Hauntings, Exorcisms and the Like

It seems that anything written in a book can be taken as real no matter how unlikely. So, yea, I guess they might.

I'm sure it was. Having had a couple of experiences has given me a tiny bit of insight into alternative kinds of experience.However, we do know, for sure, that some very "real" experiences are not real at all. The issue is how to separate out thing which may appear to be very real to an individual (or even a bunch of them) from those things which have some other level of reality.The method we have been using very, very successfully for some centuries is the process of science. At any given time there will be limits on what it can be applied to but where it can be it has proven very powerful indeed.I didn't read back up thread but one thing to which very simple science has been applied is healing touch. This "reality" has been shown to be false.

Generally it appears this is because the results aren't proven in a careful rigorous way. It can cost 100's of millions to do this and the "natural medicine" folks are reluctant to risk checking things out.If you can show some such proof and how they aren't being used I'd be surprised.I was able to talk to a major drug company researcher about 6 years ago when skiing with him. One thing I asked about was why the various traditional pharmaecopia haven't been looked at as a source of potential drugs.It turns out that his company had scanned the Chinese medicines for activity the same way they survey the natural environment. They did find some potentially useful materials. However, the ratio was just about the same as when they survey sort of randomly. About 1 in 10,000 works. I was surprised by that result. I would have expected there to have been some selection over the centuries.

I have friends who are docs and a familiy member who is a doctor.I can assure you that those that I know are anxious to use whatever can be shown to be of help.The problem is that it requires evidence of both safty and effectiveness. For almost all of the "alternative" medicinces this evidence is not there. Little by little some of them do get studied. Somre prove to be of some use and some don't.As one told me: "There is no 'alternative' medicine. There is medicine which works and that which doesn't. When something is shown to work it is used."There are huge problems in getting the evidence I agree. I have doc friends who are rather "left" politically and those who are pretty "right" (by Canadian standards anyway ). The interesting thing to me is that they all agree that the drug companies need to be brought under some sort of control. While they do produce useful research some of my friends think that they may be starting to be more harmful than the value they produce.However, when you spend a bit of time thinking and discussing the problems you realize that there are no easy solutions. It is daunting to try to find and safely implement really useful therapies. We may blame drug companies, the FDA or conservative doctors. All of those problems may be there but under all that the process is complex and not something that glib answers will solve.

Thanks PS, I wasn't aware of those specific problems. However, that tells us is that some of our research is moving faster than our governence processes can keep up with.That, to me, is part of the complexity. We are immersed in a society that will come down hard on the FDA if it approves too fast or something shows up as a mistake in hindsight. At the same time we want things fast and cheap. All of the political problems only add to the already complex science.