INTEGRATIVE POLITICS

On Witches and Washington

During the 1980’s there was a huge paradigm shift in how Americans came to think about health. Before that time we basically adhered to an allopathic model of healing; you hoped you didn’t get sick, and if you did then you sought from a doctor an external remedy to eradicate or suppress your symptoms.

During the AIDS crisis - facing a horrifying pandemic that eluded for a long time any attempts at medical intervention - people started looking into “alternative medicine,” which then became “complementary medicine,” then ultimately landed at its most accurate label, “integrative medicine.” The idea of a mind-body connection - looking at how mind and spirit and body were factors in preventing and healing disease - changed forever how we would look at health and healing.

We realized health is not the absence of sickness, but rather sickness is the absence of health. We saw the need to proactively create wellness in order to stave off disease. And should sickness occur, we saw emotional, spiritual and psychological factors as relevant to our healing. I saw the trajectory up close in the cancer journey of my own sister. Oncologists who once scoffed at such things as patient support groups in the 1970’s were the first to wholeheartedly recommended them by the year 2000.

Today, such prestigious institutions as Mayo Clinic and Harvard University view integrative medicine techniques like spiritual support groups, visualization and meditation techniques as serious factors in healing. Such activities are far from “woo woo” or “kooky,” though their devaluation unfortunately continues. As recently as last week, I saw an article in which my support groups for AIDS patients during the 1980’s and 1990’s were referred to as the “dark” side of my work, the author suggesting I had told AIDS patients that such techniques could “cure” them of their disease.

It reminded me of a book I’d read years ago by author Barbara Ehrenreich called Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, in which such denigration is recognized as a legacy of ancient misogyny and witch-burning. The book examines how women-led healing modalities were delegitimized to make way for patriarchal rule, the ultimate rise of capitalism, and the emergence of the Western medical industry. In other words, when it comes to the suppression of women - and specifically the power of women - it’s been that way for a long, long time. I never said such techniques would cure people; I said they could help people. And I stand by that view to this day, as does the Mayo Clinic, Harvard, Stanford, and others.

Reading that there was a “dark side” to my common enough visualization techniques, I recognized the slander as the same misogyny as had been at work on my Presidential campaigns. I was caricatured as “crazy” and even “mean” in ways that made me question whether we’d made it out of the Middle Ages yet! “Isn’t she the kooky one?” wasn’t a joke, really. It was a deliberate attempt to make sure I wasn’t taken seriously, a doppelegangër created by forces who couldn’t burn me at the stake this time so simply burned me in the press.

But I digress:)

Today, our task is to heal not only our bodies but our society. The basic dynamics of such change are the same in both cases, involving not only treating external symptoms but also identifying patterns of thought that give rise to our experience. What are the deeper psychological roots of our society’s malaise?

Every cell in the body is imbued with a natural intelligence, coded with direction to collaborate with other cells to support the healthy function of the organ and organism of which they are part. Every once in a while a cell disconnects from its natural intelligence and thus from its collaborative function. It goes off to “do its own thing,” gathering similarly malformed cells around it to form a life-threatening tumor.

That’s cancer of course, and it works in society much as it works in the body. Every human being can be seen as a cell in the body of humanity, and humanity has been infected by a malignant consciousness: that “it’s all about me.” When any individual cell forgets we are here with and for each other - whether in the body or in society - we grow ill. And that cellular malfunction has now hacked America’s operating system, a diseased and unenlightened self-interest now core to our political, social and economic way of being. The rugged individualism that helped build this nation has transformed into a rugged narcissism that now threatens to destroy it, a soulless economic ethos now acting like a parasite to exploit rather than enliven its host.

No strictly allopathic remedy will fix this; as much as we play whac-a-mole with the symptoms of our decline, nothing short of addressing its root causes will truly heal us and make us well. The qualification for a truly effective leader at this time is not simply an ability to suppress or eradicate a symptom here or there, but rather a whole-person understanding of what went wrong and why. I believe that’s what will happen in the future, as 21st century politics will transition, as did medicine, from an allopathic to an integrative model. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of a political system so obviously failing us now, a different kind of political leader will emerge in the United States.

I remember the ‘80’s and 90’s, and I remember those support groups. Doctors who would look condescendingly at women such as myself, Louise Hay and others - uttering patronizing comments like, “Well, it’s nice if you can make them feel more comfortable” - within a few short years dropped that smug look on their faces and were more likely to call and say, with due respect I might add, “I’d appreciate it if you could come over here. We really need your help.”

Integrative indeed. And thus things change…