Can we have a proper 'woo' topic?

I think that if you are saying everything has to have evidence no matter what it's about otherwise it's a lie or potentially damaging is shutting down debate and shows a lack of ability to apply common sense.

Isn't that the difference between scepticism which is genuine enquiry and the ability to change one's stance and opinion if presented with credible new information and pseudoscepticism which is dogmatic denial of anything outside a narrow paradigm no matter what new information is offered?

From here, truthfall.com/pseudoscepticism/
"A true sceptic objectively enquires and seeks evidence, challenging all sides of the debate, including their own beliefs. Real sceptics are not preoccupied with taking sides, but objectively enquire to seek the truth, no matter where it leads. An admirable pursuit indeed.

Pseudosceptics & Pseudoscepticism
Pseudosceptics on the other hand, have a pre-defined agenda to preserve dogma and to dismiss out of hand any ideas not conforming to the establishment point of view. Essentially this makes them establishment defenders.
Pseudoscepticism or pseudo-scepticism is defined as thinking that claims to be sceptical, but is actually faith-based disbelief. Because real scepticism is a justifiable position, pseudoscepticism may also be defined as making pseudo-scientific arguments in pursuit of a sceptical agenda.
Pseudoscepticism is a general term which encompasses two types of faith-based disbelief: making positive claims that something is wrong or unreal without evidence (positive disbelief), and rejecting sufficient evidence."

There's quite a bit online about pseudoscepticism, perhaps it explains some of the inflexible attitudes displayed here, perhaps not.

Great post Garlic. We should put the woo topic in science and nature so we can try and work out how these things really happen. Neuroscience has come a long way recently, certainly in understanding brain development.

IndigoBarbie you started this one after you admitted charging people for woo and were asked about the ethics yes?

So now you want to people who might disagree with you kept away?

right....

Oh, thank you Dione! :)
I agree, Scouse, it's ... well, silly to use it as an insult.

Garlic Nobody forced or persuaded my friend to use homeopathy for breast cancer. You really couldn't have anything more opposite to that: she was a nurse who had retrained as a homeopath, she researched extensively and made her own decision. Lots of us told her, when that decision was made, that we thought it was the wrong one but it was her decision and nobody elses which she told us all very clearly.

Rather like it was pointed out earlier that MN would be empty if bollocks-posting was not allowed, Boots would be empty if they were only allowed to sell products that are evidence based and clinically proven

I think the point with respect to use of the word delusional is that it epitomises what people perceive as the nastiness targeted at them (you don't agree with me so I am going to refer to you with a term linked with mental illness) It is one thing to say you think somebody is wrong and why or to use the word accurately but quite another to use it in a pejorative way.

Garlic. Thanks for sharing your experiences. You and others on the MH boards help me to increase my understanding of MH issues which has been brilliant wrt my clinical practice and dealing with ExH (bipolar with psychotic episodes).

I too hate the stigmatization of MH issues. They should not be used to insult or demean and I get angry when they are. If I hurt you or caused you offense in any of my posts I apologise. It is not my intention. I am aware that my writing style can be construed as cold and or combatative. Again this is not my intention. Sometimes I try to pretty up my posts a bit, but when I read them back they sound false. I am much better at face to face. I am no Jane Austin.

Thanks, Dione.

I have extensive experience of people experiencing actual delusions. Just the other day I was talking to the lady who can shrink to less than the size of a daisy, which she does on summer evenings so as to talk to the little people that live in her garden In my own late teens - early twenties I had some psychotic episodes, presenting as supernatural/psychic phenomena, and was also pretty keen on LSD until I started getting the spontaneous episodes. I've known a lot of people with probable personality disorders, quite a few with diagnosed schizophrenia and some with extreme bi-polar - plus all the uncommonly-wired people you tend to meet in artistic circles. I would never claim my life has been a sane one!! (is anybody's?)

I get unreasonably upset when people, who are often targeted precisely for their blurry boundaries between imagination and tangible reality, are deluded by others who wish them harm. I also loathe stigmatisation of mental illness; I'd like everyone to realise they all have micro-psychotic episodes all the time, as the brain slips in & out of sleep mode. The human mind is such an incredible thing: we do it a disservice, imo, by attributing its lesser-known talents to outside influences.

Are posters using deluded or delusional to make a diagnosis or as a figure of speech. Because I think it is often used as an expression separately from the actual mental health use.

A bit like if I was to say 'that's depressing'. It doesn't usually, if ever, mean 'that's triggered an episode of depression.

Absolutely not Garlic. You did exactly the right thing in urging those people to get RL help.. I have read some of your posts and admire your strength and honesty.

What I am asking about and challenging is the qualifications and wisdom of diagnosing "delusional" on the Internet. Particularly when it does seem like an insult directed towards people who believe differently to the person who is "kindly" diagnosing it.

Ooh Softly, I'll have one.

Cheers.

Well, Dione, perhaps I shouldn't have encouraged those delusional OPs to call a doctor after all. Maybe I should have left them and their life-threatening conditions to more woo-friendly posters until you came along?

I did the reiki course & attunement to make a client happy. I'll give anyone a treatment if they want, but I promise I am not channelling the universe's healing energy through the power of some silly hand signals. I'm just making them feel better by being with them for an hour. (I don't 'practise' reiki and never have, btw. Was horrified by some of the teacher's claims.)

I agree Dione. It seems ironic that some people want proof for everything yet think they know when someone they've never met is delusional.

Delusions are MH disorders. That is my professional field, am I wrong to ask what qualifications those that you say "kindly" diagnose people have?

Garlic - what do you mean you did it to make a client happy?

If they're advising you to take homeopathic arnica, they're treating you with a placebo (placebos work, remember, but it's cheaper to buy sugar pills and label them 'Medicine'.) If they're advising you to take actual concentrated arnica, they're trying to kill you. Its traditional use is in ointment, not orally!

when people talk about psychic energy what they are referring to is indeed fine tuning of ones mind - No, no they're not. Fine-tuning perceptions is what high-level security experts do, like Gavin de Becker. Psychic energy's an imaginary thing. I should know, I'm a qualified reiki practitioner I did it to make a client happy

Let's all drink I have plenty!

Also I've had hcps advise me to take arnica on several occasions.

I'm not saying Boots is a righteous organisation. Rather that the marketing of echinacea is widely accepted and is arguably not damaging to ones health in the way that urging someone to stop their cancer treatment is.

Also it's my understanding that when people talk about psychic energy what they are referring to is indeed fine tuning of ones mind that enables it to happen or to sense things.

You can these days, lottie :) Researchers are measuring & proving them all the time. It's jolly interesting.

Boots doesn't even pay tax! It's hardly a righteous organisation.

Also can I ask what qualifications those who "kindly" diagnose "delusional" have?

That's rich coming from the arbiter of nasty sideswipes.

Delusional is a proper word with a proper meaning.

True Garlic, but what exactly is a perception? Can you see or touch it? Can you prove it exists?