On 1/23/01, Isaac ... < [log in to unmask]> writes:

<< Let me ask you something Mel... Can you explain everything you see, feel 
and
hear? And is that explaination "reliable" for you? Can you explain WHO you
are without venturing out into your name, your job, your hobbies etc.?...

Happy processing, >>

***If you are genuinely interested in some metaphilosophical discussion on 
this topic, please examine books such as "Science and Sanity" (A Korzybski), 
works by Sapire, Whorf, Hayakawa, and other seminal works on the psychology 
and philosophy of consciousness.  

I don't need to explain who or what I am, because the outward expression of 
my persona is context dependent and because I accept that something like 
Gödel's Theorems also operate in the human realm.  When I try to understand 
who I am, then the words "I am that I am" and "Tat Tvam Asi", plus the 
centrality of language in the process, ring very true as starting points 
towards an explanation, if that is even of any consequence.  I am here and 
expressing whatever it is as far as I can with as little harm as possible to 
those around me and my planet, so what more is there to do?

However, the things of which you talk, the external output of my 
consciousness, as a complex proactive and interactive "black box", does give 
insights into the nature of the "Ghost in the Machine", as Arthur Koestler 
described it.   Even the great philosophers and religious masters relied on 
the functional relationship between input and output to describe 
consciousness, behaviour and life, and to come to terms with other people and 
the universe.  This, to keep all of this on topic, is also the essence of all 
therapy.

I am a scientist because I CANNOT explain every phenomenon and noumenon in my 
environment.  If I could explain everything, I would be out of a job!  Your 
questions were very much part of my life while I was completing a MSc in the 
field of brain research, so I am more than  comfortable to chat about it 
until the "cows come home".

Yet, despite your series of digressions and red herrings, I still have failed 
to see you offer any rational analysis of craniosacral therapy.  All that you 
have done is propound generalities and focus on personalities and human 
frailties.  We all understand the limitations of the scientific method and 
the personal attitudes of scientists, but that does not mean that we should 
refrain from judging something which has presented itself as scientifically 
and clinically valid.  We have spelled it out loudly and clearly that 
craniosacral and many other forms of alternative therapy may "work", but we 
have not even seen vaguely acceptable science to validate their claims.  Do 
you actually believe that craniosacral therapy has a proven physiological 
foundation?  If so, please share those missing references which we have been 
seeking for many years. 

In fact, I would go as far as saying that it is the Upledgers of the world 
who often do more disservice to the world of complementary medicine than the 
critical scientists, because they regularly reduce some possibly genuine work 
to an esoteric mockery of what it really could be.  Although they have sold 
their ideas very successfully to achieve fame and fortune, they have done 
nothing to advance the scientific process and the ways in which science could 
assist them in taking their product further.  Marketing success, professional 
organisations and glamorous testimonials by impressionable clients do not a 
science make.  

Their explanations are not more advanced or acceptable than when these 
methods were first practised thousands of years ago by our more primitive 
ancestors.  The entire process is still as shamanistic as it was when various 
forms of touch and manipulative therapy were used in the East and in 
aboriginal societies so many eons ago, so why no advances in understanding 
the underlying mechanisms?  Telling me that I cannot even prove the nature of 
my being does not resolve the issue; even God cannot explain who IT may be, 
so who am I to transcend those heights of superiority?  

Let them be totally honest and admit that they cannot explain, nor has anyone 
ever explained, why what they do SOMETIMES works, but let them not put 
forward pseudoscientific theories as laws.   Why don't the 'craniosacreds' 
simply state that they use various rituals which sometimes create a 
favourable psychological climate whose mechanisms remain unknown, but which 
sometimes resolves certain physical and mental ailments?  What is wrong with 
that?    All mothers know the value of "kissing it better" and lovers know 
the power of gentle touch, so why display some sort of implicit guilt in 
trying to come up with pseudoscientific concepts to explain the well known 
power of touch and the kinesic presence of someone close to your body?  

Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
http://www.egroups.com/group/supertraining