Here are two letters from a gmail tgread about Joni Mitchell's Morgellon's Syndrome:
Letter #1:
Letter #2:
To belittle someone who has a psychoemotionally-based illness as being somehow weak and crazy is an act of almost medieval thinking. It is ignorant and destructive.
Letter #1:
Thie article you sent me gets into the area in which I am very interested.
This is a wordy and repetitive stream of thinking about that article. Yes, it could be pared down considerably. However, this is a rough draft "dump," so I am not worried about brevity. So be it. Here it is:
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The article about Morgellons makes a distinction between a medical cause and a psychosomatic cause.
I think making this distinction is an error. I see there being no boundary between the two. I say that a malady caused by a psychosomatic cause IS a legitimate medical condition. It is s legitimate medical condition caused by a legitimate disease vector -- namely, the consciousness or mindset of the patient.
I say that the power of one's mind can be a primary disease vector just the same as a bacteria, or a gene, or what other biomechanical vector you want to consider.
I say that one's mindset can BE a primary cause.
The placebo effect has been exhaustively documented. It is very real. The placebo effect clearly demonstrates that the mind can definitely be a primary player in causing medical conditions, on a completely equal footing as bacteria, virii, and so forth. The placebo effect shows us that the mindset can be a primary cause of both sickness and health.
It is a common mistake in thinking throughout much of the medical establishment to suppose that if a mindset appears to be the cause of a medical condition, that this cannot ACTUALLY, ULTIMATELY be the case, that there must be -- there has to be -- some sort of MORE primary cause that is physical, or biomechanical -- a cause that will be eventually discovered.
This is not necessarily so!
Sometimes, the primary cause IS the mindset. The brain chemistry and the physical body sometimes FOLLOWS the mindset, not the other way around.
The placebo effect and the power of hypnosis shows us very clearly that the mindset can be a primary disease vector.
There is a vast body of literature about hypnosis which has unfortunately faded considerably from the center ring of mainstream medical attention -- and which needs to be brought back into the center ring.
Studies of hypnosis show that, clearly, some people are able, for example, to induce blisters on their own skin by the power of the mind. This is very much a medical issue, not something that should be breezily waved way as being "all in your head" -- as if the REAL cause has yet to be discovered. That IS the real cause. Hello?
There is a dismaying tendency in mainstream medicine to say that certain medical conditiins are "simply" psychosomatic, as if the REAL cause has not been discovered; and, as if having a psychosomatic illness is indicative of being out of touch with reality. It's as if they think there NEEDS to be a physical gears and pulleys type of biomechanical cause to be a REAL cause, and that the power of one's mind cannot be an ultimate, legitimate cause.
This error in thinking comes from a very deep internalization of an old-fashioned, outdated Newtonian model of the universe, in which all of creation is regarded as being a potentially completely predictable clockwork-like mechanism. This model has been clearly demonstrated for over 100 years to have well-established limitations. It is *extremely* powerful, yes -- but it is also been shown by physics to be clearly limited.
In many ways, mainstream medical thinking has yet to catch up with the reality of these well-mapped-out limitations.
The popularly embraced division between medical issues and psychosomatic issues has to do with unwittingly internalizing a limited model all of creation. In this model, consciousness and mind power are not considered to be valid fully "credentialed" disease vectors.
This is a critical, critical error in thinking. It is very commonplace to see consciousness and mind power as being a mere BYPRODUCT of clockwork-like physical creation -- "epiphenomenon" is a fancy word for this -- and to not see consciousness and mind power as being CENTRAL vectors on an equal footing with physical causes, not a subsidiary of physical causes.
However, there is a fully usable and empirically well-supported model of creation in which consciousness is regarded as being full-fledged player just as DNA is, just as bacteria or virii are, and so forth.
Alas, there is great resistance to allowing mind power to be considered a valid medical vector. This resistance persists despite the fact that it has been demonstrated that mind power plays a large, sometimes central, role in many medical issues.
To consider Morgellons to not be a medical issue because it is psychosomatic is simply not realistic. It IS a medical issue, apparently quite possibly caused by the disease vector of a mindset.
However, those who subscribe to the model of creation where consciousness is a mere by-product and not an intrinsic factor cannot philosophically allow consciousness to be regarded as an original cause. Their mental model of creation compels them to suppose that there will finally, ultimately, be a pill, or a biomechanical or electrical treatment, that will trump the power of the mind. This is simply not true. There are some situations where nothing will trump the power of the mind. Morgellons may well be an example of this.
Often the power of the mind is not declared to be the best cure, because the model of reality that is being subscribed to does not allow entertaining that notion. Subscribing to the biomechanical clockwork model of human potential prevents one from using one's full power of the mind. It's as if, "when you believe it, you will see it" -- and since they don't believe it, they don't see it. Their internalized model of creation doesn't allow them to believe that they have such power. So, accordingly, they don't have that power
When something is declared psychosomatic, it is often erroneously assumed that this means we have not figured out the cause. It is often mistakenly thought that since we have not discovered the fungus, or the bacteria. or the physical mechanism, thst we have not found the cause -- as if every medical issue has to have a physical mechanism causing it.
But some medical issues do not have a physical mechanism causing them. They have a mental mechanism that is causing them -- a consciousness mechanism, or mindset mechanism. That IS the answer, sometimes -- not a fungus or germ or what have you.
The kingpin of legitimate, rock solid science is very arguably physics. And the crown jewel, the cutting edge, of physics -- quantum physics -- deals with consciousness CREATING physical reality. Quantum physics is all about how directing attention can create physical reality. This is the cutting edge of the arguably most solid of sciences, physics. This should be given very serious attention!
Because of these findings of physics, one does not have to be scientifically embarrassed to posit that the mindset is a fully legitimate possible cause for a given medical condition. Physics confers validity upon such a hypothesis.
It is not pie the sky or speculative to think that this proven physics concept of consciousness creating and affecting physical reality could also apply in the medical field. It is not pie in the sky to think that consciousness can create a physical medical condition. Physics shows us this.
Morgellons could definitely be a medical problem caused by the primary disease factor of a mindset, and nothing more than that. A concerted, persistent effort spanning years, even decades, by top mainstream scientists to come up with a physical mechanism for Morgellons has borne no fruit whatsoever.
It's time to think outside of the box.
Clearly, it is scientifically supportable and plausible to posit that Morgellons is a disease of a mindset, not a disease from a physical biomechanical mechanism -- and is a disease that can be treated by systematically remodeling the mindset. Trying to identify a biomechanical mechanism seems increasingly to be an exercise in futility.
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To belittle someone who has a psychoemotionally-based illness as being somehow weak and crazy is an act of almost medieval thinking. It is ignorant and destructive.
As you mentioned, this backward, sometimes even arrogant attitude about psychoemotionally-based illness has seeped into our lexicon.
That's why we need to raise the mindset up to the status of bacteria and virii as a primary cause of disease. it can be very clearly shown in a very scientific way that consciousness is separate and distinct from biomechanical processes (although each of them have many, many correlations with the other -- i.e., mind affects brain, and brain affects mind.) I have more to say about this, but time constrains me.
Just as we don't belittle someone who ran into some bad bacteria, so, too, should we not belittle someone who is in the grip of a destructive psychoemotional process.
Instead, there should be a very compassionate exploration into how possible sensitive remodeling of the damaging or limiting thought-form or psychoemotional process might relieve the sufferer.
We all have less-than-optimum thoughts, just as we all get bacterial illnesses. It happens to us all.
Just as we don't blame the person who contracted a bacterial illness, and instead just look at it objectively and help them -- so, too, should we not in any way blame those who are beset with a destructive psychoemotional pattern, and instead just help them, instead of dismissively saying "It's all in your head," or by saying, 'It's just psychosomatic," as if it isn't really anything, and as if those statements constitute getting to the bottom of the matter.
All of the above is why I've been a volunteer gruntworker (posting fliers) for MAPS in Santa Cruz. (Multidisciplinary Assiciation for Psychedic Studies)
Mind enhancement drugs such as MDMA (which MAPS has been instrumental in implementing studies of) offer great promise as tools to help sufferers consciously remodel psychoemotional processes that are causing various physical, emotional, and behavioral difficulties.
By no means are mind-enhancing drugs the only effective-but-denigrated modalities being sadly underused. Much more to say about this at a different time.
Suffice to say, I have the greatest compassion and understanding for anyone who is suffering from a mindset-induced malady. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to everyone. it is an enormous opportunity for discovery and greatly increased freedom.
(And, yes, there is always the possibility that what appears to be a mindset-induced malady may well eventually be found to be a biomechanically-induced malady, or a malady with a significant, but not 100%, biomechanical component.)
Spraking of the power of remodeling mindsets:
On the health side and not the sickness side of the continuum, top performers in all areas will frequently say that the a big difference betwern the top-tier and the second-tier is their mindsets. This should be a subject that causes us to become excited and constructive, instead of judgmental and punitive. Instead, some chuckle at the "superstitious" "unscientific"rituals of some top-of-the-line practitioners -- such as, for example, wearing a certain color of socks. Maybe there is damn good reason for that? Maybe it is a practical and effective trigger of a winning mindset? Maybe they are on to something? As if the criticizers are world class performers! This is indicative of the backward view many have of psychoemotional causation.
From what I can see, the roots of the oft-times dark ages, "scarlet letter" attitudes about psychosomatic illness goes way back to the time when present-day scientific models that were created and internalized by our society, back in the 1500s and 1600s. This is a subject for a different letter.
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