Hopi Ear Candling - Removing the Grey Goo Between Your Ears
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Quacks like to tell us that their healing arts are thousands of years old and based on ancient principles that have withstood the test of time. Like most things in their advertising spiel, it is a canard and does not bear any resemblance to the truth. Reiki, Reflexology, Osteopathy and Chiropractic are around a hundred years old. Homeopathy is about 200 years old and even acupuncture as we know it may only be 300 years old. Real ancient healing beliefs, such as a belief in the humours and treatments such as trepaning are strangely absent from the quacks repertoire.Hopi Ear Candling, or thermo-auricular therapy (TAT) as it is known, is a rather strange technique that involves sticking a burning candle in your ear. The mundane reason for doing this is that it can allegedly draw out the nasty wax from your ears. Quacks never like to restrict their techniques to the obvious, so the candle apparently acts on the 'energetic level' and can also detoxify you and treat all sorts of ailments unconnected with your ear.
The main manufacturer of ear candles is a German company called Biosun. Their web site tells us about the Hopi tribe of native Americans and their ancient wisdom. Pictures on their web site show tribe members and ancient murals showing the Hopi sharing candles. The problem is that all this is just made up nonsense. All of it.
Firstly, the Hopi tribe appear to be quite upset that western quacks are appropriating their name. Biosun tell us,
The Hopi, the oldest Pueblo people with great medicinal knowledge and a high degree of spirituality, brought this knowledge to Europe with the professional involvement of BIOSUN.Since 1985 we have been researching the use of Earcandles and re-establishing their popularity.
However, the Hopi have been telling people that ear candling has nothing to do with them. On one ear candling site, we learn,
What of the picture that shows the Hopi using candles (pictured above)?The Hopi Cultural Preservation Office is not aware of Hopi people ever practicing "Ear Candeling." Biosun and Revital Ltd. are misrepresenting the name "Hopi" with their products. This therapy should not be called "Hopi Ear Candeling." The history of Ear Candeling should not refer to being used by the Hopi Tribe. Use of this false information with reference to Hopi should be stopped.We appreciate your efforts to stop this false representation the United Kingdom, and we will inquire as to whether Martin Gashweseoma gave permission for the use of his image for the promotion of ear candles. Thank you for your interest in resolving this situation. If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact Lee Wayne Lomayestewa at the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office.
Thank you again for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma,
Director Hopi Cultural Preservation Office
Biosun say the picture is a "Coloured wall mural in the Hopi Tower, Grand Canyon".
What they fail to mention was that the Hopi Tower was built in 1930 as a gift shop for the Grand canyon, by the American architect Mary Coulter. You can see the mural in context on this page with the complete gift shop mural here. The picture has nothing to do with candles. The items being passed are feathers. One might as well say that the strange object below the Hopi warriors is a set of iPod portable speakers.
So, ear candling looks like it is little more than twenty years old and is just abusing an American tribe to make believe that the stupid practice of sticking a candle in your ear is ancient and justified. But then again, anyone who does go through with this nonsense probably has very little between their ears that could be damaged by such stupidity.
Labels: ear candles, hopi ear candling, quacks
posted by Le Canard Noir at
2:34 PM
17 Comments:
excellent and very funny demolition job. As not too many wooists read your blog, maybe it's worth trying to get this published in a national broadsheet?
Great, another myth bites the dust. I've been aware of medical concern about possible harm from this 'ancient' procedure, e.g. here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,47112,00.html
but not that the Hopi Indians have denied any connection.
I see Ezard Ernst has given an unequivocal verdict:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14979962
That's hilarious, thanks LCN..
That's funny...
We have that here as an old French Canadian custom. Once in a while, a rolled beewax candle is used with a metal "pod" wax recepticle at the base. It is holed, the heat draws out the earwaxe and deposits it into it. Seen this for eons in French Canada. Never heard of the Native American notion.
Cheers.
I would bet you that the deposits in your french canadian ear candle do not come from your ear but from the candle itself. Its the same scam as athe Hopi candle. Test for yourself by burning the candle in a cop or something and look to see if the 'deposits' appear.
"Acupuncture as we know it is less than 300 year old" ....
No, far less than that.
Modern acs use single-use, sterile stainless steel needles. Not available 30 years ago.
"Five element" style acupuncture can't be traced more than 40 years back in time.
"Ear Acupuncture" was invented from scratch in the last 50 years. No two maps of ear points are identical.
I could probably go on, if I could be bothered to research it
I myself have tried burning them from a glass bottle...the deposits, probably the linen material, are huge. It was almost clogged after only a minute of burning.
Great, now I hafta go get one and try...might as well get those lower colon powders that "cleanse the accumulation of worms" while I'm there...Merde!
Cheers (j/k)
Aww! Come one on 100,000+ people a year use ear candles alone in the United kingdom!
They can' all be wrong, though I appreciate ear candles are an 'alternative medicine why not find out more about
Ear Wax Removal Using Ear Candles
Yes, they can all be wrong, and in fact are. Your link was simply to an advert with a ridiculous description of how they supposedly work. The heat will prduce a miniscule lowering in pressure, which cannot draw out the wax because there is no corresponding entrance for cold air to replace the hot and cause a flow to take place - unless you have a perforated eardrum already.
And guess what - the practitioners say you shouldn't use these candles if you have a perforated eardrum!
cowes 2008
You are a fucking shameless advertiser. Even on a web site like this.
i have stumbled upon this page while i am researching hopi ear candles for an essay. i am aware that they definatly do work as i have tested them my self and seen them being used many times what most people are unaware of is the fact that the result for most people is very subtle unlike conventional medicine that has very sudden and dramatic effects. the conventional version of this would be ear syringing which can be a very painful and traumatic experience if these candle are used by people who have a tendency for ear wax build up on a regular basis there should be no need for using such drastic measures as syringing having said that it does annoy me that company's and practitioners feel the need to make there products seem so full of magic and misteek when it would be much more beneficial to them to just explain the science behind them so there would be less grounds for speculation
suzy - I would be very much interested to know what evidence you have that ear candles can indeed clear ear wax. As far as I can see, there is none. There also does not appear to be any science whatsoever behind them.
I am not a great believer in this sort of thing but i do suffer from sinus problems. I had had a headache for about 4 days and in the end thought i might as well give it a go as there was someone local offering the service. It did seem strange and it was not instant but my headache cleared within a couple of hours and over the following 24 hours my ears did feel quite a lot better !! I dont think that they magivcally sucked the wax out of my ears or anything but they certainly seemed to help. Whether this was all placebo effect or not i could not say but i certainly felt better afterwards !! At the end of the day this is surely what should matter and i know i will probably get it done again as i did find it quite relaxing as well.
and that is how alternative medicine makes money out of people.
Not used them myself, but have seen them used to good effect on my father-in-law and seen the ear wax removed. He certainly felt better for the experience. Surely that's good. Not sure about all the mystique around it, the fragrant versions and the price but am fairly convinced that they are a gentle non-invasive way of removing wax.
Then you are obviously easily fooled by simple tricks. The candles themselves deposit a brown residue that looks like earwax. Burn one in an egg cup or something.
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