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 By
Olivier Clerc, France, Author of Modern
Medicine: The New World Religion
When the Christian missionaries of the last three or four centuries
were evangelizing so-called "primitive people," they believed
that they had only to destroy or burn the various cult objects of
these people in order to eradicate their religions, superstitions
and customs.
Centuries after the conquistadors tried to stamp out the Inca culture,
or the Inquisition tried to stamp out the protestant ‘heresies,’
or the similar attempts to annihilate the Voodoo or the many African
and Asian religions, we know that such arrogant high-handedness
does not work. These beliefs still continue today, sometimes under
different guises, long after the objects of worship associated with
them have been destroyed.
This lesson from history is not only valid for primitive people
and their religions. It can equally be applied -- if not more so
-- to aspects of our own modern society. Indeed, even a superficial
study of contemporary culture will reveal that the supposed secularization
of present day society is just an illusion. Even though most people
do not conform to the outward show of religious custom and practice
-- mostly Judeo-Christian in western culture -- the beliefs and
superstitions remain deeply embedded in their subconscious, influencing
many aspects of their daily lives without them realizing it.
And as several sociology studies have shown, the superstitious
beliefs that used to be attached to the formal religions have in
many cases simply been transferred to other objects, persons or
events. The daily evening television news bulletins, watched by
millions worldwide in their respective countries, the stars of show-business
and sport, humanitarian associations, cults and all sorts of other
things in modern life have now become the new gods we venerate or
fear, or the shrines at which we worship or curse, and where we
still experience those primitive religious urges and feelings where
we can believe without necessarily having to think or rationalize.
However, it is in the field of medicine that this unconscious transposition
of the religious experience -- and more specifically the Judeo-Christian
ideology, myths, beliefs, expectations and hopes -- seems to have
had the greatest impact. The facts show clearly -- for anyone taking
the time to study them -- that medicine today enjoys an astonishing
degree of undeserved credit that is out of all proportion to its
actual results or promises.
Real health keeps regressing while the great medical "miracles,"
such as vaccines and antibiotics, are now clearly showing their
limitations, which some had foreseen and warned of right from the
start. This undeserved credit comes mostly from the fact that medicine
and science have replaced religion as the only certain belief in
an uncertain world.
And the doctors and scientists are seen as the priests of the new
religion, delivering through the certainties of science what the
old discredited gods were not able to deliver. If we can no longer
believe in the miracles, the cures and the curses of the old religions,
we can certainly believe in the miracles, the cures and the destructive
powers of the new science.
Almost imperceptibly medicine has taken on a saving or messianic
role, the characteristics of which we must examine. Looking back
through history, there is a sense in which medicine can be said
to have displayed characteristics that have at various times characterized
the Roman Catholic Church:
- Autocracy
- Centralization
- The control and manipulation of people
- Censorship
- Propaganda
- Total obedience
- Infallibility
- The destruction of heretics
- The stamping out of individuality
All this, of course, has been done in the name of public health
and the general good, just as the church acted for mankind’s
salvation.
Let me make my position clear -- I am not a conspiracy theorist;
I do not believe that doctors, scientists and governments are intentionally
and corruptly conspiring together, abusing their powers in pursuit
of wealth, "Big Brother" and "Brave New World"
just a step away. Rather, I do believe we are faced with a phenomenon
that is largely of the unconscious kind.
What I believe is happening is that people, whether within the
medico-pharmaceutical industry or outside it, are being subconsciously
influenced by deeply rooted myths, fears and superstitions, which
are now being projected onto the new screens of science and medicine.
This produces an amazing paradox.
Although medicine sees itself as exclusively scientific and rational
with no room for spiritual or human dimensions (such as psychic
healers or shamans who are dismissed as charlatans), it organizes
itself and functions in a way that can be described as intrinsically
religious. The paradox is that by rejecting any spiritual dimension
medicine in fact becomes the toy of the forces and myths it tries
to ignore and cannot control.
Mere denial of something’s existence has never made it disappear,
except perhaps in our consciousness, but instead it is banished
to our subconscious mind where, beyond our control, it can roam
free, wreak havoc, and wield even greater power.
We can see, then, that even though our society considers itself
to be secular, it has remained as Christian as it was a century
ago but with two major differences. Firstly, our society is not
aware of it. It believes itself to be rational, scientific and free
of superstition. It fails to recognize that it is still, in effect,
observing the old religious rituals but under a new guise. Secondly,
our society now lives its religious experiences through secular
forms -- medical ones in particular -- and has at the same time
transferred its hopes and aspirations from the spiritual world to
the material.
Medicine, then, has become the new world religion. The specific
myths, beliefs and rites of Christianity have been unconsciously
projected over medicine since Pasteur. As I explain in detail in
my book, we can establish a very close parallelism between the catholic
religion and modern medicine, although for lack of space I cannot
go into all the details of each comparison in this article. In brief:
- Physicians have taken the place of priests.
- Vaccination plays the same initiatory role as baptism and is
accompanied by the same threats and fears.
- The search for health has replaced the quest for salvation.
- The fight against disease has replaced the fight against sin.
- Eradication of viruses has taken the place of exorcising demons.
- The hope of physical immortality (cloning, genetic engineering)
has been substituted for the hope of eternal life.
- Pills have replaced the sacrament of bread and wine.
- Donations to cancer research take precedence over donations
to the church.
- A hypothetical universal vaccine could save humanity from all
its illnesses, as the Savior has saved the world from all its
sins.
- The medical power has become the government’s ally, as
was the Catholic Church in the past.
- "Charlatans" are persecuted today as "heretics"
were yesterday.
- Dogmatism rules out promising alternative medical theories.
- The same absence of individual responsibility is now found in
medicine, as previously in the Christian religion.
- Patients are alienated from their bodies, as sinners used to
be from their souls.
People are still being manipulated by their fears and childish
hopes. They are still told that the source of their problems is
outside them and that the solution can only come from the outside.
They are not allowed to do anything by themselves and they must
have the mediation of priest-physicians, the administration of drug-hosts,
and the protection of vaccine-absolutions.
Just as the magnetic field of a magnet placed under a sheet of
paper controls the way iron filings fall on its surface, revealing
the invisible lines of force between the two poles of the magnet,
a "religious field" likewise imperceptibly structures
and organizes the development of modern medicine. Invisible, impalpable,
this "religious field" is made up of all the beliefs,
myths and values of the Christian -- and more specifically the Catholic
-- religion. In other words, the secularization of society happened
only on the surface.
We took away the "iron filings," the specific religious
forms, but we did not change the "current of thoughts,"
the underlying "religious field," which continued to exert
the same influence but through medicine. That is the reason why
behind the different structures of medicine and the Church of Rome
we find the same fundamental concepts, the same relationships, the
same characteristics, the same fears, the same hopes and expectations.
This substitution of medicine for religion has had many unfortunate
consequences. In medical research, it influences what should be
looked for and what can be discovered. Any discovery or theory that
is at odds with the overarching orthodoxy is rejected and its authors
called heretics. Entire areas of research, as well as promising
new lines of approach, are thus disqualified.
Furthermore, the unconscious need to bring the medical world into
"religious" obedience frequently leads to (involuntary)
falsifications of results, as became clear with Pasteur's discoveries.
The medical credo takes precedence over reality, something that
scientists refuse to acknowledge when it does not correspond with
their preconceived ideas.
Lastly, the hidden religious dimension of modern medicine inhibits
the free debating of already fixed beliefs, preventing them from
being properly reexamined and criticized. Indeed, dogmatism, irrationality
and passions -- all characteristic of the religious experience --
take precedence over any calm and carefully thought out argument,
even over the most tenuous facts. The same vehemence that led Galileo
to be condemned by the Church for his theories, in spite of the
scientifically demonstrable facts, is now being used by medicine
to reject any thesis that is contrary to its own dogmas. Science
has learned its lessons from the Church.
My aims in writing and lecturing on this topic have therefore been
several. Firstly, I wanted to bring to the fore this phenomenon
of projection and transfer of religious content, which takes place
in the medical field. In recognizing this phenomenon, we should
then dissociate from medical practice the spiritual aspirations
that quite logically can only be satisfied in the spiritual dimension.
It is dangerous to mistake eternal life with physical immortality,
or to think we can achieve collective salvation through science
and genetic engineering instead of individual salvation through
transformation and personal achievements.
I also hope that by bringing to the fore the influence of religious
beliefs in medicine, which is but one example of a very widespread
phenomenon today, readers will start thinking about how their beliefs
filter their perceptions, biasing and distorting them.
Every time an object, a person, a social group or an event becomes
the target of religious projections, there is danger. Their real
characteristics fade in the eyes of those who color them with their
beliefs. These targets then become the objects of religious urges,
impervious to any rationalization, whether they are expressed through
fear, hatred, "devilisation" and search for scapegoats,
or through deification, idealization and unconditional devotion.
From Princess Diana to Waco, and from Mother Teresa to Saddam Hussein,
there are numerous examples of the kind of consequences brought
about by this transfer of religious expression to real persons or
situations.
Beyond this dissociation of medicine and religion, I would like
to encourage an increased awareness of the fears found in the depths
of our consciousness, which remain the hidden determining factors
of most of our actions. As shown in my book, these fundamental fears
-- fear of death mostly, but also fear of evil, fear of suffering,
fear of separation and fear of solitude -- have lead humanity, at
all times throughout history, to make up all kinds of beliefs in
an effort to exorcise these fears.
Then with the development of science and the rise of intellectualism
mankind has tried to rationally justify these beliefs, hidden under
the cloak of medicine and life sciences.
In other words, there are three layers superimposed inside us:
1) A core of fears, from which we have learned to protect ourselves
by covering it with
2) A layer of beliefs, which make us feel safe (even though those
fears have not disappeared), this layer being itself dissimulated
under
3) An intellectual varnish, a rational facade, which give us
the illusion of having transcended superstitions and beliefs,
and which shelters us from our fears, keeping us barricaded behind
intellectual knowledge.
But in reality as soon as any unexpected event scratches this varnish,
our underlying beliefs and fears reveal their presence and their
indirect influence.
As long as they are not acknowledged, accepted and transformed,
these fears will feed on every area of human endeavor. The intellect
cannot think freely and the heart may not love fully, as long as
both of them are hamstrung by the permanent task of appeasing our
deepest anxieties, which keep trying to resurface in our consciousness.
No technological innovation, no scientific discovery, no external
knowledge will ever enable us to avoid this confrontation with ourselves
and -- more specifically -- with our shadow. It is quite instructive
to see to what degree the intellectual and technical knowledge of
this century -- often quite remarkable -- remains captive to the
fears that haunt society. We only have to look at the poor state
of our planet, at the multiplicity of wars and at the emergence
of new diseases, to see how this way of using our inner capacities
is unproductive.
Finally, through this increasing awareness and consciousness to
which I invite my readers, I hope to encourage greater individual
responsibility, be it on the medical or on the spiritual level.
It seems inexplicable to me that we should give away our power to
whatever external authority (priests, physicians, experts) and then
blame them for abusing us with it.
Very few people are capable of being totally impartial and disinterested,
especially when money and power are at stake; and especially when
psychological studies show that the noblest motivations often go
hand in hand with more dubious unconscious intentions.
Therefore, taking personal responsibility for our own health, our
own inner evolution, and our own life at every level, without rejecting
any available help or advice, remains the safest and most rewarding
attitude. The obscurantism that endures under new forms will not
so much be fought by the lights of science than by the sparks of
our own self-awareness, that each one may awaken in oneself. At
least, such is my conviction.
This text first appeared in CONTINUUM Magazine and
is the introduction to the book "Médecine, Religion
et Peur; l’influence cachée des croyances" by Olivier
Clerc. The book has been published with Editions Jouvence, 1999.
France. Olivier Clerc has been working for 20 years in the field
of alternative medicine, spirituality and personal development,
as author, translator, journalist and publisher.
Beside his book on medicine and religion, he has
written a book on lucid dreaming ("Vivre ses rêves",
Helios, 1983) and another about isolation tanks ("L’océan
intérieur", Soleil, 1985), and was chief editor of a
French magazine dedicated to health, ecology and social issues.
He was editorial director of Editions Jouvence, Switzerland, until
February 2001.
The author can be contacted at olivierfclerc@yahoo.fr
SickofDoctors.com
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