Cymatic therapy is a scientifically unsupported alternative medicine technique using acoustic waves which was developed in the 1960s by Sir Peter Guy Manners. It is based on the assumption that human cells, organs, and tissues have each a natural resonant frequency which changes when perturbed by illness.

Starting in the sixth century BC, Greek philosopher Pythagoras was the first to use music to heal a person’s body and emotions. During the eighth century, German scientist Ernst Chladni proved that sound does affect matter. Chlandi, the father of acoustics showed that as he drew a bow across the edge of a metal plate covered with sand, the sand moved and formed geometric patterns.

Cymatic therapists apply different audible frequencies and combinations of sound waves which they claim entrain malfunctioning components back to their healthy vibratory state and promote natural healing. The operational principle of cymatic therapy is out of step with mainstream scientific thought, and it is viewed with skepticism by most medical doctors. Relying on this type of treatment alone, and avoiding or delaying conventional medical care, may have serious health consequences.

Cymatic therapy is operationally, historically, and philosophically distinct from the many medical uses of ultrasound and from the more mainstream practice of music therapy.

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.

Yerba buena is a rambling aromatic herb of western North America, ranging from maritime Alaska southwards to Baja California. The plant takes the form of a sprawling, mat-forming perennial, and is especially abundant close to the coast.

The plant’s most common name, the same in English and Spanish, is an alternate form of the Spanish hierba buena (meaning “good herb”). The name was bestowed by pioneer Catholic priests of Alta California as they settled an area where the plant is native. It was so abundant there that its name was also applied to the settler’s town adjacent to Mission San Francisco de Asís.

In 1846, the town of Yerba Buena was seized by the United States during the Mexican-American War, and its name was changed in 1847 to San Francisco, after a nearby mission. Three years later, the name was applied to a nearby rocky island. Today millions of commuters drive through the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island that connects the spans of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.

In general, in most Spanish speaking countries, the term “yerba buena” refers to the particular local species of mint, which varies from region to region. The term has been used to cover a number of aromatic true mints and mint relative. All plants so named have medicinal properties, and some have culinary value as teas or seasonings, as well. Perhaps the most common variation of the plant is spearmint.

In parts of Central America yerba buena often refers to Mentha citrata, a true mint sometimes called “bergamot mint” with a strong citrus-like aroma that is used medicinally and as a cooking herb and tea. In Cuba, yerba buena generally refers to a popular plant also known as large apple mint, foxtail mint, hairy mint, woolly mint or, simply, Cuban mint.

In Puerto Rico a close relative of traditional culinary savory, Satureja viminea, is sometimes used. In Peru the name is sometimes applied to a shrubby aromatic marigold known as huacatay or “black mint”. In this case, despite some similarities of flavor, the herb in question is in the Sunflower family and is quite unrelated to any of the mints or mint-relatives with which it shares a name.

Vitalism is a doctrine which states that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions. Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the energy which some equate with the soul.

It has a long history in medical philosophies. Most traditional healing practices posited that disease was the result of some imbalance in the vital energies which distinguish living from non-living matter. In the Western tradition founded by Hippocrates, these vital forces were associated with the four temperaments and humours. Eastern traditions posited similar forces such as qi and prana. Vitalistic thinking has also been identified in the naive biological theories of children.

The notion that bodily functions are due to a vitalistic principle existing in all living creatures has roots going back at least to ancient Egypt. While vitalist ideas have been commonplace in traditional medicine, attempts to construct workable scientific models date from the 1600s, when it was argued that matter existed in two radically different forms, observable by their behavior with regard to heat. These two forms of matter were termed organic and inorganic. Inorganic matter could be melted, but could also be restored to its former condition by removing the heat. Organic compounds disintegrated when heated, transforming into new forms that could not be restored to the original. It was argued that the essential difference between the two forms of matter was the vital force, present only in organic material.

Aided by the development of the microscope in the Netherlands in the early 1600s, the germ theory of disease eventually challenged the role of vitalism in Western medicine. The cellular composition of the organs of human anatomy and the ensuing molecular analysis of the maintenance of life slowly became better understood, reducing the need to explain things in terms of mystical vital forces.

While contemporary conventional medicine has distanced itself from the less reductionistic and more vitalistic approach of traditional medicine, some areas of complementary medicine continue to espouse various forms of vitalistic concept and worldview, such as alternative medical systems or systems of therapy and practice.

The therapies that continue to be most intimately associated with vitalism are bioenergetic medicines in the category of energy therapies. This field may be further divided into bioelectromagnetic medicines and biofield therapies. Compared with bioenergetic medicines, biofield therapies have a stronger identity with vitalism. Examples of biofield therapies include therapeutic touch, Reiki, external qi and chakra healing. Biofield therapies are medical treatments in which the subtle energy field of a patient is manipulated by a biofield practitioner. The subtle energy is held to exist beyond the electromagnetic energy that is produced by the heart and brain.

William Branham was a Christian minister, usually credited with founding the post World War II faith healing movement. Whilst many Pentecostal Christians welcomed his evangelistic and healing ministry, and some even considered him to be a Prophet, a minority have accorded him an even higher status, believing that his ministry and teachings were supernaturally vindicated by God.

In May 1946, Branham reported receiving an angelic visitation, commissioning his worldwide ministry of evangelism and faith healing. His first meetings as a full time evangelist were held in St Louis, Missouri. Professor Allan Anderson of the University of Birmingham, has written that Branham’s sensational healing services, which began in 1946, are well documented and he was the pacesetter for those who followed.

U.S. Congressman William Upshaw, crippled for sixty-six years, publicly proclaimed his miraculous healing in a Branham meeting in a leaflet called I’m Standing on the Promises. William Branham also claimed that God’s miraculous intervention healed King George VI of England through his prayers.

Church ministers working with Branham in his meetings testified that he was able to reveal the thoughts, experiences, and needs of individuals who came to the platform for prayer. Branham claimed that this knowledge, which he called discernment, was given to him through visions.

On the night of January 24, 1950, an unusual photograph was taken during a speaking engagement in the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas. A photograph, the only one of its film roll that developed, shows an apparent halo of light appearing above Branham’s head. A copy is held in the Library of Congress photograph collection.

William Branham preached thousands of sermons, of which almost 1,200 have been recorded and transcribed. His sermons dealt not only with the doctrines that would secure his place in modern religious history, but with staples of Pentecostalism such as personal prophecy. There are some that would even go as far to say that he was a judgement prophet like Jonah was in bible days.

Branham also went outside traditional Christian theology in his rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity and in his denunciation of the Oneness concept. From the late 1940s to the early 1950s it appears that Branham did not publicly denounce the Trinity in his campaign meetings, however to his congregation in Jeffersonville he was more open regarding his preference to the Oneness position.

Criticism of Branham’s ministry has focused not only on doctrinal differences, but on an assumption that he supported astrology. This is based on his comment that God wrote three Bibles. He said these were the zodiac, the great pyramid and the Holy Bible. He believed the first two predated any written Scripture, and are not for Christians today.

The followers of William Branham tend to distance themselves from controversial exclusiveness and maintain their homes in their communities. There is no headquarters. These churches have no membership or members and have little, if any, organization. Voice of God Recordings, the major distributor of materials related to William Branham’s ministry, currently produce print, audio, and video materials in more than 60 languages and maintain offices in over forty countries.

The largest concentration of Christians following William Branham is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is estimated that there are up to 2,000,000 followers. There are numerous churches following William Branham’s message in the United States and around the world. Branham’s followers should not be viewed as entirely monolithic as beliefs and interpretations of Branham’s teachings vary somewhat between groups.

Chartreuse is a color halfway between yellow and green. It is the most visible color to the human eye because it sits directly in the middle of the frequencies of visible light. Chartreuse is sometimes used for tennis balls to make them easier to see when playing tennis.

It is named because of its resemblance to the green color of one of the French liqueurs called Green Chartreuse. The liqueur is composed of distilled alcohol flavored with 130 herbal extracts, named after the Grande Chartreuse monastery where it was formerly produced, located in the Chartreuse Mountains. Today, it is produced in a factory in the nearby town of Voiron under the supervision of monks from the monastery.

Chartreuse has a very strong characteristic flavor. It is very sweet, but turns both spicy and pungent. Its taste varies depending upon the serving temperature. It is often served on ice, but can be added to cocktails or to a mixer. Some mixed drink recipes call for only a few drops of Chartreuse, so assertive is its flavor. Though the flavor is highly complex, anise is easily discernible as one of the ingredients.

The herb hyssop is also one of the most obvious major constituents of the flavor. Only two Chartreuse monks know the identity of the 130 plants, how to blend them and how to distill them into this world famous liqueur. They are also the only ones who know which plants they need to macerate to produce the natural green color. And they alone supervise the slow aging in oak casks.

The recipe was transmitted in 1605 from an alchemical manuscript that contained the recipe for an “elixir of long life”. The recipe eventually reached the religious order’s headquarters at the Grande Chartreuse monastery near Grenoble.

The monks intended their liqueur to be used as medicine. The monks that manufacture the Chartreuse liqueur do not speak. They live an ascetic life dedicated to prayer and contemplation in the French Alps near Grenoble. The monastery of La Grande Chartreuse has been destroyed by fire and rebuilt 11 times since 1084, the last time in 1676.

The two monks at La Grande Chartreuse who are privy to the liqueur’s formula no longer need to spend their days at Voiron distilling. Today’s computer technology allows the pair to oversee the process remotely via television monitors in their cells. This allows the monks more time to follow their vocation, which is prayer and contemplation.

Psych-K stands for Psychological Kinesiology. It is a self-help tool developed by Robert M. Williams in 1988 with the goal of changing beliefs in the subconscious mind. Subconscious beliefs are often the “invisible” cause of self-sabotaging behaviors. The Psych-K program was designed to help people change the way they feel, behave and interact in life.

Most traditional tools such as insight therapy, affirmations, will power, journaling and visualization are limited to the conscious mind. Psych-K focuses on changing subconscious beliefs with the hope of likewise changing behavior, feelings and interpretations in life. This enables the individual to change his state of mind at the first indication of stress.

In Psych-K, kinesiology is used to communicate with the subconscious mind. Specific body postures and movements cause neuron firings in both hemispheres of the brain, creating a state in which change can more readily occur. The creator of the program claims that, using this method, it is possible for subconscious beliefs to be recognized, and a debilitating belief could be replaced with one more desirable.

A unique aspect of Psych-K is that a “permission” step is included to ensure that the changes are in the best interest of the person at that time. Also, there are several verifying steps to catalogue the changes taking place. This is used to satisfy the skepticism of the conscious mind.

Psych-K incorporates Educational Kinesiology, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, acupressure, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, and various psycho-spiritual healing systems. Advanced Psych-K tools are streamlined and efficient, and they are therefore helpful in specific situations like breathing exercises, acupressure points, body postures, and body movements.

Prehistoric medicine is a term used to describe the use of medicine before the invention of writing. Because writing was invented at different times in different places, the term prehistoric medicine encompasses a large number of time periods and dates, and should not be thought of as a set period in time. Prehistoric medicine predates written records and so study of the subject relies heavily on artifacts and skeletons, and on anthropology. Previously uncontacted peoples and certain indigenous peoples who live in a traditional way have been the subject of anthropological studies in order to gain insight into both contemporary and ancient practices.

Prehistoric people believed in both supernatural causes and cures for diseases, beliefs which would continue in part to be used by the Ancient Civilizations. They blamed certain serious or disabling diseases which did not have a rational or obvious cause on the supernatural, such as gods, evil spirits and sorcery. They believed that evil spirits could inhabit the body and cause a person to become ill, and that these spirits could be removed from the body through treatments carried out by a Medicine man.

Prehistoric people used their common sense to understand the causes of many diseases and injuries, but most primarily the latter for which there was usually a clear cause. They did not have to blame injuries on the gods or spirits because they were able to understand how they were caused. If someone was injured by a fall then they realised that the fall must have been the cause. The discovery of a mummified body in the Tyrolean Alps in Northern Italy in 1991 gave rise to the suggestion that prehistoric people may have known more about the causes of disease than was previously thought. In a Lancet study, Dr. Luigi Capasso concluded that the discovery of the fungus suggests that the Iceman was aware of his intestinal parasites and fought them with measured doses of Piptoporus betulinus. Although the person found could not have had a detailed understanding of intestinal parasites, the findings suggest that prehistoric people were willing to accept a practical outlook on disease.

Different diseases and ailments were common in prehistory than are prevalent today. There is evidence that many people suffered from osteoarthritis, probably caused by the lifting of heavy objects which would have been a daily and necessary task in their societies. Things such as cuts, bruises and breakages of bone, without antiseptics, proper facilities or knowledge of germs, would become very serious if infected. There is also evidence of rickets bone deformity and bone wastage which is caused by a lack of Vitamin D.

There is evidence to suggest that many prehistoric peoples, where the climate and resources allowed, were able to set broken or fractured bones using clay. The broken area was covered in clay, which then set hard so that the bone could heal properly without interference. Also, primarily in the Americas, the pincers of certain ant species were used to close up wounds from infection. The ant was held above the wound until it bit it, then its head would be removed but the pincers holding the wound would remain.

Medicine men, witch doctors or shaman, along with the women who cared for the health of their families, would have looked after the health of their tribe, gathering and distributing herbs, performing minor surgical procedures, providing medical advice and supernatural treatments, such as charms, spells and amulets to ward off evil spirits. In Apache society, as would likely have been the case in many others, the medicine men initiated a ceremony over the patient, which was attended by family and friends. It consisted of magic forumlas, prayers and drumming. The medicine man then, from the patient’s recalling of their past and possible offenses against their religion or tribal rules, revealed the nature of the disease and how to treat it.

They were believed by the tribe to be able to contact the gods and use their supernatural powers to cure the patient, and therefore in the process remove the evil spirits. If this method did not work, the spirit was considered too powerful to be driven out of the person. A medicine man would likely have been a central figure in the tribal system, because of the their medical knowledge and because they could seemingly contact the gods. Many prehistoric cave paintings have been discovered showing a medicine man wearing antlers, which seems to agree with this theory. Because they would not have received any formal training in medicine due to the fact there was no way to record medical details, it is likely that any medical knowledge would have been passed down orally.

Because of the nature of the time period  before the invention of writing it is harder for historians to gather strong evidence on matters relating to prehistoric medicine. As there is a lack of written evidence they have turned to other sources such as skeletons and anthropological studies of people nowadays who live a similar nomadic lifestyle, though there are problems with both sources of evidence.

The writings of certain cultures such as the Romans can be used as evidence in discovering how their contemporary prehistoric cultures who had not yet discovered writing practiced medicine. People who live a nomadic existence today have been used as a source of evidence too, but obviously there are distinct differences in the environment in which nomadic people lived. Prehistoric people in Britain for example cannot be effectively compared to aboriginal peoples in Australia, because of the obvious differences in what resources would have been available to each.