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Finding the Message of Illness
by Ira Progoff, Ph.D.
The development of resources and techniques for use in physical healing
has been one of the major achievements of science in Western
civilization. Nonetheless, there are substantial concerns about the
impact and implications that its continued successes will have on other
aspects and directions of human existence. It may be that we require an
approach to human experience that makes possible a step beyond the
present conception of healing.
It is important for us to bear in mind that the healing arts
are fundamentally creative arts, and that the human beings who practice
them are artists. To begin, we note a fundamental principle in the
study of creativity: every human activity, to the degree that it is
creative, is an art. It creates something that was not there before. In
certain circumstances the "something" that is created may be altogether
new; in other circumstances the something new that is created may be an
addition to what is already in existence. In either case, the
creativity that takes place is an act of art in two main senses:
firstly, because it expresses the special capacity and knowledge of the
artist with respect to that particular subject matter; and secondly,
because the artist proceeds in a self-directed way toward achieving the
purpose of the work as fully and as well as is possible. These are the
two primary functional aspects of art: that it draws upon a special,
personally developed, often intuitive knowledge of its subject; and
that it applies this knowledge to meet the person's individual criteria
of quality.
In the continuity of history some areas of art accumulate
combinations of specialized technical knowledge that are drawn from
several segments of society. This gives them a multiple resource for
the information and concepts which they can use as well as for the
diverse contexts in which their work can be conducted. Since these
areas of knowledge contain several orientations and types of subject
matter, they are generally referred to in a plural form as the "arts."
In this way we have among others in modern society the architectural
arts, the literary arts, the industrial arts, and the broad area of the
healing arts.
The healing arts draw upon several areas of expertise,
sometimes of special talent, as they approach the two main areas of
human illness: the physical and the emotional. Whatever the differences
among the various healing arts may be, there is unity in the fact that
they are always directed toward improving the condition of a human
being where that condition is perceived as having fallen into a state
requiring repair. In the case of the medical arts, a particular form of
the healing arts, the specialized knowledge that is drawn upon as a
primary source is that of the sciences of biology and chemistry.
There is considerable social significance in the fact that in
recent years, despite the impressive successes of the medical arts,
there has been a growing number of attempts to develop healing
approaches that begin at a non-Western starting point and proceed with
a non-medical orientation. It would be a mistake to view the medical
and non-medical approaches as alternatives to each other. They need not
be seen as being in a competitive relationship. Rather, the fact that
the modern medical approach to healing is not universally accepted
despite its many achievements should be a sign to us that, beyond the
needs for which the medical arts have developed forms of treatment,
there are additional human needs that reach out for help in a healing
context. It may be that it is because these needs remain unsolved,
despite, and perhaps beyond the great contributions that the medical
arts have made, that non-medical approaches to healing continue to
attract large numbers of appreciative participants. There is apparently
something in the modern human being that is reaching out for help and
asking to be healed.
In general, it is correct to say that when we experience an
illness, whether we feel it to be primarily physical or emotional, our
main desire is to rid ourselves of its effects as quickly as we can.
Healing in this context is primarily a means of eliminating something.
In earlier centuries and in simpler societies than ours, the
task of healing was undertaken by means of special incantations, by
rituals and prayers, and by focusing the energy and power of the
individual who was felt to have healing qualities on the person who was
ill. This was the vitalistic form of healing. Historically there were
two main reasons why the vitalistic approach was eventually replaced.
One was that its rate of success in healing was not great enough for
survival in the long run. The second reason was that during the early
centuries of the rationalist era in Europe the increasing successes of
the inductive methods of science in understanding the material world
led to many insights in the areas of biology and chemistry.
There are substantial differences between the vitalistic and
the materialist medical approaches to healing. We must take note,
however, not only of an underlying sameness in the goals of their work
but also in the view of causality on which they rely to achieve their
healing effects. Whatever treatment or ritual they apply, they consider
it a "cause" that will have a healing "effect." We observe then that
when healing is successfully achieved by forces external to the
integral process of the person's life whether by modern medicine or by
non-medical procedures—the net effect is to release the individual from
the task of finding the personal significance of the illness. It may
be, as is often the case, that the fact that the illness occurred in
the first place is a message to the person with respect to the conduct
of life, seeking to call attention to particular aspects of the life or
to the conduct of the life as a whole.
In this regard we must note as a fundamental fact of human
existence that each of the events of our life carries a message for
some other aspect of our life. The human life span becomes an
opportunity for continuing education, an opportunity that grows larger
as the possibilities of longevity increase with the advances of medical
technology. Each event in a life carries with it an additional truth
which, when it is recognized and understood, can be applied in the next
phase of our life-experience.
The reason for this lies in the nature of the depth processes
that move in a human life beneath the surface of consciousness. These
processes are multiple in a human existence, for they carry the
continuity of a person's inner relationships, to other persons, to work
activities, body conditions, cultural loyalties and religious
experiences. Separate parts come together in varied interconnections to
form the integrated unity of a human life. These many mini-processes,
which comprise the unitary process of an individual life, are separate
from each other; but what happens in one often has a message for
another. The messages that are carried by the mini-processes within a
person often contain the kind of truths that can be called "life
wisdom." Sometimes they are brought to us by studies and meditations
that deepen our individual consciousness with inner experiences. Some
of these events are markedly unpleasant, especially when they take the
form of physical illness, emotional illness, or combinations of the
two. Whether they are pleasant or not, they carry the seed of an
additional understanding, a "life wisdom" that enlarges the inner
education and development of a person.
We observe, however, as a fact of experience that if the
healing takes place too quickly or is too effectively achieved by an
external intervention, nothing new will be learned. By either approach,
whether the healing arts are carried out from a materialist or from a
vitalist point of view, when their interventions are successful the
person is set free to forget about the illness and to ignore the issues
and whatever guidance for the life, whatever reconsiderations for
living the illness may have been carrying. The principle seems to he
that if a healing is brought about primarily by factors that are
external to the inner process of the person's life, the conduct of life
that preceded the illness can be resumed without change and with
impunity. But then no message, no new wisdom of life, has been learned.
The pain of the illness has been experienced, but we can truly say that
the pain was in vain since it led to no new awareness.
While rapid healings are very much to be desired, we must bear
in mind the counter-effects that occur when healings are achieved too
quickly or easily by the intervention of methods or physical factors
that are external to the inner process of a person's life. We come thus
to the question of whether we have to avoid the rapid healing of
illnesses in order to have time to learn the messages they are carrying
for us. Not at all. We may allow ourselves to he healed as quickly as
possible, provided that we understand the difference between an illness
being healed by the intervention of factors that are external to our
personal inner process, and an illness that has been healed because its
message has been absorbed into the consciousness of our life as a
whole, where its message can be incorporated into our future conduct.
When it leaves as though of its own volition, the illness nonetheless
leaves behind itself further responsibilities which the person must
fulfill. If these are not carried out, the illness will need to return.
The next time it will likely be in another, stronger form. The most
important responsibility that is left behind for the person is the task
of finding and comprehending the message for the future conduct of the
life that the illness was carrying.
There are a number of circumstances in which a physical
condition can have a more-than-transient role in a person's life. It
may be that the illness has a particular relation to the way the
person's life has been lived. In working to overcome the illness,
issues may be raised that reach beyond the physical condition affecting
the direction and the conduct of the life. Sometimes in seeking to
overcome a weakness, unexpected strengths and new possibilities are
developed. These unexpected developments may turn out to be a major
aspect of the message that the illness was carrying. Sometimes a
person's illness becomes a permanent part of the life simply because no
means of healing it is found. Not being able to eliminate the physical
condition, the person may be forced to draw on the native ingenuity of
life to find a means of living with it. Then, unexpectedly, the illness
becomes a constructive element in the life, in large part because it
was not healed. Something of a larger significance is involved here,
however, for it shows us where to look when we are seeking the meaning
of an illness.
It is one thing to identify the meaning of an illness by
analyzing the "causes" and proximate sources from which it seems to
have come. It is something other to enter into a relationship with the
illness by which the illness is able to articulate its message for the
life. The relationship of dialogue is one of the important
possibilities that the Intensive Journal method makes available. In this conception,
meaning is not to be found in the "causes" that lie in the past, nor in
the determinants, the specified possibilities, that are contained in
the seed of each organism. Rather, meaning emerges out of the movement
of events as a human life unfolds. Meaning is an extra that emerges
sometimes in the course of a human existence.
So it is with meaning in a human life. We cannot plan for it.
But we know that it can never happen unless we do the groundwork and
thus open the possibility that it can come to pass some time in the
future unexpectedly. We never know in advance when meaning will take
shape and be embodied in a life and become the emergent of that life as
an artwork.
The essence of the Intensive Journal method is that
it approaches a human life as an artwork from which meaning may
potentially emerge at some point. Its principles are drawn from
holistic depth psychology, especially the perception that each life is
unique both in its content and in its potential for meaning. At a
Journal Workshop it is apparent that this principle of individual
uniqueness is not an abstraction for it is quickly made concrete as the
Journal exercises are carried out.
One of the early exercises at a Journal Workshop is the
listing of Steppingstones, a dozen brief statements marking off the
events in an individual's life that are felt to be personally
significant. These are spontaneously recalled and briefly recorded in
the quiet atmosphere of a Journal Workshop. The first Steppingstone is
common to everyone. We begin by completing the statement, "I was
born..." The second Steppingstone completes the phrase, "And then..."
And the same for each successive Steppingstone that follows in the
life. The dozen or so Steppingstones that comprise the listrecapitulate
the movement of the life from birth to the present moment when the
listing of Steppingstones is being made. While the first Steppingstone
is the same for everyone and there are similarities among some of the
Steppingstones that follow, each list is different from every other
list. No two are the same. This expresses the fact that each individual
human existence is unique, as are the possibilities for meaning in its
experiences.
A second principle that the Intensive Journal process
derives from holistic depth psychology is that an individual human
being is to be approached not as a case history possessing pathologies
but as a life history that contains potential for meaning in the events
of the life. Directing our attention to the life history of a person
becomes particularly important when we seek to find the message that an
illness is carrying.
The first step is to establish the context of the life as a
whole. We do this with the Journal exercises that enable us to work
with the Steppingstones. Having established the context of the life,
and having made contact with some of its contents, we have access to
the material in the life to which we can apply the Journal Feedback
method. Working within the Journal structure in order to maintain the
framework and continuity of our life as a whole, we use the active,
non-analytic techniques to feed back to ourselves in order that we can
add to the various perceptions and entries that we have made in the
Journal sections. Thus we direct our attention to the aspects of our
life that now seem particularly significant to us, and we amplify the
contents of our earlier entries. The experiences in our life that
relate to our illnesses and to the condition of our body in general
come to the fore in the Journal section called Dialogue with the Body.
Here we use the self-expanding procedures of Journal Feedback process
as our means of drawing out for our personal perception the
implications of the events and contents of our physical life.
As human beings our lives have a physical body at their base.
These bodies do not contain meaning in themselves. Because of their
intimate relation to us, however, our bodies are organs of experience
by which meaning can enter our lives. When our bodies become ill or are
injured, they need to he healed. To achieve this healing, or fixing, of
the body there are many techniques that are available to the healing
arts. Some of these techniques have a vitalistic source. Others,
especially those that are more widely used in the modern era, are
derived from materialist medical practice. The essence of healing
however does not lie in the efficiency with which the body and its
parts can be restored to strength. It lies in the meaning that is added
to the life of the person who suffers the illness or the injury. This
meaning is not something that can be given to the person from the
outside, for example, as a belief can be stated and recommended, or as
a treatment of the body can be given from the outside. This added
meaning can come only by means of an experience that takes place within
the person as an individual finds interiorly the message carried by an
illness, absorbs it into consciousness and allows it in its own timing
to disclose its meaning for the life.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Originally published in Spiritual Aspects of the Healing Arts,
by Dora Kanz (Wheaton: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1985), pp.
197-209. This is an abbreviated version of the article "Find the
Message of Illness" by Ira Progoff, Ph.D.
"Intensive Journal" and "Journal Feedback" are the registered trademark
and servicemark respectively of Ira Progoff and licensed to Dialogue
House.
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