Transpersonal Medicine

Transpersonal Medicine and Telesomatic Healing

Towards the Evolution of a New Medicine

Worthville, Kentucky

An event of enormous stress is about to occur to you. Is it better to:

A) try to prepare for the event by feeling your stress, and visualizing its possible outcomes, or,
B) try to ignore the up-coming event by the creation of relaxation states and techniques?

Surprisingly, the answer is A. For, in repeated tests, those who sought to prepare themselves realistically for up-coming events of stress fared better than those who had had relaxation training.

For the mind has many quirks, side-streets, mazes, and labyrinths, as well as many levels. Some of these are readily accessible, and we call these levels collectively the "conscious mind." However, many more levels of mind exist, which are collectively called the "unconscious mind." It is in these levels that most of our most important decisions are made.

Here, the control of the conscious mind is somewhat limited. So, in the experiments referred to, preparation of the conscious mind through conscious relaxation did little to prepare the total self for a stressful experience. In fact, evidence is growing rapidly that not only do unconscious forces affect us much more than we used to believe, but that, at some level, the unconscious mind of one person might be connected to or influenced by the unconscious mind of others. When this happens, these are called "telesomatic events." Thus, even your biological health might be unconsciously affected by other minds. If this is true, then the only ultimate and complete healing will be, not just your personal healing, but the healing of all minds everywhere; only love can aspire to so great a task.

This is also why mystics have always emphasized the idea of "letting go and flowing." For the conscious mind is not designed as a controller of the universe; instead, it is designed only to respond and to make choices. So, it literally "floats" on the "stream" of the unconscious mind, and often has no more control than a twig floating on a vast river. It is in learning to adapt to the world, rather than in forcing it to change, that we find true wisdom. After having recognized that the unconscious mind is so powerful an agent in life, it then is necessary to honor it with the realization that it can indeed offer us real help in the forms of healing and other blessings. For, in its deepest level, the unconscious mind is the universal Mind; the core of the collective unconscious is the Reality or truth known as "God", and its nature is pure love.

So, it is wise to make friends with the unconscious, to treat it with sacred respect, and to seek to recognize and cultivate faith in its inner goodness. This means that, whatever happens in life, its ultimate aim is goodness or love.

For one thing, the unconscious mind is quite capable of healing any disorder of the physical body. But it does not seem to respond well to the tyranny or dominance of an ego-mind that tries to "take over" and force it to conform. Indeed, astonishingly, most "miracle" cures occur, not because they are driven by conscious desire, but because the sick person takes a detached attitude of simply letting things go according to their natural order. In other words, he or she develops a kind of trust or faith in the unconscious wisdom, which then takes over. The most astounding cures are marked by a lack of struggling, striving, forcing, coercing, interfering, and manipulating. Instead, these conditions are replaced by an attitude of trust, non-resistance, detachment, flowing, permitting, allowing, surrendering, relaxation and resignation. In spite of the presence of disease, these people had a remarkable attitude of acceptance and gratitude, as if everything were all right. Those who demand no healing, who live in tranquillity, tend to receive healing more than do those who struggle for healing. When asked what they did to bring about their healing, they reply, "Nothing. It just happened."

In fact, a real healing ability often is a side-effect of a "dark night of the soul," a period of interior turmoil and loss, hopelessness and despair, which forces one finally to release any illusions of personal control.

These people do not become inactive or passive; they have already taken full advantage of every technique, including surgery and drugs, that the medical community has to offer; instead, it is a matter of taking appropriate responsibility for the way in which they have decided to live. For they have realized that the attempt to control the body with the conscious mind is like trying to calculate a million equations without a calculator. Further, the attempt itself betrays a deeply held narcissism, a self-centeredness which is the very antithesis of real spirituality.

The idea that we are affected by the world in general has deep philosophic roots. For we ourselves, as minds and as physical bodies, arise from the same unconscious mind that creates the world; so, a dualism that separates us from the flow of events and situations makes no sense. In Zen, this is called the philosophy of "dependent co-arising," and it states simply the universe and observer constitute an indissoluble whole; in other words, nothing in the universe can exist without you. The Navajo shamans said, similarly, "You are the center of the universe." Stated simply, nothing can exist without mind; so, consciousness is the ultimate reality, while everything else is dependent on it.

In this philosophy, the world is seen as the world-dream, created collectively by the mind's working through all of us. Here, then, is a caution: If you pray for what the conscious or ego mind wants, you might be actually violating the will of the unconscious; and that would be not only short-sighted and foolish, but possibly dangerous. So, schools of radical affirmationism make a great error when they mistake the conscious mind for God.

In fact, it is possible that the use of the conscious mind might actually eclipse the healing power of the unconscious. So, a childlike trust in the wisdom of the unconscious is preferable to an attempt by the ego-mind to have a coup to overthrow the ruling unconscious, or to control or manipulate it.

But if the desire or will of the unconscious is by definition not conscious, how can we know it? One way is through the examination of dreams. Also a deep familiarity with the deeper levels of the conscious mind will often give hints to the unconscious contents. (Because the unconscious mind creates the world, examination of the world itself, or of divinatory systems within it, can also be useful.) Techniques that are collectively called "meditation" also give glimpses of insight into the unconscious mind.

The more that we practice in-sight, meditation, or interior prayer, the deeper and clearer becomes our knowing of the unconscious mind. A mystic known as Isaac the Syrian said that when the spirit has taken up residence in someone, the person cannot stop praying. This kind of incessant, relentless focus will finally allow unconscious material to emerge into the light of consciousness. This kind of transformed person prays even while asleep; and even while working, playing, or relaxing, prayer emanates from the mind as a natural state. This kind of person is not so much consciously praying as he or she is "in prayer," in the same way that one is "in love" or "in sleep." This kind of person is "being prayed" by a greater Mind.

Obviously, this kind of non-verbal prayer is much more than that which we usually associate with the poorly defined word "prayer," which often means a two-minute verbal ritual in which we tell God what we think that he should know. Instead, this more real prayer is a deep part of the unconscious reservoir of wisdom, a steady state held unconsciously, fixed upon the holy, radiant, and loving in life. It is a natural aspect of the inner drive towards wholeness or integration, so natural to all human beings.

Mystics express the zenith of the process, known as "individuation," as full unity with the Absolute. Since this Absolute is an unconscious wisdom and love, the mystic seeks full identification, not with an individual body or ego-mind, but with the Creator-mind, the anima mundi, the mind or soul-level that actually creates the material world. This he or she does by accepting and embracing all the world in a pattern of love and non-judgment, or acceptance and serenity.

In fact, because dream-prayer, a form of unconscious prayer, lacks inhibitions and distractions, it might be our most direct form of prayer. For in the dream-state, the unconscious mind is more free to experience and express its affinity with the divine nature of universal love. When this kind of prayer is combined with lucid dreaming--that is, knowing when one is dreaming, and participating in the dream-- the result can be a dynamic, even explosive, release of healing energy or realization.

In fact, healing dreams are surprisingly common. Further, in the dream state, it becomes possible, with practice, to reach out and to touch others at very deep levels. Also, during dreams, prayers may be not only sent, but received. For example, we might practice healing or being healed, in the dream-state, and perhaps never even bring back the memory into conscious awareness. So, the entire healing process may be invisible to the conscious mind, for it is unconscious.

Also, as long as distant healing efforts are based on love, and arise from true compassion, one need not be concerned about breaking any kind of karmic or cosmic law; for love is always the highest expression of that law. And while it is common to speak of "sending energy," as a kind of short-hand, there is actually no evidence that energy of any kind is actually sent-- at least, not literally, through space. Instead, in healing, energy seems to go within the healer deeply enough to saturate the collective unconscious, at which time it manifests in the body of another. That is, by going deeply enough in your own mind, you actually establish contact with a resonant mind, and can initiate positive changes in another's body. This method of healing is based on a theorem of the universe in which all things coexist at the same time, in the mind, and inhabit the same "space," this is called in physics "Bell's theorem." In a series of sophisticated and complex experiments, it was shown that if two objects once interacted, and then were widely separated, whatever happened to the first also happened to the second. Some physicists believe that this "non-locality" phenomenon applies not simply to microparticles, as in Bell's experiments, but to ordinary objects as well. Further, the mind, unlike its physical organ, the brain, cannot be limited to certain points in time or space; it is free from both. In fact, mind might be said to be the very creative origin of both space and time.

This might help to explain why some of the most effective prayers are open-ended, that is, have no specific goals or desires. For complex transmissions of feeling or data do not appear to be capable of being engineered in advance by the conscious mind, and healing often involves exactly this kind of profound, intricate thought-feeling.

In fact, the spontaneous, immediate results of many telesomatic events reflect the "law of reverse effort." That is, the more one seeks to control and manipulate, the more results seem to evade and elude; by contrast, when things are uncontrolled, everything tends to work out better, that is, when one simply goes without resistance, with the flow. The secret lies in NOT trying, not doing consciously. This allows the unconscious mind, through the material world, to manifest its own great love and wisdom without interference.

Prayer works best when we are trying least-- when we are completely free of worry, anxiety, clinging, expectation, or seeking direct specific results. Some mystics, in fact, warn against any thoughts of self during a period of prayer, as this will contaminate and dilute the pristine energies of love. One mystic wrote, "As long as you are aware that you are praying, you are not praying properly." The deepest prayer implies a loss of the very sense of separate self. Another mystic writes, "Silence is the language that God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation."

Instead of whining that this kind of prayer is too passive, we should instead give thanks that we do not have to personally generate the wisdom and power necessary to catapult this enormous energic prayer into the cosmos. The data and power are already present within the Mind, and do not at all depend on us, or upon our techniques or philosophies or attitudes. So, we cannot make prayer happen, or force it, by willful intent or by specifying precise out-comes. For aggressive conscious activity does not favor the emergence of non-local events such as distant healing. So, instead of seeing prayer as a forceful imposition of the ego-will on the world, we need to view it as an invitation for the world-mind to manifest in friendly, constructive, healing ways.

There is no special secret technique or doctrine to unlock the great mysteries of distant healing. But there are useful and handy techniques. For example, a person who is running or walking can use a short prayer in cadence with his or her steps. Those who use meaningful prayers or mantras are, according to Harvard studies, more likely to stay with the program than are those who use meaningless phrases or sounds.

This form of distant healing is "non-directed," for, unlike "directed" prayer, it has no definite goal or precise end in mind. Studies prove this, although it is directly contrary to those who say that specific images should be held clearly in mind; again, they are reverting to the idea that the conscious mind must control every detail, and, again, they make the conscious mind into a kind of god. Healers who are effective, by contrast, will generally say that they do best when completely free of visualizations, goals, or consciously driven patterns of expectation. Emotional responses, except love, should be excluded from thought during the healing process, making the mind a clean, pure mirror of divine love, a transparent pane through which the sunshine of love can shine unimpeded. This thought-free healing is genuine spiritual healing, and is contrasted with psychic healing, which often involves elaborate conscious directions and preparations.

If, however, a prayer is non-directive, how can one tell whether it has been answered? One path is the recommendation of faith or trust, as contrasted with intellectual or judgmental feed-back. For a prayer is always answered whenever the very best outcome for an organism manifests itself. So, deep spiritual prayer is accompanied by a childlike trust that the prayer is in fact being answered, even if one does not get a certain result. Remember, spiritual prayer is free from any expectations of results, and what is best for the soul might or might not be best for the organism. In some cases, in fact, the Way of true mercy might involve even the death of an organism, rather than its continued existence in extended or intractable pain, or in a vegetative mental condition. Here, we must be careful of hidden agendas; for to pray non-directively indicates the absence of any specified goal.

This might be another way of saying simply, "Love others, and your own body, with the maximum of pure love and compassion. Cling to nothing, expect nothing, demand nothing, free yourself of strife and burdens. Let your mind fly on the wings of faith, and simply trust." Experimental evidence does not indicate that there is a "best" way to pray, but simply that prayer does work. A most important component in the non-directive approach, however, is clearly surrender. This does not mean giving up, but making a clear conscious choice to embrace without resistance the lessons of the physical body, even when they are not pleasant. Surrender is active, and requires mindfulness, and frequent renewal: You must do it over and over again. Also, while giving up brings only despair, surrender brings peace.

Nor should non-directive prayer be mistaken simply for a blank state of mind. While we might loosely have a general goal, out of love for the body, to feel better, this is not mistaken for a specific result or intention. The major function of illness is, after all, to maximize love for the body-- ours, as well as others' bodies. Thus, the real goal is the increase of love, to touch the love-nature, and to experience inner metamorphosis by being so touched by the love-nature or holy spirit within our hearts. In Christian terms, this mystical experience is what is indicated by the sadly misused and over-used phrase, "Let Christ into your heart." To open our hearts to the inner Christ or love-nature is to become one with the very process of illness, and to transform even it into a tool in the service of love. But even so, we do not cling to conscious preferences, but are willing and open to whatever the universal Mind, in its own wisdom, may provide.

Excessive striving, by contrast, seems only to produce mental "noise" or "static," which allows us to hear less clearly the "still small voice" of God deep within us; ego drowns out love.

Some vital aspects of this form of distant healing might include the following: 1) relaxation, 2) focus, 3) imagery (that is, spontaneous rather than directed), 4) intention (for the good and for the service of love) and 5) a decision to cooperate with the natural order, rather than to force it to change according to our ego-standards, and 6) feeling very strongly, with empathy and love, for the object of our healing.

Further, there exists a very long and venerable tradition among mystical schools that silence is a path to God, that words are obstacles. So, this might all occur in the "prayer of silence," in which we seek, not verbal expression, but a state of thought-free clarity, so as to permit the shining forth of healing love through the "lens" of our minds. Ultimately, of course, real prayer is always love itself. In one study, there was a fifty percent reduction in pain in angina patients who felt that they were loved by their wives. Paracelsus said that love was, in fact, the reason for healing. Certainly the love of a good, strong, wise companion can make all the difference, as the present writer will affirm.

Studies have also shown that love, or being loved, can increase immune-factors active in the blood. It can thus be the literal and actual difference between biological survival and death. Empathy between human beings, and among species, is the natural order of creation, and has enormous power.
Strangely, and astoundingly, there is evidence that the mind can influence events both in the future and in the past. This has been demonstrated statistically by the use of random number generators.
Also, in prayer, it is not necessary to "establish connection" with anyone, for you are already intrinsically connected in the collective unconscious. Thus, also, it may be categorically stated that healing given to another is always the very same as self-healing. This is why love is so delightfully fulfilling and satisfying, not only to the one being loved, but to the lover herself. (It is, in fact, one of the terrible paradoxes of the "new age" that sick people are made to feel guilty for illness; for example, Louise Hay tends to blame people with AIDS for their condition, and many go so far as to criticize those suffering from cancer and other serious diseases. This anti-loving attitude squeezes the life from people, and cuts off the flow of divine Power.)

Even perfect love, we need to remind ourselves, does not make life materially or biologically perfect. For, often, love itself uses imperfection as a kind of "textbook" for the creation of learning experiences.

Within the scope of Mind, as noted, are events not only in the future, but in the past as well. But meticulous experiments, repeated hundreds of thousands of times, indicate that observation blocks possibility. In other words, observation of a certain state blocks the occurrence of certain other states. Observation "fixes" the past, freezing it into a solid block of thought within the unconscious mind, and it then loses its flexibility. Thus, the "mind" of a bird or an infant might be more likely to experience the flexibility of the past, while more "sophisticated" people, who are "educated" about possibilities, have rigid internal but unconscious notions of how things can and must be, or, more precisely, of how they must have been. In fact, it is very probably that observation or extrapolation from current knowledge can create a downward spiral in the progress of a disease. Thus, people who do not know or observe that they are suffering from a particular disease might survive better or longer than those who have been provided with dire prognostications.

Medical tests, while very invaluable in their place, might be one way to "fix" the past through observation or data-knowledge. In some cases, they might serve even to block the natural infinite plasticity of the unconscious mind in its creation of the past. After all, common sense tells us that when something has already occurred, nothing can make it not occur; however, in spiritual and metaphysical healing, we are dealing not with ordinary logic, but with metalogic; here, logical principles do not apply. For the creative mind is elastic and flexible, plastic and unformed, to an incredible degree. In time, a form of therapy might even be developed in which seriously damning medical prognoses are altered by the physician so as to give a brighter outlook to a patient, and to expand her range of possibilities for changing the past. (Remember that the past is created now by the unconscious mind.)

The implication is, then, that prayers can be answered even before they are made, that there exists no direct causal link between prayer and result in a linear time-flow. Indeed, an ancient mystic quotes God as saying, "Before you spoke, I answered you."

For time is mysterious and in the Mind, does not always flow in a single unified stream, in one direction. Instead, the past and future both emanate from the unconscious Center as ripples from a pebble tossed in a quiet pool. That is why an "ideopathic" disease-- one for which a cause is unknown-- might be somewhat more curable than one that can be traced to a cause in time. Some diseases, in fact, appear to be effects without causes, outside the temporal flow of causation altogether. These are not as fixed and rigid as are those whose etiology (causes) may be more clear. In fact, it is not unknown among the annals of medicine for a disease to appear, and then for its "cause" to appear later; thus, the temporal flow is actually reversed, in some cases.

Thus, illness itself shares with prayers the factor of being time-displaced or non-local in a temporal sense. In this sense, deeply held beliefs might well affect out-comes in some cases. Indeed, in some cases, the beliefs of one's doctor, close family members, and others, may be equally important with one's own beliefs. Studies have shown convincingly that correlations between a physician's belief in a drug, and the effectiveness of that drug, are numerous and quite common. This fact, however, shakes up the assumptions of traditional physicians, at very deep levels. It is disturbing to them.

Still, as might be expected, the very best results tend to aggregate when both physician and patient believe whole-heartedly in a therapy; studies have shown that, under these conditions, therapies increase immensely in their effectiveness.

Some people seem naturally to block healing energies through their "bad vibes." Predictably, these are produced by such states as anger, refusal to forgive, bigotry, violence, mental instability, need to dominate and control, the absence of love, etc.

Like other mind-phenomena, hypnosis can also occur at a distance. This fact might cause one to actually fear mental interaction, but there seems to be a benevolent and extremely great Power in the universe that protects the processes of thought-transference from careless or negative uses; this Power seems to set guidelines, boundaries, and borders to the use of thought-healing. In one experiment, attempts to increase the growth of tumors was a miserable failure, while attempts to shrink tumors succeeded.

Science has attempted to explain such phenomena in terms of the old or Newtonian mechanics familiar to scientists, but has failed to de-mystify the world by this process.

Still, the healing universe is filled with inexplicable mysteries, and some of the "answers" that are popular are false. For example, it is often repeated that, for a person to experience healing, he or she must desire it deeply. But this has been disproved by many studies. Studies also strongly suggest that every human being, not simply an elite, possesses innate bio-healing capacities. So, contrary to some teachings, the ability is not limited to a few "special" persons.

In summary, in order to enter the healing mode, one must simply be. The desire to do anything must be superseded by the single focus of being, and all desire for specific outcomes must be washed away by the permitting and allowing, or surrendering to, the great inner Power; this must be done with the awareness that the same Power that indwells you also indwells your friends and companions. Good healers try to get in touch with this Power, eliciting its forces for themselves and for others, but do not seek to guide or direct it consciously. Instead, they act in the full knowledge that it already knows what is best for the healee.

Further, they know that this Power is not limited by the constraints of ordinary space and time. It can work from thousands of miles away, and is capable of changing the past as well as the future, through telesomatic events. As medical models evolve away from the mechanism of the sixteenth century, and especially as human beings are increasing realized to be complex, multi-layered energy-systems rather than mere physical objects, medicine will evolve further towards "transpersonal medicine."

It is this medicine that is only now being explored as we enter the twenty-first century, and the second millennium AD. Before this millennium is completed, medicine will have been reformed so greatly that it will not even be recognizable to most present-day physicians. Indeed, it will evolve into something like a psychoelectromagnetic art, in which energy-fields will be adjusted to meet the needs of the physical body, using components from religious and spiritual systems of mystical illumination. States of consciousness, especially those maintained over a long period, will gain an increasing value and importance in medical treatments, and will be spectacularly altered by the selective use of new and powerful drugs tailor-designed for the purpose. Indeed, drugs will be found that can trigger such responses as transcendence, bliss, serenity, rapture, and tranquillity. The "highs" triggered but not created by these drugs will come to be seen as a natural part of the healing process, and will have permanent effects on the psychospiritual structure of the human being.

Natural altered states will also be explored, and it will be possible to record dreams and then to review them, as well as to fine-tune other states of being in order to maximize complete, spontaneous harmony with the inner and higher Self. (Meditation, for example, will be found to consist of hundreds of distinct states, not just a single "altered state.") Devices and techniques for the amplification of brain commands will stimulate natural healing processes within the physical body, and molecular combinations within tissues will be completely elucidated. In short, medicine will evolve into psychomedicine, a medicine of the soul and mind.

As we today must tolerate the primitive arts collectively called modern medicine, let us always remember what miraculous and astounding things will come in its future. And right now, let us always seek to combine the best of both worlds-- using fully the techniques of modern medicine (including drugs and surgery), and the best of alternative medicines, including distance healing and the natural alteration of our own consciousness towards a Mind of love and wisdom and peace.

*******

For further information, see the book Healing Words: the Power of Prayer and the Practice of Prayer in Medicine, by Larry Dossey, MD
(New York; Harper, 1993)

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