Russia licenses faith healers

[Denver]

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_11283875

For the past two years, the Federal Health Service has been issuing licenses to practitioners of what it calls "traditional medicine," meaning anything from the use of herbal treatments to the manipulation of "auras."

Not particularly new, but its's interesting that there seems to be a correlation between a government having trouble providing health care to its population, and the promotion of these kinds of "traditional medicine" as a sort of stop-gap. China is another good example.

 

[blutoski]

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_11283875



Not particularly new, but its's interesting that there seems to be a correlation between a government having trouble providing health care to its population, and the promotion of these kinds of "traditional medicine" as a sort of stop-gap. China is another good example.

Absolutely. Combined with the topic of another current thread, that the USSR's socialist progress theme and atheism probably fuelled paranormalism, so there is a legacy of belief in psi as legitemate field of scientific progress.

 

[Uncle Vanya]

Russia is an incredibly superstitious country. My mother, who is Russian, for instance, is an atheist, yet she has some of the craziest superstitions that I've ever seen. One time she lent me 5 dollars for something, when I paid her back, I left it on the kitchen table, later that day I got a histerical call from her telling me that I've basically doomed her to the lowest level of hell because putting cash on a table is somehow bad luck.

One day, when I was leaving her house, I was in my car halfway down the driveway when I realized that I had forgotten something, I drove back to pick it up, when I walked in through the door, my mother nearly had a heart attack. She was convinced that I would get into an accident now, because somehow leaving somewhere then returning was also bad luck.

There is a lot more examples like that, the average person might think she's out of her damn mind, but a lot of her Russian friends are like that. The whole country is ridiculously superstitious, and things like faith healing and homeopathy have taken up a pretty strong holding there because of it. At least that's my take on it.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I'm sure it has more to do with collecting licensing fees than endorsing the process..
Though it does seem to ad some legitimacy to the practice.