Alternative Medicine or Magical Healing

This book traces the separate and interlacing paths of magic, religion, and medicine through the centuries as they relate to healing. Most books on alternative medicine are enthusiastic and uncritically supportive. They simply, naively, accept the claims of holistic practitioners at face value without judging their scientific value. Other writers are disparaging and openly critical of the whole field of holistic medicine.

Alternative Medicine or Magical Healing attempts to give a balanced picture of the New Age healing movement, and is on the lookout for supportive data in the great bulk of relevant material. Which treatments should be approached with caution or entirely avoided? Which methods have good supportive studies and might be cautiously accepted as complementary additions to allopathic treatment?