4000 Years of Medicine

My idea of a modern Medicineman

A friend of mine posted "4000 Years of Medicine" on Facebook... Though humorous, it holds a kernel of truth.

4000 Years of Medicine

2000 B.C.  -  "Here, eat this root."

1000 A.D.  -  "That root is heathen!  Here, say this prayer."

1865 A.D.  -  "That prayer is superstition!  Here, drink this potion."

1900 A.D.  -  "That potion is snake oil!  Here, swallow this pill."

1950 A.D.  -  "That pill is ineffective!  Here, take this antibiotic."

2000 A.D.  -  "That antibiotic is poison!  Here, eat this root."

We have travelled far and long in our quest for healing-- from primitive superstition to cutting edge science.  But have we really arrived at the pinacle of medicine and healing?  I think most of us would agree that we are just beginning to understand 'real' science and the nature of the Cosmos; to discover the infinite possibilities of our 'Minds' and to investigate the 'spiritual/energetic' dimension of our Universe. 

I believe we still have far to go.  We will only get there if we take the sum of our knowledge and experiences (our collective history) and approach all the possibilites one by one, with appropriate reverence for their individual efficacy.  All personal biases must be put aside, for they only divide, divert and distract all of us from our only real goal as healers-- devising efficient and effective healing modalities for all and every ailment that has and will plague humanity.  Let us all cultivate an integrative approach to healing, flexibile and adaptive to anything and everything that works.  After all, is it not wellness, well-being and genuine cure we are all after?  If this is not your primary goal, then you should question your calling as a Healer.  Petty biases and discrimination waste everyone's time, and take their toll on the patients-- the people most desperately in need of healing.

Does anyone already know everything there is to know about medicine (or the nature of the Universe) that he or she can, with certainty, discount everything else outside their current truth as quackery?  Little by little, science is beginning to discover the efficacy of ancient healing modalities.  Soon enough we will also be able to scientifically prove the effectiveness of psychic/faith healing.  So do not dismiss anything offhand, just keep in mind that the idea of an 'atom' or that 'the world was round' was ridiculed just a couple of hundred years ago.

In my opinion, the best way to integrate modalities is for each Healer to pursue the ones they deeply believe in.  Discard (but not discriminate) everything you personally do not have faith in.  Have an open mind and keep learning, by following your natural inclinations and interests.  God will show you where you are needed and what you are capable of.  Plus, as I have already mentioned over and over, God uses a variety of Healers.  No one healer has a monopoly on healing, so be humble enough to recommend other fellow healers when the ailment requires it.   

Einstein's View On Religion

Albert Einstein is one of the greatest thinkers in the history of humanity.  He is generally known for his thoughts on theoretical Physics.  But since Physics is concerned about the nature of  (physical) "reality," its greatest thinkers cannot avoid pondering on metaphysical questions in their quest to seek answers to explain Nature and the Universe.  I think, Einstein's views on Religion and God are just as facinating and as relevant as his thoughts on Space and Time.  Here is a brief excerpt of an article he wrote for the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930.

"The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."

Academic Research On Reincarnation

I recently came across a great article on "Reincarnation" and the possibility that "consciousness" may be independent from the brain.

Dr. Ian Stevenson, a Psychiatrist and the (former) chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, began investigating the possibility of reincarnation in 1961.  He started the Department of Perceptual Studies in 1967 to concentrate on this field of research.  Ian published numerous academic books and articles about his findings.

Dr. Stevenson and his colleages at the Department of Perceptual Studies discovered that memories of past lives were much more common than anyone had ever known before.  Their research has catalogued compelling accounts from all over the world, from subjects whose recollections/stories correlate with factual lives of people who have passed away -- often in continents and countries on the opposite side of the world.

Physics claims that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed.  Medicine People, since the ancient times, have been teaching that "thought is energy."  If both are true, then consciousness is indestructible.  The data gathered from the research being conducted by the Department of Perceptual Studies seems to also be pointing to the possibility that consciousness is independent of the brain (which of course dies with the rest of the body).  In my opinion, this is ground breaking research with far reaching implications for science, religion, medicine and spirituality (consciousness). 

Here is the link to the FULL ARTICLE:

http://noetic.org/noetic/issue-twelve-july/childrens-memories-of-previous-lives/

Divine Healing

"Healing" is a coordinated process between God/the Divine, the healer and the patient.  These three important variables must be present in order for "true healing" to occur.  This is the root of all ancient healing modalities since the dawn of time.  Different religions and belief systems have attributed the cosmic/divine component (God) to whatever diety they currently believe in or to nature, or to Chi (Prana), or to science (medicine).  But the healer (doctor/shaman/medicine man) has always been present to mediate between the patient and the Divine.

Our bodies are actually built to heal itself.  But because we are also made up of Mind, Energy and Soul (aside from our physical body), the complexity of our nature sometimes leads to a breakdown of sorts, which results in disease and sickness.  The root of "disease" afterall, is dis-ease or disharmony in our system.  When a breakdown happens, a third-party expert (detached from the subjective experience of the disease) is generally better equiped to channel and administer the skills required to realign the body to health.

The healer serves as a conduit for the Divine, the cosmic forces or energies needed for the healing to happen.  While there are people who can actually heal themselves (Yogis, Masters), most people are not yet in that stage of development where they can regulate their own spiritual, mental and soul bodies -- It is like performing surgery on your own body (difficult but certainly possible).  It is also the reason why no one healer can cure all diseases.  We are still in an evolutionary stage where we still need one another.

Each healer has a specialty.  Medical doctors specialize on the physical, psychiatrist and therapists treat the mind, priest/rabbis/monks deal with the soul, while shamans and energy practitioners channel energy.  Traditional healers and medicine people generally specialize in either the mental, soul or energy (spirit) bodies, but many practitioners combine all three, as well as offer traditional massage and herbal therapy to realign the body too.  No one has a monopoly on health.  It is therefore vital that healers cooperate with one another to give the patient the best possible care.  But without exception, the source and drive of all healing comes from the Divine (God) -- the deepest part of ourselves inside and out, where our "being" and the Cosmos unite.

We are truely one with God.  But our physicality deceives our minds and makes us believe that we are limited and localized within our bodies.  God surrounds us and permeates every cell in our bodies.  God is Chi, God is Prana, God is all science, God is the Cosmic Mind.  These things are united as one, with all the known forces in the Universe and beyond.  We are more than our bodies, and this reality makes it possible for us to heal.  The only service the healer (no matter what type) does, is to realign us back into unity with the Divine.  The Divine is always present and available to anyone, it is our own nature and distorted perspectives that misaligns our system and causes disease.

Arguing Against Stephen Hawking's Views on God and the Afterlife

I saw this article in Yahoo last Monday and I immediately wanted to comment on it:

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently explained his belief that there is no God and that humans should therefore seek to live the most valuable lives they can while on Earth.

Guardian writer Ian Sample asked Hawking if he feared death in a story published yesterday. This was his response: I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

Hawking's 1988 book  "A Brief History of Time" sold 9 million copies, and in it Hawking referenced God metaphorically as the force that could fully explain the creation of the universe. But in 2010, Hawking told Diane Sawyer that "science will win" in a battle with religion "because it works."

"What could define God [is a conception of divinity] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."

Hawking's latest book, "The Grand Design," challenged Isaac Newton's theory that the solar system could not have been created without God. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going," he writes.

Hawking was diagnosed with the degenerative Lou Gehrig's disease at the age of 21. He lost his power of speech and for decades has talked through an electronic speech synthesizer. The device has allowed him to continue his research and attain a top Cambridge research post, which was previously held by Newton. His most famous theory explains how black holes emit radiation, according to The Guardian.

So if everyone is destined to power-down like computers at the end of their lives, what should humans do to lend meaning to their experience? "We should seek the greatest value of our action," Hawking told the paper.

Unknown to a lot of people, Isaac Newton studied the Bible passionately.  As a matter of fact, he devoted more time to the study of Scripture than to science.  But he was an Arian (believed that God the Father and Jesus the Son did not exist together eternally) theologically and would have been considered a heretic by mainstream Christianity. Yet Newton saw God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Nevertheless he rejected Leibniz's' thesis that God would necessarily make a perfect world which requires no intervention from the creator.  He warned against using the law of Gravity to view the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion.  God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."

Albert Einstein on the other hand, cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures.  Neither does he believe in an Afterlife.  But he agrees with Spinoza's belief in a God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, as opposed to a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of human beings.  According to him the religion of the future will be a cosmic religion.  That it should transcend personal God, as well as avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.

Are Physicists becoming more and more cynical as Science develops? I guess it just goes with that territory.

By design, the discipline of Science operates with the assumption that everything that exist is governed by the laws of nature (the laws that they have so far defined).  For this reason, a scientific minded individual would be less inclined to believe that events can be influenced by a Supernatural Being (or defy logic).

But I believe this to be a limited perspective.  Do we already know everything there is to know?  Have we penetrated all the mysteries of the Universe?  Is logic the limit of all Creation or is it just the limit of our (human) mind?

I am astounded by Stephen Hawking's certainty about God and the Afterlife.  I think it is unbelievably arrogant to come out in public with a statement like that.  I prefer Newton's and Einstein' opinions on religion, since they left some space for "humility."  Einstein was known to have said, "that he does not share the crusading spirit of the atheist, whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth."

I also agree that religion (or Spirituality in my definition) should be more cosmic.  But unlike all of them, I believe in a personal God and I believe, that someday, we will eventually come close to proving this.  We just have to understand that we are more that just atoms, energy and forces, there is also an Intelligence or Mind that determines which particular elements specifically combine with each other to give birth to individually unique entities.  In other words, there is an intelligent order to existence that reflects a sophisticated "Mind," which confounds mere randomness (chance).

I know this, because every spiritually (mystically) inclined person, from the Buddha to your average modern day medicineman, will tell you that God exists simply because they have a personal relationship with the Divine.  He (or She) is within us, as well as without.  God defies logic and encompasses paradox.  God is personal and impersonal at the same time.

If we box God in a humanistic frame... having a physicality of some sort and having a limited mind, we will surely get tangled in a puzzle of our own making.  We should leave God to be God, unknowable, infinite, undefinable.  We are all connected as One.  By looking within ourselves, into that ineffable depth that defies all logic, we will discover a thread that leads back into the center of Creation, that is God.

Einstein said it best, "It is very difficult to elucidate this (cosmic religious) feeling to anyone who is entirely without it. . . The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no god conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it ... In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."  I guess Professor Hawkings is just entirely without it.  I really feel sorry for him.

Welcome

Healers and healing have existed since the dawn of humanity.  Like a "fail-safe" mechanism for humans, the Creator provided us with technicians to help our bodies and minds reboot when it gets glitches.

Shamans or Medicinepeople have been with us since the beginning, venturing into the unknown to guide and protect us, as healers, artists, spiritualist, storytellers and visionaries.  As we embark on the 21st century armed with our latest technology and science, we have to be aware that we still have a lot of questions that remain unanswered and we still need our shamans to boldly lead us into uncharted territory -- only now we refer to our modern day adventurers and explorers as scientist, inventors, engineers, doctors, surgeons, therapists, psychologists, healers, innovators, filmmakers, actors, writers, etc.

I created this blog as a forum where I can toss wild and sometimes irreverent ideas and opinions for anyone to repond to. Because I believe that we are all searching for "Truths" in the end, and that it is basic for all of us to want to evolve and learn as human beings. Let us embark on this sacred journey together with the blessings and love of our Creator.

Welcome.