A lion crippled with pain encounters a man who finds a large thorn in its paw, and manages to remove it. The lion is forever grateful. The man is acclaimed for his compassion, wisdom and skill.
In all cultures there is awe for the power of healing. In Jesus it was a sign of divinity or at least a crowd-puller to his sermons. The wounded lion, from an Aesop’s fable or the legend of St Jerome, is the archetype of a patient unable to diagnose or treat himself. The treatment—extracting the thorn—is the perfect cure, for in one action the cause and effect of the pain are permanently removed. “If only it could always be like that!”—a wish shared by doctor and patient .
I had a book once about the healing work of Australian Aboriginal shamans. It was written in the Thirties by a white man involved in public health, who noticed that aboriginals throve poorly with Western-trained doctors and well with their own. So he studied the techniques of their healers and published the results.
I wish I still had the book, but I gave it away. I was being treated by someone who practised Shiatsu and I found it helpful. I went back after a year or so for some more, but she had given up Shiatsu, claiming that whilst it helped her patients, their negative energies went into her, and she became sick. She had therefore ceased practising a technique which involved physical contact with patients. Instead, she had started spiritual healing, in which she prayed, and kept her hands at least six inches from the patient’s body. She refused to charge money for this, since any beneficial effect would be due to Spirit and not her own skill. I know she would have gladly accepted a donation, as she was giving her own time, and needed to eat, even if Spirit didn’t. Spirit didn’t do me any good, so I withheld the donation. As a token of appreciation or social awkwardness I gave her that book, so precious to me and probably of no interest to her. It was just like the treatment: we both gave what we held precious, and valued little what we received.
Anyhow, from memory, one thing that the aboriginal healers did was to go into a kind of trance, perhaps with drumming or chanting and burning of herbs. Or perhaps it was the patient and onlookers who went into a trance. The veil of ordinary reality having thus been rent, the healer would extract a few small twigs or pebbles from the patient’s body: the ear, a nostril or whichever limb or organ was giving the problem. Without these “foreign bodies”, the patient felt an instant and long-lasting improvement. I admired the book’s objective style: respectful, free of judgement. It never made direct reference to sleight-of-hand tricks. How much better than giving antibiotics for sore throats, and anti-depressants for general malaise.
It is not my business to take sides. I hold conventional and alternative branches of medicine in equally low regard, but the shaman who pulls metaphorical thorns from the patient’s body is one I would travel miles to consult.
I’ve been looking up the Placebo Effect in Wikipedia. There’s a lot to be said for it, but like any other form of treatment it is open to abuse and misunderstanding. For our investigation to make any sense, we’ll need first to discover a theory of health and illness.
Stay with me! Oh and thanks for the good wishes by the way. I feel a lot better and have some ideas as to why, in these last few weeks, I succumbed to the virus. Succumbing is the operative word, for the critters are omnipresent, surely. How do you kill ’em anyhow?
a wayfarer’s notes 
Glad to see you are feeling somewhat better. I have been in a wee bit of a funk myself lately, but am convinced it is all mental … thus my lack of writing.
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I have times when I prefer the slight of hand to the scientific approach. Especially these days when the practice of medicine, as performed by HMO physicians, is so often badly executed, or shortcut by way of greedy business practices.
I am feeling cynical these last couple of weeks. Not familiar territory for me. Perhaps I am inflicted with a virus of sorts. Not a biological one, but an infectious meme.
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I motivate myself to be healthy, to look and to feel good. It helps.
This gives me a lot of physical presence. That girls can't resist.
In fact I just showed an unsuspecting young women a very simple trick of muscle-control and perfect balance. In my mind I can still see her eyes become big before my very eyes. I fell in love with her.
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Vincent, just what sort of virus did/do you suffer from? Is it what I know of as the flu? Did you not get a shot? 😦 I always get one in November.
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I can do the David Blaine type levitation trick. Mostly it freaks women out.
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Beth, it is for you that this series of posts is written, then! Being convinced it is all mental is a kind of conundrum, for the part that is convinced sounds identical to the part that is being accused. In any case the brain is part of the body. So I would say your funk is 100% physical! More later.
Charles, the first requirement for any doctoring is the kindess with which it is administered. Same with food, which is a good reason why junk food is so bad for us. So what infectious meme is it?
Siegfried, you are making the most of youth. There is an English proverb: “Youth is wasted on the young”. May you prove it wrong, all your life.
Sophia, I nailed my virus to the bench, examined it with a cynical eye, and pronounced it to be influenza of the most vulgar kind.
And where would I obtain a shot? That would require an encounter with the medical profession. Over my dead body!
Yes, the David Blaine levitation trick – the Balducci effect. I did that once in a bookshop to the sales assistant. She was suitably impressed and I walked out quickly to preserve the sense of mystery. It is lovely to shake people out of their ordinary sense of reality. That is what I want to do with words.
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The infectious meme.
Next week I will be invited to join the fray of citizens and perform my duty in voting for a presidential candidate in the primaries.
This has forced me to confront my frustration with the nature of our representative government, it's current condition, and the resulting impact on our nation.
While this responsibility is not on my shoulders alone, it does represent my opportunity, such as it is, to voice my opinion, in a concrete way.
In addition, we have been embroiled in a local debate over the fate of a shopping complex that is just across the street from my home. That is a tale for a post of my own.
Add it up, and the resulting infection has me in it's grip.
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And to continue my comment from the HQ1, it has nothing to do with belief, just in case, cause I know how you are Vincent, about beliefs…no, not belief, ATTITUDE, and this is what is always missing, culture, society, medicine, all contribute to a less-than attitude, so you are less than the body and systems, no wonder we get attacked, time to stand up and take back what is ours, know your place, I ain't joking, ask Siegfried, this is like what he said, again.
But you have to realize who you are and get above them, them being the bugs and angelics inhabiting you, your property, order it around, stop cleaning up after it.
However, since we are so backward due to our time in space, we have much catching up to do, that is he hard part, all I can tell you is start practising, I know you have the attitude every other way Vincent, lol!
Get Well Vincent, stop screwing around!
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“A physician's job is to entertain the patient while he heals himself” I'm not sure where I heard this.
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Among other things, lol.
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Charles, thanks for explanation, that kind of infection will approach anyone and some will have acquired immunity. I think it is always best to be part of our neighbourhood and society at large, bending like a reed in the wind and not a brittle thing which might snap.
Brad4d, that is a lovely quote, and a profound one too. It characterises the now perhaps out-of-fashion “bedside manner” which leaves the patient feeling strangely invigorated. That has happened to me so many times. It is when the patient drops his burden – the burden of self-healing, whilst he clings to the reassurance of the doctor / healer. For the self-healing takes place without conscious control.
Jim, I do agree with you too, in that we can do something by an act of will. But . . . there is more I could say, but I won't. I shall pull back from generalities, and pull back from advice. The problem with discussing health is that it always ends up in advice, and generalities; even when we intend to address specifics and help one another in a given situation. So thanks, I feel your goodwill and kindness.
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I've refrained much from commenting because I find myself right now in a place of merely experiencing the physical in ways that require my full attention to it; therefore leaving me somewhat incapable of pondering much deeper than the very basic level of “I hurt”. It reminds me somewhat of Maslow's hierarchy, and if I apply that hierarchy to pain levels, I simply feel incapable of moving past the first rung of the ladder so to speak, stuck just in the experience of hurting.
So instead I just drop by to say hello to you, Vincent, and to say that I too am glad you are feeling better, and wish you a speedy return to full fitness and health!
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Joanne, I look forward to better news from you soon, and pray for it. There are so many things I don't believe in, but prayer has my complete trust. May you be free of this pointless pain!
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