Healing – our way of evolution as a species

‘Healing is not about getting rid of problems or unpleasant conditions; it is about getting rid of the propensity to make the choices that led to the ills in the first place. And that predisposition will always have an energetic root’

Serge Benhayon: Esoteric Teachings and Revelations Vol. II p321

From our earliest written and oral records and from archaeological findings, it is evident that mankind has suffered from illness and disease since the beginning of time. Diseases such as isolated cases of dental infections, tetanus, gangrene, leprosy, tuberculosis, epidemics of polio, measles, cholera, typhoid, smallpox, the suffocating diphtheria and the historical pandemics of influenza and bubonic plague (The Black Death), HIV aids, Ebola and Swine Flu, have all left their marks on our psyche and shaped the development of science, modern medicine and health policy.

In more recent times we have seen a shift in patterns of illness and disease, from infectious to lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and endocrine and autoimmune disorders. In the early to mid 1970’s it was recognised by governments that healthcare costs could be reduced by preventive strategies aimed at altering patterns of behaviour linked with lifestyle diseases. Campaigns such as ‘Life be In It”, ‘Quit Smoking’, or targeting drink driving and the Grim Reaper campaign for safe sex practices, all had significant impacts on rates of illness and disease in the short term, but statistics have since shown that lifestyle-induced diseases have since continued to escalate in frequency and severity. A new phenomenon has arisen known as co-morbidity or the multi-symptomatic patient, with multiple conditions becoming the ‘new normal’.

This new phenomenon is set to bankrupt our health systems within a decade or two and is now referred to as the global burden of disease.^(1,2)It has generated world-wide concern; we are running out of time as the tsunami of illness and disease threatens to overwhelm our health systems worldwide.^(3,4)

The fact that we are faced with this crisis in the first place is noteworthy. We have had the benefit of astronomical developments in science, modern medicine and public health measures during the last fifty years and yet our current predicament as a species indicates that something is drastically missing in our relationship with health, and as significantly, with our concept of healing itself.

The causes of illness and disease have been explored in many ways, looking at epidemiological data that often reveal ‘cause and effect’ scenarios such as smoking or asbestos exposure and lung cancers^5,6, alcohol consumption with increased prevalence of violence, depression and cancer⁷, corn syrup consumption and obesity⁸, sugar consumption and dental decay⁹, environmental factors and dengue fever or malaria¹⁰. We have more data on environmental, genetic and behavioural factors (diet/exercise/meditation)¹¹that influence health outcomes than at any other time in our history, and yet the true answers to what healing is all about still elude us and our healthcare providers.

The rise in popularity of complementary health therapies and the numerous modalities of the Spiritual New Age movement would appear not to have delivered any further progress in understanding how to definitively provide healing.

Are we now left to explore the elephant that has always been in the room: the energetic root cause that gives rise to this level of illness and disease in the first place?

It has been a well-known tenet held by our ancient forebears in medicine, science, philosophy and religion that there are unseen energies or forces at play well before there is a physical manifestation or occurrence, especially in the instance of illness and disease. The Ancient civilisations of Egypt, Greece, Babylon and many more knew the significance of unseen energies and the need to address the energetic root cause of the patient’s complaint. Imhotep, Pythagoras, Plato and many others throughout the ages practised philosophy, science, medicine and religion according to this philosophy of accounting for and addressing unseen energies.

In modern times, the simplicity of this ageless wisdom – that is, to look for the energetic root cause of all occurrences – has become buried in the struggle to best manage the complexity of the multi-symptomatic patient. Albert Einstein became famous for his contributions to modern physics including the equation E=mc², and this offered us a reminder of the age-old wisdom that everything is energy. However, the wisdom that was offered to Einstein and humanity seems to have fallen on deaf ears and remains yet to be realised in practical terms as to how we apply this irrevocable teaching to our lives and in our approach to science, and in in particular in this case, to our approach to medicine and healing.

The global burden of disease is forcing us to wake up and look more carefully at the fact that not only is everything energy, but everything must therefore also be the result of energy.

More recently there has been acknowledgment of the role of energy or non-physical factors in the disease process. For example, it is now well known that stress, an intangible and very personal reaction to life’s events, can be a significant factor in the onset and severity of many diseases. Unlike tobacco and other carcinogens, where the mechanism of disease initiation is understood, so far we understand the physiological cascade that stress induces, but only after the fact. We are yet to successfully explore the energetic factors that lead us into the stress reaction in the first place. Epigenetics has opened the door in this exploration and has shown that outside factors such as environmental or psychological stress can induce cellular changes leading to disease, rather than the seemingly random or ‘bad luck’ approach of genetics being the main determinant of health or disease.

The question needs to be asked as to why this global pandemic of lifestyle disease is happening when we are better informed, have better living conditions, have better public health measures, have better technologies, communication and access to excellent health services than at any time in our history?

What is going on such that as a species, globally we are very sick and getter sicker? Perhaps it is time to explore the energetic outplay of events in our lives and our responses or reactions to these, so that we may start to unravel more about our own behaviours and our propensity to make unhealthy choices that are making us so unwell and consequently overwhelming our healthcare workforce to the point of exhaustion and burnout.

When this is explored and nominated there is an opportunity for a person to understand why they have ended up in a hospital ward with the much-needed support of our dedicated healthcare teams.

With this in view, perhaps our relationship with healing in the future may need to include:

A willingness to look at ourselves and our relationship with life, taking responsibility for how and why we have became sick in the first place.
Understanding illness and disease as an opportunity to heal the energy we have taken on or undertaken in our quest through life.
Being seen as an opportunity to evolve ourselves as individuals and hence the true evolution of us as a humanity, since we each contribute to the whole.
An understanding that if everything is energy, then that includes us. And if we are energetic beings, then our approach to healing must include an understanding of our being-ness, separate to our physicality and any presenting illness or disease. In that sense, in the course of healing it may be possible to restore ‘wellness’ to our being, whilst the body continues to clear the results of a life lived in discordance with this ‘well-being’.

References

World Health Organization. (2011). Global status report on noncommunicable diseases 2010: Geneva: World Health Organization.
2. Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 301 acute and chronic diseases and injuries in 188 countries, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013  Lancet 2015; 386: 743–800 Published Online June 8, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(15)60692-4
Alleyne, G., Binagwaho, A., Haines, A., Jahan, S., Nugent, R., Rojhani, A., & Stuckler, D. (2013). Embedding non-communicable diseases in the post-2015 development agenda. The Lancet, 381(9866), 566-574. doi:10.1016/S0140
Forouzanfar, M. H., Afshin, A., Alexander, L. T., Anderson, H. R., Bhutta, Z. A., Biryukov, S., . . . Charlson, F. J. (2016). Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015. The Lancet, 388(10053), 1659-1724. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31679-85.
Goldberg M, Luce D. The health impact of nonoccupational exposure to asbestos: what do we know? European Journal of Cancer Prevention 2009; 18(6):489-503.
Siegel RL, Miller KD, Jemal A. Cancer Statistics, 2018. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 2018; 68:7-30. doi:10.3322/caac.21442.
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Bray GA, Nielsen SJ, Popkin BM. Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004;79: 537–543. pmid:15051594
World Health Organization & Nutrition for Health and Development Guideline: Sugars Intake for Adults and Children 2015.
Cheong YL, Burkart K, Leitão PJ, Lakes T. Assessing Weather Effects on Dengue Disease in Malaysia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2013. 2013;10:6319–6334.
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