wellness is witchcraft: or, why it's hard to get straight answers about alternative health online
wellness is witchcraft: or, why it's hard to get straight answers about alternative health online
"Magic's just science that we don't understand yet." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
I have always thought about health from a very comprehensive, mind/body/spirit perspective. Self-healing and vibrant health is normal and expected, as our default state.
Every bite of food we take in, and every personal choice we make in caring for our bodies, can ultimately be viewed as contributing to our wellness or illness.
Our overall health cannot simply be attributed to any one thing we do, eat, avoid, or participate in.
However - you’ve probably noticed that it’s near-impossible to find plain, clear information about alternative health, diet, and lifestyle on the internet.
I’d like to explain why that is… In a word, money.
The FDA has ultimate sway over “alternative health products” in the US - even up to and including “energy medicine”, it seems!
They insist the only things that can claim to heal, cure, or treat any type of illness or disease are pharmaceutical products.
Apparently, the FDA owns words like ‘anxiety’, ‘depression’, ‘virus’ and ‘common cold’ - and this is why you see natural products being described in such vague terms that you’re pretty sure they do nothing at all.
An herbalist or essential oil company must stay compliant with the FDA to avoid getting shut down, heavily fined, and their products pulled from shelves, so they’ve got to say things like “support” or “may assist” - because to speak clearly would run afoul of the FDA’s exclusive use of common words.
Since the word “anxiety” is classified as a diagnosis, an alt-health practitioner must speak in code - because the FDA makes sure that anything diagnose-able can only be treated by pharmaceutical products, upon threat of legal action!
Even if you think lavender essential oil is useless or homeopathy is a scam - it’s still manipulative bullshit that alt-health companies are so heavily restricted from plain speech, while Coca-Cola and Kraft can advertise freely and heavily (as if their products aren’t extremely damaging to our health).
In this upside-down world, speaking openly about health and nutritional science will get you labeled swiftly as a “disinformation” spreader.
This is especially true on (anti)social media, whose “fact checks” have been proven to be no more than paid opinion-bullying.
But people don’t care that it’s been proven fake.
They still accept the programming.
Worse - people honestly think that perusing the first page of Google (where search results are sorted via clicks, not facts) equates to “doing research”, or they’ll want to argue against my personal, lived experience with something like, “the CDC says…”
So, instead of trying to cite research and collect evidence that few will even bother confirming …
I’ve finally decided it makes more sense to categorize our wellness habits as witchcraft.
So feel free to call me a witch, because our health knowledge must therefore be magic.
Clearly, there’s no other explanation for the many, well-documented experiences that we have had via alternative care practices, diet, and (un)common sense.
Actually, pharmaceuticals are the alternative and new kid on the block. The FDA and big pharma are like the mob, or they are a mob, a cartel with prisons.