Ch. 15 Psychosomatic Synergy (5/11-5/17)
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Each member of the study group had a particular gloss or reality-tunnel imposed in childhood. Discuss your parents' gloss and to what degree this still determines the universe you perceive.
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Play-act that your group have all grown up in a Moslem nation. Discuss how that would influence your reception of the ideas in this chapter.
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Try the same exercise with the group play-acting a class of engineers in a Moscow university.
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H Hannah pinned this topic
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System unpinned this topic
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I have to say... I didn't like this chapter as much, there was just too much emphasis on curing cancer through the mind which strikes me as irresponsible and kind of grifty. But, the exercise is very interesting... I think we do a lot of that particularly practice in initiatory work, uncovering the way in which our mind is a lens that either distorts our magnifies certain aspects of our environment.
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I have to say... I didn't like this chapter as much, there was just too much emphasis on curing cancer through the mind which strikes me as irresponsible and kind of grifty. But, the exercise is very interesting... I think we do a lot of that particularly practice in initiatory work, uncovering the way in which our mind is a lens that either distorts our magnifies certain aspects of our environment.
@Hannah I agree.
My response to reading this chapter (having read it before) was that it has not aged well. I wasn't sure how to say that without coming off somewhat disparaging, so I'm glad I wasn't the only one who felt that.
The first time I read this chapter, I found it somewhat interesting, though mildly conspiratorial.
I think RAW wrote this chapter to really attack the atheist materialist view of medicine, which seems to neglect the role that psychology plays in healing. While revolutionary at the time, walk into any Whole Foods now and you'll be met with a store full of people who claim, "Mind over matter!" that forsake Western Medicine altogether.
While it would be nice to know that faith-healing works, the method does not replicate results as readily as we would like. So I found myself feeling similarly, that this chapter can justify a certain class of delusions and superstitions if taken at face value.
That being said, when I read this chapter the first time, I did not expect RAW to write anything in favor of Faith Healing (since the rest of his writing seems relatively rational and faith-healing seems largely non-rational). It really forced me to analyze some of the projections I was putting on RAW (specifically my positive projections I was placing on him).
I heard a podcast once that a guest said he asked RAW about faith healing (and Timothy Leary's Starseed doctrine) near the end of RAW's life. RAW supposedly said he didn't believe those ideas much anymore, but he was glad to keep his writings about them out in the world. He felt there was value in letting people see where he went wrong and how his ideas changed throughout the course of his life. I am reminded that RAW said, "I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions."
Or in the words of Michael Scott, "I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious."
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@Hannah I agree.
My response to reading this chapter (having read it before) was that it has not aged well. I wasn't sure how to say that without coming off somewhat disparaging, so I'm glad I wasn't the only one who felt that.
The first time I read this chapter, I found it somewhat interesting, though mildly conspiratorial.
I think RAW wrote this chapter to really attack the atheist materialist view of medicine, which seems to neglect the role that psychology plays in healing. While revolutionary at the time, walk into any Whole Foods now and you'll be met with a store full of people who claim, "Mind over matter!" that forsake Western Medicine altogether.
While it would be nice to know that faith-healing works, the method does not replicate results as readily as we would like. So I found myself feeling similarly, that this chapter can justify a certain class of delusions and superstitions if taken at face value.
That being said, when I read this chapter the first time, I did not expect RAW to write anything in favor of Faith Healing (since the rest of his writing seems relatively rational and faith-healing seems largely non-rational). It really forced me to analyze some of the projections I was putting on RAW (specifically my positive projections I was placing on him).
I heard a podcast once that a guest said he asked RAW about faith healing (and Timothy Leary's Starseed doctrine) near the end of RAW's life. RAW supposedly said he didn't believe those ideas much anymore, but he was glad to keep his writings about them out in the world. He felt there was value in letting people see where he went wrong and how his ideas changed throughout the course of his life. I am reminded that RAW said, "I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions."
Or in the words of Michael Scott, "I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious."
@jjones I think post-COVID, stuff like faith healing is so much more emotionally-charged and extreme. It is difficult because I think there is a continuum where the mind does have a very powerful role to play in the health of our body, but sometimes healthy minds have failing bodies, and they are not responsible for that sick body... nature just works in mysterious ways.
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