In Sickness and In Health: Welcoming God Back to the Practice of Medicine

Neurosurgeons, geneticists, astronauts, and other highly skilled professionals often find themselves pigeonholed within their fields of expertise, especially if they wish to take up pen and venture out into different areas of interest. In certain disciplines, the hierarchy and protocols are so restrictive as to be impenetrable. The risk is one of credibility, that they’ll make fools of themselves. Imagine the absurdity of a theologian, say, without proper credentials, publishing a paper on hypertension in a top medical journal. Outrageous! Or an MIT grad with a degree in mechanical engineering and applied physics authoring books on dreams, shamans, and alternative healing. Career killer, right? Not necessarily, but only because the medical care industry is beginning to acknowledge that its rigid, drug-dependent practices are far from perfect.
Until the Enlightenment, religious practitioners were counted on to save bodies as well as souls; they cornered the market on healing. Only when science escaped the clutches of the church did the medical profession begin to flower on its own. Of course, since the beginning of the twentieth century, that flower grew oak-like roots and became the behemoth we now know—an entity as removed and dismissive of religion as the Amish are from hip-hop. But times are changing. The relationship between spirituality and health is gradually warming, and stodgy organizations like the National Institute for Healthcare Research are hosting conferences on spirituality in medical school curriculums. Why? Demand.
Surveys indicate that a majority of patients would appreciate discussing religious concerns with their doctors. Likewise, a significant body of research plainly demonstrates a mind-body-spirit connection whereby factors like stress and grieving have been proven to bear enormous strain on the physical health of some patients.
We have come nearly full circle. After five hundred years of disfavor, shamans, witches, medicine men, and other alternative healers are comfortably back on Main Street providing comfort and care with techniques that date back thousands of years.
The earlier example of the MIT grad was not a hypothetical. In fact, Arnold Mindell, Ph.D., is the author of sixteen books, including his latest published by Hampton Roads, The Quantum Mind and Healing: How to Listen and Respond to Your Body’s Symptoms (1-57174-395-2). The scientist in Mindell recognized that symptoms are the result not only of changes within the human body—we are constantly affected by relationships and non-local events. These outside influences interact with dreams and symptoms caused by actual diseases and result in changes foretold in quantum theory. Mindell offers an original, level-headed exploration of human psychology, physics, medicine, spiritual traditions, and the importance of awareness, so as to develop “greater understanding and relief from physical pain.”
The vast majority of writing in the Mind-Body-Spirit genre seeks to address the universal desire to gain “greater understanding and relief.” Much of it is a control issue. We as patients are growing ever more skeptical of placing our well-being exclusively in the hands of a medical doctor; unless that person is willing to deal with us as a whole being, not body parts to be treated separately.
Some health care professionals are open to listening. Spirituality, Health, and Wholeness: An Introductory Guide for Health Care Practitioners, a new book of immaculately written essays by thirteen Judeo-Christian and Judaic theologians, psychologists, and other doctors who recognize the importance of addressing spiritual issues in a clinical setting. For instance, in Chapter One, Richard Rice outlines a philosophical basis for “spiritual care” by citing the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of personhood that must never be separated from one another. Other chapters address hope, coping, laughter, loss, and “coming close to the heart of patients so we become aware of their burdens, both above and below the surface.” This book, from Haworth Press, edited by Siroj Sorajjakool and Henry Lamberton, rightfully challenges professionals to understand the true meaning of patient care.
Forty years after graduating from seminary, longtime ABC News medical editor Dr. Timothy Johnson has written his third book, this time coming to grips with his own religious beliefs after living the fairly secular life of a journalist. Finding God In The Questions (0-8308-3214-9), from InterVarsity Press, describes the inner turmoil of this science-minded author struggling with his Christian background. He asks himself the big questions and shares his doubts.
That sickness and healing play central roles in all religious traditions is certainly no mystery to anthropologist and doctor Arthur Kleinman: “nothing so concentrates experience and clarifies the central conditions of living as serious illness.” Drawing from both Eastern and Western cultures, traditions, and sciences, Parabola, the magazine of “Myth, Tradition and the Search for Meaning,” has collected an array of essays focusing on the transformative nature of disease and cure. That the thirty selected titles in The Nature of Healing (0-930407-62-8) cover so much ground, across so many religions, is especially poignant in light of recent terrorism-related issues; namely, will we all ever get along? This book points out the shared experiences of human infirmity and should create bonds among people of all beliefs.

Breathing Lessons Benefit the Health of Body and Spirit
The conscious act of breathing also finds refuge in nearly all religious practices—and health care manuals. In his introduction to Free Your Breath, Free Your Life (1-59030-133-1), Dennis Lewis notes that the cumulative effects of poor and restrictive breathing result in chronic reduction of oxygen reaching the cells of our brain and body and is an instrumental cause in many diseases; “but it also reduces our capacity to sense, feel, think, and act in clear, sensitive, and effective ways.” Published by Shambala, Free Your Breath expands upon Lewis’s first book, The Tao of Natural Breathing, in which he explores breath from a meditative standpoint.
Active meditation is the subject of an attractive book published by Red Wheel, written by Nancy Cunningham and Denise Geddes. The idea is that many of life’s most valued events, seasons, and rituals can be more fully embraced, so that “readers may experience the extraordinary in the ordinary.” Snow Melting in a Silver Bowl (1-59003-063-X) is the perfect primer for anyone seeking to focus the mind meditatively, without the formality of actually sitting still and cross-legged. It describes how to tap into the spiritual nature of the physical world simply by paying closer attention.
Refreshingly frank writing leads us into Bruce Newman’s A Beginner’s Guide to Tibetan Buddhism (1-55939-211-8), from Snow Lion Publications. “In Buddhism that yearning ?for meaning in life? is in itself proof of the existence of something deeper within us. If there weren’t something there, how could we be aware of its absence?” Newman jokingly thought about calling his a For Dummies book, and his intro offers ample background knowledge—so often overlooked in other books—on the Tibetan practice; noting that it adds depth to one’s level of realization. Furthermore, he provides counsel on finding an appropriate teacher, becoming active in a center, and sustaining a practice when the inevitable doubts and confusions arise.
More on the Buddhist view from Shambala and the venerable and prolific Thich Nhat Hanh, author of several score books of prose, poetry, and prayer: True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart (1-59030-188-9) details how love will help us deal with pain and fear, and that negativity must not be repressed, but rather, welcomed into our consciousness where it can be cared for by the “loving mother of mindfulness.” Thich Nhat Hanh explains that the Buddhist tenet of being fully present in our lives is the path to understanding love in a “real” way. The writing is characteristically direct and compassionate. The author is described by The New York Times as the most influential Buddhist leader in the West, behind the Dalai Lama.
Being Buddha on Broadway, from Inner Directions Publishing (1-878019-22-8), offers intimately written revelations from an extraordinary life. Retired and committed to a meditative state of awareness in the French countryside, Academy Award-winning director Bertram Salzman developed a series of “Attention Exercises” to help others access the spiritual peace and joy that is our essential nature. Salzman traces his spiritual life back to the age of eight, when “it was as if the breath of the Divine filled me with its love and awareness.” His noble mission to share the depth of his experiences is well served in this layman’s guide to the mindful life.

God is in the Details—of Nature and the Mind
Leave it to nature and the many mysteries of the universe to inspire some of history’s greatest thinkers. Should the topic at hand be the existence of God, leave it to some of history’s greatest thinkers to call on nature and the many mysteries of the universe as evidence. Exhibit A might be an awe-inspiring book of photographs from Templeton Foundation Press, scheduled for an October 2004 release. In Reflections on the Nature of God (1-932031-69-3), Michael Reagan, editor of both The Hand of God and Inside the Mind of God, directs his attention to questions of God’s existence: What is the nature of God? How is that nature manifested? Does God continue to take an active role in our destiny, or did participation end with the creation of the universe? Deep space images of the universe and others of nature here on earth are accompanied by ponderable quotes from dozens of diverse literary and historical figures. It’s a stunning compilation. Martin Marty writes in the Intro: “Reflections on the Nature of God sets out to start a conversation. What do you see in these pictures that might lead you to reflect on the nature of God? What do these quotations do to push you to fresh thought on God’s nature?” Worthy topic, indeed.
In his new book The Death of the Mythic God (1-57174-406-1), Hampton Roads author Jim Marion identifies two levels of consciousness as the critical factor in distinguishing how God is perceived. And that divide between the two is what fuels many of the current schisms and troublesome issues in society, like abortion, cloning, gay rights, and terrorism. Many people are still attached to a mythic God, he writes, and “tend to believe that their religion, their ethnic group, their nation, their morality, their values are supreme.” As opposed to others who live at a rational level of consciousness: “They believe all people are created equal and have inalienable rights such as the right to practice their own religion ... they see the world as governed by universal scientific and spiritual laws that apply to everyone no matter what their politics or religion. Thus they usually tolerate fundamentalists ?mythics? even though the favor is normally not returned.” In his conclusions, Marion advises spiritual seekers to find the God “that can only be found by going within the self.” And also, to find your own favorite practice or technique to higher consciousness by adapting any of the hundreds of different spiritual practices that exist in the world.
When a religious method recommends itself as ‘scientific,’ it can be certain of its public in the West. Yoga fulfills this expectation. Yoga is, as I can readily believe, the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity which is scarcely to be questioned. This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness. – Carl Jung
Abrupt though it may be, Jung’s quote is relevant to Guiding Yoga’s Light: Yoga Lessons for Yoga Teachers (0-9722809-8-7), by Nancy Gerstein, from Pendragon Publishing. Perhaps because it is written for instructors, Guiding Yoga’s Light is pleasantly bereft of the cloying language and simplicities too often seen in how-to manuals. Gerstein covers a range of yogic concepts for beginner to advanced students and offers fifty-six lesson plans for individual classes. That yoga is a 5,000-year-old holistic path of health and self-development, and not just an exercise system, is reinforced throughout.
It is not generally known that yoga practitioners have been practicing time travel since the early days. Or, that quantum physics all but explains the feat, similar to the dream theories that Mindell toys with in The Quantum Mind and Healing. Fred Alan Wolf, a theoretical physicist and the author of The Yoga of Time Travel: How the Mind Can Defeat Time (Quest Books, 0-8356-0828-X), has one of the few brains nimble enough—he won’t be pigeonholed—to work out the details for the rest of us. The trick, he explains, is to see time and space as products of the mind. And then, by anchoring actual experience into time, the mind will have a focal point unhampered by past, present, or future. Wolf credits the nature of the Eastern mind because it inherently understands “the idea of the wheel of existence that the soul experiences endless rounds of birth, life, death, and rebirth, set in motion by causal links created in past lives.” The fact that these are ancient concepts seems to calm the nerves of Mindell, Wolf, and others of the physics school. They are challenged, not confounded; inspired, not intimidated.
Bigger brains, twenty-four-hour food markets, and a dearth of saber-toothed tigers have seemingly provided us with an existential prison of madhouse dimensions. From here, even the most trivial matters can take on life-altering significance. But for a few Buddhists on mountaintops who embrace the true nature of our apparent nothingness, we have all become seekers of meaning. Talk about the perfect climate to publish books in the mind-body-spirit genre. And, if the books profiled herein (and others too numerous to mention) are any indication, there is much wisdom to be gained from present-day metaphysicians and otherworldly spiritualists.