some criticism when he proposed his classification system for plants, precisely because he pointed out that most had both male and female organs of reproduction. Of course it didn’t help that he went on to classify based on the number of anthers per pistil, so that plants were said to have one husband, two husbands, three, … per wife.
It’s a little odd to me that one of the “cures” for homosexuality used to be chemical castration, which is now (at least according to a certain doctor who recently lost his license to practice) a cure for autism.
Ken — Linneaus had an irrepressible sense of humor, and could not avoid the comic potential inherent in those plants. 😉
A great many trees and other flowering plants are . . . well, I’m not sure homosexual is really the right word. Asexual isn’t either, since they reproduce sexually. Hermaphroditic. But it’s with other trees of the same gender (i.e. “both”) and in many species, even themselves. Corn. Pine trees. Maples. Lilies. Grass. But some actually do come in different genders. I have four male ash trees on my property; males are handy to have because although they bloomed quite heavily this year, there were no seedlings to pull out of the garden. My grandparents have a gingko tree, and were assured when they bought it that it was male. A few years ago, it matured (they’re very slow-growing) and they learned that the seller was wrong — it’s a girl, and it’s been producing huge amounts of puke-scented seeds every fall. (Gingko seeds taste great once cooked, but until then, they smell exactly like someone has been sick, so I have to wonder who was mad enough to find out that they were edible.)
The idea of a homosexual tree is fairly hilarious, though. One wonders if these people’s brains would explode if they learned just how convoluted sex is for many trees. (The fig is one of the more interesting, though it may drive a person to swear off figs.)
Well the Catholic Church promotes its homophobic dogma as homosexual behavior is not consistent with God’s law.
This Catholic doctors group have really put the Church in a bind. I foresee a gay person undergoing “treatment” and claiming a miraculous cure. I also foresee that the “cure” based on homeopathy and prayer directed at a holy person might be the first step toward beatification…similar to the fast tracking of Pope John Paul II toward sainthood.
What a dilemma for the Church’s “Promoter of Justice” (formerly known as the Devil’s Advocate) to determine if there is actually a “cure”, rather than remission. What constitutes a “cure” for homosexuality and pedophilia?
Now I know that the “Promoter of Justice” and a panel of doctors delve deeply into medical records to determine if a “cure” has taken place. Do they put the patient through a number of tests/challenges to prove that a life-long miraculous cure has taken place? The possibilities for revising the investigation format of the Office of the Promoter of Justice are endless and mind-boggling.
Calli, there’s also the alternation of generations in plants, which really makes things complicated. Not that any organism whose reproduction involves a placenta should talk….
As for finding out what plants are edible, I’ve always been impressed by the discovers of rhubarb, in which the leaves and roots are poisonous but the stalks are edible.
“I have to wonder who was mad enough to find out that they were edible”
Due to some genetic quirk, I don’t have receptors for whatever molecule makes ginkgo fruits smell particularly pukey (butyric acid?), so to me they smell fruity. Perhaps it was someone like me who first roasted the nuts and offered them around.
Jacob said,
No. Your medical information cannot be given out without your express permission, or – rarely – with your implied permission in the event of an emergency.
Total tangent here, but: The homeopaths’ imaginary opponent “allopathy” puzzles me. Is homeo- really the opposite of allo- ? Admittedly I’ve read a lot more about evolutionary biology than medicine, but I always thought it was sym-, as in allopatric vs. sympatric speciation.
Ok thank you Jarrad.
I’ve come across a lot of autism and psyche workers who have threatened to ‘have a word with their friends in the business’ to get my diagnosis removed. This is only online. No-one I know in real life has any problem spotting which rung on the spectrum I’m from.
To think that ‘psychiatry’ would conspire to de-diagnose me, just to lower people’s perception of my credibility, is rather odd, but who knows what you NT’s are capable of organising that we can only dream of.
Let’s face it, coordinated action is the only hope you have against a lone top predator.
Wanna hear how you finally worked out how to rid the land of Neanderthals and Neanderthal/CroMag Hybrids?
(Genesis 6 – that’s the bit where the neanderthals came down for their munch-fest, for want of a better word. The yoruba referred to them as the Hue-Man because they appeared to be covered in clay or ash, lightening their appearance. Who knows why they really did it. Sunblock?).
Homeopathy is useless unless people believe in it, then the placebo effect is actually worth having, but better it comes in the form of a cheap sugar pill from your dad, than an expensive drink of water from a rip-off snake oil salesman.
@112, it’s homeo- meaning “same” or “like” versus allo- meaning “different” or “strange”. It dates back to the founding, um, theory of homeopathy, which says that the cure for an illness is found in substances that produce the same symptoms (pathy, as found in pathology).
This was set up in contrast with other medical practices, which were (falsely and over-simplistically) characterized as “allopathic” or using substances that produce the opposite effect of the symptoms. Thus, when confronted with a high fever, an allopath (also known as a real doctor) will think in terms of a medicine that reduces fever; while a homeopath will prescribe a substance that creates a fever, although in such a small (i.e. nonexistent) quantity that it actually has no effect whatsoever.
Thanks, Ken. I guess homo-/homeo- and sym- are more or less the same (sympathy=”same feeling”.) If I had to come up with a prefix for “different” or “strange” it’d be xeno-, but what do I know?
I find that remembering “allo” is easier if one has small children with a dinosaur obsession who want dinosaur books read to them every night — “Allosaurus” means “different lizard”.
And on the model of “Pachycephalosaurus”â”Thick-headed lizard”, perhaps we could come up with a Linnaean classification for our resident trolls. (Since trolls are Scandinavian in origin, I don’t know of a Latin or Greek equivalentâany Classicists in the house?)
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
The pot calls the kattle Black.
Making up naming conventions for cryptids? Who the fuck do you think you are?
A Lightron is more qualified than you.
‘Scientist’
Comes from the same etymological root as Scythe and Skive (as in skiving leather).
Literally, a scientist is a chopper. He chops things up.
Patanjali, c.800 BC Referred to this as the ‘Sword of Discrimination’.
It was one of three tools in his box. A scientist divides, an artisan creates. Where’s your conch? Where’s your chakra? If you are only 1/3 of the solution, you’re probably only capable of describing a problem, but not actually fixing it.
P.S. Troll means Witch. Idiot.
Classic Witch names? Take your pick.
Why not go with the Goddess of Witches herself? MahaKali.
Why don’t you try summoning her? See if you don’t die of fright 😉
@114 –
“Thanks, Ken. I guess homo-/homeo- and sym- are more or less the same (sympathy=”same feeling”.) If I had to come up with a prefix for “different” or “strange” it’d be xeno-, but what do I know?”
What is more annoying than a string of traffic signals that are allochronized? All too common.
Glad to say I’ve never encountered xenochronized signals, staying, as I do, outside the Twilight Zone.
And on the model of “Pachycephalosaurus”â”Thick-headed lizard”, perhaps we could come up with a Linnaean classification for our resident trolls. (Since trolls are Scandinavian in origin, I don’t know of a Latin or Greek equivalentâany Classicists in the house?)
Well, I rattled Jacob’s cage, and got copied by a spambot. I guess my work here is done.
I knew it, I knew the witch comment would come eventually. Just so you know Jacob, I believe that it is I who is supposed to be the witch here. I play one in D & D after all. 😛 (yep, one of those role playing nerds right here!)
All jokes aside, I want to know how in the world you could possibly get that troll means witch. I think you might want to check that “medication again”. It may be killing vital brain cells!
Jacob — no, troll does not mean witch.
In Scandinavian folklore, a witch would be a human or possibly god (if we’re going back far enough in the folklore, to the Viking period) who learned to practice magic. Occasionally, this person would have some non-human ancestry (whether divine or otherwise), but they would be at least able to pass for human.
A troll, however, is not at all human. Trolls are extremely long-lived creatures which tend to be very ugly, very large, and usually very stupid. Legends about them vary widely; sometimes they are conflated with the stories of hulders, beautiful men and women who would lure away humans to be their underworld spouses, but who could be told by their cow’s tails. (Legend also said that if you persuaded a hulder maiden to marry you in a church, her tail would fall off and she’d be a devoted wife for the rest of her days.) Very old trolls may lose their heads, and have to carry them around under their arms. Some stories say they turn to stone when exposed to sunlight, though this seems to be a relatively recent addition to the folklore. If you go back far enough, to prechristian times, they become the jotuns, a race of ice giants constantly engaged in war with the Aesir and Vanir (the Norse gods), and who populated the world before humans came on the scene.
I really like the trolls in the new movie “Trollhunter” (see the IMDB entry for some pictures). The Internet version refers to their habit of skulking under a metaphorical bridge and jumping out to harass travelers.
D&D is your source? lol
I played CoCthulhu RPG so what? You gonna summon nyelarthotep on me?
Prey tell me, where is the ‘source’ in ‘sorcery’?
What was a Witch before your ancestors made up a word for ‘it’ and learnt to scrawl it in the sand with a stick?
Who was the first Witch, and where does the name ‘Witch’ come from?
Yes I’ll take Vidya (sanskrit) over the others.
Vidya, meaning vision.
Witch and Wizzard both come from Wys which means wise but is also the root of whisper which is related to the root of Rsi.
But I specifically asked about BEFORE your ancestors learnt to scrawl it in the sand with a stick.
I’m not impressed that you copied and pasted wiki either.
Before writing, hinted at in Genesis 6, there were ‘Hybrids’.
Neanderthal Hybrids.
All humanoid cryptids were inspired by neanderthals, neanderthal hybrids, and later peoples who employed the same tricks.
By the middle ages, you could be called a witch just for talking to your cat or using finger binary to count to 1023.
Assuming you don’t believe in magic?
If you do, then where is the ‘source’ in ‘sorcery’
What is the choice in witch? Who show’s the witch the choices? Where? In which direction of time?
You’re lost without written evidence, aren’t you?
Yes I’ll take Vidya (sanskrit) over the others.
Vidya, meaning vision.
Witch and Wizzard both come from Wys which means wise but is also the root of whisper which is related to the root of Rsi.
But I specifically asked about BEFORE your ancestors learnt to scrawl it in the sand with a stick.
I’m not impressed that you copied and pasted wiki either.
Before writing, hinted at in Genesis 6, there were ‘Hybrids’.
Neanderthal Hybrids.
All humanoid cryptids were inspired by neanderthals, neanderthal hybrids, and later peoples who employed the same tricks.
By the middle ages, you could be called a witch just for talking to your cat or using finger binary to count to 1023.
Assuming you don’t believe in magic?
If you do, then where is the ‘source’ in ‘sorcery’
What is the choice in witch? Who show’s the witch the choices? Where? In which direction of time?
You’re lost without written evidence, aren’t you?
Did you not see the word joke in there? Because I remember writing it. What the term witch means can vary according to what time period you wish to discuss, as has been noted by Calli. They were believed as semi-divine, people who posessed magical powers to heal the sick etc, in the pagan world. In the Dark Ages they were believed to be worshippers of the Devil, who gained their power from him after selling their souls to him, and were believed to cast curses at his enemies killing live stock, children, and causing plagues. We could go more into more beliefs from that time but that would take up to much time. Durring our modern times, many of those who practice neo-pagan beliefs may refer to themselves as a witch. This is prevalent for example in the beliefs of Wicca. This is where ritual magic is usually practiced, with use of candles, pentacles, and a slew of items along with chanting in what looks like basicly a ritualized prayer with those items used to heigten the symbolism. Many use herbs to make teas for a variety purposes. So once again, the term witch seems to change it’s meaning with each generation. As for who the first witch was, or who was first considered as such, I have no idea. After all, alot of beliefs about witches and shamans crossover, as well as that of the roles of priests and preistesses.
So, the neaderthals were biblical giants, Genesis 6 (which includes Noah’s flood!) is sober and accurate history of events that happened tens of thousands of years ago, and the Yoruba spoke modern English? Except that they didn’t understand what the word “hue” means – it describes location around a colour wheel (whether something is red, or green, or purple) and has no relevance to the amount of white or black in a colour.
Well, the pacebo effect is a bit more complciated than that. For one thing, it’s been noted the efficacy goes up with price, as people will believe more in expensive medicine than something that’s being given away for free (manufacturors of cosmetic face creams take full advantage of this, for example.
So if you’re going to advocate for placebos in preference for real medicine (which, by the way, also have all the non-specific effects that get lumped under “the placebo effect”), why would you only advocate for less effective placebos?
What is a Yayman, what is a Nayman, and what is a Shayman?
Shaman = Witch = Sorcerer.
Where is the ‘source’ of their knowledge?
wintermute I agree with what you say about placebo.
Regardless of what has been scribbled down over the last ten thousand years or so, I make a bold but obvious claim:
Almost every monosyllabic word you can think of was in use before writing.
Iesha, Shiva, ishvara etc all come from that same ‘whisper’ root, unless you believe that most early names of god are spookily close to onomatopoeia for sneezing. Pre-literate etymology is not to be sneezed at.
Put down your books and use your mind.
Hebrew started off with no vowels at a time when sanskrit changed the vowel to indicate ‘direction’.
Without your ‘writing’ what have we got left to go on?
Somewhere between ‘Chimp’ and PIE, are the answers. Work harder!
PS – check out Ligers: hybrids can be giants or trolls or Jotun.
As in actual source? That really depends.
What knowledge are you referring to?
If you speak of the spirit world, it is pretty well known that many of those who were shaman used some form of drug known to cause strong hallucinations today. Durring these “trips” they would see all kinds of things, and then once that was over, would tell others about what they saw and ascribe it to the spirits or the gods.
If you speak of what is termed folk medicine I imagine it was a trial and error sort of thing. THey would try different herbs and different remedies to try and find something that would work.
Do you want the “true” source of their knowledge, or what they believe/believed it to be?
Sanskrit is not ancestral to any of the languages in which “witch” exists. “Vidya” might be derived from once of the Proto-Indo-European roots I mentioned, but it’s not (of itself) the root of the word “witch”.
And it’s not even that close, phonemically. If you’re willing to go that far afield, why not choose the Latin “video”, meaning roughly the same thing? At least that stands a chance of being related?
What was a tree, before we named it?
It’s a dull and pointless question, so I ignored it, in favour of the etymology question, which you also asked, and makes no sense if it also references a time before the invention of words.
Got it. You’re not impressed with people actually looking for an answer from people who’ve already done the research. You’d be far mroe impressed if I just made something up, and asserted it as true. That’s what you’re doing right?
How about this, then: “Witch” comes from the Old English “Wact”, meaning “made-up story that we scare the kids with”.
I wouldn’t say “lost”, exactly. But I find that these discussions become quite pointless if one side or another decides that “evidence” (whether written or otherwise) is not merely uneccessary, but a positive impediment.
Angel, I’d love to carry on this conversation elsewhere, I am interested in what you have to say, but with Orac playing the hand of god and slowing me down, it just doesn’t seem fair.
Do you have another forum where we can continue this? I’m not happy with the ‘handicap’.
And yes the ‘true’ source please?
I’ve been there, and drugs are not necessary to go there. You?
Sorry this is off-topic, but I’m curious about this, and there isn’t a relevant current thread.
@Jacob
It looks as if you subscribe to the theory that autism is due to Neanderthal genes, whereas NTs are pure Cro-Magnon. That theory seems to be based on similarities between the guessed behavioral characteristics of Neanderthals and autistic behavior. It reminds me of Stan Gooch and his weird theories that human paranormal abilities are from our Neanderthal genetic heritage.
Since Africans should have few or no Neanderthal genes (Neanderthal fossils have only been found outside Africa), I suppose that is why you keep mentioning the Yoruba and the San. Why would you think that there are fewer Neanderthal genes among these ethnic groups than other African ethnic groups? Is there any evidence that there is no autism among the Yoruba and the San? There is certainly autism in Africa, though people with ASDs are often treated with suspicion and fear.
As I said, I’m just curious where this idea comes from and if there is any evidence to support it.
How about this, then: “Witch” comes from the Old English “Wact”, meaning “made-up story that we scare the kids with”.
That’s not bad going. Can I tell you about directional vowels so that I can explain why ‘Wact’ is good?
Whatch – Wohtch – Wuhtch – Whitch (up – forward – down – time).
Whatch and Wuhtch are not used. Watch (Wohtch) means ‘looking for a period of time’ (before watches were invented).
So Watch is looking, as time rolls forward as it does.
What is a Witch?
(up – forward – down – time)
should read
(up – forward – down – backward).
sorry!
Krebiozen, I am as open minded about the Neanderthal hypothesis of autism as I am about the other dozen or so currently remotely credible hypotheses (not vaccines though, that’s disproven).
They say autism affects all cultures, but if you look at the studies, they didn’t specifically look for San and Yorunba autists.
If we can find just a few of them and check they have no neanderthal dna too, then that hypothesis will be deader, and I will only be worrying about the remaining 11 or so.
All Caucasians are thought to have around 1-4% neanderthal dna?
In a population of 7 billion, what’s the probability of 51% neandertals?
If you take a human, and replace every part of his body one by one, keeping him alive, until every part has been replaced, how does he answer the question ‘what animal am I’?
Is it possible that ‘being a neanderthal’ can persist through tens of thousands of years, and watering down the DAN to 4% or less?
There is a greater measured incidence of autism in Germanic peoples than there are in Jamaican peoples, and Germanic peoples are reckoned to have more DNA from Neanderthal than Jamaicans.
Given proper screening to find out the real rates in places like jamaica, would we find a correlation between one and the other?
The demographic data would be good for autism research anyway, so it’s not as if we are just wasting money and time disproving a silly hypothesis.
Cannabis-hawking troll needs to stop inventing his own etymology/meanings of words.
We already have Th1Th2 to do that.
Primarily because I can, I thought I’d just put in a few words here… Drawn from dictionary.com, because when it comes to word origins, written evidence is pretty much the best (if not the only) evidence.
The likeliest “source” of “sorcery” is “c.1300, from O.Fr. sorcerie , from sorcier “sorcerer,” from V.L. *sortiarius , lit. “one who influences, fate, fortune,” from L. sors (gen. sortis ) “lot, fate, fortune” (see sort). Sorceress (late 14c.) is attested much earlier than sorcerer (1520s).” (According to Online Etymology Dictionary.)
The origin of “witch” which is most likely is “O.E. wicce “female magician, sorceress,” in later use esp. “a woman supposed to have dealings with the devil or evil spirits and to be able by their cooperation to perform supernatural acts,” fem. of O.E. wicca “sorcerer, wizard, man who practices witchcraft or magic,” from verb wiccian “to practice witchcraft” (cf. Low Ger. wikken, wicken “to use witchcraft,” wikker, wicker “soothsayer”).” (According to Online Etymology Dictionary.)
You do know that PIE predated writing by about 2,000 years, right? I agree that there were undoubtedly earlier languages, but we really have no evidence for them; they (obviously) left behind no writing, and their descendants were supplanted by Indo-European languages. So any claim as to the stucture of vocabulary of those languages are unsupportable and wrong.
Assuming that this word salad has any meaning, it’s irrelevant. No language which is an antecedant of the Germanic languages (where the word in question occurs) has ever done anything like this. Sanskrit is no more an ancestral language of English than Korean is.
And the Old English “wæccan” meant “a period of time during which a specific set of guards were on duty” – It had almost all the meanigs of the modern word “watch” (except for the obvious “portable timepiece”, which was derived directly from this meaning), and they all remained the same word as the language evolved.
There’s no reason to invent highly implausible loanwords from Sanskrit, when the etymology is well known.
Damn. I forgot a couple.
You agree that you were wrong? Both about placebos being worthwhile, and cheap placebos being better than expensive ones? Well, OK then.
Given your disdain for book-learning, where does your knowledge of Sanskrit come from? Did you learn it from one of the 14,000 native speakers (of which maybe a few dozen live outside of India? Or did you just intuit it?
That doesn’t surprise me; nobody has the resources to study all cultures, and while I don’t know much about the Yoruba, I did study the San culture for a while in college. They appear so idyllic in “The Gods Must Be Crazy”, but the truth is that they have not been allowed to live like that for many years. Some few were still holding on to the old ways at that time, but nearly all today live in squalor on reservations, trying to adapt to a world that doesn’t speak their language. The way most of them are forced to live today, autism would, quite frankly, be the least of their problems. In Botswana, they have recently managed to win some crucial court cases, but this has not yet translated into much difference in their day-to-day lives; the forcible removal of San from the Kalahari was ruled unconstitutional, but to this day only a few have been allowed back in, and they’ve had to fight to be allowed to use natural water sources in the reserve (though again, the successful court case has not yet translated into any water use permits).
Now, they have been studied by geneticists. None were specifically looking into autism, but they did find some interesting things. They appear to have some of the broadest genetic diversity of any human group, possibly *the* broadest, despite having some very distinctive physical characteristics setting them apart from other humans. Their lineage is also extremely ancient compared to most other human lineages. It’s possible that this protects them from some genetic conditions; if autism is indeed a condition which arises from a host of genetic discrepancies, then having a very diverse gene pool would help prevent too many of these discrepancies accumulating in one individual. But as far as I know, nobody’s actually studied them to see if this is in fact the case.
Oh for fuck’s sake!
“The yoruba referred to them as the Hue-Man because they appeared to be covered in clay or ash, lightening their appearance.”
You dozey drug-addled bastard.
My aunt’s Yoruba. She’d tell you that you needed to be put under a number of sections of the MHA 1983. (Yes, she’s a medical practitioner… and she is Yoruba).
Fuck off, Jacob. You’re a menace to yourself.
I started learning Sanskrit via the oral tradition which has never relied on books.
My yoga teacher, Sri KPJ, was not a native speaker. He was head of Sanskrit at Mysore university. I took sanskrit classes because he accosted me in a foyer and barked sanskrit sanskrit sanskrit at me whilst nodding towards some stairs. At the top of the stairs there was a sanskrit class. I took it.
We also covered script, it was all about correctly pronouncing the chants. The retention of the correct intonation was of critical importance to the vedics.
It was a flesh and blood Indian Sanskrit teacher who taught me and my classmates about the directional vowels.
I’ve had fun looking up a lot of Sanskrit on-line in the past year but it’s not the same. Learning grammar using an orange as the second person is a soulless experience.
Why do you ask? Do you think I was being hippo-critical? Sorry
Well, this thread had already wandered pretty far off topic, thanks to Jacob’s etymological digressions, which by the way, make Isidore of Seville look good, so I don’t feel quite as guilty as I should about starting this diversion.
It’s amusing he thinks I was referring to him with the “troll” comment. Relax, Juniorâyou’re not even on my radar. Augie, Thingy, and Sid Offal were the “thick-headed trolls” I thought we needed a classification for.
I don’t think there is any word in the Classical languages that can be tortured into meaning “troll”. Our only reference would be to another “Classical” languageâsince most of the information we moderns have about trolls comes from Tolkien*, I think we should look for the root in Quenya. In that language “Troll”=”Torco” (Sindarin “Torog-“)
So, bastard terminology being rife in biological nomenclature, I propose sticking a Latin ending on “Torco”, to yield “Pachycephalotorcus” as a classification for our resident trolls. Any comments? Do we need specific names for each specimen, e.g. Pachycephalotorcus Augustinus?
*”Tolkien”, by the way, is an anglicization of the German adjective “tollkühn”=”reckless, foolhardy.” Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Very Reverend Battleaxe — actually, moderns with Scandinavian background may have been exposed to troll mythology before reading “The Hobbit”. We do not need to resort to Quenya (or Sindarin for that matter). Actually, Tolkien is somewhat vague on where trolls come from, and not many are actually encountered in the books. I seem to recall they may be sort of the Morgothian equivalent of Ents, though. Morgoth was never able to create life properly, and so instead twisted the life that already existed to create his armies.
My first information on trolls actually came from D’auliere’s Book of Trolls, a fabulously illustrated book which I positively devoured as a young girl. And oh look! It’s been reprinted!
http://www.amazon.com/DAulaires-Trolls-Review-Childrens-Collection/dp/1590172175
Are we in a position to resolve the problem of “aglæc-wif” and of “aglæca/æglæca”?
http://www.nvcc.edu/home/vpoulakis/translation/beowulf2.htm
Listen: http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/mp3/beo25p.mp3
It sounds like argleyka to me. No one has ever satisfactorily resolved it. Can we?
Agreed, Tolkien was a fool and we all loved him.
@ Calli:
Well, in fairnessâQuenya was heavily influenced by Finnish. (Being Norwegian myself, I’m well aware that Finnish isn’t Scandinavian, or Germanic, or Indo-European, but it is Northern….)
However, Old Norse gives us either “Troll” (Can’t reproduce the hook under the “o”, sorry!) or “GÃfr”. So, “Pachycephalotrollus”? Or for a more recondite flavor: “Pachycephalogifrus”?
@Jacob
Thanks for the reply re Neanderthals and autism. Interesting idea, but it looks to me like someone’s speculating way beyond the data. Ironically, the last person I met with an autistic child is Nigerian, though I don’t know if he is Yoruba.
@Calli
I’ve been interested in the San since reading van der Post as a teenager. He would be saddened by their current plight, I’m sure.
@Krebiozen, yes I’ve come across autistic kids with a Yoruba parent but then the other parent always turns out to be non-yoruba! Also, many yoruba have a bit of non-yoruba in them from the last few hundred years, so some sort of genetic test would be pretty crucial.
There is still the problem of the ‘neanderthal genes’ from when we interbred being completely randomised out of existence every 2000 years or so (depending on which data one starts out with!).
So the hybrid would have to be a neanderthal in the philosophical sense. Just a tiny little voice saying “I know I look like these things around me, but I’m just not the same animal. Am I supposed to eat them or breed with them or both or what? The’re all insane, whatever they are!”
If you replace each part of a man, one at a time, when all are replaced, who remains?
@Calli, it’s heartbreaking, what is happening to the San. It’s never on the news here. When someone else has had their water banned, it doesn’t seem too bad only having your medicine banned!
And as Kreboizen asked earlier,
Why would you think that there are fewer Neanderthal genes among these ethnic groups than other African ethnic groups?
There are lots of language communities in the Niger-Congo family, spread out across Africa by the movement of populations. Why pick on the Yoruba? Yoruban history is all about empire-building and trading. They’ve been dealing with Europeans since the first Portuguese explorers came wandering cautiously around the coast. Significant gene-flows happening there.
Jacob — they haven’t exactly had their water banned; they were driven off of their land, and when they try to return to it, they aren’t allowed to use the natural water sources there. In effect, it’s the same thing, but it’s sufficiently convoluted that the local bureaucracy can continue denying them their basic human rights despite all the court cases against them.
One of the biggest health problems facing them is tuberculosis, which is rampant in the camps and villages where they’ve been forced to relocate. If you’ve seen “The Gods Must Be Crazy”, the San star, N!, is played by a Namibian San named N!xau. Tuberculosis was what ultimately killed him.
You’re absolutely right; seeing their plight puts a lot of our problems into sharp perspective. They are making some gains now; more and more San are learning to speak other languages, giving them for the first time the ability to plead their own cases in court. They’re starting to win court cases; it isn’t translating into much real change, but there is hope for them. They haven’t been consolidated onto reservations as long as, for instance, the Sioux; many of them still speak their old languages as primary tongues, and though most of them no longer remember the secrets of survival in the wild, enough of their culture remains intact or at least remembered that they’ve got a shot at restoring it if they want to. (And if the outside world lets them.)
You might be interested in this: they are the first native people to win rights to a medication derived from their tribal knowledge. So far, this has not translated into any actual funds, because the drug has not yet hit market. (It’s made from hoodia, which *is* on the market as an herbal, but they don’t get any royalties for that; it’s only the patented pharmaceutical preparation that they would get royalties for.) And of course, given how many of their other court cases have goon, they could end up screwed out of this too. I hope not.
@Calli
Interesting about Hoodia – Appetite suppressant? I find Ashtanga Yoga works best for that, and it’s free and you don’t need to grow it or buy it! Pre-historic himalayan survival gear! Does Hoodia work like Rimonobant I wonder?
wrt water banning, that is exactly how it happens to us, they kick off our doors and throw us in Prison then when we come out, we have to be more careful about where we get our water/herbs because then they could be watching us more closely. Same-same.
Africa needs serious investment of every kind! Roads would be nice.