Psychosomatics and Superstition: Beyond Scientific Materialism and Attila the Hun to Transcendental Healing

Anto Calh Mark Rego Monteiro, I understand what psychosomatic is... but we were talking if a drug related cure based on traditional knowledge... like in Egypt or something, not that Egypt wasn't advanced... like in Alexandria... Knowledge of chemistry was limited... so they associated prayers to the high! · Reply · 15h · Edited Mark Rego Monteiro Anto Calh "Knowledge of chemistry was limited...." That is the standard focus of scientific materialism. When overspecialized people confuse "science" with truth and as greater than its philosophical basis in the full range of human behavior and multidisciplinary philosophical disciplines. I like emphasizing Freud and Jung´s types of psychological developments, because that alone is key in understanding the limits of "science," its philosophical nature, and the problem of overspecialization and scientific materialism. Thinking that the question, "How are you feeling today, now?" is irrelevant or never complicated is part of the value of Freud´s and Jung´s et al´s work. It relates to the importance of David Chalmers´s kind of philosophical work on mind, among others. The separation of the "sciences" from their philosophical nature is associated with various problems, with anti-psychosomatic prejudice one, and anti-religious attitudes another. In Richard Dawkins´ type of attitude, already present in Charles Darwin´s attitudes, and going back to Descartes at least, they don´t question their own knowledge of religion and such behaviors of prayer. They resort to calling it "childish." It is a conceit due to "science´s" hyperdevelopment, and the underdevelopment of human studies. The British George Fox of the Quaker-Friends in the 1600s developed a simpler form of worship with insights like silent waiting worship, and found himself also able to heal. He didn´t publicize that, but he did write about it. Scientific developments can be impressive, but they can be costly and have complications, or they can be harsh. Combined treatments are possible. However, there are often benefits to understanding spiritual-religious healing in diverse senses. These days, that also involves human rights and sustainability issues. 1 · Reply · 14h Antonio Calhau Mark Rego Monteiro, You are generalizing the concept of truth, or rather speaking of truth in general, addressing to the epistemological question of what is truth. I was talking of a particular situation or event being truth or not, a rather discrete concept, you are taking the whole for the part, or rather the part for the whole. The question faith as you say is so to say absolute, rather than a question of faith, mutually exclusive concepts. · Reply · 2h Mark Rego Monteiro Antonio Calhau The context here is the truth of transpersonal and transcendental healing, and you began your comments here expressing your incredulity and throwing around the scientific paradigm in adversarial fashion. I´m not "generalizing the concept of truth," since the concept of truth is not subordinate to science. You are experiencing your perception of mistakenly depending on scientific materialism, and probably adherence to Catholic religious dogma, as the "truth." Medically impossible healings in relation to spiritual-religious testimony nicely demonstrate how science is not its pretense of "reality," but is merely the philosophical modeling of physical reality. Scientific philosophy, and Catholic dogma, is subordinate to the larger truth that Christian- and University-based modern philosophy in all its disciplines can identify, categorize, express, and catalyze. That is how epistemology in philosophy accounts for "science," which is a popularized misnomer for "scientific philosophy." You are inverting reality in a way that reflects your scientific materialist bias. Your "particular situation" serves to continue your inverted position that you began in opposition, and all without you having communicated any appropriate recognition of the legitimacy of truth, not "science." Identifying your worldview of "scientific materialism" is key to deconstructing your attempt to rely on its supremacism and polarized notions, not just around religion. "Absolute faith" and "faith in question"? I recall that you are a Catholic, and this issue combines your scientific materialism and your own religious stance. In order to make sense of your own terminology, you have to start tying your terms to empirical referents. Catholic "faith" ties you to the notion that you are not to question your denominational doctrines. That compromises your own intellectual understanding, and the manner in which you relate to science no less, it is reasonable to surmise. Again, this post refers to a transpersonal healing, and I am asserting that as a reflection of the standard of reality, normally said now that "science can´t explain." In truth, science is scientific philosophy, and it is philosophy that can draw on its broader resources in multiple disciplines to identify human phenomena, including the transpersonal and transcendental, along with relationship and value contexts. In fact, there are scientific concepts being used, such as alignment, synchronization, and harmonization, which reflect human biorhythm experience that relate no less to wave mechanical phenomena and knowledge in physics. In any event, your comments suggest that you didn´t intend to express a conflicting opinion, and in fact aren´t aware that you did. Your reference to whole-part relationships, general-particular levels of explanation, indicate your effort as far as it goes. In fact, you seem to demonstrate your Catholic sensibility of "absolute faith that God exists" but deference to science´s generating knowledge that substitutes for science-related myths. You are projecting that back to Greco-Roman Alexandria in Egypt, a scientific materialist context. You are, nevertheless, off-track and reinforcing your own misunderstanding. More to the point is that transcendental events from that era, like Socrates´ being spurred by the Apollo Temple Delphi Oracle to begin his Socratic method and Galen´s father´s apparent divine dream are reports that gain phenomenal status outside scientific physicalism. Jesus appeared, and Anthony of the Desert´s story as the Father of Christian Monks can be acknowledged for his transpersonal dream identifying the location of the hermit Paul of Thebes. Reports by early writers, as reported in SJ Hanna´s work for Christian Science, the likes of Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius, and others, refer to Christian healings. Christian miracles for a historical time seem generally undervalued, with the "Miracle of Peter and Paul" of Attila the Hun´s pacification by Pope Leo in the 450s often reduced materialistically and disenchantingly to the Pope´s human persuasiveness, or Attila´s exhaustion after so much pillaging. In fact, I might cite FD Roosevelt and Gandhi to reassert the influence of spiritual Christian causes and effects to understand the power of love, anchored by its supernatural foundations in shamanic healing, Jewish prophetic culture in Jesus´ heritage, and the supershamanic Jesus Christ´s loving teachings, transcendentally oriented Commandments, and Resurrection. A survey would be interesting, with St. Benedict´s experiences not least of all in the 500s AD. By the 1300s, however, we have Ms. Julian of Norwich and her healing experience and Maria of Jesus´ "astral projected image," along with Cabeza de Vaca´s healing of Native Americans linked to his survival for an extended period following his being shipwrecked in the Conquistador age. George Fox founded the Quaker-Friends in the UK in the 1600s based on little education but spiritual reflection and insight. With innovations like worship based on silent waiting, he wrote about experiences in which others were healed by him. He minimized their publicity, but was literate in recording them in writing. The 19th century can be acknowledged for the appearance of US Ethan O Allen´s type of Christian spiritual healing, a few Europeans in Switzerland, Mesmerist proto-hypnotic, proto-psychotherapeutic mind cures, Catholic Lourdes in France, the US´ Mary Baker Eddy´s Christian Science, and JP Lake´s ministry legacy, and others. Similarly, the insights of Freud and Jung´s circles in therapeutic psychology. If you intend to balance and correct your early assertions that accuse me of having a "conceited idea of the science paradigm", you are only demonstrating how your notions are undisciplined and serving your psychological complex. I already suggested M Rosenberg´s insightful system based on feelings, that might be applied in general, "How are you feeling today, now? Happy, sad, mad, glad, or scared? Or something else?" The social sciences also deserve enormous credit, with Max Weber and Georg Simmel not least of all, for articulating antipositivism and interpretivism in identifying UNDERSTANDING as a key objective that involves human interpretation by observers with values. You have some vocabulary to work with, and the desire to understand. However, until you learn to sit and do some mindfulness meditation, and apply yourself to the topic of antipositivism and interpretivism, and question your own scientific materialism and apparently unquestioned Catholic dogma, you are spinning your wheels.