Issue 2 Page 11 Plain Text; Article One

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COFFEEHOUSE CULTURE -- Issue 2

PAGE ELEVEN; FEATURE

DISEASE, DEGRADATION & D'ATH ....THE DOKKER'S ONE-STOP GUIDE

JOIN DOKKER D’ATH AS HE LEADS YOU -- SOMEWHAT RELUCTANTLY BUT IT IS AMAZING WHAT A FEE DOES -- DOWN THE GARDEN PATH, PART OF HIS COMMUNITY SERVICE, AND INTO THE HERB GARDEN (OF HISTORY)

Confused about crystal healing? Qurious about qi gong? Need info on iridology? Don’t know your chakras from your shiatsu? (Here doggy, doggy, doggy.) In a quandry about quackery? Then you’ve come to the right place. Because so are we. But enlightenment is on the way. In our A-Z guide to alternative therapies we take the lid off the medicine chest, open all the drawers and throw away the antibiotics.

THE HEALING POOL

Modern medicine is one of the greatest wonders in the history of the world but man’s fight against disease, degeneration, illness and age goes back to the very beginnings of time. Only now are we coming to appreciate the wealth of knowledge, wisdom and good old commonsense to be found in the ancient therapies

Good health has been one of the prevailing concerns of mankind from its first appearance on the face of this green and gracious globe. Disease, pestilence, degeneration, plague and age -- like the four horsemen of the apocalypse and a friend -- have pursued humanity down the corridors of time with the tea urn of death leaving a trail of tannin-stained bodies in its wake. But, lo, a knight in brighter armour appears on the scene. And whilst he might not vanquish the mighty foe; at least, for a while, his magnificence blinds us to their continued dominance. Thus it was with medicine.
....It is good to remember that alternative therapies used to be mainstream therapies and allopathy was once the painful alternative to the ancient healing skills that had prevailed in the world since time beyond mind. The rise of modern medicine, allopathy, is a thrilling tale of human ingenuity, technological innovation and powerbase building. Its assent to a position of overwhelming power is, however, a rather more sinister story. But where would we be without it?

PLAGUE OF ILL HEALTH

....Except. Somehow despite its brilliance, its quantum leaps in knowledge and skill, the ever-increasing expansion of the scope of its influence, somehow it has failed to bring about the good health that is, after all, supposed to be its raison d’être. As it wages war against the diseases and disorders that have eternally plagued mankind, as its understanding of the nature and causes of illness increases, as technology opens up new areas of the human body for examination, somehow it seems to have missed the whole point of the exercise. In aiming the magic bullet of allopathy at the ancient enemies of longevity and vigour, the wonder of modern medicine seems to have forgotten the whole person. For, as we all know, good health is not about merely ridding the body of an invasive presence, it is about all round healthfulness.
....And therein lies the downfall of allopathy. The lack of an holistic approach leaves modern medicine holding a grail of good health that is empty of the essential elements to make it happen, that can be seen to be the empty vessel that it is.

WELL (AND TRULY) HUNG

....In setting itself up as the saviour of mankind, allopathy has been hung (well and truly) by its own petard. One of the great truisms is that the more one knows the more one realises just how ignorant one is. And as allopathy has shown us the intricate deeply hidden wonders of the human body, as the layers of life that sustain health have been stripped away to reveal the swirling gruel of proteins, protons and other ingredients of the primordial soup from which we are made, it has inadvertently revealed the limitations of an illness-based approach to health. Although it has shown us the pieces of the puzzle, allopathy has failed to fit them together to form a recognisable vision of general good health. As ever the goal of perfect health, of physical well being, of a balanced physiology that precludes illness and offers the prospect of reduced degeneration and longevity, remains an ideal to which modern medicine can only aspire.

FLIMSY NEGLIGEE

....Whilst gene research should eventually answer all of our questions and fit together the pieces of this great puzzle, it is too late for those who have seen through the flimsy negligee covering the varicosed legs of allopathic medicine. For them the wonders of modern medicine have been muted by its glaring deficiencies. The inability of allopathy to treat the social, emotional, metaphysical and spiritual ailments that can be seen to be the precursors of all disease, has been its downfall.
....It is, of course, still a wonder, a breathtaking, awe-inspiring and largely incomprehensible morass of techno speak and jargon. But that is not enough to save it. Nobody in their right mind, of course, would deny the value of allopathic medicine. It is just a question of horses for courses. Allopathic medicine will aim itself at the heart of any illness and cut it, blast it, burn it or frighten it from the body. Non allopathic medicine will have a similar effect but without the drastic measures that allopathy might apply. It will seek to balance the energies and essences of the body and thereby remove the basis for not only the illness being treated but for all other aspects of disease.
....As allopathic medicine rose from its barbershop origins to dominate western consciousness as one of many wonders of the modern age, it managed to push traditional medical practices into a limbo somewhere between sinister quackery and hocus pocus. The practices out of which allopathy had been created, lacking the ‘objective’ scientific approach, fell into disregard and disuse.

BRASH OVER-CONFIDENCE

However, in presenting itself as a panacea for all the world’s ailments, allopathy over-extended itself. With a brash over-confidence it continued to develop drugs (shock horror) and treatments that, though they purged the body of the illness, often had worst effects than the illness itself. It was not hard to see the often devastating effects of some treatments.
....A certain disillusionment had already begun to set in as the sixties started and the world girded its loins for a bit of fun. As the sixties found its feet and stumbled towards its midpoint, the ‘certain disillusionment’ became something stronger. It was, however, only in

IN FROM THE COLD

the backwash of the oft-mentioned (in these pages) burst of increased consciousness that makes the 60s so special that the medical systems that had prevailed for so long before the appearance of allopathy came in from the cold.
....Imbued with a new freedom of spirit and of thought, the world turned its steely eye once again on the discredited hokum of alternative therapies and saw them as not quite so lacking as had been previously thought. Whilst they did, indeed, lack that reassuring element of scientific validation (or something), they did have much to recommend them.

NOT MAGIC BULLET HOLES

....The ‘holistic’ approach of many therapies -- seeking to treat the whole person rather than merely the affliction -- endeared itself to seekers after health in a way that allopathy and its ‘magic bullet’ could never do. As the hitherto almost suppressed information regarding the effectiveness of alternative therapies came to the fore, erstwhile adherents to allopathy raised their eyebrows and marvelled at the wonders of acupuncture, psychic surgery and, even, humour therapy.

EXCESSIVE DRUG USE

....But the time was right. In a kind of backlash to the excessive drug use of the hippie era, society moved towards a new naturalism. Vegetarianism moved from the out field into the main arena. Vegans, and others trying to effect a vegetable death, swung their (non-leather) sandals around their heads as they assumed the role of our eco conscience. At the same time, for many, the loneliness of the long distance runner became a reality. In a twinkling of an eye, natural health became the ‘thing’. Health food shops proliferated, gymnasia became a feature of every main streetand, in their swathe, the natural therapies came into their renaissance. But, again, so much of the natural health phenomenon was a result of that crucial reaction to the bloodthirsty excesses of allopathy.

THE WITCH GUIDE

....Of course, during the dark decades of its exile, alternative medicine was not entirely out in the cold. Certain alternative therapies managed to maintain a position just this side of witchcraft. Homeopathy -- a doctrine that rose to popularity in the early 19th century based on the principle that ‘like cures like’ in which patients are prescribed minute doses of natural substances that would produce the illness being treated -- managed to survive; in England largely from the patronage of those arbiters of good taste, the Royal family. But it was an exception. However, not the only one. Hypnotherapy and osteopathy (chiropractics) also survived, the former primarily as an aid to stopping smoking and the latter to treat the excesses of the physical exercise binge and the rugby field.
....And the rest is not so much history as assimilation. The final factor involved in the rise, fall and rise again of alternative therapies was the media. That fiery double edged sword, that came into its own in the latter third of the last century, exerted its customary powerful influence over world consciousness as TV producers thrashed around in the maelstrom of anthropology seeking subjects for their programmes. In what was one of the first manifestations of Marshall MacLuhan’s ‘global village’, TV opened up the world and its various cultures as never before. It took most of us almost two decades to turn on to the miraculous ineffability of the psychic surgeons but, eventually, we did. But, by then, such ‘wonders’ were not only expected but accepted as grist for the social mill and milieu.
....The assimilation of that change was, as it always is, a long slow uphill climb but as we can clearly see today it has not been in vain. Allopathy has not been deposed and nor will it be . With a will to survive, thrive and, indeed, fortify, it has managed to maintain its position as the super hero of medical practices through a constant process of development and innovation that the alternative therapies could never match. But, horses for courses and all that, there is no longer the conflict between traditional medical practices and allopathy as once there was. Today, in treating illness, alternative therapies almost invariably come into consideration at an early stage and, if all else fails, there is always allopathy and its magic bullet to blast a hole through the ill health.

WELL OILED MACHINE

....There is, of course, a downside to all this freedom of choice. Too much choice and not enough knowledge. In the aftermath of the return of the prodigal therapies, a new climate of open-mindedness and a new(ish) obsession with the body beautiful as the 'well-oiled machine' combined to create a media vacuum that the TV producers just could not wait to fill.
....Talk about overkill. But one can’t really in an article of health. However, that is what it was. Where before there had only been a few trees, over the next twenty years or so a mighty forest grew. In a multi-cultural extravaganza, the West opened its arms to the ancient medical practices of India and China. And what had been merely a swamp of domestic bafflement became an international morass of misinformation and confusion.
....And, demonstrating one of the key principles of the Cosmos, here we are back where we started . . . . lost in a swirling mist of confusion. But help is at hand. The not so good Dokker D’Ath -- the man who thinks that Hippocrates was the inventor of hypocrisy -- will guide us through the alphabet of alternative therapies, giving us the benefit of his somewhat dubious, bought as a bargain lot from an old lady with a cat on her nose, wisdom..

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NEXT PAGE ELEVEN PLAIN TEXT ARTICLE

Page Eleven Articles in Plain Text:
Feature Series -- Quick Quack and Pherapy Phacks
A-Z of Alternative Therapies:
Acupressure -- Giving it the Finger;
Acupuncture -- Feeling a Bit of a Prick;
The Alexander Technique -- The Art of Standing;
Aromatherapy -- Something in the Air