Life Oracle Moderate Curse- Do you take a status penalty to healing from potions?

My friend and I are arguing about this, so we're looking for some outside help. The minor curse causes you to take a status penalty to healing equal to half your level. The moderate curse says you are subject to the effects of the minor curse in addition to the effects from the moderate curse. The moderate curse then goes on to say that you can't be healed by magical effects originating from other creatures, except when you are unconscious (when you are instead healed to 1). Then, after all that, it says you are "affected normally by healing elixirs, potions, and other items". My friend says this means that healing elixirs, potions, and other items are not subject to the status penalty to healing, but I think this is just a clarification that those don't count as magical effects originating from another creature. Is there a general consensus here?

Yes, you get a status penalty from ALL healing. The source doesn't matter.

"Effects that restore Hit Points to you take a status penalty equal to half your level (minimum 1) to the number of HP you recover."

The source only matters at Moderate, which can completely block healing from outside non item sources.

Effects that restore Hit Points to you take a status penalty equal to half your level (minimum 1) to the number of HP you recover.

Yup. Applies to everything. Treat Wounds, Battle Medicine, Heal, Potion of Healing, Elixer of Life, Hymn of Healing, Lay on Hands, ...

Generally the rules of specific overrides general, and my argument is a specific statement is made that overrides the general.

The crutch of the matter is this sentience, that is under "Major Curse"
"You are affected normally by healing elixirs, potions, and other items."

Does the word "Normally" in this sentience mean "as if you had the minor curse effect" OR "as if you did NOT have this conditional status effect"?

In my mind "Normal" is default state when you have no conditional effects in play, default rules that apply to every character of any class. Sure, there are things that modify those rules but then you are now using specific rules rather than the normal ones.

You have to jump to the conclusion that "normal" equals "minor curse" when that isn't stated.

Either you assume the ambiguousness is a mistake and take a "rules as intended" approach or assume the placement & phrasing was intentional.

The best argument for the former is to say it this is a clarification, reminding the player that magic items are not creatures and therefore exempt from "you can't be healed by magical effects originating from other creatures" clause but IMO that is kind of obvious and could have been phrased in a much more clear way.

If they had intended it to mean the former, then it's redundant as the rest of the paragraph would have automatically made items behave that way.

Why is this non-rule clarification in the middle of a paragraph, where every other statement is a specific rule that overrides the "normal" rules?
You have to make an assumption that this is not a statement, when the rest of it is treated as such.

Why is a clarification of the rules for "Minor curse" under "Moderate Curse"?
It would make much more sense for it should be sitting in the previous paragraph.
You would have to assume the placement was done by mistake and not an intentional one.

It is also phrased like a standalone statement, that isn't conditional on anything else (beyond the definition of "normally"). You could move that sentience to it's own section and it would 100% work.

I think it is reasonable to take it as an intentional statement that is making a specific modification to the general "Minor Curse" rules within the context of magical items during "Moderate Curse".

Once the curse is activated, the "normal" rules no longer apply and you have to use the curse specific rules instead.

Similarly, when a barbarian rages, you are now using the barbarian rage rules (e.g. can no longer take concentrate actions) for the things specific to that and then the "normal" rules for everything else.

There are so many other ways it could have been phrased that would have made it clear
-"Remember - magic items do not count as an effect from creatures, but they do still take the status penalty from minor curse"
-"Your friends can still feed you magic items but they still till take the status penalty from minor curse"
-"Healing elixirs, potions, and other items count as healing effect, but are NOT magical healing from another creature".
-"You are affected normally by your curse when consuming healing elixirs, potions, and other items"

@macmouse4
I'm not going to comment on everything that was said, as it's a lot, and quite frankly I'm just not interested in going down that rabbit hole of a conversation, but I wanted to comment on the last part:

There are so many other ways it could have been phrased that would have made it clear

-"Remember - magic items do not count as an effect from creatures, but they do still take the status penalty from minor curse"
-"Your friends can still feed you magic items but they still till take the status penalty from minor curse"
-"Healing elixirs, potions, and other items count as healing effect, but are NOT magical healing from another creature".
-"You are affected normally by your curse when consuming healing elixirs, potions, and other items"

There being other ways of saying something that are more clear doesn't mean that the current wording should be interpreted differently, nor does it even mean that the current wording is sub-par. Clarity is not the only thing to be considered. Besides, the whole argument is self defeating, as it could be clearer in either direction.

Ex. #2:
"You are affected normally by healing elixirs, potions, and other items, but you still take the status penalty from your minor curse."

Both are clearer than what was provided. If less clarity disproves one of the two interpretations, then it disproves both of them and the sentence has no meaning.

It's also worth noting that Paizo isn't trying to make their game hard to understand. "Normally" is not a key word, and trying to assign specific meaning to it leads to a lot of ambiguity that I seriously doubt Paizo would leave in intentionally. It's much more reasonable, imo, to conclude that they're just using casual language to say that items aren't affected by your moderate curse. Which, btw, needs to be clarified, as some of them do produce magical effects and it could easily be called into question whether that is "originating from other creatures" or not.

"Normally is not a key word"
This is exactly my point.
It's not defined and AFAIK that word hasn't been used anywhere else.

Generally the game is very specific and uses keywords, that have specific meaning to link effects together but they did not in this case.

Therefore, the word becomes subject to interpretation.

I can kinda see the ambiguity. But I also see 'normally' as meaning how something generally affects your character specifically.

So both of those sentences

However, if you are unconscious, magical effects can restore you to 1 HP (but no higher). You are affected normally by healing elixirs, potions, and other items.

are addendums to the previous sentence

In addition to the effects of your minor curse, you can't be healed by magical effects originating from other creatures.

Yes it is a bit redundant because healing coming from items is not the same as healing coming from a different creature. But it may be confusing for players when a different creature activates a healing item that the Oracle benefits from. So that is the cause of putting in the clarification sentence.

But all of those healing items still affect the Oracle as is normal for that Oracle. Meaning with a status penalty to the amount of healing provided.

At first I read it as a benefit from the Moderate curse over the Minor curse, but I am afraid you people are right. The status penalty to healing still applies.