The human DNA is a biological Internet and superior in many aspects to the artificial one. The latest Russian scientific research directly or indirectly explains phenomena such as clairvoyance, intuition, spontaneous and remote acts of healing, self healing, affirmation techniques, unusual light/auras around people (namely spiritual masters), mind’s influence on weather patterns and much more.
I was sent a link to this article. It was interesting to read. I guess there is always an element of truth to some things – don’t know how much Truth there is to any of this. But that is why I share it, so we can all think about the possibilities.
Perhaps what I take from it more (less so than trying to scientifically prove the existence of telepathy or such phenomena) is the idea that words can potentially hurt or heal. We can all remember when something someone said hurt us or made us feel better – perhaps this is congruent? I’ve been doing a bit of research recently into the placebo effect in medicine and how researchers are looking into this, so it was kind of synchronicitous to get this article sent to me.
I’ve been thinking about how to answer the question “how does Chinese Medicine work?” if I am ever asked that by clients. So far, I haven’t come up with an answer. Of course, there are lots of theories that have been put forward by practitioners, philosophers, and scientists over the millennia; they all seem reasonable when put to me, even if they all contradict each other – but hardly what I would call satisfactory even for more the purest of believers.
And maybe that’s the thing: I want to believe! Why? Because Chinese Medicine treatments worked for me on every occasion I turned it to it for help, and not necessarily from the same practitioner. Did it have something to do with the practitioner? (On more recent occasions, that practitioner has been myself!) Or was it a placebo-like effect that involved myself believing that I would get better with this treatment?
Again, the answer is an emphatic “I don’t know!”
The more I attempt to find this answer, the more it eludes me. This is also the case even when I apply this inquiry to aspects of Western medical concepts – let’s face it, a lot of disease and dysfunction is described in the text-books as “idiopathic”.
There is a part of me that is comforted by not-knowing. Is that my inherent mystical part of me? Is that because it leaves undiscovered territory, thus feeding the heroic adventurer in me, giving me the opportunity to find and explore something that no-one else has?
I think this last notion is somewhat true, and the fact that this ‘undiscovered country’ seems to lie within me (and not ‘out there’) also feeds my inner mystic. The fact that the final frontier may well be inner space excites and terrifies me at the same time. But it also comforts me to know that so many thinkers, writers, mystics, philosophers, sophists, etc weren’t actually deluding themselves or wasting their time
But my question remains – what role does science play in this exploration? Indeed, can it play any role, given its pre-occupation with physika – the material, physical aspects of existence.
Which is precisely why I have been questioning the role of modern scientific research in validating the existence and practice of Chinese Medicine. How can we even contemplate the traditional scientific methodology to provide us the evidence of something as fundamental and un-quantifiable as Qi? (Itself a fundamental aspect to the entire paradigm of Chinese Medicine). For Qi is not a substance (as it is so often mistakenly referred to as), it describes an effect; and whilst we cannot see Qi we can most definitely perceive its effects.
There is one core principle of modern scientific research which is inconsistent with the fundamental tenet of Daoism which underpins much of the CM paradigm. Much scientific methodology depends on the elimination of variables (often referred to as confounders), and this has led to experiments involving double-blind, placebo-controlled studies (amongst others). The principle being that the experiment is set up in a ‘completely’ controlled environment to study the effects of something (often a substance, i.e. a drug) against another situation (or substance/drug) that is known to have no such effect. The idea being that the results in such studies (as in all studies) should be repeatable, and thus creating validity (and thus also Truth). Basically, if something happens again and again, then this is seen as constant and therefore can be depended on at all times, in all situations.
However, there is only one problem with this world-view, which many scientists now begin to understand; something that the ancient Daoists formed as the principle tenet of their understanding: that the world is constantly changing. The universe is not a static one, and indeed the only thing we can depend upon is that everything is in a dynamic state of flux (some call this entropy).
It’s all well and good to set up an experiment where all the variables are eliminated to test the effectiveness of a drug or treatment; but how often will that environment exist within the normal, natural, every-day world of which we are a part? Our lives do not exist in a vacuum of variability and change. Much of the current research into CM herbs is set up in these ways, where a laboratory animal is artificially given a specific illness (injections of bacteria, viruses, tumour cells, etc), and then an extract of a specific herb is injected into the affected cells to observe if they make a difference. All that such experiments can truly tell us is so narrow, so specific that it cannot hold any real clinical significance to the practitioner of Chinese Medicine. Even worse is that it is rare for a CM herbalist to use a single herb in the treatment of illness, preferring instead the use of formulas: a poly-pharmacy where herbs are synergistically combined to bring about a more holistic therapeutic effect.
yi bing tong zhi, tong bing yi zhi
different disease, same treatment; same disease, different treatment.
This statement exemplifies the paradoxical nature of the CM paradigm, how we understand the body’s functioning, pathologies, and treatment principles. The Western scientific notion of repeatability is inconsistent with this idea, and thus renders what we do as somewhat unquantifiable, according to current scientific methodology.
There is one method of scientific methodology which can help here: the very simple act of observation. If a treatment works, does it matter how it works, or even if it will work again? Perhaps this is where the “science” of the Placebo Effect comes into the discussion. If it is a ‘placebo’ which brings about a therapeutic effect, why should it be dismissed, as it so often is? The Placebo has become the Researcher’s scapegoat, the symbol of the unknown and un-controllable; it is the anti-Science, being to Science as what the Devil is to the Christ in the Judaeo-Christian mythologies.
Drug experiments often discount the effectiveness of a drug because it shows to have a positive therapeutic effect on a minority of cases, and thus is shelved. Why should that 10-40% people who would benefit such a treatment be denied access to it, because it has not been shown to be of benefit to everyone? So too, with the Placebo: perhaps some people would benefit from such treatments, in which case are we not bound to provide them with that treatment, which would show to alleviate pain, stress, or discomfort?
Chinese Medicine as it now stands is the beneficiary of over 2000 years of clinical evidence. This is how we learn to use the tools of Chinese Medicine to help our communities, and how we know what approach to take in any given situation. The CM practitioner has to be highly flexible and adaptive in their approach to each and every patient.
Perhaps it is that we cultivate the situation where the patient engenders their own healing…?
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