Someone on another group commented that in the future we will be able to
visit our physicians regularly and have our hormones and other blood factors
tested for to allow us to optimise our diets, performance and quality of
life. My reflections on this topic may be of interest here.
***In the future, I hope that we will have learned to utilise the potential
of our minds to such an extent that the concept of "holistic" health becomes
more actuality than virtuality. The first steps have already been taken with
work being done in biofeedback and PNI (psychoneuroimmunology), two
disciplines which reveal that the mind certainly can control processes that
once were believed to be autonomic or uncontrollable.
Unfortunately, the narrow focus of our minds determines the type of solution
or end product that we come upon, so that if we focus on chemical
intervention, we stumble upon amazing biochemical means to modulate our
futures. Nothing intrinsically wrong with this materialistic approach, for
it has taken us deep into the modern technological and pharmacological age,
within very distant sight of the galaxies, but overemphasis on this approach,
coupled with its compelling commercial rewards, will retard our even greater
futures in the application of "mind stuff".
When we examine the whole issue of strength, age retardation, altered states,
health and so forth, we will notice that we have not really evolved very far
mentally since prehistoric times. Way back then, the predecessors of the
shamans, witch doctors and high priests were prescribing certain foods, herbs
and various biochemicals to improve quality of life. All these millenia
later, we are still doing exactly the same, only via more sophisticated
means. We are still taking our latter day versions of magic brews, magic
mushrooms, snake oil remedies, healing potions and warrior drinks to improve
upon what we have today, just as Grog the Guru or Merlin the Magician did way
back in their isolated dens on the outskirts of civilisation.
Yes, many of the biochemicals have enhanced our lives enormously, but we are
still at the consciousness level of magic potions and witches brews, just
medically accepted in the guise of far more scientific names and theories.
Yet, those ancient gurus, magicians and alchemists were using these brews as
analogues, as symbols, as hopeful substitutes for the ability to control our
lives and destinies, forever hoping that the esoteric, the hidden world would
suddenly burst forth to liberate them from these lower order approximations
to holistic progress. Similarly, today, there are those who are exploring the
possibility of training the mind to create and control its own repair,
anti-ageing and intelligence enhancing biochemicals.
Many of us accept the truth about power of the mind by agreeing that there
have been some genuine cases of "little old grannies" lifting cars off their
trapped loved ones or some athletes or war heroes carrying out exceptional
physical feats just by the focused power of their minds. Some others of us be
lieve that certain very evolved humans have produced miracles of healing and
so forth. We read holy texts which attest to such events, we hail the doers
of such deeds as being real and worthy of emulation, but we reveal that we
don't really believe that we could ever do the same, because we go right back
to popping our pills and other magic potions to change our lives, health and
performance.
Of course, the entire system in which we live does not encourage us to act
otherwise, because the drug companies and medical groups are among the most
powerful on this planet and they are hardly likely to coax us towards a
drug-free future. After all, they cannot sell power thoughts and power mind
programs in neat little packages to enable them to control medical practice
as they do today. Think of it, would any of us teach our customers how to
manage without our products and do ourselves out of lucrative jobs and
positions?
Ah, but the day when drug usage diminishes dramatically shall surely come,
but this will not mean that purely abstract mind stuff will be free for all
to use. Those same companies, like the current tobacco companies will simply
diversify into other fields and probably even sell computerised devices which
non-invasively apply hyper-electromagnetic fields to heal, improve and
rejuvenate. The soma of Brave New World will simply be replaced by
Electrosoma or Technosoma, and that way shall rule for many years to come
before the dreams that we dream become the dreams that control reality.
When will we stop preaching sport psychology as a sort of cherry on top of
the physical cake? When are we going to show that we really believe that the
mind can play a more than peripheral role in determining our progress and
performance? When are we really going to believe those research articles
which seem to reveal that elite performance is 75% mental and 25% physical?
When are we going to stop regarding sport psychology, "mind power", "self
control", "chi", "ki", "Ji Gong", "kundalini" and so forth as acceptable
little tales and start taking their potential more seriously?
We often encounter those tales about gurus, martial arts heroes, psychics and
Tai Chi practitioners achieving the most amazing feats of mind over matter,
but when we hunt for scientific studies or reliable eye witness accounts to
prove such claims, they prove to be as elusive as footprints of birds in the
sky. We often are fobbed off with remarks like "masters have nothing to
prove", "deliberate production of such miracles for mere demonstration are
not allowed by the great guru in the sky", "showing off is not permitted by
the masters", "you will see them when you are ready" or "you are not evolved
enough to witness such things".
Even many sport psychologists don't really seem to believe that the mind is
anything much more than a cherry on the physical cake, because they focus
predominantly on anxiety management, motivation, mood issues, endless
inventories of behavioural traits, personality issues, overcoming of fears,
attention control, motor visualisation and other pretty much mundane stuff,
which, though very important in determining human performance, are not the
calibre of the "mind stuff" that is alluded to in the tales of superhuman
performance or the altered state efforts described by world champions in
books such as "The Psychic Side of Sports" (Murphy & White). Those
meditation and guru realm practitioners don't seem to do much better, because
their actions also reach little further than other little cherries on
psychophysical cakes.
As was said many years ago, "As you think, so shall you be" and "Judge a tree
by its fruits". If we scrutinise the world of sporting performance and human
progress, the fruits seem to declare very loudly that we believe far more
powerfully in body stuff, in materialistic tangibles, rather than mind stuff,
more abstract intangibles. Maybe that is one of the reasons why Timothy
Leary declared that the "only hope is dope" and "cop out and drop out". Too
many words, too many beliefs, too many claims and too few deeds and actions.
Are there any folk out there who really believe in word and deed that the
mind is a lot more than an appealing little cherry on a physical cake? Do
any of us really believe that "It is all around if you would but perceive"
(after the Moody Blues)? I, for one, am pretty disgusted that my mind
often tells itself that it is not as influential as my body when I am trying
to lift a heavy load above my head in a Weightlifting contest or when I reach
for the drugs to manage an insignificant cold that makes me feel like death
warmed up.
Sure, I have had those wonderful moments, lucid dreams or "peak experiences"
when mind has appeared to save me or propel me way beyond where I thought I
would be, but those occasions are so rare that I wonder if I was simply
playing a role in Alice in Wonderland and all is but illusion, as is stressed
in Hinduism.
Thus Zarathustra did not speak!
Mel Siff
Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
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