Does your profession have an active woo counterpart that publishes its own magazine?

[semillama]

Mine does.

Behold! ANCIENT AMERICAN!

http://www.ancientamerican.com/

"The purpose of Ancient American magazine is to describe the prehistory of the American Continent, regardless of presently fashionable beliefs--- to provide a public forum for certified experts and nonprofessionals alike to freely express their views without fear nor favor.

In sharp contrast to majority academic opinion, its editorial position stands firmly on behalf of evidence for the arrival of overseas visitors to the Americas hundreds and even thousands of years before Columbus--- not only from Europe, but the Near East, Africa, Asia, and the Western Pacific. Each issue presents such otherwise neglected and even suppressed factual evidence demonstrating the lasting impact made on the Americas by Scandinavian Norsemen, Pharaonic Egyptians, Bronze Age Mediterraneans, Semitic Phoenicians, West Africans, Dynastic Chinese, seafaring Polynesians, and many other culture- bearers. All contributed to the birth and development of numerous and sophisticated civilizations which flourished throughout the American Continents in pre-Columbian times.

It is the magazine's purpose to show readers just how, when, and why these once powerful societies arose to great heights of cultural splendor and fell into deep obscurity as dramatic object lessons for our time. No rehash of well-worn theories, Ancient American offers up-to-the-moment news about ongoing discoveries and original perspectives, bringing to light a surprising abundance of fresh material that is seriously challenging entrenched conceptions of our past.

As such, our staff and contributing reporters believe they are writing a New History of our nation by convincingly offering research that, in the coming century, will amount to virtually a total revision of American antiquity. Because of its revolutionary potential, Ancient American, although authoritatively written, is not a scholarly journal. It is a popular science publication specifically aimed at attracting the broadest possible general readership, while refusing to compromise its scientific credibility."

[cosmik debris]

1. Any time I see the phrase "suppressed factual evidence"

The alarms go off, red lights start flashing, and red flags start waving.

It is not always a sign of overt woo, but I usually jump to the conclusion that I am dealing with a paranoid conspiracy nut.

Thanks for warning me about this. I have had a casual interest in Pre Columbian America for years. I've heard a lot of crap I couldn't believe. This might be the source.

[varkam]

2. I'm much the same way

Alarms also go off whenever I see an organization with "truth" in their name or a new law that's named after someone. It's usually bad news.

[Warpy]

11. That phrase certainly pins my bullshit meter

and the years have taught me that my bullshit meter is an accurate one. Nothing trips it like the paranoid rantings of someone who thinks he's being kept in the dark by evil forces and wants to warn the rest of us about it.

Sadly, once in a very great while they're right about something. However, they're usually right about the unanswered questions, not about the answers to those questions.

The problem with studying pre Columbian America is that 90% of it was wiped out by disease within 5 years of first contact whenever first contact happened. Even the history of fairly intact western tribes is a little on the sketchy side since most of their oral historians died when everybody else did, mostly of measles, smallpox and TB, diseases of overcrowding they had absolutely no resistance to. The temptation is to hang the noble savage label on them, when in all likelihood they were neither. What we end up with are pottery shards, arrowheads, and a lot of bullshit trying to fill in gaps that can never be filled in by contemporary people.

[TZ]

3. Welcome to the club!!

Now you can get all sorts of nutty cut n paste references to this woo source which undoubtably will be treated as the "gospel truth" in the archaelogy group. Pretty much everything quoted in health that has "nature" or "organic" is the same kind of thing.
Lol- I love the "authoritatively written...but not a scholoarly journal"..Those evul scholarly journals with their evul facts n things.....

[LeftishBrit]

4. Well - I'm a psychologist - need I say more?!

There are lots of popular magazines which are basically fluff (e.g. Psychologies Today); and some seriously nutty websites. Here's just one example:

http://www.alternative-psychology.com/

The first two sentences are probably sufficient:

'Metaconsciousness is the central theme in the constant symphony of the universe

The purpose of this Web site to set in motion, the discovery of a reality that will awake, a superior consciousness, a metaconsciousness.'

Oh, and have any of you come across psychosynthesis:

http://aap-psychosynthesis.org/resources/articles.htm

[jberryhill]

5. Ours are single issue

The most prominent woo bunch relevant to the US legal profession is the "There is no law requiring you to pay federal income tax" people.

You should check out the publisher of Ancient American:

http://www.flavinscorner.com/collin.htm

Frank Joseph Collin is most often associated in the public mind as the neo-Nazi who threatened in 1977 to march and rally in Skokie, a predominately Jewish suburb of Chicago.

In 1995, Collin showed up at the Princess Mound with a half-dozen women, all wearing long, white, one-hundred percent cotton robes. Collin, who refused without explanation to pay the customary two-dollar admission, wore a "Thor's necklace," and carried a wooden staff embedded with special crystals collected on his research travels over the past several years. The infamous Frank Joseph Collin (the half-Jewish, ex-neo-Nazi, and convicted pederast) is now also a witch.

The Illinois Corrections Department released Collin after three years, a "minimum time served," from his 1980 conviction of sexually molesting young boys. Since 1983 Collin has established himself as a published author, editor, and anti-science proponent. Collin now writes articles on sacred sites and Atlantis for such nationally distributed magazines as Fate and The Ancient American. His publishers know the true identity of Frank Joseph; his readers do not.

[semillama]

8. Nice. I wasn't aware of that.

Yet another grade-A woo asshole.

[dropkickpa]

9. Illinois Nazis

I hate Illinois Nazis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifvia33UpuY

[John Gauger]

6. I'm unemployed.

Is there a woo equivalent of that?

[semillama]

7. I believe that used to be known as "Deadhead" but I don't know what the modern equivalent is. n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. Ravers. n/t

[Warpy]

12. Prevention Magazine was the scourge of the medical profession

I haven't seen a copy in years so I don't know if it's still out there. I do know there has to be at least one rag to take its place because the woo keeps flowing unabated. True believers are the ones who drink wheat grass buzzed in a blender with bottled spring water to cure easily treated, early stage cancers. Woo kills.

There is nothing more fucking evil on the planet than quackery, whether it's religious, medical, or financial. Right now, it seems we're drowning in all three.

[mr blur]

13. Well, I no longer have a paid profession -

but, being disabled, you can imagine the mind-numbing mass of woo/whackjob resurces that confront me.

[Warpy]

14. New Age health Nazis were the worst

You know the type, the ones who think you must want to be sick because you can control everything with your mind. After all, they controlled everything by mental energy, and they didn't have lupus, did they?

I sold health food for years and it's a miracle I didn't end up strangling more than one of that type.

[Warpy]

15. Jeezus, here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xri8CDqriNA

Posted just now in GD. I'm trying not to post a tart response to it.

I really, really hate this bullshit. It always ends up blaming the victim.

[mr blur]

16. "Thoughts send out a magnetic energy"?

Yippee, I'm cured!

Oh wait, no I'm not...

[Warpy]

17. OK, I admit it.

Right after I posted here, I went back and blasted the post. "Mean and spiteful, coated in as much icky sweet sugar as possible," was part of it.

Words hit as hard as a fist, and I know how to throw a punch when I need to.

Knitter4Democracy chimed in. We've been having fun.