A man diagnosed with cancer was told by his doctor that nothing more could be done for him.  He was sent to a medical specialist for pain management, and whilst sitting in the waiting room he read these words on the wall:

“Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, — neither in nor of matter, — and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well. Sorrow is turned into joy when the body is controlled by spiritual Life, Truth, and Love. ~ Mary Baker Eddy.”

Sometime later, the doctor found that the man was completely free of the cancer, and asked him what happened.  He answered that it was the passage on the wall of his waiting room that did it.  Here’s the detailed account for your listening, ‘Help is just a thought away’, with Rob Gilbert, CSB.

End-of-life issues
A health crisis deemed terminal, touches deeply when it’s in our own circle.  The Global Mail’s Margaret Rice wrote a heart-wrenching report from her experience.  She asks the reader to consider this: “We’re living longer! But our longer lives mean that more of us will develop dementia and other diseases of old age. If there’s always another possible medical miracle, when do we say it’s OK to let nature take its ultimate course?”  Rice examines people’s thoughts about living longer – a growing discussion – from health professionals to the very elderly in aged care facilities.  The president of the Australian Medical Association comments that people don’t think about the fact that they have a choice, and can opt out of medical interventions.  Society demands a spectrum of choices, and recognizes the need to make informed decisions, including information about legal rights – ‘living wills’ (Advance Health Care Directives) by health professionals and legal rights advocates.  But do we take time to consider our options?  Do we act?

Spiritual Life ~ a giant leap in thinking
Enormous gratitude should go to all the doctors and health service providers, working around the clock to help us.  But even when conventional solutions aren’t apparent, people are finding that they don’t have to give up.  Answers come.  That old saying, “seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you…” rings true today.  I can’t help asking what made that doctor put up a sign in his waiting room, about the body being controlled by spiritual Life – a giant leap in thinking from the general schools of thought.  Maybe it’s not such a giant leap, but rather giving consent to thinking outside the box?

The man who read that passage in the doctor’s office was undoubtedly healed.   How unconventional was that?  There are amazing testimonies from thousands of testifiers over the centuries, from a variety of belief systems, who can attest that spiritual healing is very real.  For whatever reason, these people went beyond “letting nature take its course“.   If we had more information about these cases, might it be possible to conclude that spiritual healing is evidence based, even scientific?

“The writing on the wall” comes in different forms for each of us – the questions are, how and what are we reading (thinking) and believing; and are we willing to search beyond the current schools of thought on healthcare?

Upcoming guest post, Monday 27th Feb: a thought-provoking article on whether miracles can be explained by science.

More documented healings:
My journey from terminal to joyful and healthy
A Rabbi talks about his father being healed from the final stages of cancer

I was moving country, and upon happy farewells, the eldest lady in my class gave me a real lift gift.  She said that her family had commented on how much grace she’d developed, and she felt her overall sense of wellbeing was enhanced.  Her happiness was heartfelt by us both.

Do you remember ‘Callanetics’ in the late 80’s?  It was all the rage in the US, and the UK, where I was living.  The founder, Callan Pinckney, based her exercises on calisthenics – gymnastic exercises to achieve bodily fitness and grace of movement.

I’d wake at the crack of dawn before work, to join Pinckney by video, and then incorporate some of her concepts into my evening ‘Exercise to Music’ classes.  I’d often have over 30 participants, ranging between ages 16 to 80 plus.  I loved the discipline it demanded, and being ballet trained, the mind-body connection in exercise was natural to me.  When I was seven, a kid asked if I could do the splits.  There and then I felt an amazing confidence that if I thought that I could do it, I would.  In slow motion I went all the way down, much to the great excitement and squeals of all the kids!  The splits!  It was almost as hailed as dancing en pointe.  Though I wasn’t able to articulate it at the time, it was a light-bulb moment – experiencing the mind-body connection.  Now, I was teaching others.

During this time, I was also studying Christian Science for my overall health care; learning about our inherent spirituality.  I was fully aware of the qualities we were expressing – grace and control with joy – being developed and used in so many ways for life.

The new-old idea of mindfulness may have been coined in yoga circles – in particular meaning being in the moment.  However spiritual qualities belong to us all, and can be seen in all manner of activities.

We can lift our thoughts and realise the power of thought in relation to health and wellbeing.  So, for me, living the ‘mindfulness’ way is partly thinking before acting, partly living in the moment, and a whole lot of discipline and gratitude.

And many more light-bulb moments follow.

If I was still supping with my friend, I’d be looking for the dessert menu now – perhaps ice-cream, which one tends to eat slowly!

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” ~ Viktor Frankl (1905-1997)

There is a ferocious debate occurring in the health field at the moment in Australia, as the Friends of Science in Medicine lobby group pressures universities to close down complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) degrees (Scientists urge unis to axe alternative medicine courses, Should universities teach alternative medicine? poll, Why universities should teach alternative medicine).

Having listened to interviews with a couple of their champions, as well as those on the opposing side, I see this as an excellent opportunity for the media and public to learn more about CAM. CAM or holistic medicine includes herbal remedies, chiropractics, homeopathy, naturopathy, reflexology, acupuncture, hypnosis, as well as prayer and spirituality. Although they are all defined as CAM, they exhibit very different approaches to healing, while sharing some common features which include: a belief in the interconnectedness of the mind and body; the CAM patient is not viewed simply as an organism but as a person with a special set of circumstances; and, most CAM practitioners emphasize an active role for the patient in the therapeutic relationship, rather than the expert/layperson model of orthodox medicine. (What is complementary and alternative medicine, Michael Weir, Bond University, 2005)

As most health professionals these days espouse patient-focused care, health is no longer the domain of drug-based medicine. Both doctors and patients are voting with their feet and wallet, as around 70% of Australians use alternative therapies. Patient choice is at the heart of societal expectation these days, and universities are reflecting that expectation by providing relevant education in complementary and alternative therapies.

The field of Spirituality and Health is the newest frontier in medicine, with growing representation at universities around the world, including the Spirituality and Healing in Medicine course at the Harvard Medical School, the Research Institute for Spirituality and Health in Switzerland and the Duke Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health. In Australia, there is general acceptance in the medical community of the important role of spirituality in palliative care, as well as its positive effect on mental health. Small pockets of research in this field are springing up around the country.

However, the body of evidence of the effectiveness of spirituality and prayer from global research is surprisingly large.

Dr Larry Dossey, former co-chair of the National Institutes of Health, Alternative Medicine Division in the USA has authored a number of books where he describes three eras that currently dominate research and the practice of medicine, and I include excerpts below:

Era 1, beginning in the 1860s is plain old mechanical medicine which looks at the body and the mind as purely physical and as pursuing the laws of nature.

Era 2, emerged in the 1940s as a different way of thinking about who we are and as people started talking about psycho-somatic diseases. Today it’s called Mind-Body medicine, and suggests that negative thoughts, feelings and beliefs can do bad things to the body. Dossey maintains that a great many people in the alternative health care movement think that Mind-Body medicine is just about as far out and exotic as the new model is going to get.

Era 3, ‘Transpersonal’ or ‘Non-local’ medicine is contingent on the mind to function beyond the person. There is compelling evidence that the mind has some quality which allows it to reach out across space and time to affect the physical course of not only human beings, but also a great many other living things, from bacteria and germinating seeds, to rats and mice.

In an interview with Russell DiCarlo while discussing the scientific evidence supporting the power of healing ‘intention’ or thought, Dossey notes that there is a huge and sometime ‘forgotten’ body of evidence that shows that prayer works.

This begs the question, what is prayer? Dossey comments that “the prevailing notion that prayer is asking for something to a cosmic male parent figure is woefully incomplete. One of the common features of prayerfulness that really makes a difference in the world is empathy, caring, compassion and love. And this has been demonstrated in the laboratory. Love is the felt quality that can change the state of the physical world.”

When asked how he would respond to the materialist who explains away the concept of realms of existence that go beyond the physical, Dossey replied, “… the theories and hypotheses of the materialists work fine as long as you restrict yourself to a certain class of data and ignore other data. There is currently nothing within the field of biological science that can explain distant, non-local, consciousness-related events. This is not just anecdotal, but flows out of science”.

Anecdotally, I can back up the data with personal experiences using prayer in Christian Science for healthcare. Many times I have relied on prayer by a practitioner of this science, and have experienced healings of infertility, influenza, grief, relationship problems, employment, and more, and I can certainly vouch that love and science are integral to healing through prayer. Interestingly, these experiences also fit into the broader category of  Era 3 medicine, as described by Dossey.

So let’s not overlook important data available from research into Era 3 medicine. I look forward to seeing an opening of thought to the possibilities of spirituality and prayer, with an associated increase in clinical research in this field in Australia.  More posts by Kay Stroud.

A “drug-free therapy” helps slow the expected decline of people diagnosed with dementia, a study has found.

The therapy enabled sufferers to maintain “cognitive function” and the ability to carry out normal activities like gardening and preparing a meal, according to researchers from the German University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Those not receiving the therapy deteriorated in both respects.

While urging further investment “to find treatments that could stop the condition”, Dr Marie Janson, of Alzheimer’s Research UK said: “It’s believed that cognitive stimulation can be an effective method of helping people cope with the symptoms of mild to moderate dementia, and this research is a useful reminder that there are non-drug treatments for the condition.”

It is always heartening to hear of anything that can help alleviate the experience of those facing such a harrowing diagnosis and prognosis.

But every “reminder that there are non-drug treatments” for any condition is also “useful” as a thought-provoking signal of the need to keep health care options open in an age when concerned scientists are increasingly noting the downside of the drugs industry.

The British Medical Journal, for instance, has just published data showing drug research is often suppressed in ways that harm patients and increase health care costs.

An editorial by Oxford University’s Richard Lehman and the journal’s editor Elizabeth Loder accompanied the papers. It said “Most clinicians assume that the complex regulatory systems that govern human research ensure that this knowledge is relevant, reliable, and properly disseminated. It generally comes as a shock to clinicians, and certainly to the public, to learn that this is far from the case.”

Reporting this research, a US newspaper shared several distressing examples of the consequences of improperly withheld data. It quoted the lead author of one drug analysis saying 35 of 42 studies about it were unpublished and could only be obtained by a court order requiring the drug’s maker to turn over the data.

This presents crucial ethical concerns, of course, which need solving through better practices.

But such concerns can also nudge people to question the very basis of our growing drug dependency.

A constructive way to frame such questioning is to ask whether a pill – even when effective – actually gets to the root of what really needs attention in times of sickness. Or is there something besides physical malfunctioning which needs to be addressed when we are ill? And, if so, what?

Physician and author Larry Dossey MD suggests more emphasis should be given to consciousness. He recalls being taken by surprise when – as a non-religious, young practitioner of internal medicine – he saw patients whose illnesses “went away” without medical intervention “following prayer”.

He continues: “One patient I encountered during my first year in medical practice had terminal lung cancer for which no treatment was given; members of his church prayed nonstop for him and the cancer totally disappeared. I did not take these cases seriously, however, until the mid-80s, when I discovered the existence of scientific studies, dealing with humans and animals, showing the effects of prayer. After years spent researching this evidence, I became convinced that it is one of the best-kept secrets in medicine.”

Not all prayer is alike and some research has concluded it is ineffective. Studies have even found some Americans, told they were being prayed for, did worse. However, as a Guardian commentator recently pointed out, this was probably evidence of the nocebo effect – the impact of negative beliefs.  In this case those beliefs were the fear caused by learning a condition was serious enough to require prayer.

Such studies will continue and helpful data, pro and con, will accrue.

In the meantime, medicine’s “best-kept secret” is no secret to many individuals with stories to tell of a positive effect experienced when drugs let them down and a more spiritual sense of themselves lifted them back up. For one individual this proved viable even in a case of Alzheimer’s.

Over the course of our lives health challenges can be many and varied. So, too, can be the desired response.

Drugs will not always be everyone’s answer. Therefore it is crucial to keep an open door to “drug-free” therapies.

Traditionally, in the West, February brings an extra reminder to celebrate love… “oh, Valentine!”.  If you are suffering grief, loneliness, anger, disappointment, or something else that’s hurting you, take heart.  Changing these destructive thoughts is possible.  Why is this important?  According to researchers and practitioners, it affects our health.

A headline in The Australian newspaper, “Death of a loved one can truly break a heart”, refers to research in the Journal of the American Heart Association, where grief can cause a risk of heart attack.

The mind-body connection.
This begs the question – how can we recognise and get rid of mental issues causing the effects of ill health?  Here are some informative examples of the mind-body connection to ponder.  The first, from yesteryear, an excerpt from an article by Mark D. Altschule, M.D.; the second, in today’s high-tech format, via a TEDx talk by Lissa Rankin, M.D.; and last, but not least, something from very yesteryear.

YESTERYEAR… 1951
An excerpt from an article written in the Journal of the American Heart Association, “Emotion and the circulation”, by Mark D. Altschule, MD.  “John Hunter wrote ‘There is not a natural action in the body, whether voluntary or involuntary, that may not be influenced by the peculiar state of the mind at the time.’ It may be taken for granted that the course of any illness can be influenced by emotional factors, and accordingly the physician must seek evidence of their presence in every case. The lack of adequate data for systematizing information regarding reactions of patients to emotional factors makes it essential for physicians to understand in general what these factors might be and to learn as much as possible about the life and personality of each patient in particular. Evaluation of the significance of emotional factors and their treatment will test his every art, for there is no skill that can be learned quickly and precisely in these matters.  Although the barbiturates and other drugs are helpful at intervals, they are less so, and at times may be harmful, in the long run.”  Click here for Altschule’s whole article.

TODAY… 2011/12
Lissa Rankin, MD’s short TEDx talk kicks off with a profound question, “What if I told you that caring for your body is the least important part in caring for your health?”.  You could hear a pin drop from her audience!  She emphasises healthy relationships as critical to our wellbeing, and even though we know this, for most of us it’s a work in progress.  Click here for Rankin’s talk.

AND VERY YESTERYEAR… circa 5^th Century BC
The Bible reveals that a happy heart is good medicine – here are sixteen parallel translations of the Bible, and a commentary following, states: “Nothing has such a direct tendency to ruin health and waste out life as grief, anxiety, fretfulness, bad tempers, etc. All these work death.”

Can you see a common thread in these examples, perhaps showing that we need to make time to heal ourselves, and that a good place to start is through our thinking?  Love is actually always present.  May this Valentine’s Day be wholeheartedly good for you!

Links to healings:
Symptoms of heart disease and depression healed
Grief healed, mobility restored
Heart condition healed

Scientists have created a pill to prevent grey hair!  You probably knew that was coming, but there are strings attached; according to the article - “Safety trials are being undertaken with volunteers around the world but L’Oreal acknowledges the pill’s real efficacy will not be proved until it has been on the market for at least a decade.”

No matter what time of life, we want to look good, and there are plenty of quick fixes for our fantasies and fears.  Not always healthy.

I remember the craze when a pill was prescribed to help prevent severe sunburn, and at the same time give you a tan – the perfect combination for a pale-skinned teen, in a South African climate.  No more lying on tinfoil painted with baby oil!  Not much later those pills were recalled due to evidence of issues which could cause cancer.  Sound familiar?  It seems all too often that side effects of drugs outweigh the goodness they promise.  Thanks to quick-tan!  But, oh, to have no freckles.

Where does the wishing end?

What starts as a good idea can become stale, sometimes a bad habit, and even unhealthy.  We really should check how we think of ourselves, which in turn directly affects our wellbeing, and even those around us.

There are far too many reports of people turning to surgery for happiness.  And now we see world-wide recalls for things like breast implants.  I  could attach several links on the subject, but it’s unnecessary.

It’s said that beauty is skin deep.  I’m learning that it’s thought-deep, and definitely lies in the eye of the beholder.

What are you thinking about yourself, and others?  We have permission to toss out limited thinking, and this in turn could stop judgement of others.

Here’s to healthy changes, and even a new me.  More shades of blue perhaps…

A very interesting blog has just been posted by a US primary care internist on a blogsite called Why is American Health Care So Expensive? The article is called: “Christian Science, faith healing and mind-body medicine with mention of the work of Elisabeth Fischer Targ MD”.

The blogger is a clinician who writes from the perspective of wanting to share her insider’s concerns about “various aspects of the practice of medicine that make no sense”. In this article she details some of those concerns in contrast to two of her patients “who were at the end of their lives, had been very healthy up until recently and had received close to no medical care for nearly nine decades.”One of those patients was “a devout Christian Scientist”. (The other was a Seventh Day Adventist.)

She writes: “I have had other Christian Science patients in the past, of great age, and am very curious about what draws them to it and how they weave it into their very healthy lives.”

That is a thought-provoking, eye-witness verification of the practical effectiveness of this spiritual approach to health care.

The writer also states: “What I end up with, after looking at the lives of healthy very old Christian Scientists, is a respect for their particular path. Much of what we, as physicians, hand out for diseases will someday be found to be at least as bad as blood letting, which does in fact work pretty well for both acute congestive heart failure and hemochromatosis. In a couple of decades we will cringe as we think of the patients who we treated with chemotherapy drugs for cancer who died of side effects with no significant beneficial effects on their tumors.”

This goes to the heart of the matter – that there are no easy, one-size-fits-all answers when it comes to individual health care decisions, but the freedom to choose is itself crucial.

However, the fact that anyone reaches a ripe old age on the back of decades of drug-free, surgery-free health care is surely food for thought – as the blog indicates.

While the posting has some factual errors, the most significant of these is ably addressed in a comment from a reader. But these are overshadowed by the article’s honesty, compassion and open-mindedness.

So, thank you, “Janice”!

More of Tony Lobl’s posts.

It was 3:30 in the afternoon. A squirrel rested, unaware he was about to be an afternoon snack for an approaching owl. So, I started my rent car, which startled the squirrel, and he dashed to safety.

My actions saved one, yet, irritated another. Then I wondered about the actions that had landed the young people, I was about to meet, into trouble. What had caused them to act or react? 

I was sitting in my rental in the parking lot of a baseball field near the Barbara Culver Juvenile Detention Center in Midland, Texas. I had arrived early and decided to take thirty minutes to collect my thoughts, a little spiritual reasoning.

I was told I would be at the Center for about an hour. Yet, I had no clue about how many people I’d be speaking with. Would it be two or three? Maybe it would be four of us, around a table.

I pulled into the center’s lot, parked, and announced myself into the speaker. The door opened and I walked through the metal detector.

A guard brought me to the classroom where I’d be speaking. I asked, “How many will be here?” He said, “Thirty-one.” I thought, “Wow, you have trouble talking to your own two kids.”

At the front of the empty classroom I paused to get my bearings. My prayer went something like this, “Well, here I am. Thank you for leading me, animating me. Show me how I express your wisdom. Keep reminding me that each one that comes into this room belongs to you. Please, put your words in my mouth.”

Then the procession began. Thirty-one of them, hands behind their backs, slowly made their way to rows of chairs. Thirty-one orange jumpsuits. Four young women. Twenty-seven young men. All in their teens, except two boys, age ten.

Thirty-one. Not one smile. Not one hello. Their body language screamed, “Disdain.”

I was introduced: “This is Mr. Wommack. He’s here to talk with you. Listen up. If you make a noise, disrupt, slump in your seats, or are in any way are out of order you will lose all privileges the rest of the day.” I felt like the vulnerable squirrel.

A quick battle took place in my thought. “What chance do you have in helping these kids? They’re just losers. You’ll never get their attention, don’t kid yourself!”

An angel message took over, “Are they really losers? Haven’t you been learning that each child of Life, God, is really spiritual, and spiritually dynamic? Each expresses the dignity of Life?”

I began to speak, trying to look past the orange. I told them about myself. Then I was lead to challenge them. I challenged them to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. A thermometer just rises or falls according to what is happening around it. However, a thermostat, on the other hand, regulates.

I challenged them to be healers, spiritual healers. I explained that by what they will learn in their spiritual journeys they could be regulators, thermostats. They could turn situations higher, holier. Everyone they will meet would be happier and healthier because of having met them.

I told them that Peter, one of Jesus’ followers, healed others when his shadow fell on them. Just so, the shadow or powerful mental weight of their growing spiritual maturity and understanding would help others. The more weight they put into the side of good, the more good they will do. They will use laws, spiritual laws, which heal minds and bodies.

The next hour and a half flew by. What started out as 31 orange jumpsuits, turned into 31 precious friends. They smiled, they laughed, and they clapped.

At the end, a young man asked, “What is it like to come in here and change someone’s life?” This dear one, when he first walked in, looked like the most defiant and difficult. The way he sat, arms folded and scowl on his face, I thought he’d by the last to ask such a question. Yet, what a question!

The smile on his face and tenderness in his eyes told me that he was taking up my challenge.

As I drove away from the Center, I was filled with a spiritual sense of life. I felt and understood that each life was a blessing. Life doesn’t have to be vulnerable or confined. Life is about new beginnings. We have choices.

Credit: fineartamerica.com 'Bow Bridge Reflection' by Christiane Schulze

I’ve been away from my blog for a while! Whilst travelling in this work, I’ve had the privilege of attending a conference in Santa Monica on spirituality in healthcare, and meeting people reporting on, or working in healthcare. Most of these media professionals, healthcare service providers, and the general public agree that spirituality is a key component in wellbeing and healing.  This includes prayer.

A very recent study conducted by the University of Adelaide, shows that one in two men diagnosed with cancer in Australia, are turning to complementary and alternative medicine. Samantha Chan reports in AsianScientist, “Prayer is the second most popular CAM therapy… Reasons for turning to alternative options were because they are either dissatisfied with the results from conventional medical treatments, or pressured by their spouse or family to try something different, the study found.”.

Another aspect clear to me from my aforementioned meetings, is that the majority of intelligent, reasoning people don’t accept blind faith, will-power, self-belief, positive thinking, or “magical thinking” for their healthcare. Scientists continue to search for answers, and most (religious or not) concede that they don’t have all the answers.

Sydney-based author, Benison Anne O’Reilly wrote recently in the Sydney Morning Herald, that it is dangerous to rely on prayer for a cure: article, “Spiritual beliefs won’t halt cancer’s onslaught, but science might”.  Her experiences stir the heart and intellect of the Reader, and though it doesn’t create an original dialogue, perhaps it refreshes a new-old dialogue for thinkers? Or perhaps it is a new conversation for you?

Indeed, O’Reilly has made me, for one, search deeper for ways to help build bridges between thinkers who rely on scientific prayer, thinkers who rely on alternative medicines, and thinkers who rely on medical science.

According to an article, “Complementary Medicine Popular With Healthcare Workers“ (medpagetoday.com), “Multiple studies done in the general population have tracked a rise the use of complementary or alternative therapies. A 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) found that about 40% of adults said they sought nontraditional medical treatments, and a 2008 study by the American Cancer Society found similar practices among more than 60% of cancer survivors.”

We cannot discount the fact that countless people have, and are successfully using alternative methods of treatment, including prayer for their healthcare. It’s interesting to read: ‘Fighting Cancer with Spirituality’; Oct 2011 – “Sometimes answers come from prayer when medical science has none.” – Source: American Cancer Society.

Thinkers are building bridges.

RELATED healing through prayer:  Cancer verdict overruled  www.spirituality.com