Ringing denunciation and withering sarcasm are also both satisfying at times. But I have concluded that taking the mickey is the best indication of my considered view on precisely how seriously homeopathy ought to be taken.

Of course, far more erudite gents than I have previously reached the same conclusion:

Stir the mixture well
Lest it prove inferior,
Then put half a drop
Into Lake Superior.

Every other day
Take a drop in water,
You ’ll be better soon
Or at least you oughta.

Bishop William Crosswell Doane (1832–1913): Lines on Homeopathy.

Proof that perhaps not everybody at UCLAN is a charlatan.

Peter Fisher replied to the sumitted paper and said that:

“”From the scanty details supplied, two possible conclusions can be drawn, and both
may be true”"

Which you have to admit sounds like a HY practititoner – especially the scanty details bit.

In theory Fisher should have rejected the paper on the grounds that there was too much substance in it for a 30C dilution.

And how does he know it wasn’t banged and shaken to potentise it along quantum cavitiation lines.

Perhaps the most amazing was a reference to a site where some lunatic does proving on various things and did one on a shipwreck in Wales.

http://uk.geocities.com/veryscarymary/helvetiaproving.html

This really takes the biscuit (a version of which is probably available from Helios along with the mutts nuts)

Until I read the common sense here, on BGs site etc I assumed HY (cannot be arsed typing the whole thing out) was based on a similar concept to vaccination. I never knew about all the rubbish like banging and shaking.

I almost don’t mind the charlatans and con merchants and their tacky water, crystals etc. At least you get something to drink and something which looks quite nice (although at a fair old price) and fools and their money were always likely to be parted.

However, this arrant nonsense from someone who is clearly deranged nearly made me fall of my chair.

Apparently if you “prove” a shipwreck you get “blocked”. This does not just apply to your intestinal tract, nose but also applies to the UK transport network. I quote:

“”"It even went as far a being physically blocked, which I found the most surprising:

P7 – “ I was late because I kept getting blocked by impassable vehicles, diggers etc”

P3 – “the weather was awful – so gave up trying to get to Watford – traffic a nightmare, total gridlock

P6 – “take the tube and got on the wrong branch of the Northern line”

P5 – “excessive problems getting to work. Trains broke down, buses broke down, traffic congestion”"”

The prover states in the introduction “”"please be kind enough to respect that this work took months to collate and was conducted in a caring professional manner”"”

So firm proof that HY can affect the underground, the roads, South West Trains and JCBs (plus the weather).

Case proved I would say ! Errrrr, hang on, is that what I actually mean.

A good example of this is the Society of Homeopaths’ page on “What is Homeopathy?” It is written to hit every “hot button” that leads people to be dissatisfied with conventional medicine (doctor too busy / doesn’t listen / treats me as a disease or diseases not as a person / doesn’t think I’m really ill / gives me pills w. nasty dangerous side effects etc etc).

The whole page is worth reading in this respect – quite instructive – but just as a taster:

[italics added for emphasis]

What happens when you see a homeopath?

Your homeopath understands that establishing good health involves treating both mind and body, so time is taken to listen to your emotional and physical symptoms. To stimulate your body’s own healing process, a remedy closest to your individual symptom picture is prescribed. Healing begins from within your body, strengthening your health and immune system, without any danger of damaging side effects.

NOTICE FOR creationists, intelligent designers, diverse believers in mumbo-jumbo and other religious fundamentalists.

Geo-magnetic tachyonised ancient life forms imbued with the earths natural energy are also available in a special 6000 year old Usher Version.

(Note: Not approved by Richard Dawkins)

It seems to me that people by and large get short shrift from their (proper) doctors. My last doctor was unable (apparently) to deal with more than one thing at a time – so when I went to see him for the first time in about seven years he did not seem capable of dealing with onset osteo-arthritis in my knee and a detached retina. (He did find time to lecture me on drinking and smoking though).

With most (proper) doctors you get a few minutes in which they try to identify the most appropriate drug in the shortest time possible. Move them in and move them out.

It seems to me that so many “illnesses” and “complaints” nowadays are general malaise issues. Things like:

- yuppy flu
- I feel out of sorts
- I am tired all the time
- I dont have any energy
- I have lost my libido
- my get up and go got up and went
- I always have headaches
- blah blah blah whinge whinge whinge

I imagine people with these general malaises probably get short shrift from their GP.

Instead of doing some exercise and eating a decent diet they turn to quacks for a “medical” solution in the form of a pill or medicine.

The quacks will almost certainly give them time, consideration, tea and sympathy along with a “cure” (insert homeopathy, crystals, reiki, tachyon bollox etc).

In a nutshell the quacks probably make them feel good and the “medicine/treatment” rapidly clears up what was not actually a real medical problem in the first place.

This would pretty much account for the anecdotal evidence that quacks can help you and would probably explain why people return to quacks time after time.

So apart from the placebo effect is there not also some sort of “therapeutic effect” at work.

I am sure this has been looked at by proper doctors but as I said above I am a rock basher so not immersed in the medical literature.

It seems a bit narrow of you not to open your mind to my tachyonised energetic ancient life forms imbued with 230 million years of the earths energetic yin (or is that yang – I forget).

(Yours for £25 – I have a sale on.)

Whilst there have been no real trials on my products I can assure you that the anecdotal evidence for their efficaciousness is very sound !! My brother can confirm this for you (He gets half of the wedge). In any case tachyonised energetic bling is not amenable to study.

Maybe politicians need to do to quacks what they have done to that other bunch of fraudulent crooks and bloodsuckers (clairvoyants, mediums etc) and force them into some form of regulation which makes them clearly spell out what they are doing. How many people would walk through the door of a quacks nest if a sign said “The cures available here have no clinically proven basis and may not make your illness better”.

And don’t worry: I have been angry for many many years and still am – about many things!

I wish more people would be angry enough to make more noise (as DC does) about all this quackery, in particular because it so often preys on people’s fears and makes them pay out large sums of money, which they can ill afford and when they are probably not even unwell in the first place. I also see it as part of a wider ethos of ‘anything goes’, where politicians can get away with telling huge untruths…..