Meditationdropped my tense body out of my waking turmoil into a sweet cradle, deep
and dark and refreshingly peaceful. I literally lived for those moments. Meditation also provided me with a chance to practice medicine without
a license. I told my body to be well. I told my immunological system to
protect me. I looked at my brain, my bones, my liver , and my lungs every
night. I felt them and told them to be free of cancer . I watched my blood
flowing strongly . I told the wound to heal quickly and the area around it to
be clean. I told my other breast to behave, because it’ s the only one my
husband and I have left. I still tell my body and mind every night, “I reject
cancer . I reject cancer .”
 
The doctors poke around, look at my x-rays, let me out into the world again. I make it into spring, into May . We try an induction the last week in May . It goes on for 10 hours, hurts
a lot, and accomplishes nothing. They , the ones not in the bed, want to try
again tomorrow . Baby and I want to go home. We go, and I tell myself that
three or four more weeks won’ t kill me! I am happy because, going full
term, I can deliver with the midwives. Perhaps the birth, at least, will be
beautiful even if the pregnancy was hell. My college roommate had a baby on June 13, and I guess that I will,
too. With amniotic fluid beginning to leak, I go to the hospital to a lovely
room with plants and a big double bed. My midwife is good in all ways. The contractions are close and getting stronger , and I begin to lose the fear
all women have. I am handling this well. I’m going to enjoy it. She breaks the bag, and the bed and I are drenched. She says I’m six
centimeters, but I watch her face change. I’m pushing the cord out before
the baby . I know immediately that he could die—fast. She holds the baby’ s
head of f the cord, pushes him up as I push him down, and I now know what
the word agony means. As we race to sur gery, I hear them say that the
baby’ s pulse rate is 60. Maybe a C-section was a good idea. They spend another hour looking at
my insides. They find nothing but insides, and when my husband tells me, I
feel a moment of great relief. The baby is an 8-pound, 1/2-ounce, 21-inch baby boy named Nathan
Scott. He is very cute, with brown hair , long dark eyelashes—and a lar ge
ventricular septal defect, known among the lucky uninitiated as a heart
murmur or hole-in-the-heart. It is congenital. It is serious. It will probablyneed sur gery. It might kill him. And, worst of all for me, it means constant
trips to a hospital I hate, trips that leave me exhausted and depressed for
days. It means letting my baby be cut up, just like me, for his own good. Nathan is in congestive heart failure for the first six months of his life. He takes digitalis twice a day . He sweats when he eats. His little bony chest
rises and falls much too fast, and his liver and heart are enlar ged. He goes
into the hospital for awhile. I stay with him, and it causes me nearly to
break. His original 50-percent chance of closure drops to 25 percent. But then, sometime in his seventh month, he begins to improve. (I like
to think it was during one of those moments when I was whispering in his
little ear , “Nathan, you are going  to get well!”)
The doctors are surprised. The EKGs improve. He gains weight. His
breathing slows and the liquid swelling leaves his liver . In May 1979 Nate has his first normal EKG, a better event than a first
birthday . The muscle has closed around the hole. Nathan pulls himself up
on his feet and stands tall, and I begin to believe in his existence. When my tummy flattened out, I had a big surprise. I really didn’ t have
a breast on the right side. Now was the time when most new mothers love
to put on their old clothes, or buy new ones, or dream of two-piece bathing
suits. My tent clothes had protected me for six months. Now I had to
confront my true feelings about my body , another struggle to add to all the
rest. To describe how I felt as depression is mild. But I kept pushing myself
to continue the positive elements in my life. For seven months I didn’ t lose
my baby fat, but when Nathan began to improve, I experienced a new wave
of determination. I lost 20 pounds. I continued to meditate and to swallow all my
vitamins. Three months after the birth I rejoined my exercise group. Now I
didn’ t have to walk; I could run. And I run so well I’m planning to enter
some races. My exercise program consists of yoga, running, and biking. I
do them every day . I have to. I believe they are helping me survive. My figure is back, with clothes on anyway . I’m even beginning to think
I don’ t look too grotesque with them of f. My C-section scar didn’ t do much
to help my self-image, but my husband is blind when he looks at my scars,
and I am learning to see through his eyes. I began to try to learn how to put myself  first. No one helped me with
this. No one suggested I even had a chance. The doctors totally depressedme with their statistics. Well meaning acquaintances practically destroyed
me with their pity . But in spite of other people, what I did worked, and each
day of continued good health makes me more confident of “mind over
matter .”
I think of cancer every day , but I also think of how strong my body is,
how good it feels most of the time. I still talk to my insides. I have a feeling
of integration of body , mind and, probably , spirit, which I have never before
experienced. Cancer introduced me to myself, and I like who I met. After six years in a remission of her own doing, Lois died, but the
quality of her life during that time was something her doctors never
predicted. Cancer generally seems to appear in response to loss, such as the
tragedies that occurred in Lois’ s family during the year before her tumor
developed. I believe that, if a person avoids emotional growth at this time,
the impulse behind it becomes misdirected into malignant physical growth. As Jungian therapist Russell A. Lockhart wrote:
 
The phenomenology of cancer is full of images of guilt and retribution
and promises to oneself and others that, should there be recovery , sacrifices
will be made, there will be a change of ways, life will be lived properly . The
psychology of such unwilling sacrifice is quite dif ferent from that of the
willing sacrifice. There are moments and seasons in one’ s life when genuine sacrifice of
the most valued thing is essential for further growth. If this sacrifice is not
made willingly , that is, consciously and with full conscious suf fering of the
loss, the sacrifice will occur unconsciously . One then will not sacrifice to
growth, but be sacrificed to growth gone wrong. By the same token, subsequent psychological and spiritual development is
capable of reversing the disease process. It’ s as though cancer ’s ener gy is
channeled into self-discovery , and the tumor is attacked by the immune
system. The tumor is now an estranged and unnecessary part. It’ s almost as
though the individual is reborn and rejects the old self, and its disease,
thereby becoming able to identify the tumor as something distinct and
separate from the new self. The change is strikingly similar to discoveries inrecent work with multiple-personality patients: One personality may be
diabetic, while the other is not. Aller gies and drug sensitivities may be
present in one personality but not in others. If one personality burns the
body with a cigarette, the mark may disappear when the other personality is
in control and reappear when the first personality reappears. Similarly ,
when a patient with a physical illness makes a thorough and positive
personality change, the body’ s defenses may now eliminate the disease,
which is not part of the new self. OceanofPDF .comII
EMBODYING THE MIND
OceanofPDF .com5
The world is not divine play , it is divine fate. That ther e are world, man, the
human person, you and I, has divine meaning. Creation—happenes to us, burns into us, changes us, we tr emble and
swoon, we submit. Cr eation—we participate in it, we encounter the cr eator ,
offer ourselves to Him, helpers and companions . —M ARTIN BUBER
OceanofPDF .comBeginning the Journey
A patient’ s effort to take responsibility and participate in medical choices
must begin while he or she is still fighting the shock of the diagnosis and
trying to mobilize the will to live. As discussed in Chapter 2, it is the
doctor ’s duty to try immediately to for ge a bond of trust by learning and
accepting the patient’ s beliefs, conscious and unconscious. The quickest
way to develop patients’  trust and independence is simply to be human, to
share their pain, and avoid playing the role of a mechanic-lifesaver . But,
because so many doctors are caught up in that role, patients often must help
change them. Toward this end, I advise patients to insist on the following
Patient’ s Bill of Rights, in the form of an open letter to physicians:
 
Dear Doctor:
Please don’ t conceal the diagnosis. We both know I came to you to learn
if I have cancer or some other serious disease. If I know what I have, I
know what I am fighting, and there is less to fear . If you hide the name and
the facts, you deprive me of the chance to help myself. When you are
questioning whether I should be told, I already know . You may feel better if
you don’ t tell me, but your deception hurts me. Do not tell me how long I have to live! I alone can decide how long I
will live. It is my desires, my goals, my values, my strengths, and my will
to live that will make the decision. Teach me and my family about how and why my illness happened to
me. Help me and my family to live now. Tell me about nutrition and my
body’ s needs. Tell me how to handle the knowledge and how my mind and
body can work together . Healing comes from within, but I want to combine
my strength with yours. If you and I are a team, I will live a longer and
better life. Doctor , don’ t let your negative beliefs, your fears, and your prejudices
affect my health. Don’ t stand in the way of my getting well and exceeding
your expectations. Give me the chance to be the exception to your statistics. Teach me about your beliefs and therapies and help me to incorporate
them into mine. However , remember that my beliefs are the most important. What I don’ t believe in won’ t help me.You must learn what my disease means to me—death, pain, or fear of
the unknown. If my belief system accepts alternative therapy and not
recognized therapy , do not desert me. Please try to convert my beliefs, and
be patient and await my conversion. It may come at a time when I am
desperately ill and in great need of your therapy . Doctor , teach me and my family to live with my problem when I am not
with you. Take time for our questions and give us your attention when we
need it. It is important that I feel free to talk with you and question you. I
will live a longer and more meaningful life if you and I can develop a
significant relationship. I need you in my life to achieve my new goals. HELPING P ATIENTS MAKE CHOICES
I always try to get patients to see standard medical treatments—such as
radiation, chemotherapy , and sur gery—as ener gy that can heal them. They
buy time during which I can help the patient find the will to live, change,
and heal. Many of the disagreements over the worth of alternate therapies
arise because some people heal themselves no matter what external aids
they choose, as long as they have hope and some control over the therapy . I
support them as long as a patient has chosen them with a positive
conviction, not out of fear . When a patient says, “I’m scared to death of
surgery” and therefore chooses something else, I can’ t support that choice. Affirmation aids the body , fear is destructive. Treatment chosen out of fear
is unlikely to be helpful. I try to get patients to understand that the body  heals, not the therapy . All healing is scientific. At a recent conference, someone told me he knew
someone on a macrobiotic diet, someone else on a diet exactly the opposite,
and a third person on chemotherapy and radiation. All three got well, and
this person couldn’ t understand how the body could accomplish this or how
the treatments made any sense. But the body can utilize any form of ener gy
for healing—even Krebiozen or plain water—as long as the patient believes
in it. Let’s say I recommended eating three peanut butter sandwiches a day to
cure cancer . Some people would get well and claim it was the peanut butter
that did it. Then even more people would have hope, eat peanut butter , and
get better , too. But we know it’ s not the peanut butter . It’s their hope and the
changes they produce in their lives while they’re on the new therapy .The most important thing is to pick a therapy you believe in and
proceed with a positive attitude. Each person must chart his own course. One may want a comprehensive nutritional supplement program, while
another thinks taking dozens of pills a day is too much of a nuisance, and it
becomes counterproductive. Some can just “leave their troubles to God”
and be healed. Others need what I call the “football coach” method, in
which the patient plans every detail. I thought of the phrase while working
with Eileen, a patient who saw a hypnotherapist regularly , picked the date
for sur gery herself, and hired private-duty nurses. She made sure she was in
control of the situation and ready for every eventuality . She is alive and
well today , having recently celebrated a year cancer -free anniversary with a
big party at her house. Her message to others with cancer is, “Here’ s the
information. Go and do it.”
Since cancer patients typically feel little control over their lives, to the
point where their own cells are in revolt, the mere fact of making a choice
can itself be a turning point. For Herbert Howe that moment came when he
decided to stop chemotherapy because it was making him too sick. His
oncologist told him he was crazy and would soon die. That angered Howe
so much that he wanted to hit his oncologist. Instead he went out and started
jogging. Since then, he has practically made a career out of exercise—
running, rowing, climbing mountains, and in general putting all his ener gy
into life and living. Seven years later he is free of disease. Training patients in meditation is one of the best ways to help them past
their fear to choices based on their own beliefs. This was dramatically borne
out by the experience of Bruce, a family therapist who took up meditation
after hearing one of my talks. Bruce had become addicted to opiates and
alcohol after using them for the pain of recovery from a skiing accident. He
developed severe liver disease and a portacaval shunt was recommended, to
allow the blood to bypass the diseased liver . While meditating, he heard an
inner voice saying, “Y ou have to turn the tide.” The voice later gave him a
four-point program:
1. A week of intravenous vitamin C.
2. Daily meditation. 3. Consultation with a nutritionist. 4. Use of a computer .At this time Bruce knew nothing about the value of intravenous vitamin
C in such conditions, but he found someone to administer it to him anyway . The last bit of advice was puzzling until a few days later , when he read a
newspaper article about programming a computer to deliver subliminal
messages. Having access to a computer , Bruce created an image of a
spiritual figure protecting and healing him, and programmed the machine to
flash this image repeatedly on the video screen. Other people have shown
that subliminal images of white cells eating cancer cells also help patients
get better . In a few months Bruce’ s liver tests were normal, he conquered
his other problems, and required no sur gery. Group discussion is also immensely helpful in convincing patients that
they can choose a course that feels right to them. In ECaP  we have had
people on laetrile, vitamin C, strict dietary regimens, standard therapy only ,
and some on no medical therapy at all. At first I was worried that people
would argue over who was doing the right thing. Instead, they all share the
belief that they will get well. They waste no ener gy on deciding whose
therapy is better . The diversity opens people’ s minds to other allies in the
struggle and helps them see that there’ s no single answer , that in a sense any
path can be the right one. The group is a family but more open than most
families. It’ s an environment where it’ s safe to say and feel anything, where
those further along in their psychological development become “therapists”
to help the newcomers find meaning in their lives, no matter what treatment
they’ve chosen. In general I feel it’ s best for patients to focus their ener gy on one or two
approaches they believe in most strongly . However , many actions—such as
nutritional supplementation, exercise, and meditation—are valuable aids to
any treatment and therefore are important parts of the ECaP  program. When a patient wants to fly to Mexico and take laetrile, I ask, “Why are
you going? What are your beliefs? What are your fears?” If the response is,
“Gee, it costs a lot of money . Should I go?” I say , “No, not if you’re
questioning it.” But if the person has a confirmed belief in laetrile, I may
support the trip, even though I may say , “I wouldn’ t do that if I had what
you have.” But I always tell the patient, “I’m here as another option if this
doesn’ t work out for you.”
MINIMIZING SIDE EFFECTSI don’ t try to browbeat people into receiving radiation or chemotherapy
if they think these are toxic, because they’ll prove themselves right. They’ll
have every possible side ef fect and then say , “Look what this has done to
me. I shouldn’ t have listened to you.” Or they’ll resist more directly by
simply flushing their medicine down the toilet. One ECaP  member ’s
oncologist gave her a certain drug regimen with instructions to take one pill
each day for a week, but without telling her there were only five pills in the
package. She later called her oncologist to say that she was vomiting and
didn’ t have enough pills for the full seven days. He told her , “We’ll adjust
the dose, but in two years you’re the first patient who has ever called to
complain about not having enough pills.” Apparently many of the others
had just thrown them away when they started vomiting. Dr . Alexandra
Levine found that 60 percent of patients in a survey she conducted had no
trace of medication in their blood samples. Yet chemotherapy statistics are
based on the assumption that all patients take their drugs. Many oncologists
now insist that patients take the pills under supervision, but an open,
trusting relationship would be better . In my opinion, about three-fourths of the side ef fects of radiation and
chemotherapy result from patients’  negative beliefs, fostered by a
destructive kind of hypnosis on the part of the physician. Most doctors say
something like “All these bad things can happen to you, and if you’re lucky
something good might happen.” No good hypnotherapist would ever write a
protocol like those usually given to cancer patients. All the things that are
going to go wrong are listed first, so everybody is put into a “no” mode. By
the time you get to the bottom of the page, where it suggests that good
things may happen, you continue to say , “No, no, no.”
Nobody’ s going to sue a doctor for accenting the positive, and the
physician doesn’ t have to make any guarantees. All that’ s necessary is to
change the emphasis: “A  lot of good things can happen because of this
treatment. It is possible the following adverse ef fects may occur , but I don’ t
expect them.” That way , patients will be saying, “Y es, yes, yes,” and then at
the bottom of the page they’ll be convinced they’re unlikely to have any of
the following side ef fects. Patients should also be reminded that normal
cells can recover from the strong medicines better than weak, sensitive
cancer cells. The experience of one of our group members, a physician named
Martin, illustrates this point perfectly . Before he went for chemotherapy , wetalked about the power of expectation in determining one’ s reactions. Martin’ s oncologist’ s nurse told him to take his antinausea pill at 8 P.M., the
chemotherapy pills at 9 P.M., and another antinausea pill at 10 P.M. Then the
patient was directed to spread newspapers across his bedroom rug in case
he couldn’ t make it to the bathroom in time, and have a bucket near the bed
with some water in it so the vomit wouldn’ t stick to the pail. The
instructions so unnerved him that it took him an extra two hours to start
taking the pills. Then, remembering our talk, Martin kept reminding himself
to think of the good things that could happen instead of the bad. Finally he
took all the medication, fell asleep, and woke up the next morning without
any problems. He said, “If we had not talked I couldn’ t have done it.”
Negative programming is one reason why a fourth of all chemotherapy
patients start throwing up befor e they get to their next treatment. In England
a group of men were given saline and told it was chemotherapy , 30 percent
had their hair fall out. Behavioral scientists have shown that the techniques
used to conquer phobias can eliminate this anticipatory nausea, but they are
usually not needed when chemotherapy is given in a sharing doctor -patient
relationship, along with imagery training and attention to the patient’ s
emotional problems. Patients can also take a portable tape recorder to bring
music or positive messages with them to the doctor ’s office, creating a
controlled environment to help themselves through the therapy . A woman
named Estelle was sent to me because of the incredible side ef fects she was
having. When I asked her to draw her treatment, she drew the devil giving
her poison. She had been hiding the way she really felt about her doctor and
treatment, but we were able to clarify the problem, restore control to her ,
not the family , and alter her relationship with her doctor , allowing her to go
back to treatment. When I can see patients before therapy and help them with the decision,
they have far fewer problems with treatment than other patients. Then
marijuana or anti-emetic drugs are unnecessary . Marie, one of our patients,
was told that she would have nausea. She said she wouldn’ t but the doctor
and staf f insisted she take some Compazine home with her . She said, “I
went home, and about an hour or two later I belched and thought, ‘Oops,
it’s probably going to start.’” So she went to the drawer , took out a pill,
swallowed it, and immediately felt better . A few hours later she belched
again and yelled to her daughter , “Would you please get me my Compazine
pill from the dresser?”After about fifteen minutes, her daughter said, “Mom, I can’t find any
Compazine pills here. There’ s Coumadin.” Marie had seen a pill with a
large C on it, presumed it was a Compazine, swallowed it, and immediately
felt well anyway . Coumadin is an anticoagulant but worked for Marie as a
wonderful placebo. Then she realized she’d been doing a mind job on
herself. They’d been talking her into nausea, but she didn’ t need either the
side ef fect or the pill. I remember a woman named Lillian, who at first couldn’ t even sit in our
group’ s circle. “I’m not used to sharing these kinds of things with people,”
she said. Eventually she not only joined the circle but went on TV with me
and several other patients. One of Lillian’ s biggest problems had been
chemotherapy side ef fects. She got sick on the way to the doctor and used
marijuana to partially counteract the nausea. After our counseling, she
talked over the problem with her doctor . Then one day in the group she
asked, “Who knows when I received my chemotherapy?” No one did. “I got
it forty-five minutes ago,” she exulted, “and here I am feeling fine.”
Another patient, Maxine, came to me after a recurrence of breast cancer . After excising a nodule in her armpit, I suggested radiation and
chemotherapy . Maxine ran a health-food store and had not taken a pill in
seventeen years, so she didn’ t think she could accept my suggestion. She’d
heard of all the side ef fects and all her friends told her what a terrible time
she would have. I explained that these treatments can help, with tolerable or nonexistent
side ef fects, if one believes in them and sees treatment as ener gy. I told her
about a similar patient who, when her oncologist started to outline all the
adverse reactions, interrupted, “Oh, I won’ t have any . You for get who my
surgeon is.” One week of constipation was the sum total of her
chemotherapy side ef fects, and during treatment she worked her normal
schedule as a teacher . I tried to get Maxine to think of both forms of therapy as ener gy that the
body could use to heal itself. She said she could visualize x-ray treatment
that way , and she had an excellent response to it. Later she came to see
chemotherapy as ener gy, too, with further positive results. She continued to
run her store and take care of her children. Her dreams during therapy
reflected her conflict. She dreamed of a gardener and cleaning woman, who
worked with natural materials but also used chemical fertilizers and caustic
cleaning agents. By confronting her fears in discussion, however , she wasable to accept the therapy and let it work for her . All her friends warned her
about the poisons she was using, but her improving health surprised them
and changed their beliefs. Sometimes a surprisingly simple act can change the conditioning. One
ECaP  member always used to throw up immediately after her
chemotherapy . Her husband would always have a bag ready for her to throw
up in as she got into the car . But one day she opened the bag and found a
dozen roses. She never threw up after chemotherapy again. EFFECTIVE BELIEFS
Beliefs shape the power of the treatment as well as the seriousness of its
side ef fects. Radiation can be a killer ray or a golden beam of healing
energy. Since chemotherapy attacks primarily cells with a fast metabolic
rate, such as those in tumors and hair follicles, loss of hair can and should
be interpreted as evidence that the medicine is working. For those who
don’t want to lose their hair an ice cap or similar visualization technique
can work. They have to remember that they will not have this sign as a
therapeutic ef fect. One nurse believed so strongly in her treatments that she
called herself a chemotherapy junkie. Greta, another ECaP  member ,
imagined her chemotherapy as “scrubbing bubbles” from a TV commercial
for bathroom cleanser . She told her doctor he didn’ t need to describe every
possible side ef fect, that she would talk with him if anything came up, but
he didn’ t have to program her in a negative way . She never had any
significant adverse reactions. Greta later said, “I believe cancer is the best thing that ever happened to
me. If I can help someone else know how they can fight cancer , it’s all
worthwhile. I’m sure that’ s why I got cancer .” Patients who say this or
similar things are those whose lives have been so filled with pain that the
redirection caused by the illness is profoundly important, bringing new
meaning and love into their lives. It doesn’ t mean they wouldn’ t get rid of
the disease in a minute if they could, but they wouldn’ t give up the changes
it brought. The desire to learn from this experience and help others makes
any treatment more bearable. As Dr . Kenneth Cohn wrote after his recovery
from lymphoma, “The opportunity for personal growth during
chemotherapy can and should be conveyed to patients, because the
heightened self-esteem which results from that growth will increasepatients’  stamina…and diminish the likelihood of their discontinuing
therapy prematurely .”
No matter what method is chosen to restore physical health, it’ s
essential to plan it so that it doesn’ t impair mental health. Chemotherapy
regimens, for example, can be adjusted to fit the other important things in a
person’ s life. A young man named Denny was referred to me by his
oncologist because of terrible side ef fects to chemotherapy . When he came
to my of fice, Denny said, “Don’ t say ‘it.’”
I asked, “What’ s ‘it’?”
He said, “Y ou know what ‘it’  is.”
“Cancer?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, and went to the sink and threw up. He told me, “I’m
given my medication on Friday night and Saturday so I’ll be sick on the
weekend and then be able to go back to college on Monday . But I can’ t date
and I can’ t participate in sports.”
I asked him why he didn’ t have his treatment on Monday . He said, “My
oncologist and my mother think this is the best program, and it’ s part of the
protocol.”
I told him, “W ell, it’ s your life, but if I were you I’d skip a weekend or
perhaps have it on Monday , so you can enjoy your life.”
Next week on Friday I got a phone call asking if I knew where Denny
was. A few hours later I got a phone call from Montreal. He’d driven the
family jalopy to Montreal to see his girlfriend. He returned on Monday for
chemotherapy , and had no side ef fects. He was able to complete his course
of therapy with no further problems, and he is well today . On the next Thursday Denny’ s mother came to an ECaP  meeting. At
first I thought she was going to wallop me with her pocketbook, but she
said, “No, I knew you were right.” When I asked her why , she said, “W ell,
he drove all the way to Montreal and back in the family jalopy . I wouldn’ t
have gone around the corner in that car . On Monday when he got back, I did
go around the corner , and it broke down. I knew he had spiritual guidance!”
ECaP’ s main goal is to foster this kind of autonomy and awareness in
patients and their loved ones by helping them achieve the peace of mind
that enables them to deal with life’ s issues. We’ve come to believe that the
resolution of conflicts, the realization of the authentic self, spiritual
awareness, and love release incredible ener gy that promotes the
biochemistry of healing.We had a physician named Herb who came to our group. He said he
meditated every night while he walked the dog. One night, while walking
down the street, he heard God say to him, “Y ou are Jesus.”
Herb said, “I’m Jewish.”
God said, “I know that. So was Jesus.”
Herb thought, “I guess God is telling me to heal myself by the laying on
of hands.” He started patting himself all over as he stood out there in the
street. When he came to the group and told this story , I asked him, “Did it ever
occur to you that God was saying, ‘Y ou need to become loving and
spiritual’? Being a physician, you reacted in a mechanical way and did
something mechanical, like patting yourself all over , but the message is
‘Change and be spiritual.’”
In ECaP  we promote these changes in weekly two-hour group meetings. ECaP  is a nonprofit corporation. We char ge a modest fee to defray costs, but
anyone who cannot af ford it is admitted free. Personally , I feel this is a form
of therapy that no one should consider as his sole source of income. I spend
large amounts of time with patients, and I never want them to be thinking,
“How much will this cost me?”
No physician’ s referral is needed, and no one is ever turned away . The
only admission requirements are that people do the drawings and fill out the
admission form with the four questions and request for historical
information. Each member begins by doing a drawing of himself, his
disease, his white blood cells, and his treatment. We then discuss these
drawings in at least one individual session before the patient joins one of
the groups. We maintain a lending library to encourage members to become
as well informed as possible. We supply members with an assortment of
self-help educational materials. In our group sessions we discuss every aspect of our lives—treatment
goals and options, nutrition, exercise, the psychological origins of disease,
management of pain and fear , and techniques of stress reduction. We help
patients set goals for their lives, find occasions for play and laughter , deal
with sexual problems, and develop an emotional support system among
friends and family . Most of all, we seek to help them rise to what for most
is the supreme challenge of their lives, by developing and enjoying  their
unique personalities to the fullest. In many ways we try to accomplish what
Alcoholics Anonymous tries to do for alcoholics—changes in lifestyle,acceptance of responsibility , spiritual awareness, sharing. Like AA, we
provide an “instant family ,” which is nonjudgmental. In general, we discuss
why we’re alive and what we’re here for . Each session closes with a period
of meditation and guided imagery , and we help patients adapt these
techniques for their daily use. The ECaP  family is often more loving and
supportive than the biological one. An oncologist once asked me, “Since you’re not trained in
psychotherapy , how do you know you won’ t do these patients harm?” I
replied, “I love them. I may not help, but I’m sure I won’ t hurt them.” ECaP
can be supplemented by further psychotherapy , but a patient facing a life-
threatening illness may not have the luxury of in-depth analysis. Reliving
self-destructive tendencies is not a live message. We need to utilize a
therapeutic approach that makes life joyful. I tell patients “Deal with your
emotions and live as if you were going to die tomorrow . Later , if you still
need to, you may have the time to look back and discover why you are who
you are.”
In ECaP’ s seven years, we have had only two letters ques tioning what
we were doing, and both came from psychiatrists who seemed worried
about losing control over their patients. One protested our giving his patient
a book, and the other condemned our helping a patient who had stopped his
anti-depressant medication. I have no qualms about recommending the
same approach to other doctors, no matter what their training. Caring is the
key. Studies have shown that when you put a janitor in a psychiatrist’ s
office, the patients get better—as long as the janitor is empathetic. The remainder of this chapter concerns the “externals” of the program
—methods for changing what you do . In the following chapters we will
explore the “internals”—ways to change who you ar e. Please keep in mind
that most of the discussion concerns cancer because, as a sur geon, I see
many cancer patients. However , I believe that the same practices improve
the prospects in all diseases, and in ECaP  we have seen positive results with
diabetes, scleroderma, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, neurologic disorders,
obesity , asthma, AIDS, cancer . One patient came because of cancer but was
more concerned with his asthma. After a few months of work on lifestyle
changes, meditation, and imagery , he needed no cortisone and almost no
other medication. That was when he became convinced that he was on the
right track, because in his family asthma and emphysema, not cancer , have
always been the killers. As oncologist Sam Bobrow said in reply to aBoston Globe  reporter who asked how my patients do, “It’ s not clear to me
that patients live longer with Bernie, but they feel better while they’re
living, and that’ s what’ s important.” But I say , “Show me a patient who
enjoys living and I’ll show you someone who is going to live longer .”
NUTRITION
Good nutrition is an essential part of any treatment program, but I don’ t
believe in prescribing a strict regimen for all patients. I give patients dietary
guidelines and make vitamin supplements available from my of fice, but I
think it’ s more important to get people to love themselves and listen to their
bodies. If people don’ t care about themselves, they won’ t follow my advice
to exercise, eat right, and not smoke. Information on sensible nutrition is
available from many sources, and I ur ge people to seek it out and become
expert. Many patients have lost contact with their physical selves, just as
people sitting in a room with a clock grow so used to its ticking that they no
longer hear it. I try to help patients reestablish communication between
mind and body . Then they not only eat the right foods, but they also can use
their mental powers for healing. In general, I recommend the type of diet advocated by the late health
researcher Nathan Pritikin—which is the type eaten in countries where
people regularly live to be a hundred—or one based on the following
dietary guidelines prepared by the American Institute for Cancer Research
and endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences:
1. Reduce the intake of dietary fat—both saturated and unsaturated—to a
maximum level of 30 percent of total calories. This can be done by
limiting the use of meat, trimming away its excess fat, avoiding fried
foods, and cutting down on butter , cream, salad dressings, and so forth. 2. Increase the consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain
cereals. This automatically increases one’ s intake of the following five
nutrients known to have a protective ef fect against cancer: beta
carotene (a vegetable precursor of vitamin A), vitamin C, vitamin E,
selenium, and dietary fiber . 3. Consume salt-cured and charcoal-broiled foods only in moderation (or
not at all). 4. Drink alcoholic beverages only in moderation (or not at all).In addition, the Pritikin-type regimen eliminates from the diet:
1. Nearly all salt except that found in food itself. 2. All stimulants like cof fee and tea. 3. All refined sugar and flour . 4. Hydrogenated fats. 5. Pepper and other hot spices. 6. Foods containing artificial additives or preservatives. This last piece of advice covers nitrite-cured meats such as hot dogs,
and may be broadened to include all commercial meats from animals fed
hormones, antibiotics, and other feed additives. Some former cancer patients attribute their recovery to strict dietary
regimens. For example, Dr . Anthony Sattilaro, president of Methodist
Hospital in Philadelphia, credits his conquest of advanced prostatic cancer ,
with bone metastases, to macrobiotics, a unified approach to life that
emphasizes not only diet but also thoughts and lifestyle. His account of the
experience in Recalled by Life , written with Tom Monte, includes a
wonderful example of the way a teacher often appears as if by magic just
when the need is greatest. Sattilaro’ s father had just died of cancer and,
overwhelmed with the knowledge that he was dying too, the son did
something he never did before—on the way back from the funeral he
picked up two hitchhikers. One of them happened to be a macrobiotic chef,
who told the doctor he didn’ t necessarily have to die and started him on the
road to recovery . I do believe in synchronicity , or meaningful coincidence. However , I
don’t recommend picking up hitchhikers, and I don’ t force vegetarianism
on patients. I think one’ s mental and spiritual outlook is more important to
health than any particular diet, although vegetarians with cancer do have
better survival statistics. Vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists have a lower
incidence of colonic and rectal cancer than the rest of the American
population, but Utah Mormons have even less, despite a per -capita beef
consumption slightly higher  than the U.S. average. I remember a cancer patient named Charlie, who loved salami and hot
dogs. Despite his illness, he would ask his wife to buy these processed
meats. She would bring them home, but, feeling they were wrong for him,put them in the garbage disposal, and the two of them would yell at each
other . When Charlie asked me what was correct, I told him I thought feeling
good was more important. The sermons and “Don’ t die” messages from his
family were not helping, only creating conflicts. I feel it’ s important to eat
sensibly but just as important to make sure that meals are a pleasure, not a
joyless burden. So I told Charlie, “If I had extensive cancer that had spread
to my liver , nobody would stop me from eating a hot dog if I wanted to eat
one. However , when you come to the point where you enjoy living and feel
these foods are inappropriate for you, you will stop eating them.”
EXERCISE
Our bodies were designed to move, and they can’ t stay healthy if we
spend all our time sitting or lying down. People who exercise regularly have
fewer illnesses than sedentary persons. In the hospital, those who get up and
walk as soon as possible are the ones who recover most quickly from
surgery. Vigorous exercise benefits the body both directly and indirectly . It
stimulates the immune system and enables us to cope with stress. Many
experiments have shown that, when animals are stressed and not allowed
physical activity , their bodies degenerate. When given the same stresses and
the freedom to exercise, however , they remain healthy . Back in the 1930s,
two researchers were able to vary the incidence of tumors in a strain of
cancer -prone mice from 16 to 88 percent merely by raising some on calorie-
restricted diets and plentiful exercise, while giving others unlimited food
and little opportunity for physical activity . In 1960, another group of
scientists found that an extract of exercised muscle, when injected into mice
with cancer , slowed the growth of tumors and sometimes eliminated them
entirely . An extract of nonexercised muscle had no ef fect. The psychological benefits are just as important. Just the act of setting
aside a regular time for this fundamental and rewarding activity gives a
greater sense of self-esteem and control over one’ s life. Moreover , all forms
of exercise help you “hear” your body and its needs, while shutting out
other concerns. Exercise, especially running, walking, swimming, and other
repetitive types, of fers a chance to meditate, because we don’ t have to think
about what we’re doing. This will benefit anyone, as long as the exercise
doesn’ t become a way to “run away” from problems or an excuse to stayaway from one’ s family . Exercise has been successfully used to treat
depression, and for the same reasons it is a potent weapon against physical
afflictions. The type and amount can only be worked out on an individual basis. I
recommend one half hour to one hour daily or every other day , according to
what is comfortable for the individual. Just remember that a sick body
demands a slower pace than a healthy one. Warning signals of pain or
excessive fatigue must be heeded, but they’re signs to ease up, not to stop
entirely . The most important thing is that if exercise becomes work it
defeats its purpose. Instead of a time of communication between mind and
body , it becomes just one more stress. It’ s up to each person to choose
activities that he or she enjoys and to exercise only to the point of
relaxation, pleasant tiredness, and a little perspiration. When you can’ t
exercise you can visualize yourself exercising and this stimulates your body
also. I utilize this technique on long drives. PLA Y AND LAUGHTER
A college professor was lying helpless on the operating table just before
surgery, when one of the nurses mentioned that she was one of his former
students. “I hope I passed you,” he quipped. Laughter , which Sir William
Osler called “the music of life,” makes the unbearable bearable, and a
patient with a well-developed sense of humor has a better chance of
recovery than a stolid individual who seldom laughs. I remember Joselle, an ECaP  member with an exceptional sense of
humor . Though quite a hefty woman, she would come to meetings wearing
a tight shirt, shorts, high socks, and an outlandish hat—all as sort of a
performance to give the others a laugh. One day she said that her chest x-
ray showed the cancer was going away . I said, “I know why .” Everyone
leaned forward, waiting for some erudite explanation. “It’ s because no self-
respecting cancer would appear in an outfit like that.” People continue to
see humor if they retain a childlike spirit—that is, a sense of innocence and
play—and I know Joselle’ s sense of humor contributed to her progress. As
long as people are alive, things can still be funny , and we can help them
laugh. There are sound scientific reasons why we call robust, unrestrained
laughter “hearty .” It produces complete, relaxed action of the diaphragm,exercising the lungs, increasing the blood’ s oxygen level, and gently toning
the entire cardiovascular system. Norman Cousins termed it “internal
jogging,” and others have likened it to a deep massage. A story or situation
that we anticipate will be funny creates a rising level of tension reflected in
pulse, skin temperature, and blood pressure. This tension is suddenly
released in muscular contractions with the punch line. All the muscles of the
chest, abdomen, and face get a little workout, and if the joke is a real knee
slapper , even the arms and legs reap the benefits. After the laughter , all the
muscles are relaxed, including the heart—the pulse rate and blood pressure
temporarily decline. Physiologists have found that muscle relaxation and
anxiety cannot exist together , and the relaxation response after a good laugh
has been measured as lasting as long as forty-five minutes. According to some scientific studies, laughter also increases the
production of a class of brain chemicals called catecholamines. These
include the compounds that, in some circumstances, stimulate the fight-or -
flight response, which may inhibit healing. However , increased amounts of
some of these compounds in the blood can also reduce inflammation by
activating a dif ferent part of the immune system. In addition, they increase
the production of endorphins, the body’ s natural opiates. It appears that
these are two of the things that happen during laughter . Thus humor may
relieve pain directly , by physiological means, as well as by diverting our
attention and helping us relax. Norman Cousins, when watching Candid
Camera  and Marx brothers tapes while fighting ankylosing spondylitis,
found that ten minutes of hearty laughter gave him two hours of pain-free
sleep. Since nearly every hospital room has a TV set, I hope someday we
have a “healing channel” that includes plenty of comedy , as well as music,
meditation, and healing imagery . Humor ’s most important psychological function is to jolt us out of our
habitual frame of mind and promote new perspectives. Psychologists have
long noted that one of the best measures of mental health is the ability to
laugh at oneself in a gently mocking way—like the dear old schoolteacher ,
a colostomy patient of mine several years ago, who named her two stomas
Harry and Larry . When she would call me and say Harry was acting up
again, her lightheartedness helped both of us deal with the situation. Julie, a young lady who came to ECaP  because of blindness resulting
from diabetes, showed us all how laughter makes life better . Once, when
out to dinner at a restaurant her family and friends sat her down in a chair ,and she, presuming the table was in front of her , inched her chair forward. She kept inching and inching, and ended up across the room. Everyone was
silent, not knowing how to respond. Finally , she bumped into another table,
where the people asked, “W ould you like to join us?” As soon as she
realized what had happened, she started laughing, and the whole restaurant
exploded in laughter . One day Julie was walking with her boyfriend, who kept telling her , “Be
careful. Step down. Step up.” He was so concerned about her that he fell of f
the curb. So she handed him her cane and said, “Here, you need this more
than I do.” Julie has since regained her sight—truly a healing miracle—and
no longer fears blindness. Her statement to me was, “Blindness taught me
to see, and death taught me to live.” She is now one of our co-therapists. Exercise, laughter , and play are closely related. All three need to be
approached in much the same spirit, all three produce similar ef fects on
body and mind. Humor is an essential part of our group experiences in
ECaP . We may cry , but we also laugh. We work with people to help them
release the child within, for we find that rigid persons who can’ t let
themselves play are the ones who have the hardest time healing or changing
their lives to deal with illness. There are individuals who must have play
assigned to them in order not to feel guilty playing. When someone draws his emotions as a little black box or a tight red
circle, it’ s easy to see how restricted the expression of feeling can be. The
same is true of positive feelings. As adults, many people must struggle to
overcome a lifetime of conditioning and destructive messages, such as, “Be
brave,” “Be perfect,” “Hurry up,” “T ry harder ,” “Be strong,” and “Please
me.” Consequently , many people have to “work” at playing. Carl Simonton
was such a person. He assigned himself a regular period of play and took up
juggling to let his inner child out. In this way he was able to become
something he was not conditioned to be. He worked at playing. We must learn to give fun a high priority in life. Like all other positive
change, this also develops from the essential first step—learning to love
ourselves. Each of us must take the time to find humorous books or movies,
play the games we enjoy , tell jokes to friends, doodle, or have fun with
coloring books, whatever the choice is of the child inside you. Not only
does play make you feel good; it’ s also a disinhibitor that opens the door to
creativity , an essential element of the inner changes we’ll be talking about
in Chapter 8. Choose to love and make others happy , and your life willchange, because you will find happiness and love in the process. The first
step towards inner peace is to decide to give love not receive it. OceanofPDF .com6
Revelation does not flow fr om the unconscious; it is master of the
unconscious…it takes possession of the existent human element and r ecasts
it: Revelation is encounter ’s pur e form . —M ARTIN BUBER
OceanofPDF .comFocusing the Mind for  Healing
Basic techniques for contacting the unconscious mind and harnessing its
powers have been a standard part of people’ s education in many cultures,
especially in the East and in preindustrial, tribal societies. In the West, such
methods have been almost totally neglected in favor of logical processes
based on the three Rs and preparing adults to manipulate the external
environment. During the last two decades, however , the public’ s fascination
with Eastern studies has combined with a long-established undercurrent of
interest among psychologists, awakening the medical profession to the
trained mind’ s ability to promote health. Among many psychological techniques applied to physical illness, the
most widely used and successful has been the one called imaging or
visualization. I will explain how it works and then present some examples,
concentrating on health problems, that require nothing more than a quiet
room and a friend or tape recorder . I will discuss relaxation, hypnosis,
meditation, and visualization separately , but they are really all part of one
process, as you’ll understand when practicing them. RELAXA TION
By relaxation I don’ t mean falling asleep in front of the TV set or
unwinding with friends. The kind I’m talking about is a quieting of mental
activity and withdrawal of body and mind from external stimulation, a way
of “erasing the blackboard” of all mundane concerns in preparation for
contacting deeper layers of the mind. The goal is to reach a light trance
state, sometimes called the alpha state because in it brain waves consist
mainly of alpha waves, those whose frequency is between 8 and 12 cycles
per second and which appear during deep relaxation. Inducing this state is
the first step in hypnosis, biofeedback, yogic meditation, and most related
forms of mind exploration. There are many methods of relaxation, nearly all of them quite similar . They are thoroughly discussed, along with their physiological ef fects, in Dr . Herbert Benson’ s bestseller The Relaxation Response , one of the first books
to approach the subject from a medical point of view . One method dif fers somewhat from most of the others. Dr . Ainslie
Meares of Melbourne, Australia, believes that all verbal instructions, evenin the beginning, tend to stimulate too much logical thought. He has
reported several remarkable regressions of cancer using a nonverbal
quieting method based on gentle touching and reassuring sounds by the
therapist. He also believes that best results depend on a slight degree of
discomfort to be overcome by the patient, such as that produced by sitting
on a low stool or straight-backed chair . Healing touch can certainly be
significant when the patient has someone to administer it regularly , but
other ways of inducing the relaxation response also achieve excellent
results. See the Appendix for a guided relaxation. Don’ t be discouraged if you find relaxation procedures hard at first. Relaxation and meditation are perhaps especially dif ficult for Americans. Our constant mental diet of advertising, noise, violence, and media
stimulation makes it very dif ficult to endure even a few minutes of
inactivity and quiet. We have created a wall around ourselves to block out
this deluge. In the process we also stop feeling and the quiet can be
threatening. It gives us time to think and feel again. MEDIT ATION
Someone once said, “Prayer is talking; meditation is listening.” Actually
it’s a method by which we can temporarily stop listening to the pressures
and distractions of everyday life and thereby are able to acknowledge other
things—our deeper thoughts and feelings, the products of our unconscious
mind, the peace of pure consciousness, and spiritual awareness. To call it listening makes it sound entirely passive, but meditation is
also an active process, although not in the usual sense. It is a way of
focusing the mind in a state of relaxed awareness that, although less
responsive to distractions, is more focused than usual toward things we
want to pay attention to—images of healing, for example. There are many ways of doing this. Some teachers recommend focusing
your attention on a symbolic sound or word (a mantra), or on a single
image, such as a candle flame or a mandala. Others focus on the relaxed
ebb and flow of the breath, or gently restrain the mind from following the
thoughts that flicker across its surface. The end of all the methods is
ultimately the same: a deeply restful emptiness, or trance, that strengthens
the mind by freeing it from its accustomed turmoil.With guidance and practice, meditation can lead to breathtaking
experiences of cosmic at-oneness and enlightenment, but the changes in the
beginning are typically gentle and subtle. As you begin meditating, you’ll
find that it improves your concentration. Gradually you become centered
within yourself, so that you no longer react so strongly to outside stresses. When someone cuts you of f on the highway , you can avoid or shorten that
hair-trigger sur ge of frustrated anger and its corresponding rise in blood
pressure. The calmness also leaves you better prepared to avoid danger
from other people’ s foolish actions. I know of no other single activity that by itself can produce such a great
improvement in the quality of life. I once received a letter from a group of
women who began meditating to increase their breast size. Indeed, they
were able to accomplish that, but the meditation experience itself so
improved their lives that breast size became secondary and they became
more interested in the complete revitalization that was taking place. The physical benefits of meditation have recently been well
documented by Western medical researchers, notably Dr . Herbert Benson. It
tends to lower or normalize blood pressure, pulse rate, and the levels of
stress hormones in the blood. It produces changes in brain-wave patterns,
showing less excitability . These physical changes reflect changes in
attitude, which show up on psychological tests as a reduction in the
overcompetitive Type A behavior that increases the risk of heart attack. Meditation also raises the pain threshold and reduces one’ s biological age. Its benefits are multiplied when combined with regular exercise. In short, it
reduces wear and tear on both body and mind, helping people live better
and longer . Western science has only just begun to study the ef fects of meditation
and visualization on disease, although the interrelationships among the
brain, endocrine glands, and immune system, as described in Chapter 3, are
probably the way these ef fects occur . Perhaps the most direct research was a
1976 pilot study by Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, founder of Boston’ s
Kundalini Research Institute. The study , conducted at the Veterans
Administration hospital in La Jolla, California, showed that regular yoga
and meditation increased blood levels of three important immune-system
hormones by 100 percent. Unfortunately , this work could only be done with
a few test subjects, and funds have not yet been granted to follow it up.In 1980, however , psychologist Alberto Villoldo of San Francisco State
College showed that regular meditation and self-healing visualization
improved white-blood-cell response and improved the ef ficiency of
hormone response to a standard test of physical stress—immersing one arm
in ice water . The subjects trained in meditation withstood the pain of the test
far better than those who did not meditate, and two-thirds of them were able
to stop bleeding immediately after a blood test merely by focusing their
minds on the vein after the needle was removed. This is easy to do, and I
suggest that each of you try it the next time you have a blood sample drawn. Dr. Joan Borysenko, working at Boston’ s Beth Israel Hospital, has also
shown that relaxation and meditation reduce the need for insulin among
diabetics. Type A individuals almost always are very competitive, have a great
need to be in control, are inhibited by peer standards of behavior and
emotional expression, and tend to get sick when the road to power is
blocked or external rewards for their achievements are denied. Most of their
goals involve gratifying their egos with externals, but they often
shortchange the more basic needs of their own bodies—perhaps because
they tend to undervalue the egoless love and inner peace on which a feeling
of self-worth ultimately depends. Type B individuals have a greater need for
cooperation than power , are less inhibited, and more resistant to illness. This stage of development is reached by people whose primary motive is to
give rather than to get, such as those parents who are able to turn from a
primary concern with the self to a greater concern for their children. Paradoxically , this altruism—which is based on unconditional love rather
than anticipated praise or other reward—reinforces a genuine self-esteem
that enables people to care for themselves ef fectively . Both giver and
receiver are rewarded by the act of love itself. All the research to date indicates that the power drive, with its constant
anxieties, continually activates the sympathetic (excitatory) part of the
body’ s nervous system, with a consequent deactivation of the
parasympathetic (calming) nerves. This in turn keeps the fight-or -flight
stress response of adrenaline continually switched on, diminishing the
body’ s ability to respond to another stress, such as illness. Harvard
psychology professor David C. McClelland recently found that individuals
motivated by power had lower levels of immunoglobulin A in their saliva
than those motivated by concern for others. As McClelland has written,“This suggests that one way to avoid the stress and illness associated with a
strong power drive is to grow up, to turn the power drive into helping
others. Maturity , love, and detachment reduce sympathetic activation and its
potentially bad ef fects on one’ s health.” There is nothing like meditation to
give the calm and perspective needed for this growing up. VISUALIZA TION AND HYPNOSIS
Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss has noted that much of folk
medicine throughout the world is based on “psychological manipulation of
the sick or gan” by means of an extremely vivid image brought into the
mind while the patient is in a deep trance. Carl and Stephanie Simonton
adopted similar techniques learned from Mind Dynamics after hearing that
users of biofeedback often were able to communicate more ef fectively with
their bodies by means of an image than by directly trying to influence a
certain or gan or function. One woman, for example, learned to control a
dangerous irregularity in her heartbeat by picturing a little girl swinging
rhythmically to and fro on a playground swing. In Beyond Biofeedback , Elmer and Alyce Green of the Menninger
Clinic describe the experience of a close friend who was called in to help a
man deal with the pain of a lar ge pelvic cancer . The patient was hypnotized
and asked to find the room in his brain that had the valves controlling the
blood supply to his body and to turn of f the valve that controlled the blood
flow to his tumor . He did, and during two months of sessions the tumor
shrank to one-fourth its former size. His pain went away , and he was
dischar ged from the hospital instead of dying. Subsequently , when the man
died because of a complication of later sur gery, doctors found that his
diffuse metastatic disease had disappeared, and his tumor , which had been
the size of a grapefruit, was down to the size of a golf ball. In a study reported in 1984, Dr . Nicholas Hall of the Geor ge
Washington Medical Center in Washington, D.C., found that imaging
increased the number of circulating white blood cells and also the levels of
thymosin-alpha-1, a hormone especially important to the auxiliary white
cells called T helper cells. Thymosin-alpha-1 also helps produce feelings of
well-being, showing that the immune system can directly af fect one’ s state
of mind, as well as vice versa.The Simontons were fortunate when they first helped a cancer patient
use their visualization methods in 1971. Their initial subject was
exceptionally imaginative and disciplined, and the results were better than
anyone expected. The patient, a man with advanced throat cancer , had
radiation for two months even though the specialists thought its chances of
helping him were slim. But the patient visualized the treatment and his
white blood cells in a positive way; he experienced no side ef fects and his
cancer dramatically disappeared. He then went on to cure his arthritis and a
twenty-year case of impotence using the imagery technique, all within four
months. Such dramatic results enabled the Simontons to develop their
method, knowing it could save lives, even though later patients did not
always do as well. Often the first to receive a new treatment do very well
because of the enhanced placebo ef fect. It is inherent in the intense interest,
desires, and hope of the investigators. Visualization takes advantage of what might almost be called a
“weakness” of the body: it cannot distinguish between a vivid mental
experience and an actual physical experience. Psychologist Charles Garfield
studied cancer survivors at the University of California Medical Center in
San Francisco and concluded that most of them had the ability to enter
states of mind that enabled their bodies to perform, like those of athletes, at
levels beyond the ordinary . Garfield found remarkable similarities between
what the cancer survivors often did and the methods used by the Soviet and
Eastern European competitors who have enjoyed such success in the
Olympics during recent decades. These techniques, mainly developed in
Bulgaria, have recently been described in detail by Sheila Ostrander and
Lynn Schroeder in their book Superlearning . Eastern European trainers often have their students and athletes lie
down and listen to calming music, especially the lar go movements of
baroque instrumental music, with their strong, regular bass-line rhythms of
about sixty beats per minute. After a few minutes, the listener ’s heartbeat
becomes synchronized with the beat of the music, producing deep
relaxation. Then the athlete visualizes, in full color and complete detail, a
winning performance. This is repeated until the physi cal act becomes
merely a duplication of a mental act that has already been successfully
visualized. Soviet research indicates that athletes who spend as much as
three-fourths of their time on mental training do better than those who place
more emphasis on physical preparation.Despite the Russian preference for baroque lar gos, many kinds of music
work quite well, such as many types of classical music, gentle ballads, and
spiritual music from any era or culture. Recordings of natural environments,
such as the sea or bird songs in a forest, or even white noise like that of a
waterfall, are also ef fective. The main concerns are that the sounds be
quieting rather than stimulating and that they please the person who’ s
hearing them. Besides using music in meditation, we begin each ECaP
session with some calming music. This makes it easier to enter the state of
“loving confrontation” we are trying to achieve. The music helps people
relax and help each other face unpleasant truths, while remaining secure in
the knowledge that we really care about each other . Even though it may be helpful, however , you don’ t need  music for
visualization.
_OceanofPDF.com_Love_Medicine_n_Miracles_-_Bernie_Siegel.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Meditationdropped my tense body out of my waking turmoil into a sweet cradle, deep
and dark and refreshingly peaceful. I literally lived for those moments. Meditation also provided me with a chance to practice medicine without
a license. I told my body to be well. I told my immunological system to
protect me. I looked at my brain, my bones, my liver, and my lungs every
night. I felt them and told them to be free of cancer. I watched my blood
flowing strongly. I told the wound to heal quickly and the area around it to
be clean. I told my other breast to behave, because it’ s the only one my
husband and I have left. I still tell my body and mind every night, “I reject
cancer. I reject cancer. ”
 
The doctors poke around, look at my x-rays, let me out into the world again. I make it into spring, into May. We try an induction the last week in May. It goes on for 10 hours, hurts
a lot, and accomplishes nothing. They, the ones not in the bed, want to try
again tomorrow. Baby and I want to go home. We go, and I tell myself that
three or four more weeks won’ t kill me. I am happy because, going full
term, I can deliver with the midwives. Perhaps the birth, at least, will be
beautiful even if the pregnancy was hell. My college roommate had a baby on June 13, and I guess that I will,
too. With amniotic fluid beginning to leak, I go to the hospital to a lovely
room with plants and a big double bed. My midwife is good in all ways. The contractions are close and getting stronger, and I begin to lose the fear
all women have. I am handling this well. I’m going to enjoy it. She breaks the bag, and the bed and I are drenched. She says I’m six
centimeters, but I watch her face change. I’m pushing the cord out before
the baby. I know immediately that he could die—fast. She holds the baby’ s
head of f the cord, pushes him up as I push him down, and I now know what
the word agony means. As we race to sur gery, I hear them say that the
baby’ s pulse rate is 60. Maybe a C-section was a good idea. They spend another hour looking at
my insides. They find nothing but insides, and when my husband tells me, I
feel a moment of great relief. The baby is an 8-pound, 1/2-ounce, 21-inch baby boy named Nathan
Scott. He is very cute, with brown hair, long dark eyelashes—and a lar ge
ventricular septal defect, known among the lucky uninitiated as a heart
murmur or hole-in-the-heart. It is congenital. It is serious. It will probablyneed sur gery. It might kill him. And, worst of all for me, it means constant
trips to a hospital I hate, trips that leave me exhausted and depressed for
days. It means letting my baby be cut up, just like me, for his own good. Nathan is in congestive heart failure for the first six months of his life. He takes digitalis twice a day. He sweats when he eats. His little bony chest
rises and falls much too fast, and his liver and heart are enlar ged. He goes
into the hospital for awhile. I stay with him, and it causes me nearly to
break. His original 50-percent chance of closure drops to 25 percent. But then, sometime in his seventh month, he begins to improve. (I like
to think it was during one of those moments when I was whispering in his
little ear, “Nathan, you are going  to get well. ”)
The doctors are surprised. The EKGs improve. He gains weight. His
breathing slows and the liquid swelling leaves his liver. In May 1979 Nate has his first normal EKG, a better event than a first
birthday. The muscle has closed around the hole. Nathan pulls himself up
on his feet and stands tall, and I begin to believe in his existence. When my tummy flattened out, I had a big surprise. I really didn’ t have
a breast on the right side. Now was the time when most new mothers love
to put on their old clothes, or buy new ones, or dream of two-piece bathing
suits. My tent clothes had protected me for six months. Now I had to
confront my true feelings about my body, another struggle to add to all the
rest. To describe how I felt as depression is mild. But I kept pushing myself
to continue the positive elements in my life. For seven months I didn’ t lose
my baby fat, but when Nathan began to improve, I experienced a new wave
of determination. I lost 20 pounds. I continued to meditate and to swallow all my
vitamins. Three months after the birth I rejoined my exercise group. Now I
didn’ t have to walk; I could run. And I run so well I’m planning to enter
some races. My exercise program consists of yoga, running, and biking. I
do them every day. I have to. I believe they are helping me survive. My figure is back, with clothes on anyway. I’m even beginning to think
I don’ t look too grotesque with them of f. My C-section scar didn’ t do much
to help my self-image, but my husband is blind when he looks at my scars,
and I am learning to see through his eyes. I began to try to learn how to put myself  first. No one helped me with
this. No one suggested I even had a chance. The doctors totally depressedme with their statistics. Well meaning acquaintances practically destroyed
me with their pity. But in spite of other people, what I did worked, and each
day of continued good health makes me more confident of “mind over
matter. ”
I think of cancer every day, but I also think of how strong my body is,
how good it feels most of the time. I still talk to my insides. I have a feeling
of integration of body, mind and, probably, spirit, which I have never before
experienced. Cancer introduced me to myself, and I like who I met. After six years in a remission of her own doing, Lois died, but the
quality of her life during that time was something her doctors never
predicted. Cancer generally seems to appear in response to loss, such as the
tragedies that occurred in Lois’ s family during the year before her tumor
developed. I believe that, if a person avoids emotional growth at this time,
the impulse behind it becomes misdirected into malignant physical growth. As Jungian therapist Russell A. Lockhart wrote:
 
The phenomenology of cancer is full of images of guilt and retribution
and promises to oneself and others that, should there be recovery, sacrifices
will be made, there will be a change of ways, life will be lived properly. The
psychology of such unwilling sacrifice is quite dif ferent from that of the
willing sacrifice. There are moments and seasons in one’ s life when genuine sacrifice of
the most valued thing is essential for further growth. If this sacrifice is not
made willingly, that is, consciously and with full conscious suf fering of the
loss, the sacrifice will occur unconsciously. One then will not sacrifice to
growth, but be sacrificed to growth gone wrong. By the same token, subsequent psychological and spiritual development is
capable of reversing the disease process. It’ s as though cancer ’s ener gy is
channeled into self-discovery, and the tumor is attacked by the immune
system. The tumor is now an estranged and unnecessary part. It’ s almost as
though the individual is reborn and rejects the old self, and its disease,
thereby becoming able to identify the tumor as something distinct and
separate from the new self. The change is strikingly similar to discoveries inrecent work with multiple-personality patients: One personality may be
diabetic, while the other is not. Aller gies and drug sensitivities may be
present in one personality but not in others. If one personality burns the
body with a cigarette, the mark may disappear when the other personality is
in control and reappear when the first personality reappears. Similarly,
when a patient with a physical illness makes a thorough and positive
personality change, the body’ s defenses may now eliminate the disease,
which is not part of the new self. OceanofPDF. comII
EMBODYING THE MIND
OceanofPDF. com5
The world is not divine play, it is divine fate. That ther e are world, man, the
human person, you and I, has divine meaning. Creation—happenes to us, burns into us, changes us, we tr emble and
swoon, we submit. Cr eation—we participate in it, we encounter the cr eator,
offer ourselves to Him, helpers and companions. —M ARTIN BUBER
OceanofPDF. comBeginning the Journey
A patient’ s effort to take responsibility and participate in medical choices
must begin while he or she is still fighting the shock of the diagnosis and
trying to mobilize the will to live. As discussed in Chapter 2, it is the
doctor ’s duty to try immediately to for ge a bond of trust by learning and
accepting the patient’ s beliefs, conscious and unconscious. The quickest
way to develop patients’  trust and independence is simply to be human, to
share their pain, and avoid playing the role of a mechanic-lifesaver. But,
because so many doctors are caught up in that role, patients often must help
change them. Toward this end, I advise patients to insist on the following
Patient’ s Bill of Rights, in the form of an open letter to physicians:
 
Dear Doctor:
Please don’ t conceal the diagnosis. We both know I came to you to learn
if I have cancer or some other serious disease. If I know what I have, I
know what I am fighting, and there is less to fear. If you hide the name and
the facts, you deprive me of the chance to help myself. When you are
questioning whether I should be told, I already know. You may feel better if
you don’ t tell me, but your deception hurts me. Do not tell me how long I have to live. I alone can decide how long I
will live. It is my desires, my goals, my values, my strengths, and my will
to live that will make the decision. Teach me and my family about how and why my illness happened to
me. Help me and my family to live now. Tell me about nutrition and my
body’ s needs. Tell me how to handle the knowledge and how my mind and
body can work together. Healing comes from within, but I want to combine
my strength with yours. If you and I are a team, I will live a longer and
better life. Doctor, don’ t let your negative beliefs, your fears, and your prejudices
affect my health. Don’ t stand in the way of my getting well and exceeding
your expectations. Give me the chance to be the exception to your statistics. Teach me about your beliefs and therapies and help me to incorporate
them into mine. However, remember that my beliefs are the most important. What I don’ t believe in won’ t help me. You must learn what my disease means to me—death, pain, or fear of
the unknown. If my belief system accepts alternative therapy and not
recognized therapy, do not desert me. Please try to convert my beliefs, and
be patient and await my conversion. It may come at a time when I am
desperately ill and in great need of your therapy. Doctor, teach me and my family to live with my problem when I am not
with you. Take time for our questions and give us your attention when we
need it. It is important that I feel free to talk with you and question you. I
will live a longer and more meaningful life if you and I can develop a
significant relationship. I need you in my life to achieve my new goals. HELPING P ATIENTS MAKE CHOICES
I always try to get patients to see standard medical treatments—such as
radiation, chemotherapy, and sur gery—as ener gy that can heal them. They
buy time during which I can help the patient find the will to live, change,
and heal. Many of the disagreements over the worth of alternate therapies
arise because some people heal themselves no matter what external aids
they choose, as long as they have hope and some control over the therapy. I
support them as long as a patient has chosen them with a positive
conviction, not out of fear. When a patient says, “I’m scared to death of
surgery” and therefore chooses something else, I can’ t support that choice. Affirmation aids the body, fear is destructive. Treatment chosen out of fear
is unlikely to be helpful. I try to get patients to understand that the body  heals, not the therapy. All healing is scientific. At a recent conference, someone told me he knew
someone on a macrobiotic diet, someone else on a diet exactly the opposite,
and a third person on chemotherapy and radiation. All three got well, and
this person couldn’ t understand how the body could accomplish this or how
the treatments made any sense. But the body can utilize any form of ener gy
for healing—even Krebiozen or plain water—as long as the patient believes
in it. Let’s say I recommended eating three peanut butter sandwiches a day to
cure cancer. Some people would get well and claim it was the peanut butter
that did it. Then even more people would have hope, eat peanut butter, and
get better, too. But we know it’ s not the peanut butter. It’s their hope and the
changes they produce in their lives while they’re on the new therapy. The most important thing is to pick a therapy you believe in and
proceed with a positive attitude. Each person must chart his own course. One may want a comprehensive nutritional supplement program, while
another thinks taking dozens of pills a day is too much of a nuisance, and it
becomes counterproductive. Some can just “leave their troubles to God”
and be healed. Others need what I call the “football coach” method, in
which the patient plans every detail. I thought of the phrase while working
with Eileen, a patient who saw a hypnotherapist regularly, picked the date
for sur gery herself, and hired private-duty nurses. She made sure she was in
control of the situation and ready for every eventuality. She is alive and
well today, having recently celebrated a year cancer -free anniversary with a
big party at her house. Her message to others with cancer is, “Here’ s the
information. Go and do it. ”
Since cancer patients typically feel little control over their lives, to the
point where their own cells are in revolt, the mere fact of making a choice
can itself be a turning point. For Herbert Howe that moment came when he
decided to stop chemotherapy because it was making him too sick. His
oncologist told him he was crazy and would soon die. That angered Howe
so much that he wanted to hit his oncologist. Instead he went out and started
jogging. Since then, he has practically made a career out of exercise—
running, rowing, climbing mountains, and in general putting all his ener gy
into life and living. Seven years later he is free of disease. Training patients in meditation is one of the best ways to help them past
their fear to choices based on their own beliefs. This was dramatically borne
out by the experience of Bruce, a family therapist who took up meditation
after hearing one of my talks. Bruce had become addicted to opiates and
alcohol after using them for the pain of recovery from a skiing accident. He
developed severe liver disease and a portacaval shunt was recommended, to
allow the blood to bypass the diseased liver. While meditating, he heard an
inner voice saying, “Y ou have to turn the tide. ” The voice later gave him a
four-point program:
1. A week of intravenous vitamin C. 2. Daily meditation. 3. Consultation with a nutritionist. 4. Use of a computer. At this time Bruce knew nothing about the value of intravenous vitamin
C in such conditions, but he found someone to administer it to him anyway. The last bit of advice was puzzling until a few days later, when he read a
newspaper article about programming a computer to deliver subliminal
messages. Having access to a computer, Bruce created an image of a
spiritual figure protecting and healing him, and programmed the machine to
flash this image repeatedly on the video screen. Other people have shown
that subliminal images of white cells eating cancer cells also help patients
get better. In a few months Bruce’ s liver tests were normal, he conquered
his other problems, and required no sur gery. Group discussion is also immensely helpful in convincing patients that
they can choose a course that feels right to them. In ECaP  we have had
people on laetrile, vitamin C, strict dietary regimens, standard therapy only,
and some on no medical therapy at all. At first I was worried that people
would argue over who was doing the right thing. Instead, they all share the
belief that they will get well. They waste no ener gy on deciding whose
therapy is better. The diversity opens people’ s minds to other allies in the
struggle and helps them see that there’ s no single answer, that in a sense any
path can be the right one. The group is a family but more open than most
families. It’ s an environment where it’ s safe to say and feel anything, where
those further along in their psychological development become “therapists”
to help the newcomers find meaning in their lives, no matter what treatment
they’ve chosen. In general I feel it’ s best for patients to focus their ener gy on one or two
approaches they believe in most strongly. However, many actions—such as
nutritional supplementation, exercise, and meditation—are valuable aids to
any treatment and therefore are important parts of the ECaP  program. When a patient wants to fly to Mexico and take laetrile, I ask, “Why are
you going. What are your beliefs. What are your fears. ” If the response is,
“Gee, it costs a lot of money. Should I go. ” I say, “No, not if you’re
questioning it. ” But if the person has a confirmed belief in laetrile, I may
support the trip, even though I may say, “I wouldn’ t do that if I had what
you have. ” But I always tell the patient, “I’m here as another option if this
doesn’ t work out for you. ”
MINIMIZING SIDE EFFECTSI don’ t try to browbeat people into receiving radiation or chemotherapy
if they think these are toxic, because they’ll prove themselves right. They’ll
have every possible side ef fect and then say, “Look what this has done to
me. I shouldn’ t have listened to you. ” Or they’ll resist more directly by
simply flushing their medicine down the toilet. One ECaP  member ’s
oncologist gave her a certain drug regimen with instructions to take one pill
each day for a week, but without telling her there were only five pills in the
package. She later called her oncologist to say that she was vomiting and
didn’ t have enough pills for the full seven days. He told her, “We’ll adjust
the dose, but in two years you’re the first patient who has ever called to
complain about not having enough pills. ” Apparently many of the others
had just thrown them away when they started vomiting. Dr. Alexandra
Levine found that 60 percent of patients in a survey she conducted had no
trace of medication in their blood samples. Yet chemotherapy statistics are
based on the assumption that all patients take their drugs. Many oncologists
now insist that patients take the pills under supervision, but an open,
trusting relationship would be better. In my opinion, about three-fourths of the side ef fects of radiation and
chemotherapy result from patients’  negative beliefs, fostered by a
destructive kind of hypnosis on the part of the physician. Most doctors say
something like “All these bad things can happen to you, and if you’re lucky
something good might happen. ” No good hypnotherapist would ever write a
protocol like those usually given to cancer patients. All the things that are
going to go wrong are listed first, so everybody is put into a “no” mode. By
the time you get to the bottom of the page, where it suggests that good
things may happen, you continue to say, “No, no, no. ”
Nobody’ s going to sue a doctor for accenting the positive, and the
physician doesn’ t have to make any guarantees. All that’ s necessary is to
change the emphasis: “A  lot of good things can happen because of this
treatment. It is possible the following adverse ef fects may occur, but I don’ t
expect them. ” That way, patients will be saying, “Y es, yes, yes,” and then at
the bottom of the page they’ll be convinced they’re unlikely to have any of
the following side ef fects. Patients should also be reminded that normal
cells can recover from the strong medicines better than weak, sensitive
cancer cells. The experience of one of our group members, a physician named
Martin, illustrates this point perfectly. Before he went for chemotherapy, wetalked about the power of expectation in determining one’ s reactions. Martin’ s oncologist’ s nurse told him to take his antinausea pill at 8 P. M. , the
chemotherapy pills at 9 P.
The author used meditation to tell their body to be well, protect themselves, and reject cancer.
What did the author use meditation for?
The induction attempt in May did not work and the author's baby was born in June.
What was the outcome of the induction attempt in May?
The text does not mention the author's husband telling her about her cancer diagnosis.
What did the author's husband tell her about her cancer diagnosis?
Bruce's therapy was successful, and he was able to stop taking chemotherapy and recover from his illness.
What was the outcome of Bruce's therapy?
The text does not mention Eileen as a character, but it does mention a patient who used a similar approach to deal with chemotherapy side effects by imagining a spiritual figure protecting and healing them.
What did the author's friend, Eileen, do to cope with her chemotherapy side effects?