Reclaiming
the Spirit of Healing
by
His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales
This
chapter taken from 'The Heart of the Healer' *(1) (pages 9 to
13) and is based on a speech given to the British Medical Association
on the 14th of December 1982.
"I
have often thought that one of the less attractive traits of various
professional bodies and institutions is the deeply in-grained
suspicion and outright hostility which can exist towards anything
unorthodox or unconventional. I suppose it is inevitable that
something which is different should arouse strong feelings on
the part of the majority whose conventional wisdom is being challenged
or, in a more social sense, whose way of life and customs are
being insulted by something rather alien.
I suppose, too, that human nature is such that we are frequently
prevented from seeing that what is taken for today's unorthodoxy
is probably going to be tomorrow's convention. Perhaps we just
have to accept it is Gods will that the unorthodox individual
is doomed for years of frustration, ridicule and failure in order
to act out his role in the scheme of things, until his day arrives
and mankind is ready to receive his message: a message which he
probably finds hard to explain, but which he knows comes from
a far deeper source than conscious thought.
The renowned sixteenth century healer, Paracelsus, was just such
an individual. He is probably remembered more for his fight against
orthodoxy than for his achievements in the medical field. As a
result of his unorthodox approach to medicine in his time he was
equated with the damnable Dr. Faustus.
Of the barbers, surgeons and pharmacists, he complained that "they
begrudge the honour I won healing Princes and noble-men and they
say my powers come from the devil." And yet in his day and
age he was criticising abuses among pharmacists and attacking
the quack remedies - viper's blood, "mummy" powder,
unicorn horn and so on.
In 1527, by an act of which I am sure today's younger doctors
would be proud, he burnt the famous textbook of medieval medicine,
the Canon of Avicenna, which became a symbol of rebellion against
pedantry and unthinking acceptance of ancient doctrines.
But what kind of man was Paracelsus? A charlatan or a gifted healer?
In my view he was far from being a charlatan. We could do worse
than to look again briefly at the principles he so desperately
believed in, for they have a message for our time: a time when
science was tended to become estranged from nature and that is
the moment when we should remember Paracelsus.
But what kind of man was Paracelsus? A charlatan or a gifted healer?
In my view he was far from being a charlatan. We could do worse
than to look again briefly at the principles he so desperately
believed in, for they have a message for our time: a time when
science has tended to become estranged from nature and that is
the moment when we should remember Paracelsus.
Above all, he maintained that there were four pillars on which
the whole art of healing rested. The first was philosophy; the
second astronomy (or what we might call psychology): the third
alchemy (or bio-chemistry), and the four, virtue (in other words
the professional skill of the doctor). He then went on to outline
the basic qualifications for a doctor: "Like each plant and
metallic remedy the doctor, too, must have a specific virtue.
He must be intimate with nature. He must have the intuition which
is necessary to understand the patient, his body, hid disease.
He must have the 'feel' and the 'touch' which make it possible
for him to be in sympathetic communication with the patient's
spirits."
Paracelsus believed that the good doctor's therapeutic success
largely depends on his ability to inspire the patient with confidence
and to mobilize his will to health. By the way, he also recommended
chastity and fasting to heighten diagnostic sensitiveness and
to intensify one's hypnotic power.
I know that there are a considerable number of doctors, who operate
by these kinds of basic principles, because several have written
to me, but nevertheless the modern science of medicine still tends
to be based, as George Engel write. "
on the notion
of the body as a machine, of disease as the consequence of breakdown
of the machine." By concentrating on smaller and smaller
fragments of the body, modern medicine perhaps loses sight of
the patient as a whole human being, and by reducing health to
mechanical functioning it is no longer able to deal with the phenomenon
of healing.
And here I come back to my original point. The term "healer"
is viewed with suspicion and the concepts of health and healing
are probably not generally discussed in medical schools. But to
reincorporate the notion of healing into the practice of medicine
does not necessarily mean that medical science will have to be
less scientific.
Through the centuries healing has been practiced by folk-healers
who are guided by traditional wisdom that see illness as a disorder
of the whole person, involving not only the patient's body, but
also his mind, his self-image, his dependence on the physical
and social environment, as well as his relation to the cosmos.
Paracelsus constantly repeated the old adage that "Nature
heals, the doctor nurses" - and it is well to remember that
these sorts of healers still treat the majority of patients throughout
the world. Some of them, in the form of black Christian bishops
in Africa, are subjected to the most appalling kind of misinformed
abuse and censure, which so characterized the worst elements of
missionary activity among populations whose childlike acceptance
of the symbols of life and of nature is one of their most endearing
qualities.
I would suggest that the whole imposing edifice of modern medicine,
for all its breathtakingly successes is, like the celebrated Tower
of Pisa, slightly off balance. No one could be stupid enough to
deny the enormous benefits which the advances of medical science
in this century have conferred upon us all. To take only one example
- penicillin administered in a case of infective heart disease
leads to survival in an illness otherwise uniformly fatal. Anyone
who has had this kind of experience is likely to be a powerful
supporter of modern methods in medicine, but nevertheless the
fact remains that contemporary medicine as a whole tends to be
fascinated by the objective, statistical, computerised approach
to the healing of the sick.
If disease is regarded as an objective problem, isolated from
all personal factors, then surgery plus more and more powerful
drugs must be the answer. Already the cost of drugs supplied to
patients by the British National Health Service alone is well
over £2,000 million [U.S. $3,500 million] a year.
It is frightening how dependent on drugs we are all becoming
and how easy it is for doctors to prescribe them as the universal
panacea for our ills. Wonde
rful as many of them are, it should still be more
widely stressed by doctors that the health of human beings is
so often determined by their behaviour, their food and the nature
of their environment.
The last word on this subject remains with Paracelsus, whose name
should be synonymous with the common health. He hoped to show,
above all, that the "light of Nature" was in the hearts
of men, not in books. With all the conviction of a man who follows
his inner voice he made a desperate supplication that "would
we humans knew our hearts in truth, nothing on earth would be
impossible for us."
REFERENCES
[1]
The Heart of the Healer With Prince Charles, Norman
Cousins, Richard Moss, Bernie Siegel & Others.
Edited by Dawson Church & Dr. Alan Sherr Aslan Publishing
New York, New York Mickleton, England 1987 ISBN: 0-944031-12-9
