A Guide to Mind, Body, Spirit on Dooyoo (Mind, Body and Spirit Websites in general)

Member Name: zebra

Product:	Mind, Body and Spirit Websites in general
Date:	20/08/02 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A few good sites and opinions

Disadvantages: Badly organised and could do with some more varied and interesting sites

The Mind, Body Spirit area is a minefield. There are an awful, and I chose the description deliberately, lot of sites on the internet with an awful lot of rubbish and many making wild claims about what they will give you if you give them money.

People seeking information on a particular subject might start with a Google search and be offered hundreds of sites. If you don't know anything about the subject you are interested in how can you judge if the site is good or bad? This is where dooyoo should be able to help but does it?

Taking Astrology as an example. People interested in astrology can be divided into two camps: those who are seeking information about astrology and those who want a horoscope or daily stars. I would have expected to find information under Internet>Information>Mind, Body, Spirit websites but what I found was commercial sites selling astrology horoscopes.

Most of the astrology sites which offer 'free' horoscopes give you a bit of a taster and offer more detailed horoscope at a charge. Most of these will be computer generated. Beware of any site that says it doesn't matter if you don't know your actual time of birth (because it does). A professional astrologer will usually and list qualifications and the organisation they are affiliated with. A genuine astrologer is more likely to use their real name and not hide behind a fancy pseudonym.

Although people may have genuine reasons for wanting to remain anonymous on the Internet I might be suspicious of any site which claims to be professional, charges for services and yet hides behind a pseudonym and doesn't have a real contact address. This applies to any type of site not just astrology.

When checking out this type of site I would suggest checking to see if there is an 'about us' section, finding out if it is mainly a commercial site and where it is based. If you were looking for an alternative therapist, for example, a
US site would probably not be much use unless you are prepared to pop over to America to have an aromatherapy massage.

It is also useful to try and establish what type of site it is, for example is it a purely commercial site with the sole aim of selling something? Some commercial sites do offer good quality information and links too so I'm not dismissing them totally. It might be the website of an organisation which provides links and information or it might be the homepages of an 'interested amateur'. The latter are the most difficult to evaluate if you do not know the subject but some of the best sites are kept by amateurs.



Critique of dooyoo's Mind, Body, Spirit websites category.

The mind, body spirit website category is, to put it kindly, quite useless as it stands. The same criticism possibly applies to other categories too.

This category presently has around 30 entries at present. These are listed in alphabetical order by name of website, with the name rarely giving any indication of the type of site. I think it would be far more useful to have sites listed under subject headings. For example, there are five sites which are astrology related but no one can tell that Ivarna.com is the site of a (in my opinion not very professional astrologer) without following the link from dooyoo.

Another criticism is that many of the sites which would be relevant to this section are listed elsewhere. A Feng Shui website can be found under home>Internet>Magazines. Some opinions are listed in more than one category and I think when there is a definite overlap this should be the case. However several of the websites have been dual referenced incorrectly. Generally speaking Mind, Body, Spirit refers to alternative/Complementary holistic health and spirituality etc. But some of the sites listed are far more mainstream health.

My biggest criticism, however, is to the quality of the sites that have bee
n listed. Several of the sites are simply commercial with little or no useful information at all and as dooyoo has this category listed under 'Internet>Information' this is also a problem. Some are of very dubious quality and some are now obsolete or worse. Clicking on dooyoo's official link to imfrust.com took me to an adult chat site with naughty pictures. (I have informed dooyoo by the way).

My review of SpellsandMagic.com damned it as inaccurate and misleading and I suggest that this sort of site shouldn't be on dooyoo. I can understand the argument that it is worthwhile listing if only to condemn it but I would argue why give such a bad site any advertising at all especially as there are hardly any good sites in the category at the moment.

So at the moment I suggest there are only about half a dozen sites in this category worth visiting. If an interested visitor decided to browse this section I'm sure they could easily be put off dooyoo as a source of information.

The following is a categorised list of the websites listed in the category and a brief description. Those I would consider really useful and relevant in the Internet>Information> Mind, Body, Spirit category specifically I have recommended and 'starred'.

Astrology sites:

Astrocenter.com, commercial US site, no information, basic free reports, natal chart $19.95
astrology.com, a subsite of ivillage, does have some reasonable info along with charts for sale natal $14 (US site)
Ivarna.com UK 'professional' astrologer by name of Ivarna selling horoscopes, soul mate charts etc. I will review this soon.
AAhoroscopes - commercial site. I think it is UK based but it charges in dollars $18 for a horoscope. Little info on site and says time of birth doesn?t matter.
Panchang.com commercial Indian astrology system selling book, time planner £39 per year, courses (UK) This site lists loads of approving reviews from
UK sources and I would be interested to read a consumers review of the products on dooyoo.

Alternative/Complementary health:
naturalhealing (UK), a commercial site but one which links to healthypages, info and directories of vast array of alternative therapies and lots of forums. Review to follow.
**** Recommended ****
Whitehorsedreams UK website of Whitehorse of dooyoo fame, dream therapy and analysis, articles on dreams and other subjects, plenty of quality links -****recommended*****

Shops:

Innerbookshop: Online specialist UK mind,body,spirit bookshop new and S/h books Doesn?t have information but books have lots of information.
***** recommended *****

Alternative spirituality:

Mindbodysoul.com - Rather badly organised US site with articles on love, sex astrology, psychic etc typically American style with counsellors to advise for a fee.
Mystic.org I wrote a brief review of this site in the early days but I checked back and found that it had changed quite a bit. It was totally commercial then and I slammed it but now I'm not so sure - I'll have to redo that op some time.
Can't comment at the moment.
SpellsandMagic.com - rather awful amateur site with misinformation on occult subjects (probably US)
Spirit network - mainly relating to spiritualism i.e., mediums, channelling etc US
Spiritonline - US site of 'interested amateur' Cassandra with pieces on religion, Wicca and Magick (the US variety), Shamanism, Buddhism and Islam, and other topics

Miscellaneous

Mind, body and spirit in general has some opinions on other suggested sites.
At the edge - magazine archive interesting well written articles on paranormal, earth mysteries, sacred sites etc. I wrote a 'minimalist' op on the site but that is listed elsewhere books, reading sites I think. *****Recommended*****
NightmareProject - 'interested amateur' site - place to sh
are nightmares and comment on others a bit voyeuristic but well intentioned I think.
Suggestions features a 'condom testing' opinion
Tarot.com - a commercial US site selling computerised readings and reports on tarot, astrology, numerology and I Ching. You are given a few free karma coins to purchase readings to get you interested.


Health sites (might be better under health websites)

Depressionscreening - tells you whether you are depressed and then to see a doctor
Encourageconnection - agoraphobia , anxiety support
Mentalhealthrecovery - self help recovering from depression

Not really mind, body spirit sites at all:

50connect - site for people in their 50s
Brain Day - educational info about the brain
Ivillage.com - women's site
Labyrinth - Christian site advertising labyrinth exhibitions in UK
Thesite.org - student teenage general site
Youareable - site for disabled people and carers

Bad links
Channelhealth.co.uk - broken link
Imfrust - links to adult chat with pictures
Luscher Colour Test - broken link
Mind-body-soul - error 403 page not found

Thus ends my summary of this category but don't despair there are some useful Mind, Body, Spirit opinions on dooyoo but you have to hunt them down.


Mind, Body, Spirit Opinions on dooyoo in General

Because Mind, Body spirit covers such a wide area relevant opinions can be found all over dooyoo.

Opinions on alternative therapies such as acupuncture, crystal healing, meditation, reflexology, Reiki, Shiatsu etc. and natural health products, herbal products, and oils can be found under Lifestyle>Complementary Health. Unfortunately this category is also arranged alphabetically and the therapies and products are all jumbled together. It would help considerably to separate these out.

A few online natural health product shops can be found under shopping>onlineshops>hea
lth shops but there are not many opinions in this category.

Opinions on divination topics like Astrology, Tarot, Runes, Palmistry, I Ching etc. can be found under Lifestyle>Hobbies and Ouija Boards are under Games>Board Games (although I don't think it should be classed as a 'game').

Yoga can be found under sports>Fitness and Exercise Classes and also in Lifestyle>Complementary Health.

Martial Arts under Sports>Other and also Sports>Fitness and Exercise.

Feng Shui is found under House and Home>Decorating and a relevant website under Home>Internet>Magazines.

A few opinions on alternative spirituality websites can be found under Internet>Information>Religion and Belief Sites including The Internet Sacred Text Archive (which has much more than the title suggests), the Witches voice, Paganlink (UK site) and Sacred Space (healing and mediumship).

Books

Apart from the Mind, Body spirit category of books relevant books can be found under several categories. Reference books has a diverse array of relevant titles eg. Encyclopaedia of Aromatherapy, fairies, superstitions, Arthurian legends,
Religion, general (religion and spirituality) and New Age and occult has many relevant books. Magazines>Special Interest has the following Fortean, Horoscope, Destiny, Prediction, Skeptical Enquirer, Pagan Federation (Which is the title of the organisation rather than the magazine, is Pagan Dawn).

Mind, body, spirit covers some very interesting subject areas and it would be wonderful if some of the more informative and preferably British websites could be included in this category.

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