Woke up this morning and didn't know what to blog about exactly, different thoughts in a kind of formless mass. Since others' loved ones having health issues is a recurring theme I looked up some stuff from an old book I once read to kind of refresh the old memory base and before long I became absolutely absorbed. This is from the book Beyond MS: It's All in the Image by Nancy A. Bent, Ph.D (Brandon House, NY - 1995) and it's from the Introduction by Dr. Akhter Ahsen called "The Art of Restoration":
"...(Eidetic Image Therapy) is meant as a procedure of return to the natural state of health, not as an emphasis on disease...As was said earlier Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' turned out to be a painting not of the night, as was thought, but of the morning, just the opposite. It had so much varnish on it and had accumulated so much dirt over the years that it only looked like a night scene. That is an apt metaphor for what a patient usually is - a night scene...It is the person's own psyche that moves the limbs and not another individual who externally moves around or massages the body muscles because the true knowledge of movement and healing is only procurable when the person deeply initiates the activity from within."
Here, you can read the whole thing at: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-MS-Its-All-Image/dp/0913412848#reader_0913412848
Think about it and it's true, during the course of your day it's your own Mind which moves your limbs and your body in ways that you want without you even thinking about it. I think that is part of the gist of the passage I just quoted and for me points to Rene Descartes' ghost in the machine. The original functioning of the organism according to its DNA blueprint, that is the goal of modern eidetics. The part about Rembrandt's classic Night Watch (1642) is most interesting. Here was a painting that was commissioned by Captain Banning Cocq and several members of his civic guards as a kind of group portrait and was originally 13' X 16' and had 34 figures in it. It had so much dirt and varnish on it over the years as that is the nature of art collecting that only after WWII was it properly restored according to the artist's original vision and became known as Day Watch.
Every now and then we're gonna get a little culture under our belts.
Wow, this entire thing went over my head.
ReplyDeleteCool. What I found interesting is it's a new avenue. Medicine right now is stymied in curing diseases, let's face it and when I go in the supermarket and the cashier asks me if I want to give a dollar to this charity or that many times I will but you know it probably won't do any good. I think these various medical foundations, Jerry's Kids, whatever need to give us HONEST periodic progress reports and if that means no progress on the horizon tell us so and we'll be the judge if our money is being wasted or not. Been meaning to do a blog on charities not that I'm against them but I think it's all too often a feelgood thing (Susan G. Komen for the Cure) with hardly any progress being made and so that's what makes me more interested in other approaches.
ReplyDeleteWanted to say something about religion here and things like St. Therese's Oil. Got a couple vials recently at the Marian Shrine in Stony Point, you should know the area and my philosophy is like this and I don't know why more people don't adopt it -- what have you got to lose? Now let's say your friend is suffering from Ailment X or Ailment Y and he puts some on and it doesn't work but maybe it will...point being if my friend has an incurable terminal disease and is gonna die in six months and I don't offer the oil knowing he's religious and he goes in the end my attitude wouldn't be geez it's too bad I lost my friend but at least I didn't subscribe to magic in dabbing the oil on him. Re St. Therese's Oil I don't really have a position on it but I'm flexible, just a digression on some of these spiritual offerings you see at some of these places. There's something in the Bible, a reading a few weeks ago where an important person with leprosy is told to just go in the Jordan River and be cured and he's hesitant but it's the same principle here, what have you got to lose? Perhaps Lista can remember the passage as my Bible's a little rusty.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I'm about sick of this pink breast cancer awareness thing. I was looking at a hunting catalog (don't ask) the other day and they had a pink breast cancer awareness HUNTING KNIFE. I mean, how deep is the irony there?
ReplyDeleteNo one ever talks about brain cancer or esophageal cancer or rectal cancer. It's all about the breast cancer and quite honestly I'm sick of it.
I do know the place you're talking about and we do believe that some things are holy and sacred (or become so after they're offered) and that their touch is also purifying. This is why all Vaisnava devotees wear neckbeads made of Tulasi wood, and why we put tilak on, and lots of other examples I could give. So I can't see where it would hurt. I do take issue with people like Peter Popoff (geez, what a name) who wants you to send him a 'donation' and then he's going to send you a scrap of cloth you're supposed to put in your wallet and God's going to give you tons of money.
That's a whole different thing.
I think medicine right now is focused on treating symptoms. Of course treating one symptom with one drug leads to other side effects which need yet another drug to resolve it. And so it goes.
ReplyDeleteAnother blogworthy topic is I think this country is overmedicated. Also bipolar people at work, now I realize this exists but to me the mood swings and other weird stuff isn't fair to the rest of the staff.
ReplyDeleteAny thoughts on that breast cancer drug Avastin maybe being pulled from the market (or denied FDA approval but isn't that kinda the same thing?)? Seems some folks don't want a cure or are threatened by one or just want people to suffer or some such thing.
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