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Encyclopedic Jul 26, 2009
By Marvin Ross
"author of Schizophrenia Medicines Mystery Society's Shame"
Spirit in Health by Robert Fripp is a complex work involving a prodigious amount of research on the part of the author. It is a must read for anyone interested in the relationship between the mind and body and in the role of the mind in healing.
Fripp looks at animistic healers and shamans in pre-historic times and the reasons for their demise. Animism is defined as the belief that all objects, things and natural events like lightning possess vital energies. Shamanism is a worldwide spiritual discipline in which shamans learn from spiritual contacts, bring back power animals for clients and search out and retrieve their clients' missing spirits and souls.
Modern quantum mechanics, Fripp argues, first began to make sense of shamanism when it proposed that when an observer looks at something, the observer changed it. Fripp suggests that the story of Cain and Able is actually a metaphor for the reasons that animism died out but I will leave that for the reader to enjoy without my attempting to summarize it.
The remainder of the book surveys spiritual traditions and practices throughout the world and then ends with spiritual techniques as they may be applied to mental and physical health. One interesting example that is mentioned is the work of Montreal psychiatrist, Raymond Prince, who convened a conference in 1982 on Shamans and Endorphins.
Endorphins are morphine like substances produced by the brain. Prince felt that much of the healer's therapeutic power resulted from the ability to convince the patient's body to generate their own morphine and valium like substances. In fact, researchers had discovered that rhythmic sensory stimulation - drumming - does prevent pain signals from reaching many areas of the brain. Body is linked to mind.
Fripp states that "the mind is capable of anything, including healing". My only problem with this book is that statement. I don't disagree that the mind is very powerful and can accomplish a great deal, but I am uncomfortable with absolutes. The problem with what I perceive is an overemphasis on the power of the mind was poingnantly explained to me by a group of women with terminal breast cancer that I was interviewing for a newspaper article a number of years ago.
They were all part of a study to determine if supportive group therapy would extend their lives and improve quality of life. They all disliked and disagreed with the works of people like Herbert Benson and Bernie Siegel who talk about healing cancer and other serious illnesses through techniques like visualization. These women all said that these strategies, while potentially beneficial, imply that if you do not get well when you use them it is your fault. They all said that they did not want to die but it was not their fault that they were going to die from their cancer.
The mind and spirit can be powerful healers, as Robert Fripp points out, but we must also recognize that there are other factors at play.
Marvin Ross
Author of Schizophrenia: Medicine's Mystery - Society's Shame
Spirit in Health - a must for all healers!! Jan 08, 2010
By Marleen Marshall
"Marleen Marshall, RN"
This is one of the most knowledgeable, comprehensive and readable books regarding the impact of Spirit on healing practices from the beginning of time. Robert Fripp has done a phenomenal job of researching the history of animistic healers and shamans all over the world and showing how their healing practices are being reflected in modern medicine. This book is a must read for anyone interested in holistic health. Understanding the spiritual roots of modern healing helps one to use all aspects of healing.
Fripp shows his readers how many ancient techniques are being rediscovered to be powerful healing modalities: visualization, the placebo effect, a little sleight of hand or a trickster, and endorphins (pain killers) when manufactured in the body by rhythmic sensory stimulation. His book, Spirit in Health, definitely shows how, from prehistoric times until the present, the spirit and the mind are very powerful healers.
In this book, the author also explains the important and powerful role of the feminine in healing throughout the ages. He points out why at times females healing nature were suborned to sexual roles and how societies when stressed, replaced nurturing feminine values with aggression. He expresses clearly the reasoning why and how in the 21st century the healing energy must be feminine.
This author indicates how quantum physics shares much in common with advanced shamanic thought. Everything is considered energy by both. Fripp feels that the two soon may meet,"with the spiritual vision quest of shamans converging in intellectual spaced with the computer-generated cyberspace visions of data-driven scientists and engineers". A phenomenal understanding of the two approaches.
In the last part of his book, the author includes the research and perspective of numerous renown modern scientists, universities and healers, including ecologist, Black Elk, philosophers, physicist, etc. How do we enter wholeness in this divided world? There is agreement among the experts regarding the importance of again turning to nature (animist) and the healing of "mother earth". In this transformation, astronomer, Willian Stoeger, points out how humans are woven into the skein of the cosmic network, and how the health of the human "mirrors" the health of the planet.
This is an amazing useful book for all in the healing professions, as well as anyone interested in healing the planet. Although demanding, it is well worth the effort of the journey through it.
Marleen Marshall, RN
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