I'm an atheist too and a Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapist who teaches people that rational is always true and exaggeration is always a lie. I also (as an interesting aside!) work in another job at a college in an ‘apparently' haunted house! It's an old 15c Manor House that has had ghost hunters in (I found a file with all the reports?!) and many rational no-nonsense type colleagues have seen things that terrified them. However, apart from hearing someone stomping about late at night whilst all the lights were out, I've not seen anything and often stay on my own after dark, so I'm really quite rational.
I'm also very pro placebo (as a hypnotherapist!) and even over 50% of drug effects from paracetamol etc are placebo. Dr David Hamilton, a previous pharmaceutical scientist's research is fascinating.
No I have not seen the BBC4 prog yet but have some good books on QP. I agree there's no chemical reaction, it's something else...
Many years ago, I had chronic sinusitis and was given antibiotics about 5 times within a year. Nothing would shift it and I googled natural options and something popped up about homeopathic pulsatilla. I then happened across it in Boots and bought it, not thinking in the slightest that it would work. I didn't even know what homeopathy was and thought it would be like a herb and they hadn't helped me. I took it for a couple of days (just in the usual break between ABs that I'd got used to having) and became very unwell and called the emergency doc. They wouldn't come out and so I just pushed through (not thinking it was anything to do with the cheap thing I'd bought from Boots!). Then after a few days the sinusitis vanished and never came back apart from a short episode about 10 years later which I took pulsatilla for again.
I suspect it boosted my immune system in the right direction to finally attack all the dormant staph bacteria, hence the awful rear up of symptoms. I also never take decongestants and temp reducers I'd get a cold as I know now not to fight the immune system but to let it swell you up and heat you up to stop viruses going deeper and causing bacterial infections. Funnily enough, when I did finally go to the homeopath last year she said my constitutional remedy was pulsatilla, however, she was very wrong as I found out through lots of research that it was actually Sulphur. However, some remedies can work on symptoms like the first aid.
Arnica is also amazing and I gave the 30c to my mum when she had a recent knee op and she stopped it when they ran out and then asked me for more as the bruising and swelling had all come back. It's also a great immune booster in general and always brings out a cold in me if I've been suppressing it - so timing can be everything.
Interesting chat and let's hope science starts to become more 3 dimensional so more things like this can be tested.
