Medicine Or Miracle
A doctor's search for a rational basis for modern miracles
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Copyright © 1997
Modern Miracles
"There are no miracles: there is only ignorance."
Pythagoras
It was an atrocious day during the winter of 1979. Snow had
fallen incessantly throughout the weekend and for the past 36
hours every road into the little market town had been
impassable. Visiting patients, apart from those who lived within
the town area, who could be reached on foot, had been
impossible, and our family medical practice had had to be
largely conducted over the telephone. The huge waiting room in
the Health Centre, normally thronged with patients at this hour,
contained only a handful of people who lived within walking
distance and whose ailments were not of such a nature as to be
exacerbated by exposure to the bitter cold. Also present was the
local superintendent of police, cut off from his base 17 miles
away by the appalling road conditions, and anxious to give such
help as might be possible in coping with the emergency.
Among the patients was an expectant mother, already at full
term, and convinced that labour had already commenced. She had
been booked for delivery in the district hospital, twenty miles
away in the county town, but the road there was blocked by deep
snowdrifts at the halfway point, and there was little prospect
of an ambulance getting through. It was a first baby; there was
a hint of disproportion, and labour was likely to be prolonged
and difficult; emphatically not a suitable case for home
delivery. In any case, she had made no preparations and there
was no one, apart from her husband available to look after her.
While we were making arrangements for this unexpected addition
to the normal work of a health centre, preparing an examination
room to act as a labour room, checking on oxygen, instruments,
drips and so on, a young family walked into the health centre.
Frozen with cold, they had made the two and a half mile journey
from the outlying farm in which they lived, on the back of a
farm tractor, the only vehicle capable of getting through the
tremendous drifts which blocked the road. We knew the family
well: the father, a simple farm worker, the mother, an ordinary
country girl, and a fifteen month old baby boy, their only
child. Tragically they had lost an earlier child at a similar
age from a cot death. They had telephoned the previous day
asking for a visit as the baby was suffering from a bronchial
cold. But such was the state of the roads on that day that not
even a farm tractor could get through, and we had been forced to
say that a visit was impossible. Today they had made the effort
and managed to get through.
A simple glance was enough to convey the gravity of the
situation. The baby was unconscious, limp, leaden hued, with
violet lips and a respiration rate of over 60 to the minute. The
pulse was barely palable and impossible to count. The skin was
deathly cold. A rapid examination confirmed the suspicions. The
baby was suffering from bronchial pneumonia, and needed
immediate admission to a hospital with a full life support
system available. We just did not have those sort of facilities
available at the Health Centre. Nor, indeed, were we trained in
their use. We did not even have the facilities for administering
oxygen by intubation, only by the use of a face mask, which was
hardly suitable for so young and so ill a child, or by the even
older method of an inverted funnel. The situation seemed
desperate, and the child was rapidly sinking.
I turned to the friendly superintendent of police. "This child,"
I said, "needs immediate hospital admission. The roads are all
blocked, and the ambulance can't get through. Can you get us a
helicopter?"
"Well, I'll try," came the reply. "But it won't be easy, and I
haven't a lot of hope".
"It's our only chance," I said. "Otherwise the baby is going to
die, and pretty soon, too".
There were no medical cards left to play. The baby was plainly
moribund, and they had already lost one child. I turned the
oxygen up a little and gave the funnel to the father to hold
over the baby's nose and mouth. The mother I asked to take hold
of the feet of the child and to imagine that she was giving him
life and strength, as she had done throughout the time she was
carrying him in the womb. For myself, I went to the head of the
couch and started to hold my hands over his head. I already
believed very strongly in the power of spiritual healing. I had
followed and studied it for a period of years, and had observed
it operating in others. Occasionally I had attempted to use it
in my own practice and had been intrigued by the unexpected
disappearance of pains and by the way in which some patients to
whom I had tried to give healing in addition to their ordinary
medication had seemed to respond more rapidly than I would have
expected. It seemed that some such "miracle" offered the only
hope for young Bobbie.
I knew very well, of course, that this was nothing to do with
'me'; that the most I could hope to be was the channel for the
transmission of a different order of energies from an unseen
source. My job was to try to see that there was nothing there
which could clog the channel. I closed my eyes to shut out the
material world and all its associated ideas, tried to slow my
breathing down, as I would do when meditating, and to imagine as
vividly as possible that I was like an empty chalice into which
was forever being poured a stream of healing power, which
overflowed the rim of the chalice and flowed down my arms and
hands and out through my fingers into whatever lay beneath them.
Mentally I tried to make a link with the unseen source of all
healing power, and to feel that I too was a part of this source,
as it was part of me. Presently I started to feel a sensation of
warmth and tingling in my fingers, and my hands started to feel
engorged. I tried to disregard this, and to see myself as
completely surrendered to the unseen power, filled with love and
compassion for those around me. I lost all count of time at this
moment, until presently, after what seemed like an infinity of
time, but must have been only a comparatively few minutes, I
became aware of a change in the form beneath me. Gently I opened
my eyes. Surely the breathing was slower? The colour a little
more natural? And the baby was starting to stir! He began to
make little restless movements and his lips started to work. My
mind floated back to when my own children were tiny. "I think he
wants a drink" I said to the mother. "Have you got anything with
you?" "Oh yes," she replied, and promptly produced a half-sized
bottle of orange juice from a capacious bag. She started to give
this to the baby, and I was astonished to see the speed with
which it disappeared! When it was finished he settled down
again, but this time into a more natural sleep, rather than a
coma. The respiration rate was still high, though nothing like
so high as it was, and he was still plainly a very sick little
boy. But he was no longer dying. What he needed now was normal
medical care and nursing -- antibiotics, oxygen, and fluids.
I continued to hold my hands above his head and to pray to the
unseen power of Love that all would be well. But somehow I knew
that it would. The crisis was past. Presently the Superintendent
returned. "There's no chance of a helicopter" he said. "They are
all out dropping food to the animals in outlying farms! But the
road to Norwich has been cleared, and there is one way traffic
through the obstructed area. I think an ambulance can get
through." And so it proved. The ambulance duly arrived, and
Bobbie went off to hospital. A week later I heard that he was
home. He had made a remarkable recovery and was none the worse
for his experience.
Was this a miracle? Or were there happenings just chance
coincidences combined with the power of modern medical
technology? It is difficult to say, and it all depends upon
whether or not you believe in miracles. Personally I do. For me
this seems to have many of the hallmarks of a miracle. It was a
last resort, made in desperation and in faith. It was
unexpected. (Bobbie was quite definitely dying when he was
brought into the Health Centre. Tragically I have seen far too
many not to recognise death when I see it.) It came in response
to faith and prayer; simple unquestioning acceptance by the
mother of her role as a pourer out of life giving energy to her
child, and a deeply profound, almost aggressive, faith on my
part that such things were possible and I could be used in such
a way. Finally, it was accompanied by a change in the physical
conditions which made it possible for Bobbie to be admitted to
hospital and receive the material treatment which he needed, to
which he made an unusually rapid response.
I turned to the Superintendent, as Bobbie was being taken out to
the ambulance. "You know," I said, "I think that that was a
miracle".
"Yes, I know," he said gravely. "I have seen this sort of thing
before, more than once, when I was in the Metropolitan Police.
Miracles do happen, even today."
So what is a miracle? Chambers Dictionary defines a miracle in
these terms: "Anything wonderful: a prodigy: anything beyond
human power and away from the common action of the laws of
nature: a supernatural event". To most people a miracle implies
the operation of supernatural power: the suspension of the
natural laws and their temporary replacement by an event which
seems to supersede natural law. But all things must happen in
accordance with law. If not, the universe would be chaos, and
that it most certainly is not. The difficulties arise because
there are laws in existence with which we are not familiar and
which we do not understand. To the savage in the jungle the
images of the television or those produced by a Polaroid camera
would be a miracle. To us, they are the product of forces
operating in accordance with certain well defined laws. We are
all familiar with the law of gravity (even though science has
still no understanding of what it really is, or why it happens).
Under certain circumstances it no longer applies, as with
astronauts in orbit, or when it is superseded by the laws of
aerodynamics. Yet we do not regard these as being in anyway
supernatural events. They occur in accordance with laws which we
know and recognise.
Yet if a group of people get together in faith and prayer for
the healing of a sick man, and a healing takes place, it is a
"miracle". Lady U., a friend of mine for many years, related to
me how she received just such a miraculous healing. It was her
practice to have an annual check-up with her gynaecologist in
London. On this occasion she was horrified to be told that a
tumour had developed, and that she required immediate admission
to hospital for surgery. The admission was duly arranged for
three days time. Lady U. knew a great deal about healing and was
herself, though she did not recognise it at this time, a healer.
She was also a devout Christian with a firm belief in the power
of prayer. She accordingly rang up a closed community of nuns,
which she had been accustomed to visit periodically in
"retreats", and told them what had happened. "Don't worry", came
the reply. "We will at once set up a twenty-four hour prayer
watch on your behalf. At all times through the day and the night
one of the nuns will be in the chapel, keeping you in mind in
healing prayer." When the time came for Lady U. to undergo
operation for the tumour, there was nothing left to be removed.
The tumour had completely disappeared.
There were many other examples to be found in modern times. In
1983 no less prestigious a journal than the 'British Medical
Journal' published an address by Rex Gardner FRCOG, consultant
obstetrician and gynaecologist to Sunderland District General
Hospital, entitled: "Miracles of healing in Anglo-Celtic
Northumbria as recorded by the Venerable Bede and his
contemporaries: a reappraisal in the light of twentieth century
experience." The main theme of Dr. Gardner's fascinating address
is that of the likelihood of the many healing miracles described
by Bede in his historical writings and especially those
attributed to St. Cuthbert and described in his 'Vita S
Cuthberti'. Dr. Gardner quotes in great detail no less than
seven examples of unexpected or "miraculous" healings, all well
established and medically confirmed, which he pairs with similar
healings described by Bede. We shall return to this in a
subsequent chapter. It is sufficient at the moment to quote Dr.
Gardner's final conclusion: "That the days of miracles are past
is a belief shared by many Christians. In their experience,
therefore, no such incidents occur as those reported here. In
the latter part of the twentieth century, however, there is now
an increasing number whose experience and expectations are more
in accord with those of Cuthbert."
These examples do not comply with the experience and laws of
modern scientific medicine. But they happened. Conventional
medicine, therefore, makes one of two replies. Either that it
never happened at all. There must have been a mistake in
diagnosis. Or that these were abnormal, perhaps delayed,
responses to normal medical treatment and were therefore after
all in accordance with the laws of medicine. To this, there is
added by some yet another reply. "These were acts of God,
supernatural happenings, and thus beyond the rule of law. They
were in fact, miracles." Doctors and other men of science
dislike the idea of miracles. They are not comfortable with
facts which do not fit neatly into their own ideas of law and
order.
A friend of mine once related an experience of his undergraduate
days. He was attending a philosophical lecture given by a well
known professor of the day, when somebody in the audience raised
the question of telepathy. "Gentlemen!" said the Professor, "We
know that telepathy does not exist, because if it were to exist,
it would overthrow all the established laws of science. We know
that those laws are true and that they apply to the world about
us. We cannot afford to have them overthrown. So any evidence
which seems to show that telepathy does exist must either be
incorrect or deliberately fraudulent." Some years ago I was
sharing a platform in London with Professor John Taylor, who had
just published his book "Superminds", in which he described the
researches into metal bending which he had been carrying out
with handicapped children, and the writer Guy Playfair, who had
recently published "The Flying Cow", dealing with paranormal
healing in Brazil. It was shortly after the eruption of Yuri
Geller on to an astonished Western world, and interest in the
paranormal was running high. Professor Taylor was asked for his
views on the subject. There were, he said, only three things
that he could not accept as real. Everything else, including
telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis and healing he could fit
into the model of what he called "the extended properties of
Man". Three things only could not be fitted into this model:
precognition, levitation (antigravity) and materialisation and
dematerialisation. "If any of these were to be proved" he said,
"they would overturn all the accepted laws of science. These
laws have served us very well in the understanding of the
material world and we cannot afford to have them over thrown. I
would fight tooth and nail to disprove any of these phenomena,
since if ever they were proved to be true, I should have to go
right back to square one and completely rethink the whole of my
scientific beliefs. I am not prepared to do that."
Such an attitude is distressingly common among many scientists
and especially among doctors. Unless a thing appears
intellectually credible, and complies with the existing model,
too many dismiss it as an impossibility. This is the very
negation of true science. True science seeks to establish the
facts, observes and considers these, and then from its
consideration of the facts, to formulate a model into which they
fit. It is not scientific just to discard anomalies, which will
not fit tidily into the formulated model. They must indeed be
checked, but having been checked, the model must then be
adjusted to accommodate the facts. Physicist Fritjof Capra
explained it as follows:
"In modern science, all of our theories and models, all of our
concepts, all that we say in a scientific context, is
necessarily limited and incomplete. It might be said that
scientists are not concerned with looking for absolute truth.
They are concerned with approximate descriptions of reality,
constructing a model, a theory for each range of data, and then
going on to improve the model as the range of data expands. Each
theory is only an approximation, applicable to a limited range
of data. Whenever we go beyond this range to new phenomena, we
have to replace the model by improving the approximation,
constructing a new theory, which is itself only a further
approximation and will in turn require further improvement as
the range of data is further expanded."
The danger of this approach is that there is frequently a
reluctance to accept new data, and to become so wedded to the
model constructed as to deny any room for further improvement.
This appears to be what has happened to many of our scientists
today.
Einsteinian physics has brought about the abandonment of the
traditional scientific approach outlined above. While the latter
serves admirably in what has been called 'the zone of the middle
dimensions', it breaks down when physicists research the realm
of the very large, of stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies and
so on, and the realm of the infinitely small, such as the
internal world of the atom and the behaviour of subatomic
particles. Indeed, day by day, the language of science and the
language of mysticism are becoming more and more uniform, so
that it is often impossible to distinguish whether a statement
has been made by a scientist or a mystic.
Let us now consider the implications of this for the traditional
scientific view. The Newtonian dictum was that "The Whole is the
Sum of its Parts", and the corollary of this was that in order
to understand any 'whole', it was necessary to break it down
into its smallest component parts, analyse these, and then
attempt to reconstruct it from an understanding of those
component parts. What this traditional view failed to appreciate
is that the properties of any 'whole' are something greater than
the mere sum of the properties of the component parts. In
addition to this summation, the properties of the whole are
added to by the way in which the component parts relate to each
other, and by the way in which that 'whole' relates to the
environment in which it finds itself.
A convenient analogy would be that of the watch. When I was a
small boy and watches were still composed of springs and cogged
wheels, and screws and levers, there was a great temptation (to
which many of my kind succumbed) to dismember the watch into its
component parts. The watch was reduced to its smallest component
parts. If one was skilful and lucky, it was possible to put the
pieces together and reassemble the working watch. However even
an understanding of the functions of the different parts would
give no inkling of the function of the watch. Unless this is
considered in terms of the measurement of time and the
requirements of those who will so use it, understanding of the
watch is incomplete. It was the understanding of the limitations
of this traditional, reductionist view which led Jan Christian
Smuts to enunciate in 1924 the first principle of what is now
called 'Holism': namely that "The Whole is Greater than the Sum
of its Parts". This additional dimension is comprised by the way
in which those component parts interconnect, inter-relate and
interact, both with each other and with other 'wholes' in the
surrounding environment.
Classical science views the world as an arrangement of separate
parts, determined by analysis, and organised according to the
laws of cause and effect. The whole of the universe seems to it
to be like a gigantic clockwork toy, a piece of mechanical
construction. Who or what constructed the machine or wound up
the clockwork and set the mechanism in motion is another matter
and not the concern of science. The more recent discoveries of
atomic physics suggest that a picture as clearcut as this is an
impossibility, and that it is not possible to analyse the world
into a number of separate elements. The investigations of the
internal world of the atom has shown that far from being the
solid, space-occupying, building-block of matter, which the
traditional view has always assumed it to be, the atom is, in
fact, largely composed of vast areas of empty space in which a
number of minute 'particles' circulate in orderly fashion around
a central 'nucleus', like a miniature solar system. The extreme
minuteness of these particles is difficult to appreciate. One
could say with truth that the atom is one four hundred millionth
of an inch in diameter, but such a statement conveys very little
to the average mind. It is better appreciated by constructing an
analogy.
Let us take an orange and reflect that this is composed of a
mass of atoms of different sorts, four hundred million of which,
laid end to end, would comprise a single inch. If this orange
were then suddenly to be blown up until it was the size of the
world, each of these atoms would then be no larger than a
cherry! An atom is, as we know, composed of a central nucleus,
surrounded by orbiting electrons, following well defined and
regulated paths. If one of these cherries were then to be blown
up in a similar way until it was the size of the dome of St.
Paul's cathedral, then the nucleus of that atom would be no
bigger than a grain of salt, and the various electrons
ceaselessly orbiting around it the size of motes of dust such as
we see in any sunbeam. The whole of the remainder of the atom,
now extending over the vast area, the size of this magnificent
dome, is no more than empty space! Nor, indeed, have we yet
reached the ultimate -- should there be one -- in this process
of reduction. Each nucleus is itself composed of yet smaller
parts, such as protons and neutrons, and others yet smaller
still, while the electrons are very far from being the solid,
space occupying particles with which classical physics has
concerned itself. It would appear that they are, in fact, minute
centres of energy, able to be at one and the same time a
particle, occupying a tiny but definite area of space, and a
wave of energy, operating over a large area of space. The
properties exhibited by the particle depend upon the viewpoint
of the observer, and the apparatus with which it is forced to
interact. Both aspects are inter-related. The physicist Bohr
introduced the idea of complementarity, and viewed the particle
picture and the wave picture as two complementary descriptions
of the same reality, each of which was true over a limited
range, and each of which was needed to get a true picture of
atomic reality.
Concepts such as these forced physicists to question the very
foundations of the mechanistic view and to query even the
reality of matter itself. At this subatomic level matter does
not exist with certainty in specific places, but only as a
series of probabilities, tendencies to exist, which in quantum
theory are expressed in mathematical formulae. The wave
functions of the subatomic particles are not dimensional waves,
such as those of water, but probability waves, related to the
probability of finding the particles at particular points in
space and time. Apparently solid matter, in this strange world
of the atom, dissolves into wave-like patterns of probabilities,
which are themselves not probabilities of 'things' but
probabilities of interactions and inter-connections with other
so-called particles. Each particle, says the modern physicist,
shows its reality only in its observed inter-connections and
interactions. Thus we find that the role of the observer, and so
of human consciousness, becomes an integral part of the
phenomena.
Medicine, as practised by most "orthodox" doctors, still remains
bounded by the horizons of the Newtonian view. In biology this
has led to the view that the body can be regarded as a machine,
constructed of component parts and analysable as such. Descartes
spoke of the body as a machine, "Le Bete Machine", and though he
accepted the existence of non-physical part of man, the soul, he
regarded that as being completely separated from the body and
having no influence upon it. This view has dominated medical
thought right to the present day and is still the sheet anchor
of orthodox medicine. Joseph Needham, the Cambridge philosopher,
actually wrote in 1928: "In science Man is a machine: or, if he
is not, he is nothing." The machine analogy suggests that a
living body can best be understood by taking it apart and then
studying the pieces and trying to reconstruct it from an
understanding of the pieces. So medical students make their
first investigations into the body in the dissecting room and
the physiology laboratory. Many of these investigations are
carried out upon the dead corpse, and other upon animals. Little
or no consideration is paid to the environment in which the
living creature functions or to its relationship with its
fellows within that environment. Thus we find that medicine is
preoccupied with organs and cells, and their component parts,
and views disease in terms of changes in those organs and cells
rather than as a general abnormal process going on in the
creature, of which the changes in the cells and organs are no
more than the external indicators. Hence the current
preoccupation with spare-part surgery. Disease, in this model,
is seen as something external, which invades and attacks a
particular part of the patient's body and for which he bears no
responsibility. The role of the doctor is seen as being that of
intervention, to treat a particular part of the body by physical
means such as surgery or drugs, a process in which the patient's
role is purely passive.
To make matters still worse, medicine, like most Newtonian
sciences, tends to regard as real only that which is
quantifiable and which can be recognised through the senses, or
their extension through instruments. Man is seen as no more than
a body, and all his actions and perceptions are thought to be
the consequence of bodily activity. Mental processes and
emotional forces are considered to originate in the cells and
organs of the body, and to be the expression of physiological
activity. Thus medicine tends to disregard the unseen levels,
such as emotion, mind and spirit, which go to comprise the
totality of Man, and which, as we shall see in later chapters,
have so great an influence both upon his health and upon his
healing.
Now whereas it is helpful in many ways to associate a particular
disease with a particular part of the body, this reductionist
approach has been carried too far. It has reached a point at
which many doctors are unable to look at disease as a
disturbance of the creature, nor to treat it as such. Instead
they treat a particular part of the body, generally without much
regard as to how this part is dependent upon other parts of the
body nor how it relates to them. This tendency has been made
worse by the increasing technical complexity of modern medicine
so that doctors have been forced to concentrate upon particular
areas of the body or particular forms of disease. Thus we have
specialists in every conceivable form of medicine, each of them
highly expert in an increasingly narrow field of medicine and
with relatively little knowledge of the way in which their field
relates to others. Moreover, the therapeutic methods employed
are in the main aggressive and destructive. Thus we find drugs
like beta-blockers being employed for cardiovascular disease,
and producing all manner of undesirable side effects --
impotence, postural giddiness, depression, interference with
carbohydrate metabolism, to name but a few. Similarly we find
the deployment of cytotoxic drugs and steroids in cancer with
little sustained consideration of the effects of these drugs
upon the immune system of the body, upon which it must depend
for its ultimate survival. In particular, little account is paid
to the way in which the part of the body being treated relates
to the psychic and mental functions.
A further result of this reductionist approach is the
overemphasis of the role played by bacteria in the causation of
disease. In the 19th century, Louis Pasteur observed bacteria in
association with certain disease and came to the conclusion that
they were the cause of the disease. This led to great
improvements in the health of communities throughout the Western
world. The great killer diseases -- tuberculosis, typhoid,
cholera, smallpox, diptheria and scarlet fever -- were brought
under control to such an extent that many modern medical
students have never seen any cases. Unfortunately, while the
death rate from these diseases has been greatly reduced, this
very success has tended to distract attention from other and
more fundamental issues and to concentrate research upon methods
of destroying the organisms associated with the diseases in
question. For example, in tuberculosis, which was the scourge of
Victorian society, it was not simply the exposure to the
tuberculosis bacillus which results in the disease. The social
conditions and customs of the times were also a major factor in
its development. Another consequence of Pasteur's discoveries is
that they have also caused medicine to adopt the dangerous
belief that for each disease there is a single and eventually
identifiable cause. This is incorrect, and Pasteur's great
contemporary, Claud Bernard, fought a life-long battle with him
over the fundamental importance of the environment in the
development of disease. On his deathbed Pasteur acknowledged the
correctness of Bernard's view, and his last recorded words are
said to have been: "Bernard was right. The germ, it is nothing:
the environment is everything (le milieu c'est tout)."
For any case of infectious disease, two processes have to
coincide: firstly there must have been exposure to the causative
organism on the part of the patient; secondly there must have
existed a state of susceptibility to that organism on the part
of the patient. Thus the whole question of what the biologists
call "host resistance" is a vital factor in the equation. We
shall return to this question of "host resistance" in Chapter
Eight. For the moment it is sufficient merely to note that this
fallacy is both a product of and still further reinforces the
mechanistic approach to disease and healing which bedevils
modern medicine.
The purpose of the foregoing digression from the main subject of
this chapter -- the miracles which still take place today -- has
been to try to reach a better understanding of the doctors'
point of view, and what it is that causes them to behave as they
do, and either to reject or to explain away the miraculous.
Anything which does not fit neatly into the established model
causes a scientist to feel uncomfortable. If the result of this
discomfort is to cause him to re-examine the existing model, and
recognising that it is no more than an approximation, to
construct a new model which shall accommodate the new data, then
that is progress and is to be applauded. Unfortunately, as with
Professor Taylor, when confronted with prerecognition or
levitation, the majority are not prepared to do this, and so
they fight tooth and nail to prove that the new data is
fallacious. Most doctors, alas, are no exceptions to this
generalisation. Ignorant of the powers of the mind, and locked
into "a vicious circle of restricted faith, negative suggestion
and a predominantly left-minded approach" they are unable to see
beyond their own limited and mechanistic horizons. Quite how
limited those horizons can be is demonstrated by the following
anecdote from my own personal experience. Early in my own
experience, while I was still critically examining the whole
subject of healing, a patient of mine, who was diagnosed as
having a secondary cancer, received a complete healing shortly
after I had asked a Methodist minister, who was a healer and a
friend of mine, to put her on his list for 'absent healing'.
The story of this is interesting and instructive. Mrs. P., who
was then in her middle seventies, was married to a man with whom
she had little in common. She herself was "psychic" and had had
more than one extra-sensory experience. She was a member of the
Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, and
believed firmly in life after death and spiritual healing. Her
husband did not share these beliefs. For him death was the end
of everything, and there was nothing to follow after. He was
also a heavy drinker, and he spent much of his time sitting
brooding in his chair over a bottle of whisky and lamenting that
his sister had left her property (of which he had no need) to
someone else instead of him. Mrs. P. felt that life was a
burden, and while she accepted the responsibility of caring for
him, she found no joy in the task.
One day she appeared in the surgery with an enlarged gland in
the neck. Since this was very hard and strongly suggestive of a
secondary cancerous deposit, I immediately referred her to a
surgeon friend of mine for a biopsy. The report came back
confirming my suspicions, and Mrs. P. was given a booking to be
admitted to hospital for investigation. In the meantime I passed
her name to my healer friend for 'absent healing'. Before she
could go into hospital she had a remarkable "dream". She
"dreamed" that while she was lying in bed in her room, she saw
two men in white standing by her bed. One she recognised as
being a doctor who had previously looked after her before she
moved to her present town, but who had since died. She had
always been deeply attached to him. The other figure she did not
recognise. "Have no fear!", they said. "We are going to heal
you." She awoke in the morning filled with an immense happiness
and a feeling of certainty that she had been healed. This
feeling remained with her, so that when she was finally admitted
to the hospital, she immediately asked to go home, saying to the
surgeon, "I am afraid you are wasting your time! You are not
going to find anything. I've been healed, and there is nothing
there!" However, as might have been expected, no attention was
paid to this, and she went through a series of exhaustive tests,
all of which were negative. This was over fifteen years ago, and
she is now nearly ninety. She lives just along the road from me
and I see her nearly every day as she goes down the town to
shop. Her husband is long since dead, but she goes on perfectly
happily. It is said by the experts that cases of proven
secondary cancer never regress spontaneously. But in this case
it happened, and the biopsy report is there to prove that this
was no mistaken diagnosis. No cancer treatment of any kind was
ever given to Mrs. P., who remains a medical mystery. Mrs. P.
several times tried to tell her surgeon what she had
experienced, but he didn't want to know! Understandably. It must
be disconcerting for a surgeon suddenly to find that his
services have become superfluous and that there are other ways
of achieving the same end.
The customary response on the part of the medical profession to
such happenings is one of denial. "It couldn't have happened.
Therefore it didn't happen. Somebody made a mistake. The facts
are not as reported, and the diagnosis must have been wrong."
Thus medicine saves its face at the cost of eating a little
humble pie. The same answer was made in the case of Lady U.
quoted earlier. But what are we to make of the following? Can we
say that this never happened, or that the diagnosis must have
been wrong?
"About 1970, the captain of the Girls' Brigade at Enon Baptist
Church, Monkwearmouth, had a deterioration in a large varicose
ulcer of the leg which had been troubling her for many years.
Each morning her bandage was soaked with pus. Her doctor told
her to give up her activities. She asked for prayer at the
monthly charismatic prayer meeting. A general practitioner
present examined the leg and judged that were the ulcer ever to
heal, it would require skin grafting. The pastor requested one
of the women present to join him in praying for the patient. By
next morning almost the whole ulcer had dried up with healthy
skin covering; but one spot continued to exude pus. One week
later one of the Girls' Brigade lieutenants called on the pastor
and with embarrassment stated that she felt she should have
joined in the prayer for the patient. They immediately visited
the patient and the lieutenant laid hands on the area and
prayed. Healing became immediately complete."
Dr. Gardner, from whose paper in the 'British Medical Journal'
(24-31 December 1983, p. 287) the above account is quoted, goes
on to say:
"This story is so bizarre that it would not have been included
had I not been one of the doctors who examined the patient's leg
at the next monthly prayer meeting, and were not all the people
who had been present available for interrogation. Against the
background of such cases one can no longer shrug off the
miracles of the sixth and seventh centuries".
Nor, I might add, the miracles of the gospel records.
This case is paralleled by the famous Carl Mason case reported
in the 'British Medical Journal' (23 August 1952, pp. 442-3). In
this case a lad suffering from the congenital disease of
ichthyosis was to be treated surgically at the plastic Surgery
Unit developed by Sir Archibald McIndoe at East Grinstead
Hospital. Ichthyosis is a particularly unpleasant disease in
which, owing to a congenital lack of the sebaceous glands in the
deeper layers of the skin which serve to lubricate the skin and
keep it soft, the skin becomes hard and horny over all, so that
the patient, in advanced cases, appears to be encased within a
covering of blackened armour. Wherever movement takes place,
owing to its lack of elasticity, the skin becomes cracked and
fissured, and these cracks become infected and purulent. The
patient, who was now sixteen years of age, had been born with
the complaint and had had numerous admissions to hospital for
his condition, all of them without effect. Except for the face,
neck and chest the whole of his body was affected, and the skin
over the hands was so thickened and hardened that he was unable
to use them normally and was unable to do any form of work. Now
it was proposed to see whether skin grafting could offer any
hope of a cure. If a skin graft could restore the palms of the
hands to normal, at least he would be able to use his hands
properly and do a job of work. The operation was not a success.
Within a month the newly grafted skin, taken from the chest, had
thickened and turned black, and a second attempt followed the
same course. Plainly plastic surgery offered no hope of cure for
the boy.
At this point the anaesthetist, Dr. Mason, had an idea. Dr.
Mason was a skilled hypnotist who had successfully treated a
number of patients involving the removal of warts by suggestion
under hypnosis. He was unfamiliar with congenital ichthyosis,
and to him the condition of the patient's hands strongly
resembled multiple warts. He knew that he could successfully
treat warts in this way, and when he suggested this to the
surgeon in charge, he was invited to make the attempt. Dr. Mason
duly hypnotised the patient and told him that the warts were
going to fall off his left arm. He was told to come back the
following week. About five days after the hypnosis, said Dr.
Mason, the horny layer of skin softened, became friable, and
fell off, leaving underneath what appeared to be normal skin. In
a further five days the arm became completely clear from the
shoulder to the wrist.
Dr. Mason was in no way surprised at this. It was precisely what
he had expected to happen, and had he not already dealt very
successfully with warts by hypnotic suggestions? The surgeon,
however, was astonished at what to him was plainly a miracle,
and abruptly told Dr. Mason that this was very far from being a
simple case of warts, but an example of congenital ichthyosiform
erythrodermia of Brocq, and that he should go into the library
and look it up. When he did so, Dr. Mason was equally astonished
to learn that the condition was congenital and due to an organic
structural deficiency; that there was a complete absence of
sebaceous glands in the skin which would enable the outer layers
of skin to peel off and renew themselves. The condition was
considered to be permanent and incurable. The case was presented
at the Royal Society of Medicine to a distinguished audience of
doctors including dermatologists and medical hypnotists, and no
explanation was offered. That such a condition "should respond
to hypnotic suggestion", said Dr. Ray Bettley, "demands a
revision of current concepts of the relation between mind and
body." "The changes wrought in the patient's skin", said the
distinguished dermatologist, Dr. Kathryn Cohen, "are
unprecedented and inexplicable."
Following his initial success with the left arm, Dr. Mason
continued with his treatment. He was finally able to report that
50 per cent of the skin over the legs and feet had been cleared,
a rather larger area of the trunk, 95 per cent of the arms and
100 per cent of the palms of the hands. Three years later there
had been no relapse in the treated parts, and the cure seemed to
be permanent if not total. However, when Dr. Mason, with his
patient's agreement tried to clear up the remaining blackened
patches, he met with complete failure. It had become impossible
to hypnotise the patient. Dr. Mason decided to call it a day and
'let well alone'.
He subsequently attempted similar treatment for eight further
cases of ichthyosis with complete lack of success. These were
reported in the 'British Medical Journal' (7 October 1961 p.
967). In the same year another doctor, Dr. C.A.S. Wink reported
a similar partial success with two sisters, working in the same
way on one part of the body at a time, again in the 'British
Medical Journal' (16 September 1961 p.741-3).
Leaving aside for the moment the question of what was actually
going on in the bodies of these patients in order that the mind
should be able to program them towards cure, we must consider
the equally-important question: "What was going on in the mind
of the hypnotist, that after showing such a dramatic success he
should gradually find his capacity to help the patient
diminishing?" I would suggest that the key to this is to be
found at the very outset. As long as he thought that he was
dealing with multiple warts, with which he knew he could achieve
success, the doctor's confidence in his powers was unbounded.
Once he had learned, however, that he had achieved "the
impossible", doubt started to creep into his own mind, and he
was no longer able to induce in the mind of his patient the
certainty of cure. His self-confidence must have been severely
shattered by the views expressed at that fateful meeting at the
Royal Society of Medicine. It is the absolute certainty in the
mind of the healer, combined with the complete acceptance on the
part of the patient (as occurs in successful hypnosis), that
appears to be the crucial and all important factor. These two
states of mind might quite reasonably be described in another
context as "faith". Perhaps those who speak of "faith healing"
are nearer the mark than they know? Was it the profundity of
their faith that made possible the miracles of olden times -- a
faith that has been systematically eroded by the reductionist
approach and the spread of modern "scientific" knowledge? If so,
then surely a course in "miracles" should be a standard part of
medical education.
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