Moxibustion is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy using moxa, or mugwort herb. It plays an important role in the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, and Mongolia. Suppliers usually age the mugwort and grind it up to a fluff. Practitioners then burn the fluff or process it further into a stick that resembles a cigar. They can use it indirectly, with acupuncture needles, or sometimes burn it on a patient’s skin.

Practitioners use moxa to warm regions and acupuncture points with the intention of stimulating circulation through the points and inducing a smoother flow of blood and qi. Research has shown that mugwort acts as an emmenagogue, meaning that it stimulates blood-flow in the pelvic area and uterus. It is claimed that moxibustion militates against cold and dampness in the body.

Medical historians believe that moxibustion pre-dated acupuncture, and needling came to supplement moxa after the 2nd century BC. Different schools of acupuncture use moxa in varying degrees. For example a 5-elements acupuncturist will use moxa directly on the skin, whilst a TCM-style practitioner will use rolls of moxa and hold them over the point treated. It can also be burnt atop a fine slice of ginger root to prevent scarring.

Practitioners consider moxibustion to be especially effective in the treatment of chronic problems. Bian Que, one of the most famous doctors of Chinese antiquity and the first specialist in moxibustion, discussed the benefits of moxa over acupuncture in his classic work. He asserted that moxa could add new energy to the body and could treat both excess and deficient conditions. On the other hand, he advised against the use of acupuncture in an already weak patient, on the grounds that needle manipulation would leak too much energy.

In North and South America, indigenous peoples regard mugwort as a sacred plant of divination and spiritual healing. Mugwort amongst other herbs were often bound into smudge sticks. Europeans placed sprigs of mugwort under pillows to provoke dreams, and the herb had associations with the practice of magic in Anglo-Saxon times.

Dreamworking differs from classical dream interpretation in that the aim of dreamwork is to explore the various images and emotions that a dream presents and evokes, while not attempting to come up with a single, unique dream meaning. In this way the dream remains “alive” whereas if it has been assigned a specific meaning, it is “finished”. Dreamworkers take the position that a dream may have a variety of meanings, depending on the levels that are being explored.

A tenet of dreamwork is that each person has his or her own dream language. Any given place, person, object or symbol can differ in its meaning from dreamer to dreamer and also from time to time in the dreamer’s ongoing life situation. Thus someone helping a dreamer get closer to her or his dream through dreamwork adopts an attitude of “not knowing” as far as possible.

When doing dreamwork it is best to wait until all the questions have been asked and the answers carefully listened to before the dreamworker (or dreamworkers if it is done in a group setting) offers any suggestions about what the dream might mean. In fact, it is best if a dreamworker prefaces any interpretation by saying, “if this were my dream, it might mean …”

In this way, dreamers are not obliged to agree with what is said and may use their own judgment in deciding which comments appear valid or provide insight. If the dreamwork is done in a group, there may well be several things that are said by participants that seem valid to the dreamer but it can also happen that nothing does. Appreciation of the validity or insightfulness of a comment from a dreamwork session can come later, sometimes days after the end of the session.

Thought Field Therapy, or TFT, is a fringe psychological treatment developed by an American psychologist, Roger Callahan. Its proponents say that it can heal a variety of mental and physical ailments through specialized tapping with the fingers at meridian points on the upper body and hands. 

Callahan gave his treatment the name Thought Field Therapy because he theorizes that when we think about an experience or thought associated with an emotional problem, we are tuning into a thought field, which he describes as the most fundamental concept in the TFT system and which creates an imaginary, though quite real scaffold, upon which we may erect our explanatory notions.

Perturbations are said to be precisely encoded information contained in the thought field, which become activated whenever a person thinks about a problem. Callahan maintains that these perturbations are the root cause of negative emotions and that each perturbation corresponds to a meridian point on the body. In order to eliminate the emotional upset, Callahan says that a precise sequence of meridian points must be tapped on. He theorizes that tapping unblocks or balances the flow of Qi.

Callahan states that the process can relieve a wide variety of problems including psychological trauma, phobias, anxiety, panic, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addictive urges, and depression, by treating the blockage in the energy flow created by a disturbing thought pattern. He has also said in a 2006 interview on National Public Radio that TFT can successfully treat physical illnesses such as Malaria in as little as 15 minutes. In an article on his website, Callahan has also stated that TFT can successfully prevent heart problems that may lead to sudden death, and that TFT has successfully stopped atrial fibrillation. In 1985, in his first book on TFT, he said that specific phobias could be cured in as little as five minutes.

Callahan also asserts that his most advanced level, Voice Technology (VT) can be performed over the phone using an undisclosed technology. Training for the advanced VT is provided by Callahan. The fee listed on Callahan’s website for this training is $100,000. Trainees must sign a confidentiality agreement not to disclose the trade secret behind VT.

Type physicalism is a theory in philosophy of mind which asserts that mental events are type-identical to the physical events in the brain with which they are correlated. The thesis of type physicalism is that mental event types such as pain are identical with specific physical event types in the brain.

It is also called type identity in order to distinguish it from a similar but distinct theory called the token identity theory. The type-token distinction is easily illustrated by way of example. In the phrase “yellow is yellow is yellow is yellow”, there are only two types of words (“yellow” and “is”) but there are seven tokens (four “yellow” and three “is” tokens).

According to U.T. Place, one of the popularizers of the idea of type-identity in the 1950s and 1960s, the idea of type-identity physicalism originated in the 1930s with the psychologist E. G. Boring and took nearly a quarter of a century to gain acceptance from the philosophical community.

The barrier to the acceptance of any such vision of the mind was that philosophers and logicians had not yet taken a substantial interest in questions of identity and referential identification in general. The dominant epistemology of the logical positivists at that time was phenomenalism, in the guise of the theory of sense data. Indeed Boring himself subscribed to the phenomenalist creed, attempting to reconcile it with an identity theory and this resulted in a reductio ad absurdum of the identity theory, since brain states would have turned out, on this analysis, to be identical to colors, shapes, tones and other sensory experiences.

The revival of interest in the work of Gottlob Frege and his ideas, along with the discrediting of phenomenalism through the influence of Wittgenstein, led to a more tolerant climate toward physicalistic and realist ideas. Logical behaviorism emerged as a serious contender to take the place of the Cartesian “ghost in the machine” and, although not lasting very long as a dominant position on the mind/body problem, its elimination of the whole realm of internal mental events was strongly influential in the formation and acceptance of the thesis of type identity.

Remoras or suckerfish are elongated brown fish that grow to 1–3 feet long. Their distinctive first dorsal fin takes the form of a modified oval sucker-like organ that creates suction and takes a firm hold against the skin of larger marine animals. Remoras sometimes attach to small boats. They swim well on their own, with a sinuous motion.

Some remoras associate primarily with specific host species. Remoras are commonly found attached to sharks, manta rays, whales and turtles. Smaller remoras also fasten onto fish like tuna and swordfish, and some small remoras travel in the mouths or gills of large manta rays, ocean sunfish, swordfish, and sailfish.

The relationship between remoras and their hosts is most often taken to be one of commensalism. The host they attach to for transport gains nothing from the relationship, but also loses little. The remora benefits by using the host as transport and protection and also feeds on materials dropped by the host. For some remora and host pairings the relationship is closer to mutualism, with the remora cleaning bacteria and other parasites from the host.

Some cultures use remoras to catch turtles. A cord or rope is fastened to the remora’s tail, and when a turtle is sighted the fish is released from the boat. It usually heads directly for the turtle and fastens itself to the turtle’s shell, and then both remora and turtle are hauled in. Smaller turtles can be pulled completely into the boat by this method, while larger ones are hauled within harpooning range.

Because of the shape of the jaws, appearance of the sucker, and coloration of the remora, it sometimes appears to be swimming upside down. This probably led to the older common name “reversus”, although this might also derive from the fact that the remora frequently attaches itself to the tops of manta rays or other fish, so that the remora is upside down while attached.

In traditional Chinese culture, qi (or “chi”)  is an active principle forming part of any living thing. It is frequently translated as energy flow, and is often compared to Western notions of vitalism as well as the yogic notion of prana. The literal translation is “air” or “breath”. The earliest way of writing qi consisted of three wavy lines, used to represent one’s breath seen on a cold day.

Theories of traditional Chinese medicine assert that the body has natural patterns of qi that circulate in channels called meridians. Symptoms of various illnesses are often believed to be the product of disrupted, blocked, or unbalanced qi movement  through the body’s meridians, as well as deficiencies or imbalances of qi in the various organs. Traditional Chinese medicine often seeks to relieve these imbalances by adjusting the circulation of qi in the body using a variety of therapeutic techniques. Some of these techniques include herbal medicines, special diets, physical training regimens, massage to clear blockages, and acupuncture.

It has been hypothesized that the alleged therapeutic effects of acupuncture can be explained by endorphin-release, by relaxation or by simple placebo effects. The NIH Consensus Statement on acupuncture in 1997 noted that concepts such as qi “are difficult to reconcile with contemporary biomedical information but continue to play an important role in the evaluation of patients and the formulation of treatment in acupuncture.”

More recent investigations point to connective tissue mechanotransduction, in other words a domino effect caused by the specific twisting and knotting of the fabric of the body. The connections with electric conductivity were studied in the United States in the late 19th Century, and are currently the subject of more active research.

There are many uses of the term “qi” in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, but it’s an imprecise concept of which the best, non-poetic translation is probably “stuff”.

The traditional Chinese art of geomancy, the placement and arrangement of space called feng shui, is based on calculating the balance of qi. The retention or dissipation of qi is believed to affect the health, wealth, energy level, luck and many other aspects of the occupants of the space. Color, shape and the physical location of each item in a space affects the flow of qi by slowing it down, redirecting it or accelerating it, which directly affects the energy level of the occupants. Feng shui is said to be a form of qi divination.

Numerology is any of many systems, traditions or beliefs in a mystical or esoteric relationship between numbers and physical objects or living things.

Numerology and numerological divination were popular among early mathematicians, such as Pythagoras, but are no longer considered part of mathematics and are regarded as pseudomathematics by modern scientists. This is similar to the historical development of astrology out of astronomy, and alchemy from chemistry. Today, numerology is often not associated with numbers, but with the occult, alongside astrology and similar divinatory arts.

The term can also be used for those who, in the view of some observers, place excess faith in numerical patterns, even if those people don’t practice traditional numerology. For example, in his 1997 book Numerology: Or What Pythagoras Wrought, mathematician Underwood Dudley uses the term to discuss practitioners of the Elliott wave principle of stock market analysis.

Many alchemical theories were closely related to numerology. Persian alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan, inventor of many chemical processes still used today, framed his experiments in an elaborate numerology based on the names of substances in the Arabic language.

Scientific theories are sometimes labeled numerology if their primary inspiration appears to be mathematical rather than scientific. This colloquial use of the term is quite common within the scientific community and it is mostly used to dismiss a theory as questionable science.

The best known example of numerology in science involves the coincidental resemblance of certain large numbers that intrigued such eminent men as mathematical physicist Paul Dirac, mathematician Hermann Weyl and astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington. These numerical co-incidences refer to such quantities as the ratio of the age of the universe to the atomic unit of time, the number of electrons in the universe, and the difference in strengths between gravity and the electric force for the electron and proton.

Large number co-incidences continue to fascinate many mathematical physicists. For instance, James G. Gilson has constructed a “Quantum Theory of Gravity” based loosely on Dirac’s large number hypothesis. Wolfgang Pauli was also fascinated by the appearance of certain numbers, including 137, in physics.

Numerology is a popular plot device in fiction. It can range from a casual item for comic effect, such as in an episode titled The Seance of the 1950s TV sitcom I Love Lucy, where Lucy dabbles in numerology, to a central element of the storyline, such as the movie Pi, in which the protagonist meets a numerologist searching for hidden numerical patterns in the Torah.

There are no set definitions for the meaning of specific digits. However, common examples include:

0. Everything or absoluteness. All
1. Individual. Aggressor. Yang.
2. Balance. Union. Receptive. Yin.
3. Communication/interaction. Neutrality.
4. Creation.
5. Action. Restlessness.
6. Reaction/flux. Responsibility.
7. Thought/consciousness.
8. Power/sacrifice.
9. Highest level of change.
10. Rebirth.

Polarity therapy is a synthesis of ancient Eastern and alternative medicine health care ideas, centered on the concept of a human energy field. Using touch, verbal interaction, exercise, nutrition and other methods, practitioners of polarity therapy seek to balance and restore the natural flow of energy which flows from the universe and into the body. The aim is to re-establish balance. In addition to polarity bodywork, specific polarity yoga exercises, positive thinking, and nutritional recommendations enhance vitality.

Practitioners of polarity therapy use a subtle, invisible and intangible energetic system as the substrate for all phenomena. According to proponents, if the energetic flow is corrected and restored to its original design, the form will follow. Further, they claim that blockages in the flow of energy lead to pain and disease, or are experienced as stuck emotions and lack of vitality. They claim that this is similar to the measurable and quantifiable electromagnetic bond between electron and proton that forms atoms.

Polarity therapists work with the complementary or polarized forces, which they describe with the traditional Chinese words yin and yang. Although the concept of polarity implies two forces in opposition, these dualities are said by some to be mediated by a subtle third neutral factor, leading to the idea that phenomena are essentially triune in nature.

They claim expertise in energetic anatomy and work with energetic patterns similar to acupuncture meridians and marma points. The Caduseus, representative of the ida and pingala, is another aspect of the system that is thought to be manipulated during certain types of polarity treatments. Various esoteric energetic patterns are traced on the body, allegedly to integrate consciousness and fully connect various part of the being.

Polarity therapy is often connected with other forms of alternative medicine, such as Oriental medicine, Ayurveda, craniosacral therapy and osteopathy, which all claim to explore the subtle energetic factors in health conditions from their particular cultural viewpoints. Many chiropractic, osteopathic, and cranial manipulations and naturopathic perspectives and techniques are explored.

Research and testing on polarity therapy has been carried out primarily by advocates or practitioners, and most evidence is anecdotal. There is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of the technique or its underlying ideas. Proponents such as Gary Schwartz claim their ideas about a human energy field to be validated by other believers in the paranormal.