The Global Conversation

Tag: science

  • Science or spirituality – does it have to be one or the other?

    Angelina Jolie, 37, recently underwent a preventive double mastectomy after finding out  she carries a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which significantly increases her risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer, a disease her own mother died of at the age of 59.  “My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman,” Jolie wrote. “Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.  I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”

    There are many people who are applauding the proactive choice Angelina is making to minimize her chances of getting cancer.  But her radical decision has also been met with some controversy and her actions are being challenged by members of the holistic and natural health community.

    Dr. Lissa Rankin, M.D., a former OB/GYN for eight years and author of Mind Over Medicine, Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, says on her website, “By labeling a patient with a negative prognosis and robbing a patient of the hope that cure might be possible, we may ultimately prove the poor prognosis we have bestowed upon our patient correct. Wouldn’t we be better off offering hope and triggering the mind to release health-inducing chemicals intended to aid the body’s self-repair mechanisms?  Is it really healthy for any of us to know that we might have an 87% risk of any illness? Do we really want to poison our minds with such fear-based thoughts that then force us to make decisions about whether or not we will electively cut off perfectly healthy body parts? When we live in fear, we predispose ourselves to illness. To live in fear of what might happen only triggers stress responses in the body.”

    And so we find ourselves as a society continually and more increasingly faced with a difficult choice of what is behind Door Number 1, the marvels of modern medicine, and Door Number 2, the miraculous power of our body’s own ability to organically heal and sustain.  And as Dr. Rankin is suggesting, how much do our thoughts come into play in actually creating — and healing — so many of the illnesses we see in our world today?

    Conversations With God, Book 1, offered this to us: “You never do die. Life is eternal. You are immortal. You never do die. You simply change form. You didn’t even have to do that. You decided to do that, I didn’t. I made you bodies that would last forever. Do you really think the best God could do, the best I could come up with, was a body that could make it 60, 70, maybe 80 years before falling apart? Is that, do you imagine, the limit of My ability?”

    And so with all of the information we have placed before us, upon what do we base our decisions?  Is there a space where science and spirituality harmoniously intersect and work in conjunction to benefit humanity?  Is Dr. Rankin correct in the idea that our fear-based thoughts are actually creating our illnesses and preventing our body’s natural ability to heal?  Or are the medical doctors correct that we are predisposed to certain types of illnesses – cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc., — and we are best served to surgically or medicinally prevent and/or cure these diseases?  Or could it a combination of both?

    What are your thoughts?

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • The shift is about to hit the fan!

    Hollywood Director Tom Shadyac, most notably recognized for directing blockbuster comedies like “Ace Ventura:  Pet Detective” and “Bruce Almighty” and “The Nutty Professor,” detours away from familiar territory in his thought-provoking documentary “I AM,” where he tackles head-on probing questions that a large number of people in our world are asking today:

    What is wrong with the world?

    What can we do to make it better?

    After a debilitating bicycle accident in 2007, Shadyac journeyed into a self-exploration of his own life and examined closely the obscure concept of “happiness.”  As he sat in the living room of his 17,000-square foot mansion, surrounded by priceless antiques, expensive cars, and a luxurious private jet, he came to the realization that none of these “things” made him any happier.  And he proceeded to sell and give away everything he owned, moved into a mobile home, and set out to create a documentary about what is “wrong” with the world.

    Shadyac describes the movie “I AM” as the “Ultimate Reality Show.”  The film highlights interviews with scientists, psychologists, artists, environmentalists, authors, activists, and philosophers in its quest to discover the meaning of all life.  “I didn’t want to hear the usual answers, like war, hunger, poverty, the environmental crisis, or even greed,” Shadyac explains.  “These are not the problems, they are the symptoms of a larger endemic problem.  In I AM, I wanted to talk about the root cause of the ills of the world, because if there is a common cause, and we can talk about it, air it out in a public forum, then we have a chance to solve it.”

    Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the scientifically supported discoveries emerging out of this nonfiction documentary are in alignment with many of the messages held within the New Spirituality movement:

    “Humans actually function better and remain healthier when expressing positive emotions, such as love, care, compassion, and gratitude, versus their negative counterparts, anxiety, frustration, anger and fear.”

    “The heart, not the brain, may be man’s primary organ of intelligence, and that human consciousness and emotions can actually affect the physical world.”

    “Humankind’s real power comes in their ability to perform complex tasks together, to sympathize and cooperate.”

    “I AM isn’t as much about what you can do, as who you can be.  And from that transformation of being, action will naturally follow.”

    I wholeheartedly recommend this film of awakening, where science and spirituality link arms, out of which gives birth once again the undeniable realization that:  We are all connected.

    Visit the I AM website here.

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.  She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support .   To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

    (If there is a book, movie, music CD, etc. that you would like to recommend to our worldwide audience, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Review”)