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| Rubbing Meat on a Wart - An Old Wive's Tale First Posted 23/5/04 |
| Rubbing a piece of meat on a wart I found myself working with a born again Christian, He was a nice enough chap and he recounted a event that happened before he discovered Religion. He developed a wart upon his lip which was duly zapped by a doctor, but which then developed into an ugly bunch of small ones which began to spread down his chin. A mate then suggested that he rubs some meat on it, then bury it in the garden. He did not take this advice seriously and the warts got worse, so eventually in desperation he decided to try it. It didn't work ! His mate asked him if he had he buried the meat, which he hadn't, and still desperate he duly did the whole bizarre procedure this time. After a week or so the warts disappeared and never troubled him again, he asked his mate why did he have to bury the meat in the garden and his mate told him that as the meat started to rot away so would the warts. Years later when my workmate was a born again Christian he asked of his pastor what happened, the pastor replied that it was his own faith or belief that cured him, in other words it was the power of the mind (In a spiritual sense) and not a kind of spooky cure or miracle. Now curiously, Science indeed would concur with this but in this case it might possibly see that folk remedies like this might have a basis in chemistry, but what both Religion and Science would be in agreement is that the burying meat business was rubbish. Now the fact that warts will disappear of their own accord focuses the attention of the timing of any seeming cures like this and it wouldn't have taken much effort to test this in laboratory conditions, but Science hasn't. My inital reaction was that I thought there probably was something in the meat that cured him but I was curious about the meat burying business. I didn't believe it had anything with the power of the mind though, because of my workmate's mental attitude at the time. Conventional medicine had failed him and the sense of desperation was kicking in as it started gotting worse. And I would argue that it was the desperation was motivation that made him eventually take his mate's advice. He did not not do it because he was in awe of his mate. I'm aware that you could argue that my christian workmate is a suggestible believer type and that's why it worked, I personally don't buy that, because why didn't it work the first time, when he didn't bury the meat ? Why didn't it work because of faith in the Doctor ? What this little incident demonstrated to me is how both these extremely powerful 'organisations' cannot look certain phenomena squarely in the face. They already have a worldview which determines what is, and what is not likely to be true. And this alternative medical procedure seems to have survived 100's of years and through very dangerous periods when Religion might have viewed this as work of the devil and Science less dangerously ridiculed it as old Old wives tale. So let me give you my tentative explanation of what I think might be going on here, but first of all I must describe two phenomema from the natural world. There is a type of slime mould that behaves like a lot of individual amoeba type creatures but at certain periods gather together to form a structure for reproduction purposes. This living thing is on the borderline of a multi-celled organism as we understand it, I mean is this a multi celled organism or is it a lot of individual cells that gather together for a specific purpose ? And what is doing the organising ? Science would suggest that it is chemical messages that initiates this behaviour and genetic instinct that makes it form the structure, which I won't argue with, but it looks uncomfortably ghostly to the average person. The other observation comes from the fact that returning wasps just die when they find their hive with their queen has been smoked, killing all in the hive. Without their hive, the overall organising principle, they just seem to lose their 'sense of purpose' and die. Now bearing these two observations in mind I'm going to suggest that when the meat is rubbed against the wart some cells of that wart are transferred to the meat. The wart being some kind of parasitic virus thing which integrates with and feeds of other living organisms, and in this case the virus has attached itself to an organism that is rapidly on it's way out and so as the cells become aware that host is dying, this message of doom is shared by the wart virus in both locations via that strange connectedness displayed in the slime mould and then the virus either leaves or dies just like those wasps who gave up due to a 'sense of pointlessness' because the organising principle. the hive, has been taken away. Concerning why the organic thing should be buried underground, well perhaps it speeds up the rotting process and maybe it takes it away from the air where the wart virus may get transferred elsewhere. This meat rubbing and burying procedure looks like a trick to me and is utilising the virus's ethereal collective connectedness to fool it into giving up. I got some verification of this theory only just the other day, when I heard that Janet Street Porter (UK Media Person) had a succesful wart treatment like this, except it was potato used and not meat. For those who might give more weight to a celebrity's experiences, then this might help you believe it has more validity. Porter is no weak gullible type believer person, in fact she's exactly the opposite ! But more importantly what it shows is that it may not be any specific organic stuff you rub on the wart, but the fact the organic stuff rots away that seems to be the key. As I said this is just a tentative explanation but at least it doesn't rely on all the tired old arguments - gullibilty, coincidence, fraud etc. I am applying the Occam's razor principle (Looking for the simplest solution) so beloved of Scientists. It doesn't rely on ignoring factors that don't fit the theory or adding other factor's that weren't present. But what it does suggest, is that at the heart of the natural world is a ghostly connectedness which seems to be the basic glue that holds multi celled organisms like ourselves together, I am not a creationist I'm just, in my own humble way, following on from thinkers like Lyall Watson, Rupert Sheldrake and Arthur Koestler who strived to show that there are 'paranormal' aspects lying at the heart of living things. |
| Harry Potter in the Matrix ? As the latest Harry Potter film hits the UK cinemas this week two thoughts crossed my mind. Why did so many Adults go out and buy these books ? And why do I want to watch the film, despite it's extremely contrived plotting ? Well J K Rowling must epitomise the truth in the statement of being at the right place at the right time. The subject matter is not breaking new ground, this whole area of witches and wixards school has been covered many times before in children's literature and there's no particularly original slant even to that format here, certainly nothing to warrant the fuss that is made about it. It seems obvious to me that Rowling is riding the wave of interest in all things 'paranormal'. A critical mass of people has lost faith in the institutions of our society and so we've had a plethora of stimulating and challenging films serving the needs of the populations imagination. Of which The first Marix film and the Truman show stand out. Harry Potter, however is at the bottom end of the scale, being a basic magical fantasy with a strong element of nostalgia for some mythical time when magic was uncritically believed in, something we are unable to do ourselves. Now I can understand that, but I couldn't quite figure out why I was looking forward to this film coming out, but then I was watching the Matrix Reloaded the other night when I was struck how it reminded me of a Biblical Epic. But then it exudes epic on every level with some new ones like philosophical, conspiratorial etc. And finally in the Matrix Revolutions, it laughably turned into World War 2 epic mode in between all the epic modes ...... EPIC OVERLOAD !!!! Just as in the past, it is the cinematic technology that has enabled us to envision truly massive events and so EPIC is the trend of the day which is the treatment Harry Potter gets. It's filled with a reverential tone for all the characters, the locations, and for every nuance of the slight plot. J K Rowling must be laughing all the way to bank, mind you, this hack writer seems to be falling for her own publicity judging by the ever increasing size of the books. They're turning into epic books ! This is an example of what I call 'If a lot of people something is important, then it becomes IMPORTANT'. And here's how it goes - A lot of disaffected grown ups looking for meaning and mystery in a radically changing world, fulfil that need via their children's interest in the magical fantasy of Harry Potter. They then create a buzz justifying this interest by saying it's the quality of the writing, this then feeds back to their children and a loop is created. The media then gets hold of it which magnifies it and then Bingo ! You have an epic film because it has to be, because the book is an epic. Mind you, I'll be sitting there with the rest, with my coke and chocs trying to suspend my disbelief like the rest. |
| Harry Potter in the the Matrix ? First Posted 31/5/04 |
| The Modern Paranormalist |