The Soul of Medicine

[Guest guest]

The Soul of Medicine

Thomas Moore

 

It's interesting that Jesus, whom we consider to be a

spiritual teacher and leader, was a healer. The

earliest images of him show him healing with the

gesture of his hand. It's also interesting that the

Buddha is honored in ritual and poetry as the Lapis

Lazuli Radiant Healing Buddha. He uses almost the same

gesture and holds a bowl of ointment in the other

hand. Shamans, too, around the world combine their

spiritual tasks with healing. It seems to be the very

essence of spirituality to tend physical and emotional

illnesses.

 

With the onset of modernistic attitudes in society,

our medicine took a turn toward the mechanical and

chemical. Whereas a spiritual healer might see the

sick person as a blend of body, soul, and spirit, we

separate the body out and treat it as though illness

had nothing to do with our emotions and the ways we

understand our experiences. We have made great

advances in the limited sphere of an isolated body,

but we still have much to learn about the connection

between specific emotions and particular illnesses.

 

Just weeks after publishing Care of the Soul 14 years

ago, I was invited by physicians to speak to them

about healing the whole person. Since then, I have

visited many hospitals and medical schools in several

countries, recommending that isolating the body is not

a good idea.

 

Along the way, I have discovered many programs called

" spirituality and medicine " where the emphasis is

usually on meditation, yoga, and various alternative

healing modes. Only occasionally do I find a

comprehensive view of the human being as made up of

body, soul, and spirit. Of course, that's my " thing. "

I am persuaded that the paradigm of mind–body medicine

is insufficient and that the deep soul is an important

ingredient in any definition of a whole person.

 

Let me paraphrase the first words I ever read by

Marsilio Ficino, spokesperson for soul in

fifteenth-century Italy. He begins his book on natural

magic saying, " There are three things in the world:

body, soul, and mind [later he refers to mind and

spirit interchangeably]. If the spirit is left to

itself, it will have no connection with the body. If

the body is left to itself, it will have no tie to the

spirit. What is needed is soul, between them and

adjusted to each. "

 

We have a good picture of the deep soul from the works

of C. G. Jung, James Hillman, and others. It is the

very depth of a person: the emotions and ties, the

failures and fears, a sense of home and body, all

intimate connections, dreams, loves, and reveries.

Tradition says that this deep soul makes us human and

unique. The soul is embedded in our everyday,

ordinary, imperfect concrete world.

 

The spirit, in contrast, gives us cosmic vision,

inspiration, principles for good living, a way to deal

with our mortality, and the sense of unbounded

transcendence. Both soul and spirit are essential and

animate the body. I often explain it this way: In the

presence of a highly spiritual or intellectual person,

you are amazed and instructed. In the case of a person

with soul, you'd like to go to dinner with him.

 

I frequently find that the medical people I work with

have not come to grips with death. Their education and

the ethos of their profession keep them focused on the

technical aspects of their work. Many find it

difficult to converse with their patients, and some

feel quite superior on account of their knowledge. In

other words, their work is lacking in soul. When I

suggest some reading or classes in matters of soul and

spirit, I'm always told that there just isn't enough

time. " Five minutes! " I said recently to a faculty

member. " We don't have three, " he said. Busyness seems

to be a special neurosis of the profession in its

modern form.

 

But many of us know physicians who have severed

themselves from the burden of modernism and can give

their patients adequate time and full attention.

 

What is needed is an escape from the bubble of

modernism. Medicine is devoted to evidence and proof.

Medical theorists come loaded down with research

findings, which they use to establish a sense of

certainty in a realm teeming with mysteries.

 

I ask the doctors: What image of the person will I

find in your consulting room? A skeleton? That's not

who I am. A plastic model of intestines? That's not

me, either. I'd like to see a person in animated

relationship to someone else in a particular place in

the world. That's what a whole person is. And when

whole persons get sick, their whole being, including

their families and friends, and probably their houses,

participate in the illness.

 

Spirituality gives the soul its vision and the soul

gives our lives emotional, intellectual, and even

physical vitality. If medicine would address us as

whole persons, having important relationships, living,

and working in a particular place, with our dreams and

fears and concerns, we might be able to heal from the

inside out.

 

Thomas Moore's latest book is Dark Nights of the Soul:

A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals. He

is the author of Care of the Soul (careofthesoul.net).