“In man, what’s invisible is more important than the visible.”
This statement was said, not by an old Tibetan monk high up in Lhasa, nor by a bearded Indian swami in his ashram, but by a down-to- earth French physician-surgeon named Dr. Alexis Carrel, who won the Nobel prize for Medicine in the 1930s.
In his classic book, “Man, the Unknown” (published in 1935), Carrel pointed out, “The science of the living beings in general, and specially of the human individual, has not made such great progress. It still remains in the description state… In fact, our ignorance is profound. Most of the questions put to themselves by those who study human beings remain without answer. Immense regions of our inner world are still unknown.”
Dr. Carrel eloquently argued in his book that for medical science to truly progress in its understanding of human life, it must encompass the spiritual, social and philosophical fields. The physician must have knowledge not only of physical sciences, but also of the non-visible, mystical aspects that make up his whole being.
It is no longer sufficient for the modern physician to know only those things he or she studied in medical school. There are a number of cases when the causes of illness many lie not in things seen, measured or quantified, but in things outside the reach of our physical senses and scientific instruments.
Some of the non-physical and invisible causes of illnesses are negative thoughts, past-life memories or traumas, and even those inflicted by negative spirits and elementals. But I have met only very few Western-trained medical doctors in the Philippines (less than half a dozen) who openly admit belief in these, for fear of ridicule and criticism by the medical community.
Taboo fields of knowledge
Fortunately, more and more Western doctors are beginning to agree with Carrel and are doing important pioneering research into these once taboo fields of knowledge and their connection to human illnesses.
I can cite here several examples of human ailments that had no physical causes and were cured through non-medical means.
Mel was a 45-year-old medical detail man in Metro Manila who developed what doctors diagnosed to be a nerve problem in the neck, which made him involuntarily jerk his head backwards. The medical solution suggested was very dangerous spinal surgery which could render him paralyzed for life. The patient was referred to me by his wife, Helen, a radiologist by profession, because she suspected the cause to be non-physiological in nature.
The illness developed soon after a reorganization of his company, where he was assigned under a man he did not get along with. After doing a past-life hypnotic regression on Mel, it was discovered that in the past, his current superior was an enemy who had killed Mel by striking his neck with a bolo. He tried to avoid the bolo by jerking his head back.
When I suggested to him, while he was still in a trance, that this incident was in the past and he no longer had to carry it in this lifetime, his symptom completely disappeared and he no longer needed surgery.
Another case was that of Peter, a former bank president who was later appointed a cabinet secretary under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Canker sores suddenly appeared all over his body. No amount of skin medication prescribed by three dermatologists he had consulted could cure them.
After two months of suffering from the embarrassing disease, he took a vacation in his native Pangasinan province, where his grandmother immediately recognized his illness to have been caused by angry earth elementals he unknowingly offended by destroying their home. He had cleaned up a mound of earth he thought to be a termite colony in his backyard in old Sta. Mesa. The grandmother told him to make an offering of several items, including rice, soft drinks and tobacco, and place them on the spot where he had destroyed the mound. Within 24 hours, all his canker sores had dried up and disappeared.
If you tell such stories to an average Filipino doctor of medicine, he will most likely just laugh at you—unless he has read Carrel’s book.
E-mail the author at jaimetlicauco@yahoo.com; call 09989886292.