{"id":1533,"date":"2016-08-10T07:54:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T11:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/2017\/09\/he-was-his-own-miracle\/"},"modified":"2018-04-01T08:55:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T12:55:44","slug":"he-was-his-own-miracle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2016\/08\/he-was-his-own-miracle\/","title":{"rendered":"He Was His Own Miracle"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an article elsewhere on this website that expresses doubts about something I believe in. There\u2019s no scientific evidence, it says, that thinking positively can keep you healthy<\/a> or that being determined to fight back against an illness can help you heal. I\u2019m not a scientist, but I\u2019m convinced that the mind can profoundly influence what goes on in the body because I\u2019ve seen it happen.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, Gene, a close friend of my husband\u2019s, developed throat cancer. Chemo nearly killed him but didn\u2019t seem to make much impression on his cancer, and he was told he had about six weeks to live. Willing to try just about anything, Gene flew from New York to California to see a psychiatrist who had had some success in treating cancer patients with meditation.<\/p>\n

For a couple of weeks, with guidance from the psychiatrist, Gene spent most of every day meditating\u2014and his tumor began to shrink. By the time he returned to New York City, his astounded doctors couldn\u2019t find any trace of the cancer.<\/p>\n

The experience transformed Gene\u2019s life. Before long, he began to teach meditation to cancer patients. Like his California mentor, he never suggested that anyone forego surgery or chemo or other conventional medical treatments. He hoped meditation would make the conventional therapies both more effective and easier to tolerate. Gene saw people individually and also led group meditations. His fees were modest, scaled to what he believed people could afford. He\u2019s not famous, but he was his own miracle and he helped a lot of people. <\/p>\n

Five years after Gene began meditating, his cancer came back and this time there was no stopping it. During the last weeks of his life, his meditation students set up a schedule so that he\u2019d have someone with him every day to go along to doctors\u2019 appointments, pick up groceries or just keep him company. The people he had cared for took care of him until he died. Gene is the main reason I believe\u2014no, I know\u2014that some people can use their minds to heal themselves, or at least affect the course of a disease.<\/p>\n

Writer Barbara Ehrenreich and others say that those who use their minds to try to heal themselves are pursuing a false hope, and there\u2019s a risk that when they fail, they\u2019ll blame themselves. I doubt Gene felt like a failure when the cancer came back. He\u2019d done so much with the five years he gained.<\/p>\n

I suspect that all of us can do what Gene did, to some degree, some of the time. The question for scientists, it seems to me, is how we can do it better. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an article elsewhere on this website that expresses doubts about something I believe in. There\u2019s no scientific evidence, it says, that thinking positively can keep you healthy or that being determined to fight back against an illness can help you…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more He Was His Own Miracle<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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