Mind-Body Healing

 

Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit.

Of these, spirit is primary,

for it connects us to the source of everything,

the eternal field of consciousness.

-    Deepak Chopra

 

     We live at the end of an age where we believe that everything is basically material.  We are beginning to awaken to the fundamental reality of mind.  This awakening is dawning as scientific investigation pushes beyond the sphere of the physical aspect of the universe.  As one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, Niels Bohr, stated in 1922, “Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.”

     That was back in 1922, however, we are still struggling to awaken from the spell of materialism.  It is at the basis of the world-view, the paradigm known as scientific-materialism, and it is hard for some people to release.  We live in what another seminal quantum physicist, John Wheeler, described as “a participatory universe.”  This doesn’t mean that we only participate on the level of physical activity, i.e. “elbow grease.”  It means that our thoughts and emotions, our level of consciousness effects the universe at large. 

     It means that our thoughts and feelings determine the reality that we experience.  There be some fundamental reality-out-there but as conscious, experiential beings we live in a universe of our own experience. We are beginning to awaken from the trance of materialism to discover the inherent power of mind.  Everything that we know, that we perceive, that we trust exists within our minds. 

     The first and foremost way that we can experience this is within our bodies.  We can heal our bodies through our beliefs.  There is measurable, scientific evidence to demonstrate this.  As Joe Dispenza writes in You Are the Placebo, “A wealth of research now exists to show that our attitude does indeed effect out health, including how long we live.”  His book explores the many studies which document the placebo effect, the ability of the mind’s ability to heal the body, as well as the nocebo effect, or the mind’s ability to create illness or even death in the body. 

     I have long thought it suspicious how medicine dismisses the placebo effect.  The fact that someone can overcome disease because they believe they have received a treatment is astounding.  It tells us that the power to heal is within us.  The medical establishment wants us to believe that we need some outer intervention, a pill, shot, surgical procedure or other treatment.  The placebo effect indicates that the power to heal is due to our own beliefs.  The question is where do we put our faith?

     We are conditioned to believe that we need something or someone who is an authority to make us better.  The truth is that there is a powerful pharmaceutical industry that is willing to sell us just about anything for a profit whether it heals or kills us.  It’s not that we should abandon modern medicine but we should wake up to our own healing potential.