DarkDruid

I don't know where this would go, but maybe this is the place...

Today, in one of my classes, they had us divided into two groups. Group 1 went and did yoga, group 2 did massage.

In the class, the woman there asked us how many were in good health (by her defination, feeling refreshed, healthy, eta) and two people out of 15 raised their hands, me included.

Eventually, she was telling us about how to give massages. Note that ever since I was six, my mom's had back problems and I've been massaging her up until I got to college, a couple months ago. She says I'm pretty good. Anyway, this woman here starts talking about how you can feel the energy of another person and manipulate their energy field to make them healthier. Her first instruction was to not think but "intuit." This was sort of odd for me, because when I rubbed my mom's back, I would just work at what felt tense...

Anyway, before we started she told us to rub out hands together, and then move them around eachother. Her claim was that we could "feel the energy" and manipulate it. Again, two people said they couldn't feel anything, me included. She said what I thought might've been a biting comment on how I was one of those that was relaxed, but I couldn't tell. Anyway... she said that you should be able to feel something, like a ball, and move it around. Nomatter how hard I tried, I couldn't feel any damn "energy." Sure, I could feel the heat from the friction of my hands, and I could feel my own sense of hand-eye coordination when I moved my hands together, but I couldn't feel any sort of energy radiating from them.

So... is there really something I should have felt, or am I just numb?

Undercurrent

Yes. You should have felt your other hand.

There are a lot of things that you can "sense" if you are told when and where you should be sensing them, by someone whom you think you should believe. That's why, in experiments where humans are the instruments used to measure things, double-blind studies are so important.

m.

Bible Humper

Her kundalini energy was no doubt right there under your hands, but your rigid religious adherence to metaphysical naturalism blinded you to it.

Haven't you discovered the chakras yet? They are the real deal, man.

DarkDruid

What is a double-blind study, anyway?

And yes, the lady there said that massage works even better on animals(!) because they don't have the mental capacity to convince themselves the energy doesn't exist.

:: pulls hair out ::

[ October 15, 2002: Message edited by: DarkDruid ]</p>

Toto

What class is this?

Is this "Therapeutic Touch" by any chance?

When I rub my hands together and then let them separate a little bit, I feel something, but I think it's either static electricity or air currents. When my hands stop moving, I lose the electric feeling and can only feel a bit of body heat.

Undercurrent

It's where neither the person issuing the treatment nor the person receiving the treatment know whether the treatment is real or a placebo. That way the subject beliefs, (and any indication s/he might get from the administerer,) can't possibly affect the result.

The really sad thing is, in physics, energy is just a first integral of the system. "Manipulating the energy of a person" has just as much meaning as "Manipulating the twelve of a dozen eggs".

m.

Seraphim

"So... is there really something I should have felt, or am I just numb? "

forgive my interruption, I just want to add something.

It is not that you are doing anything, but more like you are expecting to do something ... hence forcing yourself to do something your body not wished to do.

When you massage with your mother (my mother is nearly 70 and I massage her back even now), you are not trying to massage, you are trying to ease her pain, in that context, you are not trying to do what you're thinking you want to do, rather than you are just wishing it and allowing your body and mind to work properly.

As for your teacher, she should know better than forcing the student to feel something when their mind is wondering what is it that they should feel. She should tell them the method and practice slowly without forcing them to "try harder and feel".

Basic principle behind this is that you are a living, breathing organism with body that produces energy through food consumption, by concentration, that energy should be able to transfer to another living, breathing organism through touch.

Arrowman

I am a living, breathing organism with a body that produces energy through food consumption, by concentration, that energy should be able to transfer to my laptop through touch and recharge the battery. Strangely, though, it doesn't happen.

Perhaps you should substitute the words "unsubstantiated belief" for "principle". Then your sentence makes sense.

galiel

Actually, we consume energy, which our bodies convert from foodmass we eat. The energy produced is used by our body's various systems to perform work, and some energy is converted back to mass as building materials.

These processes are entirely involuntary and subvolitional and have nothing to do with "concentration".

Other than incidental leakage of leftover byproducts (i.e., waste) from these process, such as heat from the mass conversion process, or exceedingly weak magnetic fields as a result of the electric processes our body's communication systems utilize, we don't "produce" any energy.

The only energy that is potentially transferred by touch in any meaningful sense (i.e., as having any measurable effect on the universe), is heat, and the direction of its flow depends solely on the relative temperature of the two surfaces making contact.

The rest is fiction.

Seraphim

"I am a living, breathing organism with a body that produces energy through food consumption, by concentration, that energy should be able to transfer to my laptop through touch and recharge the battery. Strangely, though, it doesn't happen."

My reply : Is your laptop living, breathing organism as well? Strangely enough, mine isn't and I can't recharge the battery as well.

"Perhaps you should substitute the words "unsubstantiated belief" for "principle". Then your sentence makes sense. "

My reply : The word "Principle" is based on Common Sense when applied the word "Living, breathing organism", any other living breathing organism lack of common sense wouldn't understand this principle and call it unsubstantaited belief. Bottom line, get common sense BEFORE questioning a principle of any kind.