The history of alternative medicines is fascinating Quite interesting how these weird systems of thought came to be 1/n
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Seeing them side-by-side it's always quite striking how many of the major alternative medicines came from the same school of (flawed) thought at the end of the 1800s 10/n
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Reiki is another interesting one - much more influenced by the traditional Japanese systems of thought, it was invented by Mikao Usui in the late 1800spic.twitter.com/nMxLOXiBmi
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Similar to the above examples, he believed that an unmeasurable force controlled all of human health ("qi" or "chi") He went a step further and argued that you could influence this force in other people by passing your hands over them
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In many ways, this is just a natural progression. Once you've accepted the existence of an invisible, unmeasurable, unknowable force, the idea that you can manipulate this force somehow makes sense
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Osteopathy is another great one. As I said, it was invented a bit prior to chiropractic by Andrew Taylor Still Similar to Palmer, Still posited the existence of a vital force that drove most of human healthpic.twitter.com/SsGekQ7vlq
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The basic beliefs of osteopathy are basically identical to chiropractic, which is why many people believe that Palmer stole Still's ideas
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Still believed that the body was controlled by a vital force that transcended physicality, and could be manipulated by correcting problems with the musculoskeletal system He thought that any illness could be cured through the body's natural defenses, aided by osteopathy
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Another common theme through all of these systems of thought is that you can cure all disease using them Similarly, they are all pretty much entirely wrong
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End of conversation
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