Mind Over Matter

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. OSCAR WILDE (1891). The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The scientific paradigm of human brain is that it is an electrochemically powered organ, whose behavior creates diseases, not perceived, but real body disorders. How often have you fallen prey to a cold or headache before taking your Math test? How often has your seven-year old complained of stomach ache if he did not like the food on the table?

Almost 45% of all drug effects are related to what scientists call placebo effects

The power of chanting as practiced in some eastern religions is well established since continuous repetitive chanting releases many chemicals capable of affecting several body function including helping relax. Same holds true of techniques like yoga and meditation.

A few years ago, a news report in the Los Angles Times talked about an "apparent" food poisoning announced on the public address system during a ball game; hundreds of people started throwing up and became ill. Within an hour a correction was announced that there were no signs of food poisoning. Magically, as though, most people started feeling fine to finish enjoying the game. Like mass hypnotism mind seems to know how to exploit our body.

We find that psychologic profiles of a population can be correlated with incidence of cancer, heart disease, hypertension and many other dread ailments. The studies in laboratories also confirm this hypothesis. If certain parts of brain are surgically disturbed in animals, many diseases appear in unusually higher proportion. The immune system of our body, the body's armamentarium to fight off "foreign invaders," seems to be a two-way street to and from our brain. Studies published in conservative medical journals show how patients have been cured of warts and other skin disorders by applying placebo treatment. T-cells, the special blood cells which determine the activity of our immune system, provide the link. The activity of these cells is affected by our emotions and feelings.

Placebo is now recognized as often having as much effect as the treatment. Hypnotism is given credibility. Belief, now it seems, has as much effect on our body as the chemical bullets of the twentieth century. If you believe that performing a ritual with help heal, chances are it will. Suddenly, science has turned around almost 180 degrees; what it scorned a few decades ago, it now accepts as perfectly plausible. Acupuncture was only a few years ago, described as absurd by the Western scientists

Understanding these "bizarre" connections requires appreciation of many serendipitous and often anecdotal discoveries regarding what we call the unified mind-body paradigms. These paradigms are now given credence using the language that scientists understand better. Harvard professor, Richard Bergland writes, "What is significant is that brain secretions can be stimulated or diminished by thoughts, behavior, feelings, and environment." The Institute for the Advancement of Health publishes a journal, Advances, which explores the relationships between brain, mind and the body "trying desperately to connect mind and brain through newly founded sciences emerging from chemistry and physics."

The Samoan system of medicine is one case in point. Accordingly, diseases are caused not by infected organs or chemicals but by a complex interaction of interpersonal hostility, stress and poor diet in addition to any physical or organic causes as we define in our Western system of medicine. Similar disease concepts are found in the ancient systems of medicine in India, Ayurveda and Siddha (600-1000 BC.) and Greco-Arabian (Unani) system developed in the medieval period.

The Institute of Ayurvedic Studies at the Maharishi Mahesh International University in Iowa is doing extensive work on evaluating the old Indian philosophies of treatment. For example, Dr. Howard Chandler and his associates recently reported on the Maharishi Panchakarma program, a system of physiologic purification that utilizes several herbs. In one study on 43 male volunteers, memory, intelligence, psychomotor speed and alertness were significantly increased using this physiotherapeutic approach. The Ayurvedic system is one of the oldest health science. It focuses on the delicate balance between mind, body, environment and behavior. Diseases are caused by an imbalance of these factors. The teachings of Ayurveda go back thousands of years before Christ perhaps as back when the human consciousness began. A basic text on ayurvedic medicine, Ceraka written about 300 AD. states," the life stream carried in its own current its own supporting and protecting wisdom."

Recent investigations in the chemistry of brain now confirm what was already told around 50 BC. in Huangdi Neijing, The Yellow Emperor's Inner Book, which described health as a constantly changing system of interactions between body cells and the universe; illnesses occur when a balance is lost between yang and yin. Dominance of yin causes "cold diseases" of deficiency, excess of yang ensues in diseases of "overfullness," the "hot diseases." From prehistoric times, diseases have been considered caused by evil spirits and due to victim's willingness to become ill through negative influences. More than 10,000 years ago, exorcism was frequently used to rid the evil spirits from the body to restore health. Diseases were seen caused from inside the body and not from outside-due to imbalances in the forces in the body.

During the Sumerian-Babylonian-Assyrian civilization which lasted for two thousand years starting 2500 BC., it was a common practice to perform a required critical self-examination of patient, searching for internal causes of disease. The Hebrew culture considered disease as punishment for disobeying or contradicting God's laws. The ancient Greeks were well aware of mind controlling body. According to Socrates, "as it is not proper to cure the eyes without the head, nor the head without the body, so neither is it proper to cure the body without the soul." Patients in old Greek time would isolate themselves to temples to meditate and seek private spirit to healing through reunification of soul and the afflicted body.

Our understanding of how mind controls body has been changing since man started to think. The mind or soul for long was considered an integral part of our body. We are finding out now that it is for real-scientific paradigms aside.

The long duel of philosophers whether mind wins the matter or otherwise will never be resolved but we do know that mind controls matter as along as it is related to it. There is no truth to mind altering the physical world not directly attached to it. It may often feel so because mind likes to deceive. There is no metaphysical connection between mind and the rest of the world. It's only the world inside our body that mind seems to have a knack of manipulating.