Healing of Cancer: Belief and the Power of the Mind

By: Chris Teo, Ph.D.

Philip Parham (in Letting God) wrote about two men who contracted tuberculosis around the same time. They both went to the same sanatorium. One went home after eighteen months, fully recovered and healthy. The other man was dead within six months. The disease was the same but the outcome was different. Why? William Osler, a famous American physician said: “What happens to a patient with tuberculosis depends more on what he has in his mind than what is in his chest.”

Many people may have the misconception that the brain is synonymous with the mind. It is not. A dictionary’s definition of the brain is that “part of the vertebrate’s central nervous system that constitutes the organ of thought and nervous coordination.” On the other hand, the mind is defined as the “complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills and especially reasons.” Henri Bergson, a French philosopher said: “The mind exceeds the brain and is larger than the body.” Our body is only a part of our total existence and our mind is actually bigger and better than the body. E. Straus said: “It is the human being who thinks and not his brain.”

One important point to note is that the mind exerts a tremendous influence on the body and controls the ways we behave and perceive things. Read what other people say about the mind.

Ralph Emerson said: “We become what we think about all day long.”

According to Shakespeare, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Abraham Lincoln said: “People are about as happy as they make up their mind to be.”

The founder of Rational Emotive Therapy, Albert Ellis said: “People and things do not upset us, rather we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us.”

Norman Peale said: “Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

Separation of Mind and Body by Medical Science

Rene Descartes was a French mathematician and philosopher who had a strong interest in medicine. In 1641 he wrote: “It is certain to me, that is to say my soul by which I am what I am, is entirely and absolutely distinct from my body and can exist without it.”

By this, Descartes proposed that the body and the mind are separate entities and that the mind plays no part in the body. To him life is the sole property of the physical body. Cartesian philosophy regards the human body as a machine that carries out its bodily functions according to physical laws. Descartes and doctors look at the human body just like mechanics look at cars. The body is just a machine. For that reason, what is faulty or seems to have no known function, can be removed and discarded. So goes your appendix, gall bladder, tonsils, uterus, etc. Doctors remove them without qualms, not realising or appreciating that the part belongs to the whole. As a result, modern medicine, which is based on Cartesian philosophy, ignores the mind and deals solely with the physical body.

Contrary to this believe, healers of oriental civilisations throughout the ages have held fast to the belief that man is a spiritual being made up of the body, mind and soul. Today, with the introduction of psychoneuroimmunology into the arena of medicine, the Cartesian philosophy is under attack -- for it is inadequate and out-dated.

Today, psychoneuroimmunology has shown that the body’s immune system is not an independent entity that functions without the influence of the mind and human behavior. The body’s central nervous system (including the brain), the endocrine system (which produces the hormones) and the immune system, are intimately connected and they interact with each other i.e., they talk to each other! What happens in the brain influences the endocrine system and the immune system in various ways. Similarly, what happens at the level of the immune system or the endocrine system also affects the brain.

Dr. Robert Good, a leader of psychoneuroimmunology said: “A positive attitude and constructive frame of mind all improve our ability to resist infections, allergies, autoimmune disorders and cancers, whereas depression and pessimism decrease our ability to do so.” Dr. S.I. MacMillen in his book, None of These Diseases, wrote: “The mind could produce striking visible changes in the body … that can be serious and fatal.” Dr. Paul Martin in his book, The Healing Mind, concluded that “the mind affects our susceptibility to real physical disease by modifying our behavior or by directly influencing our immune defenses … by means of these psychological and biological mechanisms, the mind really can make us ill.”

The Power of Belief

Belief is a potent medicine. It can play a key role in generating positive or negative responses in our bodies. A patient going to his doctor must believe that the doctor can give him the best possible help and the medicine that he is prescribing is going to work well. The doctor himself must also believe that what he is doing and giving the patient will work. In addition, the interaction of the two reinforces a summation of belief that makes an effective brew for a cure. There must be confidence of a positive outcome based on a strong belief. Without belief, a cure is not likely to result.

It is for this reason that we request patients who seek our help to give their full commitment to their healing; they must also believe in the “working” of herbs.

Numerous studies have reported on the power of belief and mind over body. A study was done with asthmatic patients at Downstate Medical Centre in Brooklyn, USA. Patients were asked to inhale a substance and were told that it would make their asthma worse. Indeed, when the patients inhaled the substance, they suffered breathing difficulty and had wheezing. Actually, the substance given was only harmless saline water. The patients were subsequently asked to inhale another substance, which would restore their health. After inhaling this substance, the wheezing and breathing difficulty stopped. This second substance was also the same saline solution.

In 1950, Dr. Stewart Wolf studied a group of women who suffered nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. The women were asked to take a solution and were told that this would stop their nausea and vomiting. Indeed, the vomiting and nausea stopped after they took the solution. What the women took was a “vomit-causing” solution. The women believed that they were given anti-nausea/anti-vomiting medicine. This goes to show that power of belief has the proven effect of a drug.

During the Gulf War of 1991, many Israeli civilians died not of war casualties but because of what went on in their brains. As the Iraqis prepared for the Mother of All Battles, the entire world was primed to expect the worse. The Israelis were issued with gas masks, etc. and were war-ready. On the first day of Iraq’s missile attack, 147 deaths were reported, 54 more deaths than during normal times. This represented a 58% increase of deaths. After the first Iraqi strike, it was found that it was not as deadly as it was made out to be. The fear and anxiety of the civilian subsided. The death rate declined. Dr. Paul Martin wrote: “Evidence consistently pointed to one conclusion: the sharp rise in death rate on 18 January 1991 was primarily a consequence of severe emotional stress brought on by fear of the Iraqi bombardment. It was the psychological impact of the scud missiles, not their physical impact.”

The brain cannot distinguish external or internal reality. As far as the brain is concerned, what it perceives to be true is real. Knowing this, it becomes imperative that healers understand that it is their responsibility to encourage positive, hopeful expectations in their patients while at the same time steering them away from beliefs that can be destructive.

The Left and Right Brains

The brain is the channel by which the mind manifests itself. It would be useful to understand how our brain works. The brain, which is in the head, is divided into two parts -- the left and right hemispheres. They function in different manners and likewise perceive the world differently.

The left brain perceives the world in a linear, more systematic manner. It is objective, logical, rational and is more concerned with details. This is the reasoning brain. On the other hand, the right brain is more subjective, intuitive, holistic, spiritual and artistic. It is not too interested in details and appears to be more happy-go-lucky. The right brain is not a reasoning mind and tends to accept more freely and readily what is given.

One important fact, which we sometimes fail to appreciate, is that both brains are one and they coexist even though they seem to have opposing functions. It is just like the brake and the accelerator in the car, they do opposite functions but are harmonious. We should also realise that the world that operates today is a reflection of the left brain. Science and modern medicine are products of left brain function -- rational and assertive. From the days we were born we nurture the development of the left brain, perhaps because we thought that it is the correct thing to do. We tend to neglect the development of the right brain! Perhaps it is time to reflect again and realise that to develop a holistic personality, we need a good balance of both.

The dichotomy of the brain is also reflected in a person having both a rational and an emotional mind. We need to remember that a seriously ill person is an emotional person. So, it is the emotional mind that is at work. G. R. Heyer in Praktische Seelenheilkunde wrote: “The rational mind is illiterate when it comes to emotional affairs.” At the same time, the emotional mind does not understand rational thinking. Have you ever tried to reason things out with a person who is madly in love? It would be a futile effort! This is because the emotional mind is not for knowing or reasoning -- it is only good for action. The emotional mind feels while the rational mind reasons.

When at odds with the rational mind, the emotional mind always wins. The rational mind takes a back seat and only offers advice and criticisms but remains silent, while the emotional mind pushes us into doing what we have to do.

The understanding of the emotional mind is important in the healing of cancer. Cancer patients are under extreme emotional stress and the emotional minds are conditioned to believe in anything and accept any suggestion. As a result, cancer patients will “swallow anything” without hesitation or question! Because of this, cancer patients must be aware that a wrong emotional mindset would be destructive and could lead to early death. Caregivers and those around them should also be made aware of this. We need to take counter measures to help these patients whose emotional mind is irrational.