Acupuncture and Acupressure in India

I have just learnt through my 'Linked In' site that the Indian Government does not allow practise of acupuncture, acupressure or reflexology. The sub continent is reckoned to be the country where it all started before it transferred to mainland China about 5000 years ago. So if this information is correct it is absolutely amazing that therapies that are relatively cheap to do and with relatively few side effects cannot be practiced? I am slightly bemused with this information. I often receive emails from practitioners in India who comment on my books and ask specific questions about treating their patients with chakra puncture as well as TCM. I didn't realise that the government didn't allow practise, unless it is doctors (RMP) only. Does anyone else have any information on this?

Reflexology Research

Some positive reflexology research has actually made the popular press this week even though scores of legitimate research does not. It was a three year study by researchers at the university of Stirling that showed the effects of reflexology on the hearts of healthy volunteers. It was  small study but had excellent protocols and results. It will not be world changing but it is to be welcomed. There are many problems with medical research these days. To be shown to be effective it has to be done exactly by the book with very narrow protocols. Until something has been researched correctly it is often stated by the orthodox medical fraternity that such and such an approach is not research based and is therefore not valid. Therefore positive results for whatever complementary therapy has not complied with this narrow structure is deemed to work purely on anecdotal evidence or the dreaded placebo effect.

I have often been accused in the past of not giving a fig for research. This is actually not true - I am just as in favour of it as anyone else. Most research is actually very time consuming and, quite frankly - boring! Why should I comply with someone else's rules when all I want to do is to treat sick people. I know that my methods work without researching them - let others do that if they want to - and a few have!. We all know that pain relief acupuncture has been researched ad nauseum. This only proves one thing - that pain relief acupuncture works. Yippee!!! Ten thousand practitioners and a million patients down the ages didn't need to be told that - they already knew it. What science cannot answer though is why non pain relief acupuncture works - eg those used for well being, emotional, non painful skin conditions etc. And yet it still works!! When will these scientific boffins realise that if something has been practised for hundreds or thousands of years - it obviously works, otherwise it would have died out. Anecdotal evidence on therapies that have existed for millennia is fine by me.

Higgs Boson

One day in the early 1960's when Peter Higgs was out walking in the Scottish Highlands he had a 'eureka' moment. He, and many other physicists of the time, had wondered if the acceptable atomic model of the time was just plain wrong! What was it that caused the other particle to gell? What was it that formed the matrix or the fascia -if you will- of the universe to allow every other type of particle to function in a coherent and 'ordered' way? He formulated that there had to be another particle that was, at the time, impossible to detect with 1960's technology. He was ridiculed by many of  his peers and several articles that he wrote on his hypothesis were refused publication in the scientific journals.

The announcement this week that, at last, physicists believe that this elusive particle had possibly been located has brought huge ramifications to everyone interested in life, the universe and everything. This particle that is infitessimally small is located everywhere! It pervades the whole of the universe, therefore pervades every living organism including you and me. It has been coined the 'God' particle - this is actally a misnoma that is based on the fact that hundreds of physicists had called it the 'goddam' particle that couldn't be isolated. I just wonder though whether that which Peter Higgs dared to suggest to the scientific community in the 1960's had already been shouted from the rooftops by other philosophers down the ages such as Hippocrates, Paracelsus, von Reichenberg, Hanneman to name a few. I believe that what we have always believed to be the universal energy that has its own innate intelligence is exactly what has now been scientifically proved to exist. I believe it to be the 'Field' and the universal ether. I also believe that as scientists carry out further experiments using this new found knowledge, they will finally prove the existence of the energy field that we call prana, chi, ki or whatever other name you want to give to vital force. We are living in wondrous times!!