| | |
 | "Into the Subconscious" | |
| Page | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| In Chapter 6, I mention in passing, the story of the 16-year-old boy who was cured of congenital icthyosis. At the time that I wrote that chapter, I considered the story to be just another one of the documented cases of the influence that the conscious mind can have over the workings of the physical body. The textbooks abound with similar cases, but by chapter 6, I had reached the point where I thought that just one more item of proof was surplus to requirements. Only a person whose mind was totally closed against the facts would continue to deny the validity of the argument put forward in the preceding chapters. Then, while working at bringing some order to my personal library of reference books, I came across a bookmarked chapter in, "The Secret Life of Humans" ( chapter 5, The Self-healing body, page 57) by Stan Gooch. Published by J.M.Dent & Sons. In the few paragraphs, which I reproduce below, he goes into some depth to detail the happenings at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, England. He then makes an observation, the full import of which passed me by when I first read his book some 20 years ago. |
| Ichthyosiform erythrodermia complex is a congenital, structural disease of the skin present from birth. It is also aptly enough called 'rhinoceros' or 'crocodile' skin. It is a thickening, hardening and darkening of the skin. The condition is resistant to all forms of treatment and is progressive, reaching maximum around the age of fifteen, when it either remains static or deteriorates with secondary complications. This case concerns a boy aged sixteen. By this time a thick, black, horny layer covered his entire body, except for his chest, neck and face. This layer itself was densely covered with rough protrusions rising between two and six millimetres above the surface. Some of these warty excrescences were as much as five millimetres across. To the touch the skin was as hard as a fingernail. Any bending or flexing of any part of the body led to a crack which oozed bloodstained serum. These numerous cracks were chronically infected and extremely painful. As usually happens the condition also gave rise to an objectionable smell, so bad that other schoolchildren and teachers could not tolerate it. Continuous treatment throughout the patient's life had been of no avail. Skin grafts from the unaffected chest area to affected areas, for instance, had themselves rapidly developed the full condition. On 10 February 1951 the patient was hypnotised and told that his left arm would clear. For experimental reasons, the instruction was deliberately confined to this one area. Five days later the horny layer softened, broke up and fell off. The skin below was slightly inflamed, but normal in texture and general appearance. The inflammation faded in a further few days. At the end of ten days the arm was completely clear from shoulder to wrist. At this stage, to forestall any later doubts by the medical profession, a sample of horny skin was taken from the calf of the leg and sent for independent analysis to King's College Hospital, London.' [See: Footnote One for the detailed clinical report] |
| With the presence of this congenital structural disease independently confirmed, beyond any question, the boy's right arm was now treated hypnotically, then the legs and finally the trunk. At the end of treatment the arms were 95% cleared, the back 90%, the buttocks 60%, the thighs 70%, and the legs and feet 50%.' Dr F. Ray Bettley, who independently observed the progress of the treatment, also commented upon the case. Describing the cure as 'astonishing', he goes on to emphasise these vital points: "Erythrodermia icthyosiform is a congenital disorder in which structural abnormality is more important than functional deviation; it is as much an anatomical mal-development as is club foot. It is surprising that it should respond to any kind of treatment; that it should respond to hypnotic suggestion demands a revision of current concepts of the relation between mind and body." 'The disease is genetic in origin. Some fault in the basic genetic cellular code has led to a basic structural defect. What we see in the case of this boy is a reaching down into the microscopic depths of the genetic organism, down to the springs of the life-force itself - with an order to scrap the existing basic design plan, and to rebuild from scratch.' In an earlier chapter of the same book, Gooch had written of cases of religious stigmata; those occurrences, usually involving young females with strong religious convictions, in which the subject displays physical wounds purporting to replicate those suffered by the man, Jesus Christ, at the time of his crucifixion. He points out that - as traditional religious pictures indicate - it is commonly believed that the nails were hammered through the palms of the hands; and displays of stigmata are invariably seen as physical wounds to the palms of the subject's hands. 'Yet we now know that the nails were driven through the wrists! This fact alone points to the wounds being the result of autosuggestion, rather than possession by the disincarnate spirit of Christ. 'There is no doubting that the wounds are genuine, but there is a vast difference of class between hysteria and rewriting the genetic code. Both are very real examples of the mind/body intra-relationship. But, whereas the former example is one of beneficial interference, the latter example points up the fact that hysteria is, without exception, harmful to the organism. Hysterical paralysis, hysterical blindness, even hysterical pregnancy, are all instances of the mind having a deleterious effect upon the victim's well-being. |
| Altering one's personality is small potatoes in comparison. Just remember to be quite clear about what it is that you truly want. Otherwise getting what you thought you asked for can be disconcerting. This point about being truthful with yourself is important to the work in hand. If you can't trust yourself, you have real problems that are not being addressed. It does not help matters that we live in a society in which hypocritical cynicism is the rule rather than the exception. Consider one lie that is uttered several times a week by politicians, and is then repeated, without question, by every facet of the media. The statement is, "under the influence of drink AND drugs". What pious platitude! It is common knowledge that alcohol is a drug that is the cause of great damage to society. It is responsible for several hundred deaths a day. Next to nicotine, it is the killer drug of civilisation. Yet to openly acknowledge this would be tantamount to stating that organisations such as the Guinness company are drug pushers, and that in part, the salaries of our politicians, police officers, and judges, are derived from the taxable profits of drug pushers. Then where would we be? |