Week Four Inquiries

Questions?

• Is there a drug around for just about everything?
• Can we raise our levels of dopamine ourselves?
• How do you think chimps and humans diverged as species?

a) There surely appears to be an effort by the pharmaceutical companies to manufacture a drug for every unsightly, unwanted, or inconvenient physical and psychological manifestation. Often times the disease isn't really a disease but rather a physical expression of stress - a release of energy (flowing of Qi) such as in the case of 'restless leg syndrome'.
Upon performing a Google search of 'restless leg syndrome', I came across this thread of people discussing various exercises, supplements, dietary changes, and drugs that have helped reduce symptoms or eliminate the restless leg. The search also pulled up hundreds of advertisements for drugs and methods such as "The Cure" and "All Calm". In TCM, there is a clear connection between muscle spasms and Liver Blood deficiency. This could be treated in a variety of ways in TCM without the use of pharmaceutical chemicals. I find the resistance to the simple and holistic approach offered by TCM to be almost completely based in ignorance. There aren't commercials selling acupuncture on television like there are for drugs to cure RLS. If, there were, we might see a flood of people rushing to Eastern and Alternative medical doctors.

b) We can alter our chemistry and we have a much more powerful effect on ourselves than we realize. In one person's explanation of placebo, they emphasize the archetype of the 'doctor' as being a contributing factor:

"The placebo effect illustrates the effectiveness of the physician's role in 'healing' a patient. Past research show that a patient's high opinion of the physician prescribing the treatment as well as the doctor's personality can invoke the placebo effect. Furthermore, research has shown that an amiable doctor with a positive outlook of a drug treatment would induce the placebo effect.

The power of the placebo is more readily explained as a function of the individual because the placebo effect can rely on the amount of faith an individual has for a given treatment. One suggestion is that placebo effects may be due to anxiety reduction. Stress and anxiety adversely affect the body and increase an individual's focus on symptoms. A decrease in the body's stress and anxiety level by a well-known doctor alleviates the patient's worry and pain leading to a 'curing' of the symptoms. It has been shown that placebos may be more effective among highly anxious people because the adverse effects interact with the physiological processing. There is evidence that there might be an alteration in the body's endogenous opioid release. Pain relief in patients provided via placebo, may be caused by a release of endorphins in the brain. Endorphins are the body's own morphine-like painkillers. Within the nervous system, there are specific pathways that modulate pain when stimulated by these endorphins. As a patient anticipates symptom relief, the expectation of receiving an active substance, alone, may be activating the pain pathway thereby reducing symptoms. The presence of a substance probably activates the pain-inhibition because unaware of the treatment group, the patient is led to believe that they have received an active substance." (1)

Ultimately I feel that this all boils down to our own capacity to directly affect the quantum reality surrounding and swimming within us through conscious or unconscious intention and emotional energy. Most people have yet to realize that they generate a series of electromagnetic fields around them which have direct effects on the atoms that make us up and move around us. See the film 'What the *&$@# Do We Know?' for a detailed explanation. There are many explanations and scientific studies that support this view. It is only a matter of time before it trickles through the collective mind.




c) How do I think Humans and Chimp diverged? Slowly and over mind-distortingly long periods of time, such that it makes the time that we have been assuming ourselves as the supreme authority over all of Creation a complete blip in the greater dream of it all.

I think that the process took much longer than we can truly understand and that there was a lot of experimentation, dead-ends, and unexpected leaps in genetic expression. It is a miracle that this process exists at all. Why is there even an argument about whether or not evolution is a valid explanation for how we came to be? It is so beyond understanding and beauty that it can still be considered of 'divine will' or whatever people are choosing to defend.

We are animals that have slowly arrived at a state of such high vibration and frequency that we are about to invert on ourselves in self-reflection and ever-new expansion.