Not just smoke and feathers!
www.essentiafoundation.org
Dr. Currie argues that framing the effectiveness of shamanic medicine in terms of placebo effects alone does not do justice to the sophistication of shamanic practice. The latter, she maintains, is based on a complex, multi-tiered metaphysics whereby cause and effect relations beyond the visible material world are deliberately exploited by the shaman.
  • Anuttara@leminal.spaceOPEnglish
    2·
    1 month ago

    how’s ur opinion not biased if u don’t know anything about it? aren’t u biased in favor of objectivity?

    • Solumbran@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      30 days ago

      I know enough about various bullshit medicines to recognise the pattern. If they want to break out of it, they’ll have to manage to prove themselves quite strongly before I go trust blindly some magic belief.

      Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

        • Solumbran@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          29 days ago

          I’m talking scientific protocol.

          Furthermore, people saying they feel better isn’t enough.

          Most sect members will say that being a member is amazing, should we all join sects then? What is this absurdity to think that the subjective interpretation of people is what makes a medicine work?

            • Solumbran@lemmy.worldEnglish
              12·
              29 days ago

              I did not deny that they feel better. On the contrary, my point was exactly that they do feel better. And that it doesn’t matter.

              If you have a cancer, and shaman healing makes you feel better, you’ll still die.

              The scientific protocol allows to determine what is the source of the feeling, for example by comparing with placebo.

              Does shaman healing work better than someone doing fake shaman healing rituals? I doubt it, but bring up studies that prove me wrong and I’ll be fine with it, at least to some extent.

                • Solumbran@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  12·
                  28 days ago

                  So you’re not reading what I’m writing, or not understanding it? A trial versus placebo allows you to test whether people feel better because of a practice, or just because they convinced themselves they feel better. If any dude that pretends to be a shaman has the same positive effect as an actual shaman, then shamanism is bullshit. It’s as simple as it gets.

                  The study you linked is basically just a summary of a bunch of papers that contain extremely small sample sizes (one person for most of them), no comparison with placebo, and the conclusion is “our sources are very unreliable, people’s beliefs in shamanism matter heavily for it to work, and overall we can’t be sure that it works, but it could be worth looking into”. It means absolutely nothing at all, if anything, it means that it’s unlikely that shamanism has anymore healing properties than any other magical belief.

                  • Anuttara@leminal.spaceOPEnglish
                    2·
                    28 days ago

                    u asked for studies to prove u wrong & i gave u a 2025 review of 16 papers and now u move the goalposts because u don’t like the results.

                    it’s mental health. if a ritual helps someone with ptsd and literally changes their heart rate and brain waves, it’s working. hrv and gamma waves don’t just ‘convince themselves’ to change. u can’t say it’s ‘nothing’ just because it’s not a pill.